ISTANBUL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES THE STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS OF TIMBRAL COHERENCE AND ITS COMPOSITIONAL APPLICATION Ph.D. THESIS Enis GÜMÜŞ Department of Music Music Programme MAY 2020 ISTANBUL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES THE STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS OF TIMBRAL COHERENCE AND ITS COMPOSITIONAL APPLICATION Ph.D. THESIS Enis GÜMÜŞ (409132013) Department of Music Music Programme Thesis Advisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Eray ALTINBÜKEN MAY 2020 İSTANBUL TEKNİK ÜNİVERSİTESİ SOSYAL BİLİMLER ENSTİTÜSÜ TINISAL BÜTÜNLÜĞÜN YAPISAL ÖĞELERİ VE KOMPOZİSYONEL UYGULAMASI DOKTORA TEZİ Enis GÜMÜŞ (409132013) Müzik Anabilim Dalı Müzik Programı Tez Danışmanı: Dr. Öğr. Üyesi Eray ALTINBÜKEN MAYIS 2020 Enis GÜMÜŞ, a Ph.D. student of ITU Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences student ID 409132013, successfully defended the dissertation entitled “THE STRUCTURAL ELEMENTS OF TIMBRAL COHERENCE AND ITS COMPOSITIONAL APPLICATION”, which he prepared after fulfilling the requirements specified in the associated legislations, before the jury whose signatures are below. Thesis Advisor : Asst. Prof. Dr. Eray ALTINBÜKEN .............................. Istanbul Technical University Jury Members : Prof. Dr. Can KARADOĞAN ............................. Istanbul Technical University Prof. Dr. Tolga TÜZÜN .............................. Istanbul Bilgi University Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jerfi AJİ .............................. Istanbul Technical University Assoc. Prof. Ali Ahmet ALTINEL .............................. Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University Date of Submission : 30 April 2020 Date of Defense : 25 May 2020 v vi Dünya’nın bir yerinde, milyarlarca yıldır bekleyen ve bizden sonra da milyarlarca yıl orada olacak bir kaya parçasına. vii viii FOREWORD First of all, I would like to thank my advisor Asst. Prof. Dr. Eray ALTINBÜKEN, thesis committee members Prof. Dr. Tolga TÜZÜN and Prof. Dr. Can KARADOĞAN, and jury members Assoc. Prof. Dr. Jerfi AJİ and Assoc. Prof. Ali Ahmet ALTINEL for their support and guidance throughout the development and completion of this thesis. I would also like to express my gratitude to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Robert REIGLE and Dr. Reuben DE LAUTOUR for their help and support during the initial stages of my work. I would like to thank Ali ÖZDOLAP for guiding me in my discovery of the essence of all music. I would also like to thank René UIJLENHOET, Robin DE RAAFF, Luc BREWAEYS (R.I.P.), Jan Bas BOLLEN and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Koray SAZLI from my undergraduate and master’s education years, for teaching me how to embrace my profession as it is, and giving me the courage to pursue a life in it. I am thankful to my dear friends and colleagues for their support and friendship; with special thanks to Dr. Sair Sinan KESTELLİ and Şehnaz İpek GÖRGÜN for their companionship and solidarity during my doctoral studies; to Dilara TURAN, Tunca OLCAYTO and Aslı KOBANER for enduring our tough debates of all kinds of topics; to Baran DÜZCE, Nergiz ERCAN, Dr. Kamil Korhan NAZLIBEN, Dr. Haki PAMUK, Dr. Serhan SADIKOĞLU, and Sam David WAMPER for being wonderful friends in the days of darkness; and to all fellow travelers who share the burdens of this one-way journey. I am grateful to my father, İsa GÜMÜŞ and my brother, Murat GÜMÜŞ, for believing in me, regardless of whatever I am doing. I am grateful to my mother, my first music teacher, Ayşe GÜMÜŞ, whom I miss a lot, for the life and love she has given me. Lastly, I would like to thank my housemates L. Sıfır and R. Buçuk for keeping me sane (especially during these ‘quarantine days’); and the great, dark and endless void, for reminding me of its conceptual existence that flows into this supposedly material world, drags everything out of their places, and carries on forever. Without the inspiration and warnings coming from it, this work would not be possible. May 2020 Enis GÜMÜŞ ix x TABLE OF CONTENTS Page FOREWORD ............................................................................................................. ix TABLE OF CONTENTS .......................................................................................... xi ABBREVIATIONS ................................................................................................. xiii SYMBOLS ................................................................................................................ xv LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................. xvii LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................ xix SUMMARY ............................................................................................................. xxi ÖZET ...................................................................................................................... xxiii 1. INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 1 1.1 Motivation and Purpose ............................................................................... 2 1.2 Timbral Coherence ....................................................................................... 3 1.3 A Brief History of Timbre in Composition .................................................. 4 2. TIMBRE, ITS COGNITION AND CATEGORIZATION .......................... 11 2.1 Timbral Continuum .................................................................................... 12 2.2 Vertical and Horizontal Organization in Composition .............................. 15 2.3 Horizontality and Melody .......................................................................... 18 2.3.1 Interaction of timbre with pitch and dynamics ...................................... 19 2.3.2 Melodic intervals and intonation ............................................................ 21 2.3.3 Sequences and relativity of timbre ......................................................... 23 2.3.4 Streaming, grouping, segregation .......................................................... 27 2.3.5 Expectation and memory........................................................................ 31 2.4 A Re-Evaluation of Timbre ........................................................................ 34 2.4.1 Timbral levels ........................................................................................ 35 2.4.2 Timbral types ......................................................................................... 38 3. GESTURE ......................................................................................................... 41 3.1 Gesture and Language ................................................................................ 41 3.2 Musical Gestures and Their Categorization ............................................... 43 3.2.1 Performer’s gestures............................................................................... 44 3.2.2 First-level gestures ................................................................................. 47 3.2.3 Second-level gestures ............................................................................. 50 3.2.4 Composer’s categorizations ................................................................... 53 3.3 Conveyance of Musical Gesture through Composition and Performance . 55 4. THE INTERACTION: GESTURE-TIMBRE NETWORK ........................ 59 4.1 A General Description of The Method....................................................... 60 4.2 Timbral Object and Network Analysis ...................................................... 62 4.2.1 Source identity ....................................................................................... 62 4.2.2 Registral region and spectral region ....................................................... 63 4.2.3 Envelope ................................................................................................. 65 4.2.4 Object classes and types ......................................................................... 66 4.3 Gestural Network Analysis ........................................................................ 68 xi 4.3.1 Gestures and timbral gestures ................................................................ 69 4.3.2 Temporal Considerations ....................................................................... 70 4.4 Significance and Markedness .................................................................... 70 4.5 Contextual Considerations ......................................................................... 72 4.6 Re-Evaluation of Form in a Fictive Case ................................................... 73 5. SOME PROVISIONAL APPLICATIONS ................................................... 77 5.1 Anton Webern, Op. 10, Fünf Stücke für Orchester (1913) ........................ 77 5.2 George Crumb, Black Angels (1970) ......................................................... 88 6. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 93 REFERENCES ......................................................................................................... 97 APPENDICES ........................................................................................................ 105 xii ABBREVIATIONS ADSR : Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release ca. : Circa gest. : Gesture IRCAM : Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique m., mm. : Measure, measures MDS : Multi dimensional scale no. : Number op. : Opus PAT : Perceptual Attack