“Cyclic Time in Rock: Strategies for Bridging the Sectional Boundary”
In this paper I will explore the ways that rock music conveys an experience of "cyclic time". Cyclic time is created when one has the feeling of traversing a cyclic path of events connected in an unbroken sequence. More specifically, cyclic time is facilitated by blurring or bridging the boundary between one "cycle" and the next by various musical means. In rock, the sense of cyclic time is often particularly apparent at the end of the verse-chorus unit. In such situations, two quite different strategies are used to create a sense of cyclic time. In one strategy, the chorus ends in the same way as the second verse begins; Van Halen's "Jump" is an example of this. In the second strategy, the beginning of the second verse-chorus unit is preceded by a point of marked instability. This instability may be metric (a hypermetrical irregularity) or harmonic (a strongly emphasized non-tonic harmony) or both. The instability is then resolved at the beginning of the second verse-chorus unit (also the end of the first, i.e. there is a sectional overlap). The bridging of the sectional boundary is often reinforced, also, by grouping overlap in the melodic line and/or hypermetrical elision.
This paper is dedicated to the memory of Jonathan Kramer, whose ideas and tutelage were an important shaping force in my thinking about music, especially with regard to issues of time, rhythm, and meter.
“Division- and Addition-Based Models of Rhythm in a Computer-Assisted Composition System”
The author's software project OMTimePack (OMTP) is a specialized library that installs into OpenMusic, a computer-assisted composition platform developed at IRCAM by Gerard Assayag and Carlos Agon. OMTP provides a number of functions for working with rhythms, including at its core a function that builds rhythmic streams by concatenating random selections from a pool of possible durations. Unless special constraints are placed on the and/or, the probabilistic weights that control random selection, rhythms resulting from this process typically defy easy representation within the resources of conventional rhythmic notation. Since its conception approximately ten years ago, OMTP has relied mainly on a strategy of quantization to bring the rhythms it generates into line with principles of idiomatic, performable notation. More recently, the author has explored ways to build knowledge about these notational principles into the rhythm-generating functions themselves. One approach involves a division-based model of rhythm. It begins with a system of empty bars, which are divided recursively according to random selections from a pool of duration patterns: thus bars divide into sub-bar spans, sub-bars divide into smaller spans, and the process continues until a sufficiently detailed result is achieved. In this approach, knowledge of idiomatic notation is captured in a set of constraints on what patterns are allowed to be embedded in a given span, but formulating these constraints proves to be problematic. A second and ultimately more successful approach involves an addition-based model of rhythm. It operates by laying a variable but metrically coherent grid across a system of empty bars and then mapping randomly selected durations onto this grid. In this approach, knowledge of idiomatic notation resides largely in constraints on the grid, and these constraints are relatively easy to formulate.
The TimePack project grew out of work I did in Jonathan Kramer's Rhythm seminar at Columbia University.
“Jonathan Kramer's ‘Musics’ for Piano”
My paper will be a lecture-recital; I plan to discuss and perform excerpts illustrating some aspects of all six of Kramer's works entitled Music for Piano, which span over thirty years of his compositional career, from 1966 to 1997. I intend to focus on pieces #3 (1968), #4 (1968-72), and #5 (1979-80); in themselves these represent an astonishing range, from #3's systematic exploration of a variety of complex subdivisions within a single unifying tempo, to #4's mélange of styles from totally serialized to ragtime to a simple minuet, and onto #5's engagement with process and minimal musics in a limited pitch class field. It is difficult at first to reconcile these as part of the oeuvre of one composer; but one soon finds commonalities in working procedure. In particular, Kramer often works to undercut any rigid stylistic ascriptions. #5 begins with a chromatic cluster depressed silently; held by the middle pedal, this spectre haunts at least the first half of the piece, disrupting its explicit pitch repertory of F, A-flat, B-flat, C, D, and Eb. In his preface to #4, Kramer indicates that the occasional "ultrarational style" of the music may only seem to be composed along totally serial lines. And the extensively varied rhythmic activity in #3 sometimes can barely be differentiated through the thickets of a sound grown almost fearfully large through prolonged use of the damper pedal. But perhaps the larger message is that such a reconciliation project should be abandoned; his piano music surely gives evidence of the long-standing depth of Jonathan's engagement with post-modernism.
“Jonathan Kramer's Postmodernism, An Ecology of Ideas”
Jonathan Kramer created an inclusive, pluralistic philosophy that both preserved and fostered a musical ecology of ideas. His musical thinking and unique style of Postmodernism created the philosophical equivalent of a healthy forest. Both Modernist and Postmodernist thinkers are plagued by certain ideas that they attempt to clear-cut from the forest. Modernists are plagued by notions of a tyrannical Past and Postmodernists raise questions about a tyrannical or totalizing Truth. Therefore, critics have said that Modernists unfairly deny and cut down the past, and that Postmodernists unfairly deny and cut down the truth. These are perils of the modern (or postmodern) age and Jonathan Kramer was up to the challenge of navigating these perils. Kramer presented his Postmodernism with a light touch, as a Kunstwollen, and there are sixteen traits that can help distinguish Jonathan Kramer's unique take on musical Postmodernism. Briefly discussing these traits, I will include short excerpts of Jonathan's music, namely, "Whirled Piece" (1997), "Remembrance of a People" (1996), "Atlanta Licks" (1984) and "Fanfare" (1973-76) as illustrations. As supporting points I will include how Kramer felt that Postmodernism could simultaneously embrace the Past, (moving beyond what he called the oedipal conflicts of Modernism), and embrace Truth (his composition about the holocaust "Remembrance of a People" cannot be argued away by any stretch of the Postmodern imagination). I will include personal observations and anecdotes about Jonathan as a teacher. I will also discuss Kramer's artistic kinship with the playwright Richard Foreman, who lamented that the Modernist avant-garde had "cut down, like lumberjacks, large forests of previous achievement" but cautioned that Postmodern instant technology and information overload might be spreading people too thin, creating "pancake people." With integrity and a twinkle in his eye Jonathan Kramer found a way to foster a healthy ecology of musical ideas.