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Time page. Paragraphs in this page are: Time and Music Time parameters Things to know Time and Music Music uses sound as a material to make a form. But what does this form exist in? The answer is simpe: Time. Time is not just another parameter that music uses. Time essentially carries music. We can watch a painting for 2 minutes or 2 hours. But in a musical piece situation, we have to listen for exactly the duration of the musical piece itself. If it lasts 3.05 minutes, then we have to listen to it for 3.05 continusly and when it stops, it also it stops existing. The whole music lives only inside our mind. Therefore, time is even more essential than sound. Why is that? Because music uses sound as well as sound absence (pause). But exists in time, nevertheless. John Cage's 4.33' for piano is a remarkable example. Complete sound absense (at least from the player) but we will have to listen to it for 4.33' anyway. Furthermore, we can imagine music without hearing anything. But even in this occasion, we have to simulate how it will be, in other words "run" it in time. Let's see another situation. We listen to Beethoven's 6th Symphony "Pastoral" and in a random moment, we freeze it, take an 1ms sample and loop it. What we will experience is that if it lasts "frozen" for ever, not only it won't be music, but it will also be not fun at all. There are many arts that exist in time too. Theater, Opera, Musical, Cinema, Poetry, and they all merge with music very succesfully. In Ancient Greece, the term "Music" was wider. Our "music" is what they called "Melos" and "music" for them was "melos", poetry and dance. The word "melos" produces the known to us all "melody". From this also comes "melopoiisis" - making melody. Of course, music (the modern definition) is not just adding sound events. This would be a sound effect. What distinguishes "effect" from music is a variety of things, that include the presence of a "System" and actual organization of sound in time. But this exceeds the purpose of the present page. The first art that merges with music is poetry, which is named "lyrics" when interconnecting. It was not uncommon for poetry to be spoken singing (remember melos or melody?) and very often inside a measurement. But what's measurement? On to the next paragraph then. Time parameters Noticed that in the sound parameters duration - therefore time - exists? As sound has parameters, time has too. The first and most "abstract" parameter is "Rhythm".
Rhythm is organizing sound in time. But the definition by itself can have a lot of meanings, and there are more specific parameters. Defining these will define rhythm even better. What we experience from our young age, is the sence of our body and movement. What we experience by default is also the law of gravity. Body movement and gravity brings the sense of weight presence and weight absense + inertia. We feel all these combinations at a different rate when swinging, rocking and rolling, jumping, head bunking - :) - , walzing etc. Let's think of these movements as horizontal or vertical to the gravity field. As kids, also, we also feel, from our early age, movement to be relaxing when it is periodic in time, reappearing in circles. This sense is defined by music as "Time Measurement" and weight presence and absence are defined as downbeats and upbeats.
But now, how can we measure time even with the measurement parameter, since time is analogue and the measurement itself can be sleepy, slow, medium, fast, very fast etc? We now define a duration quantity as "the Whole".
This is pure mathematics. 4/16 = 1/4 so four 16ths equal a quarter. So, time measurement can be completely defined. The 2/4 and 3/4 measurements produce bars that have a totally different "feel". Now about speed. If we rely to a known duration e.g the "second" or the "minute", then the speed range would be awfully limited. We need an analog and flexible method of defining speed. This is called "Tempo".
In a time measurement of 4 quarters, which by quincidence equals a whole, tempo of 180 means that there are 180 quarters per minute. Which means that there 3 quarters per second. But the "3 quarters per second" means nothing to time measurement. The time measurement is 4 quarters and the tempo is 180 bpm (beats per minute). Further explanations on time will be in the Score page, as we will see how all this gets written. Things to know Although Time Measurement comes primarily from body movement, this does not explicitly suggest a dancing mood. 3 musical pieces can be measured at 4 quarters, although we may pray to god in the first, sit and hear in tne second and swing in the third. Also, time measurement can not explicitly define articulation. We may rock in one 4 quarter piece, latin dance in the second and swing in the last. In other words, in any time measurement, there can be further explanations on how to treat the divider itself i.e. what to do inside it. Time measurement does not apply only to music. It also applies to poetry and dance. What a quincidence for the three of them to be defined as Music in Ancient Greece - is measurement the final criteria for this? It can also apply to cinema, to provide "internal" rhythm in the scenes we see. Tempo can also get "faster" or "slower", "stationed" or "stopped". This generates the feel that time itself is changing. |