Ghost Structures: Cyclic Temporal Schemes and Their Implications for Notation, Improvisation, and Technology

Abstract

This research arrives at a unique real-time notational framework in Max MSP through transcription-based analysis of musical works around the subject of hidden rhythmic phenomena. Dialogue between contemporary improvisational musical practices and non-western approaches to non-linear temporality reveals that there are many kinds of hidden schemes that have profound effects on the music as it is being performed and conceptualized of. Through uncovering these hidden schemes, which I call ghost structures, we can arrive at more apt notational vocabulary for the representation of such musical practices, understand more closely the performer’s perception of non-linear temporalities, and also explore new creative applications. Through this dissertation, I experiment with the application of interculturally-minded scholarship surrounding meter and cyclic rhythm, such as Justin London’s Hearing in Time, to the notation of 1) meter and 2) cyclical rhythmic schemes in specific musical examples. I support these experiments with a discussion of the ghost symbolism across several distinct musical practices and its entailments in hauntology and anthropology. Transcription of recorded works is an important method used throughout this dissertation, because the majority of the studied musical sources are largely performance-based and have not been analyzed before in the context of academic research. The transcriptions include: the improvisation of Thelonious Monk on his composition, Evidence, Craig Taborn’s trio polyrhythmic work All True Night / Future Perfect (2013), Tyshawn Sorey’s trio composition Awakening (2009), Carlo Costa’s Oblio (2016), and Homayun Sakhi’s performance of Raga Yaman (2006). These transcriptions and analyses bring new insight into the composers’ and performers’ practices at the boundaries of contemporary classical music, avant-garde improvised music, and intercultural music, while also providing the testing for the experimental notational vocabulary. The concept of ghost structures connects these practices with my own improvisational practice.

In the accompanying creative work, I explore three innovative subjects: the application of circular notation to new works for improvisers, the application of the concept of ghost structures to emergent structures within collective improvisation, and the development of a real-time animated notation software for notating and performing musical materials created within improvisation using MIDI input. These creative developments can serve as additional resources for other composer-improvisers whose work is created largely in real time, and who wish to integrate non-western approaches to rhythm and temporality into their compositions. On a musicological level, the findings in this research may help other transcription-based research in studying and representing works with non-linear, improvisational, and otherwise ephemeral musical processes.