explores the continuum of variable sound masses without clearly discernible pitches and durations.
This music evokes spatial impressions of foreground and background, distance and proximity, height
and depth, transparence and density, stasis and motion. Lutoslawski’s Livre pour orchestre employs
quarter-tones, which create impressions of living streams of sound, moving flexibly and multi-dire-
ctionally in space. The achievements of the composers are summed up as explorations of timbre,
pitch, intensity, movement and pulse, and investigations of the spatial potentials of musical sound.
- Space, Time, Flow and Memory
Suggestion of memorized representations of the basic listening dimensions, pp. 317-324.
Music is a continuous flow of states, events, and transformations that appear and disappear. The
flow of music can be retained in memory. Four basic listening dimensions are represented in memo-
ry; timbre is represented as a particular quality of sound, pitch as a distinct level of pitch height, mo-
vement as a shape, and pulse as tempo. All of these are qualitative potentials of perceived sound. In
addition, pitch and pulse possess quantitative properties, which can be counted and measured.
- Time, Space, and the Environment
Temporal and spatial experience in music, pp. 325-334.
Music evokes three kinds of temporal experience; the time of being, which is related to slow or im-
perceptible change, the time of movement, which is related to the sensation of change, and the time
of pulse, which is related to the sensation of regularity.
The three kinds of time and their interactions are identified in works by Charles Ives, The
Unanswered Question, and Central Park in the Dark. As well as sensations of time, these works
evoke impressions of space by means of static transparent sound fields, or slowly changing complex
chord colors.
Based on considerations of temporal and spatial qualities in music, the concept of Musical
Timespace is proposed. In the experience of music, time and space are integrated in a virtual timespace.
- Microtemporal listening dimensions: Timbre, Harmony and Pitch
Relationships between the microtemporal listening dimensions, pp. 335-343.
Timbre is described as the substance of music, characterized by microtemporal changes of spectral
qualities. The microtemporal and spectral properties of musical sound are perceived in two simulta-
neous dimensions, timbre and pitch. It is proposed that harmony emerges as a secondary listening
dimension between timbre and pitch, integrating the properties of timbre and pitch in the particular
quality of harmonic color.
- Macrotemporal listening dimensions: Movement, Pulse, Rhythm and Melody
Relationships between the macrotemporal listening dimensions, pp. 344-356.
Melody and rhythm are secondary listening dimensions. Melody arises between movement and pitch
as a spatial shape of movement. Rhythm arises between movement and pulse as a temporal shape
of movement.
A movement from Ligeti’s Second string quartet exemplifies interactions between movement
time and pulse time, and transitions between temporal regularity and irregularity. Coleman Hawkins’
saxophone solo Body and Soul exemplifies the shaping of melody and rhythm.
Change and regularity constitute the fundamental basis of the listening dimensions.