Sonorities fabric: application proposal of the Compound Sound Unit concept to the Partitional Analysis.
Rafael Fortes – [email protected]
Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
The Compound Sound Units Analysis (CSUA), developed by Didier Guigue, and the Partitional Analysis (PA), developed by Pauxy Gentil-Nunes, are recent works in the fields of analysis and musical composition, with expressive results in terms of publications and a variety of derived researches. It is proposed, in the present article, the application of the CSU concept to one of the utilizations of the PA: the events partitioning. The main goal is to comprehend the textural dynamic through unities defined within the scope of the CSU, i.e., established through mutuality and relativity relations. This proposal intends to actualize the concept of event used on the PA, suggesting a new form of objective quantification through concepts developed at CSUA, and establish the concept of sonorities fabric, which consists on the formal syntax derived through the interactions between CSUs, observed through the events partitioning. A brief exposition of the two theories, followed by a comparative analysis, is then realized to demonstrate the convergence point in which the application will be made.
PA is the resultant system of the mediation between the theory of integers partitions, initially formulated by Euler (1748), and a variety of theoretic scopes related to musical composition and analysis, with initial inspiration on Wallace Berry’s work (1976) in textural analysis.
In the PA’s scope, the textural configuration concept (Berry 1976) is regarded as a partition of an exhaustive taxonomy, constructed through the consideration of its internal relationships (agglomeration and dispersion). Two graphical structures where designed for visualization of Partitional progressions in music: the partitiogram, which constitutes an inventory off all possible textural dispositions for a determined quantity of parts, and the indexogram, which displays the agglomeration and dispersion indexes as coordinates on a temporal graphic.
Compiled in his doctorate thesis (2009), Gentil-Nunes developed three analytical applications for the PA: the rithmic partitioning, the melodic partitioning and the events partitioning. On the present work, it is proposed the comprehension of these analytical applications as three hierarchic levels: as central axis the rithmic partitioning (because it deals with interactions between different melodies, regarded as parts) by which are derived its subset, the melodic partitioning (because it deals with partitional progressions on a simple melodic fabric, i.e., within a fixed partitioning), and its superset, the events partitioning (because it deals with wider structures, resultants of a variety of components interaction, understood by these terms, on the present work, as complex structures).
We elected the CSU concept as the model for the investigation of the possibilities within events partitioning. The motif for this choice is the comprehension that the underlying dialog on the CSU concept, between the terms compound and unit, is also present on the idea of events partitioning. Another reason is the comprehension of musical event as a complex structure, a definition that will be echoed in guigue’s theory.
CSU is interchangeable with the notion of sonority developed by Didier Guigue to analyse the sonorities aesthetic. Referring to Debussy’s music as a precursor of this music understanding, the author describes the changes on compositional paradigms in which sonority is no longer a vehicle “of a discourse previously elaborated by abstract materials” (Guigue 2011, 26), but a unity that: “reaches the first hierarchic level, being able to submit to its dynamic logic the rest of the material; on the lower level, the pitch organization, as on the higher, the formal organization on large scale” (id., 28)
CSU is defined as “a complex structure generated by the interaction of a variety of components within the musical writing” (id., 49). Guigue categorizes the components as being: of morphological order, providing “a static representation of the sound unity’s internal configuration”; and of kinetic order, “evaluating the distributional modalities of sonic facts within the time span occupied by the unity” (id., 59). The data generations over the components constitute a wide informational scope on which the author supports the CSU’s analysis.
Therefore, we deal with two researches based on discrete representations of sonic compounds. It is necessary to emphasize two essential critics between the two analytic methodologies:
Firstly, the relationship between data generation and interpretation. The PA utilizes an automaton (the program PARSEMAT), so the interpretation is realized a posteriori to the data generation. This process can lead to epiphanies about the work that can escape to the sheet-based interpretation. At CSU analysis, defined as a theory-based analysis, it is effectuated a choice process between the many indexes and vectors, with the intention to support objectively the interpretation. It is a feedback process between theory-based interpretation and extensive generation of data.
Secondly, the conceptual definition of unity. In PA’s case, an absolute minimal unity describes the compounds. The note is the indecomposable atomic referential that forms combinations within a vector between maximal simplicity (1), to extreme complexities (53419). At CSUA, the unity has no a priori definition, since a CSU components are defined according to a comparative, relative analysis. The concept of unity is the result of the “combination and interaction of a variable number of components” (Guigue 2011, 47)
The choice for the CSUA is therefore justified as the adequate model for the events partitioning conceptual ground. It is then possible to establish two analytical models that complement each other: the CSUA, as criteria generator for the identification of the idiosyncratic characteristics to a determinate sonority, and the events partitioning, as the describer of the relationship between CSUs and its development on the temporal axis. We intend, by this fusion, to propose the concept of sonorities fabric, which describes the formal syntax of musical works.
