Musical Continua

Notation vs. the limits of perception

Milton Mermikides m.mermikides@surrey.ac.uk

Drawing Air Musical Representation

Music evolved at the very least 6,000 years ago, with the rst documented attempt at a form of notation occurring about 1800 BC in Iraq. A marking of words with discrete pitch information.

Drawing Air Musical Representation

The separation of discrete pitches and rhythms into a grid system has been well established since the middle ages

Drawing Air Musical Representation

With the rm addition of a codied system of dynamics and timbre since the 17th century constructing a representation of music as a set of 3 discrete parameters Pitch, Rhythm and Dynamics/Timbre

Catching Air Musical Translation

The advent of sound recording in the mid 19th century allowed another translation of sound rst as an analogous sculpture of the sound wave in a less temporal physical medium, and a century later as a series of digits on a (thinly sliced) grid.

Catching Air Too little and too much

Fussy Everything

Simplistic notation

Catching Air Score Elaboration and Digital Analysis

The Middle Ground A conceptual understanding of music to the limits of perception not of notation

Wisharts Lattice

Wisharts Lattice

Wisharts Lattice

Wisharts Lattice

Wisharts Lattice

Wisharts Lattice

Musical Continua
Pitch and Time (Timbre & Dynamics)

Musical Continua
Pitch

What is in Tune?
How Long is a Piece of String?

How Do We Decide?

Concepts
Wavelength & Frequency Hz. The Frequency of Human Hearing The Law of Octave Equivalence Harmonic Series

20

Assumptions

Acoustic Purity
The Pythagorean concept Selecting notes and
constructing scales from the Harmonic Series of Acoustic Purity: Intervals from simple ratios

The Pure 5th

1/1

3/2

2/1

3/1

Struck

The 3-Limit Scale

1/1 C Root

9/8 81/64 4/3 D E F Maj 2nd Maj 3rd 4th

3/2 27/16 G A 5th Maj 6th

2/1 C 8ve

Just intonation

The Pure 3rd

From the 5th Harmonic (5-limit) 5/1: 2 octaves and a major 3rd 5/4: Major 3rd 81/64 8/5 E Ab Maj 3rd Min 6th 1/1 C Root 5/4 E Maj 3rd 25/16 G# Aug. 5th 2/1 C 8ve

Shrutis of Hindustani Classical Music

Raga Bhairav

Monophonic vs. Polyphonic

Enough Physics, lets make 12 Notes.

The Cycle Spiral of 5ths

(3/2)12=129.746
7=128 2

Pythagorean Comma 129.746/128

Temper, temper

Equal Temperament

Equal Temperament Makes Cents

Cents = 1200 * log(ratio) log(2)

Ratio = 2

(Cents/1200)

The Third Issue

(5/4)3= 125/64 128/64

The Third Issue

C Major Prelude Equal Temperament

C Major Prelude Well Tempered

Listen to the major 3rd

Another Solution

Mozarts Semitones

Another Solution
1/9=11.1cents

Clockwise from left: Campagnolis ngerboard diagram (1797) Woldermars Violin Method (1803) and Split key harpsichord 1715

Where Did It Go?

Complexity of Instrument Design Challenges of pedagogy and wider
12-tone serialism interest in performing music, owning a piano

The drive through romantic harmony into Filtered out of the system

Leading Tones?
Consideration of the vertical and the horizontal. A time for harmonic sonority, and a time for expressive intonation.

Microtones & the Blues

The Neutral 3rd The Neutral 7th 4-b5 b5-5

Blues Inection
Thelonius Monk Guitarists (Bends, Slide Guitar) Vocalists (Bessie Smith)

Tuning Systems
Harry Partch (1901-1974) American microtonal composer and instrument maker 11-limit 43 tone system

11-limit (43 tone)

11th harmonic chosen as the boundary of
our tolerance - falling between 2 equal tempered pitches (F#- 49cents). within this boundary.

43 divisions of the scale are constructed

Microtonal adjustment of pre-existing instruments

Tolgahan Cogalu

Technology and Microtones

 Busoni (1866-1924) In response to Cahills Telharmonium

"Let us take thought," he exulted, "how music may be restored to its primitive, natural essence; [...] let it follow the line of the rainbow and vie with the clouds in breaking sunbeams.

Correction, quantisation and effect

Autotune

Autotune (Ab)use
Dixie Chicks The Long Way Around Noticeable on parents and but I. T-Pain Im Sprung Especially obvious on homies and lady. Avril Lavigne Complicated Listen to way, when, driving, youre. Uncle Kracker Follow Me The whole vocal sounds strained, but especially the word goodbye. Maroon 5 She Will Be Loved Listen for rain and smile. Natasha Bedingeld Love Like This Apart and life. Sean Kingston Beautiful girls OoooOver doesnt sound human. JoJo Too Little Too Late Appropriately, problem stands out. Rascal Flatts Life is a Highway Every vocal, foreground and background, is treated, but drive in particular. New Found Glory Hit or Miss Thriller, and every time Jordan sings I.

Autotune Aware

Autotune Aware

Hiding vs. Hearing

Corrective technology (Pristine vs. sterile) Expressive technology Non equal-tempered auto-tuning?

Practical
Democratic tuning

Musical Continua
Time

The Aims
Create a model, building on the available research, that is born of a practitioners perspective and that can provide a: 1) Succinct representation and differentiation of a wide-range of appreciable and stylistically relevant time-feels. 2) Simple enough to be understood by a wide range of practitioners and analysts alike. 3) Simple enough to be a pedagogical tool and applied in real time, rather than post-hoc analysis. Alignment with the visceral experience of performing. 4) Amenable to technological analysis and reapplication.

The SLW model

Illustrated at quaver level

Swing
Often used as an ill-defined qualitative measure of feel, but here it is specifically the asymmetry of the off-beat.

The Swing Continuum

Swing and Technology

Technologys weakness, and usefulness, is its lack of interpretatio. The evolution in Logic of computer quantization of swing, from none (left, Logic Notator 2.0,1988), to discrete, but not explicitly defined, values (middle Logic Pro 6, 2004) to continuous values and advanced options (Logic Pro 9, 2009).

Latency

Mingus, cited in Berliner 1994.

Latency Continuum

Positive Latency
The problem I see in a lot of students is, I think, anxiety-related when they play and they are actually rushing everythingIf youre not going to play like a sequencer and be bang on the note every time, the other thing that can work is actually playing late, listen to Miles Davis, or something like that, or a lot of the hip-hop guys doing their thingits often preposterously late*, and it never sounds like a mistake, it just sounds like theyre cool, theyre relaxed, theyre not in any hurry to get to the next note, because the note they are doing right now is so good.

Govan (2010) 4:29 4:52 * Hyperlatency = latency that may be easily rewritten notationally

Whos Late?
Why is one player described as late, and the other as early? Hierarchy
of rhythmic establishment, the idea that one performer holds more (or all) of the authority in the definition of the time line than others.

Latency cannot be adequately equated with rubato, latency is

an expressive mechanism concerned with friction against a relatively rigid time line, not the elasticity of the time-line itself.

An

individuals placement against a mutually negotiated master time-line (defined later)

Tempo

fluctuations: rubato and there are moments in the jazz (and wider) repertoire when the concept of one master time-line can no longer be usefully maintained. Ivesian, xenochrony.

Weighting
Off-beat emphasis For now a simple definition: the relative volume of the offbeat to the on-beat but may extended to include parameters of articulation Positive weighting is a stronger off-beat. The 2 and 4 - Jazz walking bass-line at the crotchet level. (Tomassis instruction) and the bop of bebop

Implications of Hierarchy
Hierarchical asymmetry provides opportunity for latency mechanisms The musical experience of an ensemble rhythmic pattern depends on context

One duo event: 3 contexts

a) Harmonized melody (Rx1 = 1/2, Rx2 = 1/2)

One duo event: 3 contexts

b) Guitar 1s solo (Rx1 = 0, Rx2 = 1)

One duo event: 3 contexts

c) Guitar 2s solo (Rx1 = 1, Rx2 = 0)

One trio event: 3 contexts

c) Guitar 2s solo (Rx1 = 1, Rx2 = 0)

a) Equal weighting. All performers have equal say

One trio event: 3 contexts

c) Guitar 2s solo (Rx1 = 1, Rx2 = 0)

b) Oligopoly, performers 2 and 3 share responsibility

One trio event: 3 contexts

c) Guitar 2s solo (Rx1 = 1, Rx2 = 0)

c) Monopoly where performer 3 has all the metric responsibility.

Time-feel
dynamics and subsets

Relationships between Parameters

Swing, Latency and Offbeat Placement
offbeat PLACEMENT

Offbeat placement

Characterisation of quavers

The comparison of 50% latency on four different time-feels. Only in example a) is a 50% latency exactly equivalent to a rhythmic displacement.

The Identity of Quavers

The significant difference between the transformation of phrase a) through b) 50% latency and c) quaver displacement. Hyperlatency and notational implications

Technology and Time-feel

Accuracy, repeatability

Technology and Time-feel

Sonogram analysis

Technology and Time-feel

Statistical analysis

Technology and Time-feel

SLW-Coach

Real-time time-feel training

Time-feel and Perception

Swing with missing data

Case Studies

59% Swing on Swing 42

Swing '42 (Reinhardt 1949)

Listen to an extract ending with the phrase in question

59% Swing on Swing 42

Swing '42 (1:04-1:06) (Reinhardt 1949)

Although short, this continuous sequence of quavers is performed along one string and with alternating down-up picking, so technical considerations are unlikely to influence execution significantly. The passage also has unmistakable gypsy-jazz feel, so it is of value to discover the contributing time-feel components. The tempo of the quavers allows a wide range of swing values.

Listen to an extract ending with the phrase in question

The mean swing comes out at around 59.3% with a standard deviation of just 1.6%. At this fast tempo (204bpm) each crotchet lasts about 294ms, so there is a mere 50ms separating offbeat placement for 50% and 66.6% swing. Reinhardt manages to sit tightly between these extremes, occupying a time zone certainly no greater than 30ms, even allowing for measurement ambiguity. Can the listener hear the difference between straight and triplet quavers at this tempo, let alone a value in between?

Listen to 50%, 59%, 66.% and 75% with all articulation, timbral and weighting effects removed Extract, sequences and clicks

The musical effect of this swing value (coupled with the simple polymetry in the phrase) is at least as important as the note choices, but is lost to standard notation. A transcription may provide the notes, but the musician is left to absorb this equally important aspect unconsciously.

The relevance of the swing curve, the changing swing values through the phrase, is miniscule and of little perceptual significance other than perhaps the introduction of an extremely subtle human looseness. Audio 1 plays the phrase with 59% swing, followed by a faithful rendering of each swing value (rounded to the nearest 1%) very subtle more even quaver kick at the end of the phrase Audio 2 plays the last two quavers at 59% then 54% swing) but this 5% distinction(<15ms) is difficult to hear in isolation even with directed attention.

This case-study demonstrates a useful strategy of listening, objective analysis, theoretical modeling, directed attention and aural testing training of the theory-filtered results. Analysis divorced from music perception is of little value, but music technology now allows a powerful tool to marry theoretical analysis with subjective experience.

A Little Drag
Swing, latency and hierarchy in Michael Jacksons The Way You Make Me Feel
. The song is characterised by an offbeat keyboard stab, and Jacksons direction to the music director and keyboardist Michael Bearden concerning the placement of this offbeat provides a remarkable insight into his attention to time-feel and means of communicating it to his band. The language employed is a neat illustration of the separation of swing and latency outlined in the SLW model.

The song is characterised by an offbeat keyboard stab, and Jacksons direction to the music director and keyboardist Michael Bearden concerning the placement of this offbeat provides a remarkable insight into his attention to time-feel and means of communicating it to his band. The language employed is a neat illustration of the separation of swing and latency outlined in the SLW model.

Predominately shuffle rhythm, and the introduction, the focus of this study, is at a slow tempo (82bpm). For the purposes of this study it will describe it as a 2nd quaver with 66.% swing. The distinction has little bearing on the substance of the analysis, but this choice has been made to keep terminology consistent.

Extract A
Approximate calculations

1.3% (9ms), 3.3% (22ms) and 5.% (44ms)

Jacksons instructions little drag and play a little more behind the beat, like youre dragging yourself out of bed - evocative description of performing latency

Extract A Perception
Approximate calculations

89bpm, three repetitions of the swing values of 68%, 71% and 73% are played sequentially (panned right) against the baseline 66.67% triplet quaver (panned left) while a click (panned centre) marks the pulses. In the authors experience the panning effect is barely noticeable at 68% but clearly identifiable at 71% and above.

Extract A as Latency
Recalculate as latency to align with the vocabulary used - musically identical with no downbeat

Extract B
Jackson happier with feel, starts singing and playful lateness

The playfully late chord (bar 3, beat 3) seems to cause Moffett to drop back a little tempo (2bpm). The analytical context is not adequately controlled, the discrepancy small and the technological limitations far from ideal, so little should be read into the event. However, if the drummer did in fact feel compelled to accommodate the significant latency with a reduction in tempo, this would suggest that the governance of tempo is not entirely his responsibility. Using the terminology of the SLW model this would imply that master timeline determination is not a monopoly but an oligopoly: The latency of Beardens (implied) onbeat actually stretched the master time-line, so Moffett did not accept total responsibility for its placement. In this example the situation is tenuous, but the calculation may as well be completed: A 2% drop in tempo was caused by a 13% latency, so for that bar, the hierarchical weighting of master time-line determination would be calculated as Moffett: 85%, Bearden 15%.

No-Mans Land
2-bar sequence of the keyboard part played at 67%, 69%, 71%, 73% and then 75% offbeat placement. The 70-73% range would appear to cover Jacksons desired feel, a no-mans land (or obtusely written) area of standard notation, but a perceptual and effective musical experience nonetheless.

This case study highlights the potential value in the analysis of rehearsal footage (and multitrack recordings) of particular artists. Research of this kind is a powerful tool in the identification of the practitioners intention and perception - of time-feel, and a valuable contribution to our understanding of the mechanics of rhythmic expression.

Constant Friction
Swing friction in Chuck Berrys Johnny B. Goode (1958)

Constant Friction
Swing friction in Chuck Berrys Johnny B. Goode (1958)

The straightness of rhythm guitar creating a continuous time-feel dissonance with drums and piano. Listen to extract.

Amalgamated Time-feel Template

Listen: 1) As above 2) All swung 3) All straight 4) Meet in the middle 5) As above

Introduction of weighting and looseness

Theoretical analysis. Technological recreation to test the results divorced from other aspects of performance.

Analysis and recreation (technologically and live performance) of Ensemble time-feel

Swing Blocks
Swing values as arrangement in Little Wing (1967)

Swing Blocks
Swing values as arrangement in Little Wing (1967)

Seminal electric guitar piece but challenging to reproduce with complete authenticity. The idea that time-feel can change significantly from phrase to phrase adding another (generally-missed) structural level.

Multi-level swing analysis (Semiquaver and quaver) grouped in 4 levels: Straight (<53%) Light (53-56%) Medium (56-63%) Heavy (>63%)

4 levels of swing Straight (50%) Light (55%) Medium (62%) Heavy (69%)

Generally straight quavers, but bar 7 hints at the concept of Swing Telescopy

Semiquaver/Quaver Swing (60:50)

One rhythmic event change: large music difference

Semiquaver/Quaver Swing (50:60)

The typical viewpoint of swing is as a stylistic characteristic, or representative of a particular artist. Little Wing however provides a clear example of widely varied swing values used as a structural mechanism in performance (a far more sophisticated and intuitive version of the swing-latin-swing format found in some jazz arrangements) and explains part of the virtuosity in its execution and the challenge in its convincing reproduction.

Push-Pull
Expressive Latency Contours in Comfortably Numb (1979)

The simplicity of arrangement in Comfortably Numb (Pink Floyd 1979) affords ample opportunity for Nick Mason and Dave Gilmours effective use of latency in order to build and release tension. Nick Masons much admired Time-feel- but not explicable by him. Can a time-feel analysis reveal anything of this knack?

4 fills exhibiting a push-pull mechanism on last 2 beats. Time points & latency below:

4 fills sequenced in clicks: first quantized then as in performance.

This analysis goes some way to explaining the mechanics behind this aspect of Masons playing and the emotive effect it has on its listeners. It also raises the question of the plasticity of the crotchet (and other subdivisions). Does a gentle latency contour allow a greater range of values for aesthetically acceptable latency values? In other words if latency is increased (or decreased) gradually, can extreme values be tolerated (and enjoyed) more than random stabs of onsets either side of the beat? One can visualize this idea as a fabric that can be stretched slowly, but will snap if pulled too quickly.

Temporal Plasticity
Pat Martinos time-feel and M-Space mechanisms.

Just Friends (1962) Solo Break

Reconstruction using upbeat iso-placement

Generalises some of the details of the passage (in particular the swung and late quaver pair in bar 5, beat one) but much of the feel is captured

Opportunity for purpose built study with Martino Known tune Welcome To A Prayer Calibrated and well measure audio Slow tempo so he could exploit all manner of his well-known rhythmic expressions in ballad format Melodic transformation with time-feel

Melodic shadowing Delay (and emphasis) of key notes from the tacit platonic ideal

Latency

Latency contours/temporal plasticity

Note separation against melodic register: Expressive contours Multi-level nature of music

Reapplication in performance, rehearsal and electronic composition

Omnia 558 Mermikides 2007

Musical Continua
Timbre & Dynamics to be continued...

Avoiding Analysis Pareidolia and Confirmation Bias

Finding the important stuff, and not bean-counting

In a nutshell Musical expression is found between the lines

Milton Mermikides

m.mermikides@surrey.ac.uk http://scribd.com/mmermikides miltonmermikides.com PA40