# Temporal structure in music



## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

I am currently listening to Felipe Otondo 'tutuguri' which I picked up from Asymmetry Magazine. The music, which engages successfully, combines 'original sound materials with temporal structures'.

What are temporal structures, and how are they applied to music? Google links to academic papers, but I'd be interested in a non-technical plain English explanation.

Thanks.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Hmm. had a quick shufti at ftp://ftp.idsia.ch/pub/juergen/2002_ieee.pdf

and it says -



> Most music has well-defined global temporal structure in the form of nested periodicities or meter. A waltz, for example,has a 3/4 meter, meaning that important melodic events occur every three quarter notes (or every first note in a bar).


Deep, profound, meaningful and significant - not!


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

It's a pretentious way of making music sound more than it is.


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## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

I guess it is similar to rhythmic structure (or rhythmic systems). Cage employed it extensively in his percussion works (though I cannot recognize such structure by listening.) Paul Griffiths analyzes the rhythmic systems in detail in his book _Cage_ (1981).

John Cage - rhythmic structure (Wikipedia)
In First Construction (in Metal) (1939) _"[...] there are five sections of 4, 3, 2, 3, and 4 units respectively. Each unit contains 16 bars, and is divided the same way: 4 bars, 3 bars, 2 bars, etc. Finally, the musical content of the piece is based on sixteen motives."_

George Antheil applied the concepts of 'time-space' and 'time-form' in his Ballet Mécanique (1924). _"Musically, he aimed at a composition of musical abstractions and sound materials based solely on rhythm, he called this device 'time-space,' comparing his sounds to the colors and shapes splashed on a canvas by a modernist painter."_


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

Wood said:


> I am currently listening to Felipe Otondo 'tutuguri' which I picked up from Asymmetry Magazine. The music, which engages successfully, combines 'original sound materials with temporal structures'.
> 
> What are temporal structures, and how are they applied to music? Google links to academic papers, but I'd be interested in a non-technical plain English explanation.
> 
> Thanks.


From listening to electroacoustic music, I would guess it means that: the original sound materials themselves don't have any rhythmic structure, but when they are combined and put into the piece they form rhythmic structures.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

It's not a music theory term with an agreed-upon meaning. It could mean anything having to do with time - not very useful. I would think it would usually refer to time intervals that are longer than typical notes or measures, but I could be wrong.

Thanks for introducing me to this piece, which I'm now listening to on Spotify!


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## chesapeake bay (Aug 3, 2015)

Might refer to Asymmetrical writing where your time signature is, say, 3/4 but the phrasing is written in 2/4 and 4/4 measure so you ignore the bars.


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## SeptimalTritone (Jul 7, 2014)

chesapeake bay said:


> Might refer to Asymmetrical writing where your time signature is, say, 3/4 but the phrasing is written in 2/4 and 4/4 measure so you ignore the bars.


No, electroacoustic music is usually not nearly rhythmically regular enough for that kind of rhythm. Temporal structures are just some sort of rhythmic structure in time that arises from these basic electroacoustic materials.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I think this is a pretty techie term to do with the nuts and bolts of composition.

One time I've come across the expression has to do with Grisey - in fact I think Grisey wrote a paper on them called something like "temps ex Machina" - I used to have a copy I think, but I can't find it. (It was too technical to really engage me.)

Grisey was interested in how in a piece music you have major events, which can be rolled out in a more or less structured way. They can occur randomly, or at regular intervals or can be strung out in all sorts of other complex or simple ways. And the structure of the stream of events may change from one part of the piece to another. 

How the major events punctuate the music determines, according to Grisey, the listener's perceived time, his perceived duration of the music. Grisey was interested in exploring different structures for managing the perceived time of his compositions - I believe that Espaces Acoustiques is, inter allia, an exploration of these temporal structures. "temps ex Machina" was an attempt to codify at a high level of abstraction all the different possible temporal structures.


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## Myriadi (Mar 6, 2016)

Speaking as a composer, and having read a lot of all kinds of descriptions and analysis texts, this is correct:



isorhythm said:


> It's not a music theory term with an agreed-upon meaning. It could mean anything having to do with time - not very useful.


For example, in Stockhausen's _Klavierstück VII_ each section has its own fixed tempo, which in itself results in a temporal structure - because you could say that time flows faster or slower from one section to another. On the other hand, the piece also operates with different densities - sometimes many events follow each other quickly, and sometimes there are just a few, separated by huge pauses. This also is a temporal structure, since you perceive time differently e.g. when huge pauses are present. The superimposition of the two structures could be called a complex temporal structure... although without an explanation that would only be a meaningless comment.

On the other hand, you could look at Bach's _Contrapunctus VI _from BWV 1080 in a similar way. One could describe the piece as having several layers in which time flows quickly or slowly, because the same theme(s) are given different speeds. So you could speak of a complex multi-layered temporal structure, which again says little without an explanation. Obviously, this kind of thing also occurs in Renaissance mensuration canons, and you could extend that kind of description to isorhythmic pieces.


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## Myriadi (Mar 6, 2016)

Mandryka said:


> Grisey was interested in how in a piece music you have major events, which can be rolled out in a more or less structured way. They can occur randomly, or at regular intervals or can be strung out in all sorts of other complex or simple ways. And the structure of the stream of events may change from one part of the piece to another.
> 
> How the major events punctuate the music determines, according to Grisey, the listener's perceived time, his perceived duration of the music. Grisey was interested in exploring different structures for managing the perceived time of his compositions - I believe that Espaces Acoustiques is, inter allia, an exploration of these temporal structures. "temps ex Machina" was an attempt to codify at a high level of abstraction all the different possible temporal structures.


It's _Tempus ex Machina: A composer's reflections on musical time_, which is really best referenced that way, since Grisey also has a percussion piece called simply _Tempus ex Machina_. And I apologize for this, but I really think you've misrepresented the text. It isn't about "major events" at all. Grisey describes numerous approaches to composing rhythm and time, and notes that many of the established concepts don't work - from a certain point of view. For instance, in complex serial music tempi may be incredibly important structurally (say, tied to timbre in some way), and you can get a fast sequence of sections such as MM 50, MM 174.5, MM 87, MM 160, MM 52.5... would you really hear that last MM 52.5 as distinctly different from the first MM 50? Most people wouldn't, the same way most people wouldn't hear symmetrical rhythms as actually _symmetrical_. So in order to counter serialist techniques, minimalist techniques, etc., Grisey suggests a scale for rhythms - from completely periodical pulse to completely unpredictable chaos, and notes the properties of each part of the scale: how both periodicity and chaos can have musical value within a piece, and what kinds of effects they create for the listener's perception. (And for a young composer schooled in serialism, as many were at the time, it would be quite a shock to see someone suggesting that a completely regular pulse may have any kind of meaning.)

In another part he proceeds to explain in great detail how not only rythms and tempi, but also musical events make time flow differently. When listening to a piece that features long stretches of regular, predictable, similar events, your ears tend to pick up on even the smallest differences between those events, whereas similar tiny differences wouldn't be as obvious when listening to music busy with complex sounds and rhythms. He says about this slow listening that "time is expanded" - actually a bit like what Celibidache would try to explain when talking about his Bruckner tempi. In subsequent parts, he talks about the internal time - rhythm - of individual sounds, dependend on their harmonic content, and many other phenomena. So this isn't really about him being interested in deploying events - it is about how time flows within a piece of music, and how it is perceived by the listener.

I've simplified things a great deal, and I'm not sure if this is considerably less technical - the article is, after all, aimed at composers rather than listeners - but hopefully I've managed to convey at least some of the meaning in plainer English than that of the original.


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## Wood (Feb 21, 2013)

Many thanks for the replies, they are very useful. As ST says, I can now see that the field recordings on this work of Zapotec tribal women talking, bells at Buddhist shrines etc are put into this compositional rhythmic / time system in order to make some quality art music. The more detailed discussions of the term are very interesting too.

For me, a thread like this shows TC at its best.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I concur with everything Myriadi said. The simple answer is that we can view time and structure as an objective thing, which is what most visually-biased listeners get bogged down in, or we can examine time in subjective terms, which is a different mode of perception which deals more with the ear and how we experience music that way. This is a necessary distinction, subtle and worth pondering at great length, if we are to be able to approach the music of many moderns, notably Messiaen. Of course, a listener who tends not to over-analyze music might already be listening in this intuitive way already, so there is no need to point this out to them. It always helps to know this, though, and it can provide a good template for listening.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> I concur with everything Myriadi said. The simple answer is that we can view time and structure as an objective thing, which is what most visually-biased listeners get bogged down in, or we can examine time in subjective terms, which is a different mode of perception which deals more with the ear and how we experience music that way. This is a necessary distinction, subtle and worth pondering at great length, if we are to be able to approach the music of many moderns, notably Messiaen. Of course, a listener who tends not to over-analyze music might already be listening in this intuitive way already, so there is no need to point this out to them. It always helps to know this, though, and it can provide a good template for listening.


So you're saying that we can consider time as simple duration (objectively), or as it's perceived (subjectively). That's not a "subtle distinction," but a clear and obvious one. Who are the "visually-biased" listeners who don't understand it? And why do we need to understand it to "approach" Messiaen - or Josquin or Mendelssohn or any other music? The minute we begin listening to music, we begin to experience time as the music's "temporal structures" dictate, assuming we're actually listening and not looking at our watches.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> So you're saying that we can consider time as simple duration (objectively), or as it's perceived (subjectively). That's not a "subtle distinction," but a clear and obvious one. Who are the "visually-biased" listeners who don't understand it? And why do we need to understand it to "approach" Messiaen - or Josquin or Mendelssohn or any other music? The minute we begin listening to music, we begin to experience time as the music's "temporal structures" dictate, assuming we're actually listening and not looking at our watches.


You're a hard one to convince, Woodduck. You've probably got a good ear, too, so it might be a simple matter of the way you (or I) are framing things.

The difference is in the listeners. If you have a 'good ear,' and by this I mean a really good ear, where you can name intervals instantly, you are in the 'ear mode.' I'm not talking about perfect pitch, although I'm sure this couldn't be a detriment, but good relative pitch.

This really applies more directly to perception of pitch areas and tonality, in the way we sense tonal centers and areas. But the process is the same, time-wise, in experiencing music temporally.

Those of us who do not have such acute perception of pitch are necessarily drawn to a more literal, cognitive memory-based mode of perception, more in keeping with reading, or looking at a map, or seeing a scene visually. This is a narrative mode of the eye. I explained this in more detail in the other thread on Schoenberg. The eye 'engulfs' the narrative sequence, and sees it in all its relations as a series of continuous, connected events.

The ear, on the other hand, is "blind" to this kind of perception and connection of events. Sound 'sneaks up' on the ear, and everything is sudden, and in the moment, and most of all, unpredictable; so all it can do is "take samples" of the various moments and events.

In terms of music, this quick sampling process, to those with acute pitch perception, is a 'template of comparisons' which can be instantly accessed.

Of course, some memory is involved, but this is more of a "sense memory" (rather than cognitive/visual memory, where we would recall a series of events, and connect them cognitively).

Many so-called 'primitive' folk and ethnic musicians, who happen to have exceptional ears and pitch perception, often create 'mental templates' of pitch memory in this way, and their music is structured around this template.

I urge you not to 'split hairs' too literally about this, since the fact is, we are all 'beings in time,' and time does pass. But on the other hand, we must examine how we are perceiving this continuum.

If we are 'inside' the world of the ear, which is more subjective and non-Western, we experience time as 'being,' and we are "a travelling point of being," as events occur to us.

If we are literate and visually biased, we will experience time as something "out there" which is uniform, continuous, and connected, as in a narrative which "moves in time" as we examine it from a more objective viewpoint.

Messiaen is like the "ear" mode of non-Western experience. His music is a series of sudden events. His music has no narrative "development" or progression to a goal, as in most Western classical music. He is concerned with verticalities and sonorities, which may defy the laws of voice-leading and progression. His music is not about progression, but is a succession of sonorous events.

Whadda you think? Am I out to lunch?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> You're a hard one to convince, Woodduck. You've probably got a good ear, too, so it might be a simple matter of the way you (or I) are framing things.
> 
> *The difference is in the listeners. If you have a 'good ear,' and by this I mean a really good ear, where you can name intervals instantly, you are in the 'ear mode.'* I'm not talking about perfect pitch, although I'm sure this couldn't be a detriment, but good relative pitch.
> 
> ...


It's not that I can't be convinced, but that I can't relate to these "ear" and "eye" modes as characterizing types of _listeners_. What I do recognize is that music structures events in time with varying degrees (or sometimes an absence) of "narrative" cohesion and tension, such that we are made to feel the "logical" progression and goal-directedness of the whole structure to a greater or lesser extent. At one extreme we might have, say, Beethoven, and at the other extreme - well, I'm not sure, but Messiaen will do. But I've always found the difference in the way I hear such differently structured music to be a function of the music itself and the way it leads my brain along: I hear what it's doing, and the brain learns what sort of development to expect or not to expect, and thus the perception of time takes care of itself.

You may be right that listeners tend toward hearing music more narratively or less so. Speaking for myself, (never having been any listener other than the one I am), I do have an excellent sense of relative pitch and the ability to identify intervals immediately, and I can easily comprehend and enjoy music at both ends of the continuum - although, being of Western European descent, musically speaking, I tend to listen more often to music with a noticeable narrative structure or sense of progression toward a goal, and to find that element emotionally compelling and absorbing. So I couldn't say whether your metaphor of the "ear" or the "eye" fits me better, and I'll have to take your word for it that listeners differ in the way they tend to perceive music's temporal aspect.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I often listen to music which does not have an obvious sense of progression towards a goal, though I am of western descent. But the music I like may have such a structure, it's just that I'm too obtuse to notice. 

This morning I listened to Jacob Obrecht's Missa Fortuna Desperata. And looking at this I wonder what Obrecht had to say about time. But I haven't got the tools to draw any conclusions.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Just a philosophical point, I'm not sure how relevant it is. 

20th century metaphysicians used to distinguish between two ways of viewing time. The A series, which was fluid and subjective - past, present and future. And the B- series, which was objective and static - earlier, simultaneous and later.


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