# Analogue (continuous) music



## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

Almost all music is digital (discrete), and I am not speaking about the way audio files are stored on computer. Music was equally digital 200 years ago.

I am speaking about the fact that we only use notes with fixed pitches. You just have a limited set of pitches to work with. Yes you can tune the instrument a bit differently, but then you just substitute one limited set of pitches with another limited set of pitches. Ultimately it can be reduced to integers.

Also, we have limited set of note durations, like 1/64, 1/32, 1/16, 1/8... etc.
Yes with dotted notes this set can be enlarged a bit, but it's still a limited set with fixed values.

Also transitions between notes are typically abrupt.

Dynamic... (loudness) is the only major property of music that is analogue/continuous, that is it can take any value (like real numbers), and there can be smooth transitions between different levels (crescendo and decrescendo).

I am wondering why more composers haven't experimented with analogue / continuous music.

A music where a note can have any pitch whatsoever (like 100 Hz, 101 Hz, 332,5 Hz, etc) , where we are not limited to one limited set of pitches or durations... (like a note can last 438 milliseconds, then next can be 724 milliseconds, etc...)

Also where transitions between notes can be smooth instead of abrupt, etc...

I've noticed for example in Gangnam Style, smooth transitions between pitches used to a great effect:






I'm wondering why there hasn't been a major modernist school that would seek emancipation from digital set of pitches and durations and embrace the world of continuous / analogue music. IMO it would be as radical as atonality, perhaps even more.

Of course I'm aware of how difficult it would be to write such music down... like instead of using beautiful note signs you'd have to write something like a series of pairs... something like (332Hz, 672 ms); (401 Hz, 206 ms), etc...

Also there are no instruments that could support this, except well, synthesized sound, and theremin.

But voice, on the other hand allows us to sing any frequency within our range.


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

In some way working with digital music, is as if painters limited themselves to painting with just basic colors, instead of using countless possible shades...

Imagine working with 256 color or 16 color scheme on computer... Your eyes would hurt a bit, wouldn't they?

The truth is, our music is akin to 256 color graphics.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

ZJovicic said:


> Almost all music is digital (discrete), and I am not speaking about the way audio files are stored on computer. Music was equally digital 200 years ago.
> 
> I am speaking about the fact that we only use notes with fixed pitches. You just have a limited set of pitches to work with. Yes you can tune the instrument a bit differently, but then you just substitute one limited set of pitches with another limited set of pitches. Ultimately it can be reduced to integers.
> 
> ...


Ligeti's clouds.


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## chipia (Apr 22, 2021)

I think what you are describing is called 'microtonality'. Harry Partch, Ben Johnston and Lou Harrison are some composers who worked in this idiom. You could also check out the youtube channels of sevish and zheanna erose for more electronic microtonal music.





This piece divides the octave in 53 tones!

I agree with you that this is a very exciting field, where probably most potential for innovation in modern music lies. Unfortunately, most composers don't seem that interested in it.


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> Ligeti's clouds.


Thanks for the recommendation.

Also, I'd like to add something. Perhaps there wouldn't be need to write series of pairs of pitches and durations...
the same could be accomplished by manipulating the graph of function where X axis is time and Y axis frequency. So instead of writing you'd sort of draw or plot music.


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## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

This too:


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## chipia (Apr 22, 2021)

The third movement , starting at 8:15, uses 176 different tones!


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## cheregi (Jul 16, 2020)

ZJovicic said:


> I am wondering why more composers haven't experimented with analogue / continuous music.


The way string instruments and voices were played in most western classical music prior to WW2 was with lots of sliding continuously from note to note, lots of microtonal tiny ornament/embellishment, lots of different distinct types and sizes of vibrato (which is also microtonal, right), etc. and it was gorgeous. Yes, sure, technically they are still working with 12 pitches to an octave, but if you were to actually spectrally analyse sounding pitches over time, you would find exactly the 'analogue' thing you're looking for, in terms of both pitch and rhythm. Most of the interesting early-music ensembles do this too. Also this kind of thing is present in most traditional musics around the world, ud, guqin, klezmer fiddle, are all doing it much more than gangnam style.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

As Ives wrote: "Are my ears on wrong?"

I don't get why more musicians/composers aren't inspired by the sound of clouds.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Filmed action comprises discrete frames but effectively conveys fluid motion in space. Fast scale passages comprise discrete steps (or half steps) but likewise convey fluid motion, and for the same reason. Would "analog" glissandi be more fluid? Yes, but in abandoning discrete steps one loses more than one gains because the essential motion in tonal music doesn't reduce to this kind of physical, albeit _metaphorically_ physical, motion. The essential structural motion underlying western classical music for more than 400 years has been tonal-harmonic motion. It depends on the coherent long-term progression of discrete harmonic units called triads and their extensions. This kind of even more abstract metaphorical motion in space is the essential structural force in tonal music. Without it classical music doesn't exist.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> The essential structural motion underlying western classical music for more than 400 years has been tonal-harmonic motion.


But not the past 50+ years



EdwardBast said:


> Without it [tonal-harmonic motion] classical music doesn't exist.


I just can't hear it in some pieces which I think are classical music, but I'm not sure. Large sections of Uspud for example, or this


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

If you look at Boulez's College de France lectures there's an extended discussion of continuous music. I've got a vague memory that Xenakis experimented with it as well as Ligeti.


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Scelsi experimented with microtonal deviations on a single pitch.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> But not the past 50+ years
> 
> I just can't hear it in some pieces which I think are classical music, but I'm not sure. Large sections of Uspud for example, or this


The first answer I gave was the metaphysical one. For Machaut we need the historical answer:

Prehistory (presumably) and early recorded history finds music in close association with words - communal singing, work songs, didactic-mnemonic songs, folk music, ritual and liturgical music - all developed in conjunction with language, in part no doubt because the realization of the musical capabilities of the human voice predated the technology required for instruments (other than percussion). Language has discrete units, words that is, organized by systematic grammar and syntax. In its role as a vehicle for meaningful vocalization, music reflected these discrete units in using similarly discrete notes, phrases, and silences (for punctuation). From the earliest notated music we find hierarchies of pitches as a means of imposing quasi-grammar and syntax on song. Discrete pitches so ordered were the predominant choice for the clear expression of text. Machaut wrote vocal music - and poetry.

For the last fifty years a technological answer is probably more appropriate: It's clear why keyboard instruments tend to use discrete pitches, and although one could use slides for wind instruments, the agility and precision of pitched key systems, especially given the historical answer above, is just too attractive an alternative.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

cheregi said:


> The way string instruments and voices were played in most western classical music prior to WW2 was with lots of sliding continuously from note to note, lots of microtonal tiny ornament/embellishment, lots of different distinct types and sizes of vibrato (which is also microtonal, right), etc. and it was gorgeous. Yes, sure, technically they are still working with 12 pitches to an octave, but if you were to actually spectrally analyse sounding pitches over time, you would find exactly the 'analogue' thing you're looking for, in terms of both pitch and rhythm. Most of the interesting early-music ensembles do this too. Also this kind of thing is present in most traditional musics around the world, ud, guqin, klezmer fiddle, are all doing it much more than gangnam style.


My thought exactly upon reading ZJovicic's opening post: Analogue (continuous) music.

I would suggest that any violinist who has ever played a Bach suite or sonata was delving into the world of pure analog (continuous) sound. Though pitches and durations are indicated on a score, they can never be rendered with pure exactness by any human player. Perhaps a machine could hold a steady note with an exact frequency each and every time and perform every sixteenth note, eighth note, quarter note, etc. with a precise and never changing duration, but would we really appreciate the Bach music performed that way? Rather, the human touch of fluidity and rubato and sheer "feeling" must account for much of what music is all about in the first place.

As a lover of analogue sound, I intend to hold onto my turntable and records as long as possible. I've always been suspicious of zeroes and ones rendering my music. And ... I note that my old violin, not often used, has no frets. It looks awfully analog to me. My guitar does have frets, but I can "bend" the notes, and can't imagine playing anything without doing so, even unconsciously at times.

In any case, I'm not sure what the OP is after with this post, but I'm moving on.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

EdwardBast said:


> The first answer I gave was the *metaphysical* one.


I suspect you meant to type metaphorical there.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Instruments that slide have been used alongside conventional orchestral instruments, such as the theremin and ondes-martenot (Turangalila is the obvious example), but I don't think very much has been written for these instruments alone, though I've found some by Thomas Bloch.


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