Music of Timbre

In Western culture, the primary basis of music is widely considered to be that of pitch contrasts over time. is is evident in the clinical definition of those with deficits in music perception; amusiais generally considered primarily as a deficit in pitch perception popularly known as ‘tone-deafness’ (Pearce, 2005). ere are musics however where contrasts of discrete tones is unimportant, which we describe asmusic of timbre. While we argue that perceived movement is of universal importance to music, to some musics, it would seem that this is almost all there is. e question is, can music achieve the same levels of complexity without tonality, or does the focus on movement involve a trade off, a shi from musical contemplation, perhaps towards something with a broader ‘non-musical’ function in culture?

In his book “Music, Language and the Brain”, Aniruddh Patel notes that despite much mu- sical experimentation, music based on timbral rather than tonal contrasts is rare (Patel, 2007, pp. 30–37). is is explained twofold; firstly, timbral changes oen require instrumental ma- nipulations that are physically difficult to perform in quick succession. e second, cognitive reason he gives is that timbral contrasts cannot be perceived in terms of intervals, so the higher order relationships associated with tonal music are not supported by timbre. A given counter- example is music of the tabla drums in Indian classical music, which Patel (2007, pp. 62–67) explains by looking at the music culture around the tabla. In particular, he notes the extensive use of Bol syllables, a jelled system of vocable words (§3.2). Patel concludes that these vocables allow perception of complex timbral contrasts to be aided by cognitive resources developed for linguistic structure.

We propose an alternative hypothesis to Patel (2007), that it is not specifically linguistic sound categories which support timbre perception in Tabla music, but more generally cate- gories of articulation, which just happen to be of the vocal tract in this case. e human ability to perceive and categorise movement is used in the transmission of language, both in vocal and sign languages (Suon-Spence and Woll, 1999), but we contend that this is a more general cog- nitive rather than linguistic resource; speech is not ‘special’ (§3.1) as Patel implies. Audiences can perceive tabla music because when performers speak the drums, listeners are able to relate the sounds to the movements of their own vocal tracts. In the case of electronic dance music, it is not the movement of the vocal tract, but of the whole body dancing that opens the door to broad appeal found within large audiences.

e strong implication made by Patel (2007) is that without co-opting linguistic resources, music of timbre would be impossible, or at least rare. Together with the lack of clarity found in MDS study, it would be too easy to conclude from this that timbre is therefore unimportant in music cognition, being either too complex or too formless to provide structure for music. Elec-

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troacoustic music has not found popular audiences beyond its academic base. However Patel overlooks the existence and popularity of electronic dance music, which oen centres around manipulation of synthetic timbre with apparently no supporting use of vocable words. An ex- ample of this is theacid line, a musical style exemplified by the 1995 recording of “Higher state of consciousness” by Josh Wink. is piece revolves around slow manipulation of the timbral parameters of a repeating motif on the Roland MC-202, a monophonic, analogue subtractive bass line synthesiser. Synthesis filters are manipulated on this machine during the piece, with low-pass cutoff slowly increasing tension until releasing into a single, final crescendo. e timbral changes of this example are slow, but one does not have to look far to find timbral manipulation at a speed and complexity comparable with that of tabla virtuosos. For exam- ple Autechre’sGantz Graf (2002) has lile in the way of discernible melody, but manipulates sound events at a speed on the boundary between percussion and metallic drone. Autechre reg- ularly aract audiences of thousands across Europe and the USA, who dance to fast-changing, complex rhythms in the dark, with no visual accompaniment.

e role of movement is unsurprisingly central to dance music, but to the extent that as- pects of music cannot be understood without dancing, or at least imagining oneself dancing. e Clave rhythm is a case in point, where the main beats are emphasised not through musi- cal accents, but in the associated dance steps (Agawu, 2003, p. 73). Indeed in many cultures the concept of music encompasses both the sounds and the dance, and one is not understood without the other (Agawu, 2003, p. 264). In the case of Autechre, the musicians provide rich and complex timbral structures, for which audience members create their own reference points through their own bodily movements.

Some musicians aempt to produce acousmatic music free from physical manifestation and constraints. Sounds may include those recorded from recognisable sources, but are used for their sonic properties. is music is not performed, only existing in recorded form, and in a concert seing is played over loudspeakers. It is of course possible to enjoy this music through physically static, deep listening, but we contend that it is difficult to do so, and that general audiences find it troublesome to relate ungrounded timbre to their own bodily experience. is difficulty is expressed well by Smalley (1994, p. 39); “In electroacoustic music where source- cause links are severed, access to any deeper, primal, tensile level is not mediated by source- cause texture. at is what makes such types of acousmatic music difficult for many to grasp. In a certain physical sense there is nothing to grasp - source-cause texture has evaporated.” Smalley concludes that to free timbre from source-cause, the composer must confront and enjoy the dissolution of timbre.

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as being between either a focus or freedom from repetition. Emmerson relates repetitive music to a grounding in the movements of the human body, and amorphous music to movements in the environment. It should be noted however that while the celebrated electroacoustic com- poser Stockhausen disliked the “repetitive language” in electronic dance music (Emmerson, 2007a, p. 62), he also compelled students of music to “go dancing at least once a week. And dance. Please, really dance: three or four hours a week.” (Stockhausen and Maconie, 2000, p. 170). We share the conclusion with Emmerson (2007a), that musicians who work on the boundary between these dance and art musics are reconciling the dual themes of body and environment. at these two groups are in many cases already using the same tools and lan- guages offers such musicians a unique opportunity.