Subject: Re: About silence and breath From: Pablo Hernan Rodriguez Zivic <elsonidoq@xxxxxxxx> Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2009 12:21:30 -0300 List-Archive:<http://lists.mcgill.ca/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=AUDITORY>Hey! Kevin Austin wrote: > Hi > > Thanks. From the example you provided, I'm not sure you are talking > about "silence", rather about breath (among other things). I sing the > solo. There would be times I stop my 'breathing out' (for > articulation, emphasis, effect) but I don't think of 'breathing in' as > the 'silence' is micro-articulating a gesture. On other occasions I > use the silence to 'breath in' with the objective of articulating a > larger [higher] structure. Depending upon the degree of sophistication > you are aiming for, you may wish to listen to young children from > different cultures singing either folk musics, composed musics (mostly > pop), or spontaneous improvisations. Silence is everything, that makes me laugh a lot! It has something to do with so many things... it's difficult to capture it. When I started to look after what is a phrase I came to Rothstein's book "Rythm phrase in tonal music". When he cites previous definitions of what a phrase is, one of them is "something that enters in a single breath" (with my own words =p). That notion of phrase has a lot to do with the silences, using them as punctuation. > > Given your example, as in the Bach Sonatas and Suites, consider that > another root of silence is dance, and an almost equivalent might be > stopping. There is probably a difference between 'stopping' to change > the direction of a movement, and stopping for gestural articulation. > Search Youtube for examples of waltz, tango, rag etc. Interesting... > > 'Silence' in music (as noted by others) may be a perceptual phenomena, > and not related to having 'no acoustical event'. The Mahler First > Symphony begins from 'silence', and the silence is sustained (sic) > behind the acoustical events of the introduction. As a perceptual > event, I consider acoustical silence an implausibility. If you wish to > model silence acoustically, it looks like this 00000000000, however if > you wish to model silence in a 'musical' sense, you may wish to > research [what I consider to be] the first step in auditory scene > analysis, segmentation. > When you say segmentation you are refering to something like the grouping structure of Lerdhal and Jackendoff? > Please keep us informed on your progress. Of course amigo! Saludos! > > Best > > Kevin > > > > > >> Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 12:11:48 -0300 >> From: Pablo Hernan Rodriguez Zivic <elsonidoq@xxxxxxxx> >> Subject: About Silence >> >> Hello everyone! >> >> My name is Pablo. I apologize in advance of my english =D. >> >> I recently joined this mailing list because I'm doing some research >> about music. My intention is to use computational/statistical models to >> create music, and that models be driven by cognitive/musical claims (1). >> >> Since the very beginning of my research I had trouble modeling silence. >> The silence is not just another pitch which has the ability of not to >> sound. I think that silence has to be treated apart from pitches, but I >> don't know how. >> >> So here comes my question: Do you know anything I can read to help me >> out with this? >> >> Thanks you all! >> >> Pablo >> >> >> (1) If you are interested, you can hear an example here of what I've >> already done: http://lafhis.dc.uba.ar/%7Epzivic/E.nar.mid >> >> In that example, the piano is of Scott Joplin, and the solo is composed >> by mi program. >> The silences that you hear, are artificial, is just a simple rule that I >> introduced, if the solo plays all the time it gets annoying >>