Articulation, the way sounds are started and stopped, is a very important transmitter of energy. The connection between speech and music is deep and multi-faceted, but for now I want to bring attention to the way we interpret another’s words as a result of how they are articulated, and suggest that the same sort of influence on musical meaning exists. Crisp, deliberate, sharply defined words or notes bring a particular energy, while smooth, lugubrious delivery of words or notes brings another. Notice that I’m not saying what the energy is in either case, since that might be cross-cultural in some respects, but rather culturally delimited in others. In all cases, what we perceive to be the meaning of the words or notes is altered, however subtly.
Here comes a set of differing articulations of the same spoken words. After listening to each, describe the energy of the statement if you wish.
Of course, it’s hard to speak those differences without some variation of intonation, which would be melody on some level. More about melody in a future post, but for now it’s enough to say that no one musical parameter can exist on its own. Everything relates to everything, meaning that the circumstances of those relations, what we call context, is of critical importance in music as in speech.
Having mentioned context and interdependence, it is worth noting that articulation can produce multiple levels of “events” that constitute what I call horizontal density. (Horizontal density is the frequency of events per unit of time, a parameter that I will explore in the blog soon.) For example, a steady flow of fast notes (one measure of horizontal density already) might have a regular or irregular pattern of crisply-articulated beginnings that emphasize a beat or create a second level of density, potentially a recognizable rhythm that interacts with the beat, and so forth.
Witness the changes that follow, varying the initial steady flow of notes in the first example through changes of articulation. No responses this time, just register the feeling for yourself.
One might notice that articulation in this context, without words to influence, is essentially about the dynamic level of the beginnings of notes. For this reason, one will not find articulation discussed as an aspect of acoustical energy, since it can be subsumed by another, more purely acoustical factor. But this feature of our speech, and our mind’s ability to decipher the subtle inflections that influence our perception of meaning so immediately, is sure to be active as we listen to music. Many of us have developed that sensibility to a point potentially beyond that developed for speech.
Another thing to mention about articulation, especially for instruments, is that differing articulation usually creates a subtly or drastically different timbre (sound quality). That reality was already active in the last example, as you may have noticed. Let me provide one more, taking that last example, with its louder articulations creating dynamic and timbral accents, and add another aspect of articulation. Articulation is of course focused on the beginning of notes, but it also involves how we end them. While each instrument brings a variety of ways to alter the ending of notes, the most commonly shared and most noticeable way to articulate difference at the end of a note is by cutting it shorter.
Listen again to the last example, now with a shorter note here and there to add emphasis to the preceding or following note.
Articulation then is very important, right? It uses dynamic level and duration in particular to create what I described at the beginning of this essay as “crisp, deliberate, sharply defined” outcomes or smooth flowing ones.
You can tell I’m heading for the combination of all parameters, I imagine. When we get there, I have results from a study I did with a class at Longy a few years ago that attempts to reckon the impact of a series of parameter changes.
Stay tuned, share the blog, more on the way!