Time and Timelessness in Electroacoustic Music

Experiences of Time and Timelessness in Electroacoustic Music

JASON NOBLE, TANOR BONIN and STEPHEN MCADAMS

Schulich School of Music, McGill University, Montreal, Canada Email: [email protected]

Electroacoustic music and its historical antecedents open up now moment’ (Hasty 1997) in music, while often pro- new ways of thinking about musical time. Whereas music found and personally important, is not especially rare. performed by humans is necessarily constrained by certain In her book Deep Listeners: Music, Emotion, and temporal limits that define human information processing Trancing, Judith Becker opines that ‘most of us have and embodiment, machines are capable of producing sound experienced “near trance”, or at least some of the char- with scales and structures of time that reach potentially very acteristics of trance at certain times in our lives, far outside of these human limitations. But even musics produced with superhuman means are still subject to human especially in relation to musical listening or musical constraints in music perception and cognition. Focusing on performance :::. Deep listening or performing music five principles of auditory perception – segmentation, may induce the feeling of time stopping altogether’ grouping, pulse, metre and repetition – we hypothesise that (Becker 2004: 131–3). musics that exceed or subvert the thresholds that define Paraphrases of this kind of experience pervade the ‘human time’ are likely to be recognised by listeners as literature on twentieth- and twenty-first-century expressing timelessness. To support this hypothesis, we Western music. Titles such as The Time of Music report an experiment in which a listening panel reviewed (Kramer 1988), On Repeat: How Music Plays the excerpts of electroacoustic music selected for their Mind (Margulis 2013) and Being Time: Case Studies temporally subversive or excessive properties, and rated them (1) for the pace of time they express (normative, in Musical Temporality (Glover, Gottschalk and speeding up, or slowing down), and (2) for whether or not the Harrison 2019), as well as myriad statements from music expresses ‘timelessness’. We find that while the composers about ‘a vertical cut, as it were, across hor- specific musical parameters associated with temporal izontal time perception’ (Stockhausen 1963, quoted in phenomenology vary from one musical context to the next, a Heikenheimo 1972: 120–1), ‘music as frozen time’ general trend obtains across musical contexts through the (Ligeti 1988, quoted in Bauer 2004: 129), ‘temporal excess or subversion of a particular perceptual constraint by suspension’ (Grisey, 1987: 249, original emphasis) a given musical parameter on the one hand, and the and so forth, all speak to widespread fascination with subjective experiences of time and timelessness on the other. special relationships between music and temporal experience. While some have argued that experiences of altered time or timelessness are not deterministically 1. INTRODUCTION related to definable musical properties (Rouget 1985, quoted in Becker 2004:25–6), certain types of music It is sometimes possible for me to be completely appear more frequently in discussions of musical time- immersed in music and to feel as if my whole state of consciousness has been temporarily altered. lessness than others. In particular, two seemingly opposite types of music, defined by a strong and regu- Music sometimes helps me ‘step outside’ my usual self lar pulse on the one hand and the prolonged absence of and experience an entirely different state of being. pulse on the other (Mountain 2003: 672), are fre- When listening to music I can lose all sense of time. quently invoked; J. T. Fraser describes these as ‘the The above statements are taken from the Absorption in ecstasy of the dance’ and the ‘ecstasy of the forest’, Music Scale questionnaire (Sandstrom and respectively (Fraser 1975: 305–6). Russo 2013: 227–8), an index used to assess listeners’ Non-Western musics such as African drumming, propensities for musical absorption. The statements Javanese gamelan and Japanese gagaku are often cited demonstrate a link between music, absorption and as musics that invoke non-normative experiences or the experience of time, a link that will no doubt be conceptions of time according to Western standards, familiar to many readers. Across musical styles, cul- especially those of time as ‘cyclical, reversible, tures and historical periods, music’s amazing power recurrent, connected to the cycles of nature and the to alter or even suspend the listener’s sense of time activities they control’ (Monelle 2000: 86). Non- is well documented. The sensation of the ‘eternal Western musics have also been important sources of

Organised Sound 25(2): 232–247 © Cambridge University Press, 2020. doi:10.1017/S135577182000014X

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inspiration for Western composers seeking to express only performable tempi will be performed: the action- ideas of altered time and timelessness. Olivier Messiaen, able tempi afforded by human kinesthetics and whose titles famously invoke ideas of eternity, immortal- cognition set limits within which musical tempi must ity and the end of time, was inspired by the ‘static’ abide. But when electronic production makes it possi- quality he perceived in Japanese noh and gagaku, and ble to set any tempo however fast or slow, the practical the affinity he felt it had with ‘the invisible and the significance of the limitations of ‘human time’ beyond’ (Messiaen, quoted in Eppstein 2007:212). becomes much more palpable. According to Martin Scherzinger, Ligeti’sengagement The hypothesis of Noble (2018), supported with with African music was the basis of the ‘static tension numerous examples from twentieth- and twenty- and temporal transcendence’ that characterised his aes- first-century repertoire, is that music whose tempo- thetic ambitions after 1980 (Scherzinger 2006:236–7). ral organisation optimises human information Another influence that continues to exert a profound processing and embodiment expresses human time, influence on Western thinking about musical time and and music whose temporal organisation subverts timelessness comes in a non-human form: electronic or exceeds human information processing and technologies, which make possible electroacoustic embodiment points outside of human time, to time- musics. Such technologies are obviously invented by lessness. Due to space limitations, the present article humans, but they are non-human to the extent that they cannot revisit all of the constraints of human audi- enable the production of ‘superhuman’ musics: produc- tory information processing and embodiment, and ing sound events of durations so vastly protracted or the connections that these may have with human contracted, achieving tempos so unattainably fast or music making and music perception, that are pre- slow, exhibiting degrees of almost unimaginable rhyth- sented in Noble (2018). For a full discussion of mic complexity with such microscopic precision, these topics, please see that earlier article, which executing groupings and superpositions of layers in pro- we take to articulate the theoretical basis of the portions so far outside our capacity for perceptual present project. Here, we elaborate on links differentiation, that they confront us with the limits between many temporally subversive or excessive of our ability to process information or embody musical compositional techniques and the temporal thinking sound, and point (potentially very far) beyond them. In associated with electronic media. In short, we short, electroacoustics present us with the possibility of believe that non-human means of production facili- disembodied music, of music whose production cannot tate the expression of non-human temporalities. We even theoretically be conceived in terms of embodied believe not only that composers have used time cognition. scales and structures accessed through electronic In Noble (2018), it is argued that certain time scales means to engender musical timelessness, but also and threshold values define human auditory percep- that listeners presented with such scales and tion (e.g., the beat zone, the perceptual present), and structures are likely to interpret them as expressing that music – through its temporal organisation – musical timelessness. We put this hypothesis to presents a sort of temporal fiction that may conform the test with a perceptual experiment conducted at ’ closely to those human scales and values or may McGill University s Music Perception and Cognition Lab, detailed in the following. depart from them to varying degrees. For instance, to take the example of the beat zone: humans can entrain to a beat or pulse within a tempo range of roughly 30 to 300 beats per minute (bpm), correspond- 2. HUMAN PERCEPTION, SUPERHUMAN ing to an inter-onset interval (IOI) of roughly 0.2s to PRODUCTION 2s. Within this range, some tempi tend to be perceived Traditional Western music has unsurprisingly gravi- as fast, some slow and some in the ‘indifference zone’, tated towards the scales and structures of human corresponding to about 100 bpm (0.6s IOI), which time, as it is written by human composers and played tends to be perceived as neither fast nor slow. If a by human performers. But the situation is quite differ- musician wants the beat of their music to be readily ent when non-human means of production remove performable, comprehensible and actionable (e.g., human barriers. While technological emancipation by dancing), this finite range defines the limits within of musical potential may be most characteristically which that is possible for humans. Indeed, the vast associated with electronics, it has some interesting majority of Western musics have adopted pulses in this historical antecedents. For example, the organ’s super- range, with the ‘indifferent’ tempo of 100 bpm being human ability to sustain sounds indefinitely has long right in the middle of the average tempo range been aligned with ‘religious ideas of the infinite’ (London 2004: 109–10; Parncutt 1994: 437). So long (Widor 1887: Avant-propos); less flatteringly, it as human performers are the only means of musical prompted Stravinsky to describe the instrument as a production, this point is basically moot, as naturally ‘monster [that] never breathes’ (Stravinsky and Craft

1982: 46). More recently, organist Tom Jenkinson, or variety of repetition with any prescribed degree of who is interested in the ‘otherworldly sonic aspects’ exactness or variation. These possibilities are now so of the organ, remarked that he finds writing for organ commonplace as to seem unremarkable, but their ‘comparable to writing music for electronics :::. aesthetic consequences have been enormous. These Sounds may be accessed by the touch of a button, such consequences may be seen not only in electroacoustic that sonic variety is achieved by mechanical means as music itself, but also in the ways electroacoustic think- much as it is by the performer’s skill’ (quoted in ing crossed back over to affect later instrumental Bruce-Jones 2019). This capacity for indefinite sustain music, which may perhaps be considered ‘post- allows for a temporal extensity of musical events far electronic’. For example, Ligeti’s Atmosphères beyond human limits of segmentation, demonstrated (1961) has been described as a piece of elektronische most dramatically in the longest ongoing organ concert Musik (Iverson 2009:79–143), and Reich’s phase in history: John Cage’s Organ2/ASLSP in Halberstadt, canon pieces such as Piano Phase recreate the aesthetic Germany, which began on 5 September 1991, is sched- of asynchronous tape loops with acoustic instruments uled to continue for a total of 639 years. The piece’s (Griffiths 2001). And yet, the auditory systems that title originated from Cage’s piano work As SLow aS receive these superhuman (and superhuman-inspired) Possible, and the extraordinary length of the perfor- stimuli continue to be defined by the same old human mance – spanning several human lifetimes – followed boundaries. While producers of musics harnessing from organist Hans-Ola Ericsson’s observation that a electroacoustic means and the ideas they have revealed piece played as slow as possible on this instrument could may be virtually unbounded in the temporal scales and last for ‘thefulllifetimeofanorgan’ (quoted in Luchese, structures that they may deploy, these musicians must 2010: 70). The notes of the four-page score are held still decide to what extent those scales and structures down with sandbags, and each sonority change draws will conform to the limitations of human time. tourists from around the world (ibid.). The nineteenth century witnessed another milestone in mechanical sound production, in the form of the 3. TIME, TIMELESSNESS AND PERCEPTUAL player piano: an early version of this machine was pro- PRINCIPLES duced by Jean-Louis Napoléon Fourneaux in 1863 The principles of auditory scene analysis (ASA) describe (Johnson 2013). Music for the player piano attained the perceptual processes by which acoustic components superhuman heights of complexity in the hands of of a musical stimulus are grouped (fused and segregated) ‘ Conlon Nancarrow, for whom time was the last fron- into coherent auditory units in the mind of the listener ’ tier of music (Nancarrow, quoted in Garland 1982: (see Bregman 1990:47–212). ASA involves the consoli- 185). The precision of the player piano allowed dation of concurrent and subsequent acoustic events Nancarrow to write canons with extremely complex into various distinct sound objects and auditory streams π or irrational tempo proportions, such as 60:61 or e: that the listener can perceive, delimited within certain (Thomas 2000: 108), realised with perfect accuracy. ranges of duration. That is, there are perceptual thresh- György Ligeti was also attracted to mechanical olds according to which human listeners can make sense instruments and produced a number of works for of acoustic stimuli with which they are presented. The player piano and barrel organ including adaptations perceptual principles by which ASA proceeds have of his famous Continuum für Cembalo (1968), a piece important implications for the composition and percep- whose extremely rapid deployment of very short tion of musical sound, and consequently for experiences sound events has invited comparisons to the later of musical time and timelessness. electroacoustic technique of granular synthesis Table 1, simplified from Noble (2018), summarises (Cambouropoulos and Tsougras 2009: 123). the temporal ranges and threshold values posited as With the dawn of recording technologies and the defining ‘human time’, the timescales that optimise electroacoustic revolution in the twentieth century, human embodiment and information processing. the possibilities of superhuman sound production have Segmentation refers to the range of durations that become permanent and prolific fixtures in the contem- can be easily processed as perceptual units. Sequence porary musical vocabulary. The introduction and refers to the range of IOIs that allow sounds to be dif- popularisation of electronic and computational means ferentiated as events but integrated into an auditory of sound (re)production allow today’s musics to be stream (this is incorporated into the discussion of deployed with any duration, however short or long; grouping, which involves proportions of the overall any sequential relation, however proximal or distal; durations of sequences as well as the durations of any pulse, however fast or slow. Music may employ IOIs). Pulse refers to the beat zone described previ- any metrical pattern or combination of patterns, how- ously. Meter refers to the range of durations for ever complex, however protracted; any grouping recurring accent patterns within a pulse stream that structure, however diffuse or monolithic; any amount can provide a simplifying framework for more

Table 1. Ranges and threshold values of human time.

Perceptual Temporal Human Time Timelessness Timelessness Category Thresholds by Subversion by Excess Min Max

Segmentation 100ms 5–7s Sound events with Events too short for Events too long for duration duration durations in this range sequential resolution the perceptual present (< 100ms) (> 5–7s) Sequence 100ms 1800ms Sound events with IOIs too short for IOIs too long for IOI IOI IOIs in this range ordered sequence sequential integration (< 100ms) (> 5–7s) Pulse 200ms 2s All strata synchronised to Absence of pulse (1) Period too long IOI IOI one pulse; standard for pulse perception range 67–150 bpm (> 2s IOI) (2) Multiple asynchronous pulses Meter 200ms 6s Metrical patterns within Absence of (1) Patterns too long IOI IOI this range, most often metrical for meter perception binary, sometimes patterns (> 6s) compound, rarely (2) Excessive metrical more complex complexity

complex surface rhythms.1 The values listed in which each of these five principles may be subverted or Table 1, gleaned from empirical research documented exceeded in the following. in the literature on music perception and cognition, give guidelines for the temporal organisation of music 3.1. Segmentation that expresses human time, and by extension, for music that points outside of it, to timelessness. Human capacity for segmentation may be subverted if Additionally, a fifth factor, repetition, is central to the sound events are shorter than the shortest perceptual experience of musical temporality. Repetition is such a units, that is, >100ms (Repp 2005: 971), which corre- pervasive feature of music that the idea of music with no sponds with the shortest units that can function as repetition almost seems like a contradiction in terms, individual elements of a musical rhythm (ibid.: 972). and it may occur at many different levels of musical Segmentation may be exceeded if sound events are organisation. It is difficult to identify specific limits much longer than the longest durations that can be for repetition, since its associated psychological thresh- contained within the perceptual present, usually 3–5s olds may vary with the content or extent of the musical (Snyder 2000: 50). patterns that are repeated. For our purposes, we are concerned with proximal or immediate repetition, as 3.2. Grouping opposed to distal repetition in which repeated figures are separated by intervening material (Margulis Human capacity for grouping may be subverted if the 2013). Proximal repetition is particularly relevant in IOI between subsequent events is greater than the the context of electroacoustic music, as will become evi- maximum separation that allows for stream integra- dent in the results of the experiment reported below. tion, c. >1.8s (Repp 2005: 971). Grouping may be Noble (2018) theorised that each of these five per- exceeded if phrase lengths exceeded the limit of the ceptual principles – segmentation, grouping, pulse, threshold between short-term and long-term memory, metre and repetition – establish boundary conditions which Snyder identifies as 8–16s (2000: 193). on the human experience of time that may be exceeded or subverted in musical temporal organisation. Doing 3.3. Pulse so was predicted to elicit experiences of timelessness, in which the listener’s sense of time recedes from their Pulse perception may be subverted with periodic pat- subjective experience. We review the conditions under terns slower than 30 bpm or exceeded with patterns faster than 300 bpm. In complex musical textures, there are other ways as well: pulse may be subverted 1A full discussion of these categories is provided in Noble (2018). either by presenting sound with no cues for pulse

Table 2. Excerpts used as stimuli in our experiment.

I. Segmentation (a) Subversion 1. Ligeti Continuum 1:15–2:15 2. Truax Riverrun 1:30–2:30 (b) Excess 3. Messiaen Quatuor III (Abîme) 2:48–3:48 4. Ligeti Atmosphères 0:00–1:00 II. Grouping (a) Subversion 5. Crumb Echoes III (Collapse) 0:00–1:12 6. Murail Désintégrations 6:02–7:13 (b) Excess 7. Messiaen Quatuor V (Éternité) 0:00–1:12 8. Ligeti Harmonies 0:45–1:45 III. Pulse (a) Subversion 9. Reich Come Out 4:00–5:00 10. Truax Riverrun 6:15–7:15 (b) Excess 11. Lutosławski Mi Parti 5:00–6:15 12. Reich Piano Phase 1:30–2:30 IV. Meter (a) Subversion 13. Tenney KOAN 0:00–1:00 14. Grisey Vortex Temporum III 10:30–11:40 (b) Excess 15. Messiaen Quatuor I (Liturgie) 0:30–1:30 16. Pärt Fratres 1:06–2:40 V. Repetition (a) Subversion 17. Cage Études Australes (IV–XXXII) 0:00–1:00 18. Zorn Carny 2:35–3:50 (b) Excess 19. Grisey Vortex Temporum I 0:00–1:00 20. Reich Come Out 11:30–12:30

Note: Time ranges indicate the position of the excerpt in the original recordings (see Discography).

entrainment, or by presenting conflicting, confusing or music concerned with alternate temporalities and irrational patterns that are difficult or impossible to timelessness. Two examples from the repertoire are resolve into a pulse. Pulse perception may be exceeded provided for each principle in Table 2. While excerpts by presenting multiple simultaneous patterns with in this table are chosen as exemplars of the indicated competing pulses, such that none of the available particular perceptual, this by no means implies that pulses presents as an organising principle. those principles are mutually exclusive: they frequently operate in tandem with each other. Let us 3.4. Metre note also that many authors on this subject posit that multiple temporalities may be concurrently present in Metre, which logically requires pulse, can naturally be the same music; for example, Grisey described musical subverted by pulse’s absence, but it can also be subverted time as ‘a place of exchange and coincidence between by the absence or dissolution of accent patterns within a an infinite number of different times’ (1987: 274). pulse stream. Metre can be exceeded by recurring accent While the prospect of multiple alternate temporalities patterns that are too long and/or complex to provide a simplifying cognitive framework for surface rhythms, is of immense interest, a thorough discussion of this or by overly complex polymetric superpositions (though subject is beyond the scope of this article. We have there is some controversy about the psychological reality chosen to adopt a simple opposition of time and time- ’ ‘ ’ of polymeter; see London 2004:49–50). lessness, following Fraser s observation that by time , ‘we usually mean something (whatever it may be) as experienced by people in full awareness of themselves’, 3.5. Repetition while ‘[m]ost other experiences to which temporality Repetition organises our sense of time through facil- may relate directly or indirectly, are lumped together itating the development of expectations. If a music under “timelessness”’ (1975: 305). We suspect that were to avoid repetition altogether, it would subvert subtler distinctions of temporalities, including concur- our capacity to form expectations, and therefore to rent temporalities, are also germane to electroacoustic structure the flow of time in terms of anticipated music, and we hope that future studies will pursue such events. At the other extreme, music that employs distinctions in detail. repetition excessively can cause us to adopt To the best of our knowledge, in spite of abundant different, non-linear listening strategies, diminishing scholarship on many of the pieces listed here (and our senses of retention and protention (Husserl others that exploit similar principles), no empirical [1928] 1964), resulting in ‘a satisfying pull toward studies have evaluated subjective experiences of time the present moment’ (Margulis 2013:18). andtimelessnessinrelationtotemporalorganisation Each of these principles has been exploited in this music. This is a primary aim of the pres- frequently in twentieth- and twenty-first-century ent study.

4. EXPERIMENT: TIME AND TIMELESSNESS respect to the senses of musical time and timelessness. IN CONTEMPORARY MUSIC These group differences will be evaluated in a future report with a larger sample size. We test the prediction of Noble (2018) that musics The first group of listeners was given the following subverting or exceeding the typical boundaries of instructions: human time scales may be associated with subjective experiences of timelessness. We also investigate the • You will hear a series of excerpts of contemporary psychophysical association between particular musical music, each of which is about a minute long. parameters (e.g., amplitude, spectral centroid, spectral • While you listen, you will be holding a joystick. On variation) and the listeners’ experience of musical time top of the joystick is a button. Pressing this button and timelessness. This study was certified by the will begin the listening trial, and you will see a small McGill University Research Ethics Board II. grey crosshair in the centre of the screen. If the music you are hearing expresses ‘normal’ time (i.e., the musical time being expressed is similar to your nor- 4.1. Stimuli mal experiences of time), leave the joystick in a All 20 excerpts presented in Table 2 were used as stim- central position. If the music expresses time speeding uli in the psychological experiment described in the up, move the joystick forward. If the music expresses following. For the purposes of this article, only the five time slowing down, move the joystick backward. The electroacoustic excerpts will be discussed in detail. amount you move the joystick should reflect the These were selected from Barry Truax’s Riverrun amount the time expressed by the music is altered. (2, 10), Tristan Murail’s Désintégrations (6), and You may continuously change the position of the Steve Reich’s Come Out (9, 20). joystick throughout each excerpt. • If the music expresses a state of timelessness – that is, a suspended or annihilated sense of time – release the 4.2. Listening panel top button. The crosshair will disappear from the Listeners2 were members of the McGill University middle of the screen. You may depress the button community, recruited using social media. They all pro- again if the music expresses that time has begun flow- vided informed consent. ing again; the crosshair will return on the screen. • Following each excerpt, you will be presented with a response form and asked to describe how strongly 4.3. Procedure the excerpt expressed time and/or timelessness. This experiment was conducted in the context of a The second group was given the same instructions larger research programme. We report the entire pro- except they were asked to respond to what the music cedure for the sake of completeness, although two ‘makes you feel’ instead of what the music ‘expresses’. procedural factors described in the following were On each trial of the experiment, listeners engaged the not analysed in the context of the present experiment: (a) the assignment of listeners to a perception or induc- joystick trigger to begin the playback of a musical tion group, and (b) the relation between listeners’ excerpt randomly selected from Table 2. Releasing Absorption in Music Scale scores (Sandstrom and the trigger did not stop the playback of the musical Russo 2013) and the experience of musical time and excerpt or the recording of the joystick data; that is, timelessness. Listeners were divided into two subject musical time and musical timelessness were indepen- populations according to the perception-induction dis- dently recorded as unique variables. Following each tinction familiar to musical emotion research (Juslin excerpt, listeners indicated on two 5-point Likert and Laukka 2004): half of the listeners were asked scales (a) the strength of their overall sense of time to rate the sense of time and timelessness expressed throughout the previous excerpt (1 = a weak sense by the musical excerpts they were listening to, while of time; 5 = a strong sense of time), and (b) the the other half were asked to rate the sense of time strength of their overall sense of timelessness through- and timelessness induced in them by the musical out the previous excerpt (1 = a weak sense of excerpt.3 Juslin and Laukka (2004) indicate that it is timelessness; 5 = a strong sense of timelessness). one thing for a listener to perceive an emotion expressed by a particular song and another for the Once the Likert responses were recorded, the listener song to induce that same feeling in the listener. We advanced to the next experimental trial. wondered if a similar situation may obtain with Following the conclusion of all experimental trials, listeners completed the Absorption in Music Scale 2There were 38 listeners in the study, of which 18 were female, with questionnaire (Sandstrom and Russo 2013). These an average age of 23 years. data were collected in the context of a larger-scale 3See Appendix for a description of the experimental apparatus. investigation of the relation between self-reported

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Figure 1. (a) Spectrograph with waveform, (b) mean joystick ratings, and (c) proportion of trigger depressions for Riverrun (1).

propensity for absorption in music and the experiences 4.4.1. Barry Truax, Riverrun (1986) (1) of musical time and timelessness. Riverrun was created entirely with real-time granular synthesis. Brief ‘grains’ of sound (sine tones or 4.4. Results frequency-modulated sine tones) as short as 8ms For each of the five electroacoustic excerpts of the (Helmuth 2006: 190–1) are deployed in varying densi- experiment, we present: (a) a combined waveform ties to produce distinct musical textures. The grains and spectrogram (range 0 Hz–20 kHz) of each sound; are distributed according to geometrical ‘tendency (b) the real-time ratings of experienced pace of time masks’ (Truax 1990). In this excerpt, Riverrun (1), throughout the excerpt, indicated by averaged joystick the grains are distributed over a wide frequency range, data; and (c) the real-time ratings of timelessness at first sparsely and then becoming progressively throughout the excerpt, indicated by averaged trigger denser in distribution (Figure 1a). data. We summarise these results in the context of This progressive densification of grains corresponds salient perceptual features for each excerpt. with a progressive dynamic crescendo. There is no Additionally, we report the average overall ‘sense of conventional metre or rhythm, but the global activity time’ and the average overall ‘sense of timelessness’ of the timbre-texture follows a clearly ‘ascending’ reported by each listener for each excerpt. trajectory. Listeners’ joystick responses indicate a

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Figure 2. (a) Spectrograph with waveform, (b) mean joystick ratings, and (c) proportion of trigger depressions for Riverrun (2).

corresponding steady increase in the pace of time vertical bars in spectrogram; Figure 2a). Over the (Figure 1b). Engaged trigger proportion (Figure 1c) course of the excerpt, the time windows widen progres- initially descends, indicating that nearly half of our sively as the spectral variation increases, diminishing listeners experienced a sense of timelessness, but after the clarity of attack and diffusing the sense of pulse 0:20 this proportion increases to ~0.8, in parallel with until it disappears. simultaneous changes in several other domains: the The very clear pulse and harmonic pitch at the perceived speed of time according to the joystick beginning of this excerpt correspond with consensus data (Figure 1b), the dynamic crescendo and spectral ratings of normative pace of time (Figure 2b) and variation of the excerpt. the music being in time (Figure 2c). At ~0:18, the simultaneous commencement of several process – the pulse-diffusing lengthening of the attack, the 4.4.2. Riverrun (2) pitch-diffusing upward spread of frequencies and the In this later section of Riverrun, grains are initially overall increase in amplitude – corresponds with a deployed in relatively tight time windows at 60 bpm fairly dramatic increase in the experienced pace of with a very clear and perfectly regular pulse (see time (Figure 2b) and a subtle increase in trigger

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Figure 3. (a) Spectrograph with waveform, (b) mean joystick ratings, and (c) proportion of trigger depressions for Désintégrations.

depression (Figure 2c). But after the pulse and pitch electroacoustically from the ‘disintegrated’ spectra of have dissolved entirely around 0:35, the reported pace the ensemble instruments (Anderson 1996). of time remains significantly accelerated (Figure 2b), The first ~43s of this excerpt feature a hybrid instru- while timelessness ratings increase progressively to mental-electroacoustic soundworld with progressively the end of the excerpt (Figure 2c). decelerating temporal processes coupled with progressively ascending pitch, both of which appear clearly in the spectrograph (Figure 3a). The reported pace of 4.4.3. Tristan Murail, Désintégrations (1983) time is unaltered until these processes really take hold Following an initial build-up with dramatically around 0:15, at which point there is a significant decelerating rhythm, ascent in register and modulation decrease (Figure 3b). Trigger data present a similar of instrumental and synthetic timbres, this excerpt contour during this section: consensus that the music features long pauses of about 4–7s separating clusters is in time for the first ~30s is followed by a gradual of high, computer-generated, bell-like sounds, derived increase in timelessness ratings (Figure 3c). During

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Figure 4. (a) Spectrograph with waveform, (b) mean joystick ratings, and (c) proportion of trigger depressions for Come Out (1).

the resonant pause and silence following the bell-like deviating far from the resting position (Figure 4b). hit around 0:43, timelessness indications dramatically Trigger releases, indicating a listeners’ sense of time- increase, while the joystick ratings return to a norma- lessness, are rare in the beginning of the excerpt but tive range, where they roughly remain for the rest of increase to ~0.5, indicating that half of the listeners the excerpt. After ~0:48, clusters of bell-like sounds report timelessness towards the end of the excerpt correspond with lower timelessness ratings while the (Figure 4c). The increasing indications of timelessness pauses that follow them correspond with higher fre- do not correspond with any clear changes in the music, quencies of timelessness indications. but rather with prolonged duration of a repetitive texture: this effect appears to stabilise or slightly reverse after ~30 seconds, coincident with the phrasing of the 4.4.4. Steve Reich, (1966) (1) Come Out vocal sample. Come Out is an example of Reich’s phasing technique, achieved by playing multiple tapes of the same sound 4.4.5. Come Out (2) (in this case, short segments of speech) looping at minutely different speeds (Griffiths 2001). Subtly In this excerpt, only very short fragments of the origi- shifting phase relationships make it difficult to locate nal speech sample remain, and the ubiquitous a clear pulse in spite of the obvious repetition visible in repetition is perhaps the most salient feature: as the spectrograph. Musical parameters such as timbre Margulis describes it, such small repeating units create and dynamics remain fairly stable over the course of an ‘intense impression, as if the music were bombard- this excerpt (Figure 4a), and the mean joystick values ing you again and again from close proximity’ seem to reflect that, slightly increasing but never (Margulis 2013: 44). The looped fragment is so short

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Figure 5. (a) Spectrograph with waveform, (b) mean joystick ratings, and (c) proportion of trigger depressions for Come Out (2).

that the words are unlikely to be understood, though p = 0.001). Note, for example, that the sense of time phonetic and vocal qualities may still be recognised. is stronger than the sense of timelessness in the An overall dynamic decrescendo occurs over the Riverrun excerpts, while the reverse effect is true in course of the excerpt (Figure 5a), while other musical the Come Out excerpts, in which listeners experienced parameters appear to remain constant. In listener a greater overall sense of timelessness than of time. results, there is even less movement in the reported pace of time (Figure 5b), but a fairly steady, progressive increase in indications of timelessness (Figure 5c). 5. DISCUSSION

4.4.6 Post-trial questionnaire responses The strong consistencies between listeners in their ratings leave little doubt that temporality and timeless- Figure 6 presents the mean overall strength of the ness are, or at least can be, indexed to specific musical sense of time and timelessness reported by all listeners properties. But the musical properties that are linked after completing the real-time joystick trials. with temporality and timelessness appear to be con- An omnibus repeated-measures analysis of variance text-dependent: our observations do not reveal a examined changes in the difference score between lis- single musical parameter that corresponds with the teners’ judgements of their experience of time and pace of time or with timelessness. This may run timelessness across the five excerpts. The difference counter to intuition: it may seem tempting to assume, in relative strength between listeners’ impressions of for example, that tempo would be the pre-eminent time and timelessness depend on the specific musical indicator of the pace of time. Our findings suggest that excerpt in question, and listeners’ subjective reports while this may sometimes be the case, as the deceler- vary significantly between excerpts (F(37) = 11.87; ando in Désintégrations did indeed correspond with a

Figure 6. Means for overall strength of sense of time and timelessness for each excerpt.

reduction in the reported pace of time, the pace of At the end of Riverrun (2), the pace of time is indicated time may also be driven by other musical or sonic as significantly accelerated, and yet timelessness rat- parameters, such as textural density as seen in ings are very high. Riverrun (1), where the reported pace of time increased Further evidence that experiences of timelessness are steadily in spite of the absence of tempo per se, or linked to definable musical properties comes from the spectral distribution and/or sound intensity as seen Likert ratings of the overall strengths of senses of time in Riverrun (2), where the pace of time increased even and timelessness, which show that for the Come Out as the tempo remained constant, and stayed high even excerpts the sense of timelessness is significantly higher, after the cues for tempo disappeared altogether. For for Riverrun (1) the sense of time is significantly higher, timelessness, stasis or homogeneity may seem like and for Riverrun (2) and Désintégrations the differences the most intuitive correlates, but these are abstract are marginal. Exactly what is driving the differences concepts that are difficult to define clearly in acousti- seems to vary with the musical context of each excerpt cal terms, and not all instances of musical timelessness and may also be affected by subjective listening behav- appear to be characterised by them anyway. In the iours. Indeed, these interpretations were conveyed examples from Come Out, which are relatively textur- intuitively and succinctly by our listeners. Following ally homogeneous throughout, there was indeed a the ratings portion of the experiment, they were invited progressive increase in timelessness ratings over the to describe what in the music they thought they were course of the excerpt, and likewise with the end of responding to in their assessments of time and timeless- Riverrun (2) after a homogeneous texture had been ness. Their responses would seem to corroborate many established. But the most dramatic increases of time- of our hypotheses. For example: lessness indications in these excerpts appear after the Not sure if what I think is ‘timelessness’ is what you con- bell-like tones in Désintégrations and were apparently ceived it to be, but to me, when the music was static, not related to the stark, heterogeneous contrast between changing, especially in pitches, or when a few pitches the musical sound and its absence in the long interven- were repeating over and over, I thought that expressed ing pauses. ‘timelessness’. Another important observation is that the responses A pulse helps to keep track of time, but dynamics also for the pace of time (joystick) and the experience of influence the flow of time. timelessness (trigger) follow clearly different contours, indicating that the one is not just an extreme example Mostly tempo and rhythmic value, but also repetitiveness of the other, but that they are separate, decoupled phe- and harmonies. nomenologies. Our observations suggest that it is not On the one hand, there were too many events to keep the case that time slows down, down, down and even- track of; on the other hand, there could have just been tually stops: in both examples from Come Out, there is one continuous note and I didn’t know how long it would little displacement of the pace of time from its norma- go on for. tive position, but the frequencies of timelessness When the rhythm or loudness of the music is rapidly ratings (indicated by trigger releases) progressively changing, I can feel the flow of time. When the tempo increase, with roughly half of listeners indicating an of music doesn’t change so much, even timbre changes, experience of timelessness by the end of each excerpt. I feel timelessness.

Responses such as these clearly suggest that the listen- connections between the music we have studied and ers’ responses are not whimsical or arbitrary, but nor the temporal (or atemporal) experiences reported by are they unanimously linked with the same musical our listeners. However, the musical properties that properties. There is an element of subjective interpreta- appear to drive these connections vary considerably tion, but the interpretation is guided non-arbitrarily by from excerpt to excerpt. We can certainly agree with the objective properties of the musical stimulus. Rouget when he says that ‘one thing is certain ::: these A study of this nature has several limitations. relations are not simple’ (Rouget 1980: 429). Although stimuli are excerpts from music and are cho- Contextually variable though our findings may be, sen for their temporal properties, they are fairly short we observe some general tendencies that support our (58–94s) and are excised from their original musical con- suggestion that musical timelessness does relate to text. An experimental setting in a laboratory may not be the excessive and subversive possibilities of temporal conducive to, and may in fact detract from, the experi- organisation offered by electroacoustic media. ences of musical absorption, time, and timelessness that Prolonged duration – whether of fused sound events we mean to study. Therefore, this study presents at most or complex musical textures such as those made pos- a piece of the puzzle; further research will be required to sible with looping or granular synthesis – does appear gain an ecologically valid perspective. to correlate with an increased sense of timelessness. Thesameappearstobetrueofresonantpausesor silences (as also demonstrated in Knowles 2016), 6. CONCLUSION but context may be as important as a relative absence of sound; for example, both the beginning of In his landmark study of the many manifestations of Riverrun the trance state, Gilbert Rouget said ‘relations (1) and the resonant pauses following the between music and trance ::: are extremely varied, bell-like hits in Désintégrations are spectrally rather such that from one case to another it often happens empty, but the stark contrast between presence and that they contradict one another and that it is absence in Désintégrations appears to considerably extremely difficult to formulate a rule about them augment the impression of timelessness it is reported without a counter-example coming to falsify it’ to convey. (1980: 429). Considerations such as this led Judith The perceived pace of time does seem to follow a – Becker to conclude that ‘[t]here is nothing intrinsic general up down metaphor with respect to musical – to the music that can cause trancing. The relationship parameters (Lakoff and Johnson 1980:1421): an between music and trance is not causal or determin- increase in some parameter or another appears to istic ::: given the right cultural expectations, any correlate with an increase in the reported pace of kind of music, vocal or instrumental, can be associated time. However, our observations do not suggest a with trance’ (Becker 2004:25–6). We agree that when simple one-to-one correspondence with any particu- complicating factors such as social expectations, lar parameter: in these excerpts we observe ritual, personal histories and subjective propensities contextual correlations between the pace of time are introduced into the equation, the types of music that and tempo, textural density, sound intensity and can be associated with altered experiences of time spectral distribution. Perhaps other parameters extend far beyond the relatively circumscribed range still may correlate with the pace of time in other of musics discussed in this article. But if it is oversimpli- musical contexts. But in spite of this plurality of fying to think that there may be a direct causal possible mappings, the connections are not arbitrary: relationship between musical properties and the trance as detailed above, reported states and changes in state, our findings suggest that it may also be oversim- the pace of time are qualitatively coherent between plifying to think that there is no determinate connection listeners, and map onto properties that are objec- whatsoever between musical properties and subjective tively present in the musical stimuli. Listeners’ experiences of time and timelessness, especially if we verbal descriptions of the properties of the music are considering the time or timelessness that music to which they were responding, while referencing a may express as opposed to altered states of mind that variety of different parameters, also corroborate music may induce (such as the trance state). If musical the emphasis on excess and subversion that is at properties and subjective experiences of time and time- the core of our theory of musical temporality. lessness were truly unconnected (or connected only We thus conclude that there is evidence to support haphazardly), we would expect all of our excerpts to our notion that the subversive and excessive temporal be rated equally for strength of senses of time and timescales and structures made accessible through non- lessness, and for the joystick and trigger data to be human sound production – notably, electroacoustic randomly dispersed with no meaningful connection to music – do relate meaningfully to musical timelessness, the musical stimuli. This is not at all what we observe: though the complex many-to-many mapping by which there are unquestionably consistent and meaningful such interpretations proceed may be expected to yield

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thetriggerengagedatagivenmomentinthepiece, completing the experiment, listeners passed a pure- they would all be experiencing the music as in time tone audiometric test at octave-spaced frequencies at that moment (proportion 1.0), whereas if they from 125 Hz to 8 kHz (Martin and Champlin all had the trigger disengaged at a given moment 2000;ISO389–8, 2004) and were required to have in the piece, they would all be experiencing the music thresholds at or below 20 dB HL to proceed to the as timeless at that moment (proportion 0). Before experiment.