HORIZONTAL STRUCTURE One Way in Which Most Styles of Music Strive
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CHAPTER XI HORIZONTAL STRUCTURE One way in which most styles of music strive to satisfy the listener is to present repeating patterns which are easily recognized by the listener. Certainly this represents a connection between music and mathematics, although the mathematics involved here is not deep for the mostpart. Duration of Notes Time durations in music are often measured in beats, which are the temporal units by which music is notated. Frequently one beat represents the time interval by which one is prone to “count off” the passing of time while the music is performed, although this is not always the case. The most basic notational unit, of course, is the note, and the duration of the note is indicated by such things as note stems, dots, and tuplet designations. The durational names of notes in Western music is based on the whole note, which has a duration in beats (often four) dictated by the time signature (discussed below). Notes whose duration has proportion 1/2n,n∈ Z+ with the duration of the whole note are named according to that proportion. Thus, if the whole note has a certain duration in beats, then the half note has half that duration, the quarternotehas one fourth that duration, etc. In the situation where a whole note gets four beats, then a half note gets two beats and the sixty-fourth note represents one eighth of a beat. We will use the term durational note to mean a note distinguished by its duration, such as half note, quarter note, independent of its associated pitch. The pitch of a note, of course, is dictated by the notes vertical position on the staff. The duration of the note of the note is dictated by several details which we will discuss individually. They are: (1) whether the interior of notehead is filled. (2) the presence or absence ofanotestem,and, if present, the number of flags on the stem. (3) the number of dots following the note, if any. (4) the tuplet designation of the note, if any. Noteheads, Stems and Flags. The whole note and half note are written with an unfilled ≥ 1 1 notehead. For n 2the 2n -th note is written with a filled notehead. All 2n -th notes except the whole note (i.e., the case n =0)possess a note stem, which either extends upward from the right side of the noteheadordownwardfrom the left side of the notehead. For n ≥ 3, Typeset by AMS-TEX 1 2XI.HORIZONTAL STRUCTURE 1 − the 2n -th note’s stem is given n 2flags. Thus an eighth note (n =3)hasone flag, a sixteenth (n =4)notehas two flags, etc. § § § § © ¨ § ¹ º » ¼ whole note half note quarter note eighth note sixteenth note thirty second note sixty fourth note Dots. The dot beside a note extends its duration by one half its original duration or equiv- alently, multiplies the original duration by 3/2. Hence a dotted sixteenth note’s duration in beats (still assuming for the moment that the whole note gets four beats) is given by 1 1 1 · 3 3 4 (1 + 2 )= 4 2 = 8 .Asecond dot beside the note calls for an additional duration of one fourth the original duration (in addition to the extra duration elicited by the first dot), so 1 1 1 1 · 7 7 that a sixteenth note with two dots has duration 4 (1 + 2 + 4 )= 4 4 = 16 .Although it may seem like a purely academic exercise (since only rarely are more than two dots used), we observe that a note of duration d followed by a m dots has duration dm given by 1 1 ··· 1 dm =d (1 + + 2 + + m ) 2 2 2 m 1 i = d d i=0 (1) m+1 1 − 1 1 m+1 = d 2 = d 2 1 − . 1 − 1 2 2 1 m 2m − 1 = d 2 − = d 1+ 2 2m The third line in the sequence of equalities above uses the fact m 1 − rm+1 (2) ri =1+r + r2 + ···+ rm = , 1 − r i=0 which holds for any integer m ≥ 0andanyrealnumberr =1.The proof of this will appear as an exercise. Tuplets. Note that musical notation is highly oriented around the prime number 2 and 1 its powers. We do not use terms like “fifth note” or “ninth note.” To divide the 2n -th note into k equal notes, where k is not a power of 2, we form a k-tuplet as follows. Find the unique positive integer r such that 2r <k<2r+1 1 and notate the tuplet as a group of k 2n+r -th notes overset or underset by the integer k. 1 The resulting tuplet is called the 2n+r -th note k-tuplet. 1 For example, suppose we wish to divide the quarter note ( 22 -thnote) into 3 equal pieces, forming a triplet. Here n =2,andsince 21 < 3 < 22,wehaver =1.Wewriteasequence XI. HORIZONTAL STRUCTURE 3 1 of 3 22+1 -th notes, or eighth notes, overset by 3, forming an eighth note triple. If, instead, we want to divide the quarter note into 5 notes of equal duration, we note that 22 < 5 < 23, 1 so r =2,sowewriteasequence of 5 22+2 -th notes, or sixteenth notes, overset by 5. We call this a sixteenth note 5-tuplet. 3 5 § § § § § § § § eigth note triplet sixteenth note 5-tuplet Ties. Two notes may be tied together to indicate that they are to be considered as one note whose value is the sum of the durations of the two tied notes. Hence, if a whole note gets four beats, then the tying of a quarter note, whose duration is 1, to a dotted sixteenth, 1 1 3 3 11 whose duration is 4 (1 + 2 )= 8 ,givesaduration of 1 + 8 = 8 beats. Meter. Apiece of music is commonly divided into groups of n beats, for some integer n ≥ 1. Such groups are called measures or bars. The meter of the piece is the number n of beats to a measure together with a assignment of which durational note gets one beat’s duration. These parameters are specified by the time signature of the piece, which is placed just after the clef symbol (and at subsequent positions if meter changes). The time n signature is given by two integers r where r is a power of 2. (We refrain from writing n/r to avoid confusion with fractions.) The meaning of n and r is given as follows: Case 1. 3 does not divide n: The top number n specifies the number of beats to a m 1 measure and the bottom number r =2 designates that the 2m -th note getsonebeat. 2 Thus the time signature 4 indicated 2 beats to a measure with a quarter noter getting one beat. Case 2. 3 divides n and n>3 : In this case the number of beats to a measure is given 1 m by n/3, and three 2m -thnotes give one beat (where, again, r =2 .Thismeans that one 1 6 beat is signified by a dotted 2m−1 -th note. Thus in 8 time there are 6/3=2beatsper measure and one beat is signified by three eighth notes, or a dotted quarter note. Rhythm. Rhythm is the way in which time is organized within measures. Consider these examples: § § § § § § § § § § § § § ¨ 4 § 4 § § § § § § ´ § § § § § § ´ § § § § § ´ ¨ 9 § 8 Upon playing these in tempo (by simply tapping) one observes that a certain amount of musical satisfaction is arisesfromthevariation of waysinwhichthemeasures are filled with 4XI.HORIZONTAL STRUCTURE durational notes. Rhythms can straighforward or subtle. Jazz often avoids the obvious by temporarily obscuring the meter using complex sequences. Form. The sequence of larger sections of music into which music may be organized is sometimes called form. The number of measures in a section is typically a power of 2. For example, ragtime compositions typically consist of three or four sections, each section having 16 measures; sometimes one or more ofthesesections is repeated once. These sections are distingushable by the listener because by virtue of different rhythmic and melodic character. If a composition consisted of three sections, we might denote the form by: .Ifthefirst two sections are repeated, the form would be .ScottJoplin’s Maple Leaf Rag has the form . Most songs in American popular music an folkmusiccanbenaturally divided into 8-bar segments, some which typically recur. One common pattern is ,exemplified by the Tin Pan Alley song Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue. If a section differs only slightly from one which preceded it, it may be given the same letter followed by .Forexample, the form of the song Edelweiss is represented by ..