Time in Music and Culture

Prologue

The dispute over time has recurred in philosophy and learning for centuries. It has concerned in particular the objective and relative nature of time. Newton, for example, taught that ‘absolute, true, mathematical time flows on by virtue of its own nature, uniformly, and unrelated to any outward circumstance’.¹ That view was fundamentally revised by Einstein, who showed the relativity of time and space and their dependence on matter. In Einstein’s own words, the meaning of the theory of relativity is as follows: ‘It was formerly believed that if all material things disappeared out of the universe, time and space would be left. According to the relativity theory, however, time and space disappear together with the things’.² In demonstrating the relativity of time and space and their dependence on the point of reference, Einstein had in mind objective systems, independent of man. Fascinated by philosophical views and scientific advancements, art theorists sometimes forget about their own system of reference, which makes them humanists and not scientists. For humanists, that system of reference will always be humans, the way they exist in time and space, the way they observe and sense time and space, and the way they organise time and space, as documented in the products of their own activity, one of the crucial manifestations of which is artistic activity, including music.

Even if Einstein’s theory to all intents and purposes shows the relativity of time and space only at velocities close to the speed of light, which allows us to treat our terrestrial time as absolute and constant, the postulate of the human point of reference in research into musical time has remained current. Whilst emphasising the fundamental difference that arises between the scientific and humanistic approaches to aspects of time, by no means do I wish to maintain that the adoption of that human perspective necessarily leads to subjective, unverifiable statements and to abandoning at the very outset the chief postulates of a branch of learning that aspires, after all, to establishing objective results. Although we have no proof of the boundless possibilities of scientific methods in relation to the problems of humans, their awareness of their own existence, their activities, notions, convictions, motives, etc., there certainly remains plenty of scope for objective methods and scientific study. As I see it, that objectivity in relation to musical time will be ensured by two basic factors: basing our enquiry ←9 | 10→not on introspection, but on the observation of human behaviours, concretised in temporal musical and non-musical products, and comparing data with an objective scale of physical time.

The antinomy between the astronomical measure of time, from which the division of clock time derives, and the internal time of humans was already sensed by St Augustine, writing in his Confessions: ‘in te, anima mea, tempora metior’ (‘it is in you, my mind [my soul], that I measure periods of time’).³ And it will hardly be barbaric to attempt to express that measure of the human soul or mind in the form of numbers and physical quantities, since humans reveal that measure in the products of their soul, and perhaps most distinctly in music.

This book arose during my work at the Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences, where successive directors have created favourable conditions for me to develop my individual research concepts, for which I am profoundly grateful.

I thank all those people from whom I have learned; those with whom I was fated to work and those who consider themselves to be my pupils.

Thank you for the TIME we have shared.

1 Introductory questions

1.1 The anthropological perspective and two hierarchies of time

The anthropology of music is the study of all manifestations of music in the world, irrespective of the degree to which that music is developed and how it functions in culture. It focusses on man’s musical capabilities, exploited and developed in various ways in different cultures. Music anthropology is an emerging field of study, still seeking its own identity. Awareness of the need to establish it is quite widespread, but there is no agreement over the way that goal might be achieved. Great hopes are often invested in the experience and achievements of the most dynamic humanistic disciplines, which in recent decades have included modern linguistics and the related, but more general, field of semiology. Without negating the substantial and hitherto underexploited possibilities afforded by those disciplines, one must realise that different needs motivated their emergence and development. Consequently, when referring to music, they often impose an approach that is alien to its nature. There is also potential, of course, in interdisciplinary research into humans and human culture, including music. However, by no means do they lead in a natural way to the forming of syntheses; in practice, they increasingly expand the horizons of observation, multiply perspectives and tend to obscure the overall picture. It is my personal opinion that some positive effects may accrue from a return to the most basic categories of human thinking, action and existence in the world, which certainly include the categories of time and space. They are strongly linked to one another and interdependent. I will focus mainly on time, and more specifically on two hierarchies of time, which I believe may be of considerable service to contemporary musical knowledge. I have in mind here the concept of temporal zones, which I explored in more detail in earlier studies, and the interpretative proposition advanced by the American scholar Julius T. Fraser, presented in the natural philosophy of time, called the principle of temporal levels. These two concepts have completely different points of departure, but the same overall aims. Fraser distinguished the basic levels of nature, the temporalities of which are sustained by a given environment (Umwelts), and he stated that these natural temporal levels are also perpetuated in the structure of the human mind. Fraser passes from analysis of nature to humans and human culture, and he even touches on music. As for myself, I began with detailed analysis of time in music and arrived at the ←11 | 12→time of humans and human culture, at the most coming close to the time of nature. I realised just how complementary these concepts were thanks to the Dutch psychologist John A. Michon, who commented on Fraser’s concept in an original and creative way. Fraser’s concept of temporal levels is in principle an integral concept and much broader than my own. According to its author, all temporal phenomena can only be described in terms of the temporalities that he distinguished. I was not driven by such ambitions. On the contrary, I deliberately confined myself to the issues which seemed to me insufficiently diagnosed in the theory and philosophy of music and man.

There is a general awareness of the hierarchy of temporal zones. It is manifest in the superiority and inferiority of the levels of temporal organisation. Each level employs a characteristic range of temporal sizes – a characteristic zone of time. Sounds on a higher level of organisation merge into motifs with their own temporal zone, motifs combine into phrases, also with their own temporal zone, phrases into sentences, sentences into periods and so on, until we reach a full musical utterance in the form of a work as a whole. As we pass onto a higher level of organisation, whilst gaining understanding, we lose information. We are less aware of the hierarchy of higher-order temporal zones, which is formed by the following:←12 | 13→

The question arises as to whether such a general approach can really be successfully applied to music. Well, it appears that it can, as I have expressed in an earlier work published under the title Strefowa teoria czasu i jej znaczenie dla antropologii muzycznej [A zonal theory of time and its significance for music anthropology].⁴ So can we speak of music anthropology as something existing and perpetuated in learning? I have my doubts. Admittedly, there are a number of works with such a title, including Alan P. Merriam’s The Anthropology of Music.⁵ Merriam combined two disciplines, cultural anthropology and ethnomusicology, to produce his anthropology of music. For him, anthropology was something obvious, and he felt no need to define it. What he saw as new and requiring definition was ethnomusicology. Compared to the rich anthropological literature, the literature covered by the name ethnomusicology seemed to him to be poor and less firmly established in theoretical terms. Merriam sought support in the established field of cultural anthropology, expanding its scope to include a subject that tended to be overlooked: music. He certainly did not argue that this was the only justified direction to research. On the contrary, he considered that the complex character of the object of study, with its dual anthropological and musicological aspects, justified approaching the problem from both angles. Traditionally, most published studies from the field of ethnomusicology were biased towards musicological issues, and that has essentially remained true to this day. Merriam consciously adopted the other perspective, approaching the subject mainly from the anthropological angle, and that was his original contribution to, and at the same time justification for, redefining the discipline as music anthropology.

Although my own thinking followed different paths, they led to a convergence in the titles of our studies. For me, the starting point was rather traditional musicological study, but combined with a certain wariness of the research methods employed in musicology and a criticism of its theoretical ←13 | 14→assumptions. The evolutionist, cultural-historical, functional and structuralist trends in ethnomusicology seemed to me to be one-sided, limited, offering too narrow a view of the task at hand, intolerant of other perspectives, too opinionated and overconfident, although by no means were they always the best grounded in theory. To me, it seemed most advisable to return to the sources and reconsider them, hence my own interest in such fundamental notions as time, space and movement in relation to music. My research into time convinced me that humans had their own perspective of time, proper to them as representatives of a particular species, setting the limits to their temporal behaviours, including their musical behaviours. For me, the most important issues were human capacities and how people realise them in different cultures, traditions, styles and individual preferences. They place people and their capacities at the centre of research, and that is the main justification for defining that research as anthropology. So music anthropology would be the study of human capacities; in this case, the capacities for musical behaviours limited in various ways and developed in different cultures and at different times. In this approach, music anthropology does not refer to a specific type of culture, such as primitive, traditional or more developed non-European cultures, as the scope of ethnomusicology was usually defined. The focus of music anthropology ought to be every kind of music. In practice, the European art music tradition is considered to a lesser extent. However, that results not from the premises of music anthropology, but from the specific situation and tradition of musicological research, which has often been confined to European art music. The need to expand the research perspective moves one to take account of those kinds of music which have often been passed over on principle by musicological research.

The term ‘constraint of diversity’ perhaps requires explanation, so that it is not misunderstood. I admit to introducing it as a matter of principle, in order to oppose a practice that is quite widespread in the human sciences, involving the abuse of such generalisms as ‘richness’ and ‘diversity’ that reveals the immaturity of many research projects. For this reason, I think it will be safer to refer to music ←14 | 15→anthropology the statements on science in general contained in W. Ross Ashby’s An Introduction to Cybernetics:

So one should not seek diversity or richness and conclude one’s research by establishing their existence. Science, if it is to be science, must seek that which constrains that diversity. The more constraints there are on diversity, the greater will be the wealth of information; the more constraints there are on diversity, the more distinct tendencies will emerge. We deal with various constraints on diversity in music anthropology. The first constraint is the human perspective, human capacities for musical behaviours, which are so diverse in various cultures and yet possess a common, human denominator. From that perspective, culture is the constraint of diversity. No culture makes use of the full range of human capacities. Human capacities encompass all the cultures that exist, have existed or could come to exist in the world. Diversity is constrained by every style, every artistic trend, every fashion, every individual preference, every genre, every work, every performance, every formal property and every quality.

The term ‘music anthropology’ is justified also by the fact that such research deals not with music in general, with what music is in itself, but with what it is in relation to humans, seen from their normal perspective. Scientific methods are not excluded from research in music anthropology. On the contrary, they are put to suitable use. Yet it is important to realise that music is music only when referred to humans. Science has the capacity to alter its research perspectives. A special apparatus attuned to different parameters than those which apply to humans may show music from a different perspective. This occurs, for example, with the use of acoustic measuring devices, which are entirely different to the human perceptual apparatus. So not all music theory is covered by the anthropological perspective. Acoustics, defining musical phenomena from a different perspective than the human point of view, may facilitate our study and understanding of musical phenomena. However, its assertions do not directly concern phenomena seen from a human perspective.