Focal Impulse Theory

Musical Expression, Meter, and the Body

John Paul Ito

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780253052476
• Topic: Medios de comunicación y artes escénicas
• Subtopic: Teoría y apreciación musicales

Music is surrounded by movement, from the arching back of the guitarist to the violinist swaying with each bow stroke. To John Paul Ito, these actions are not just a visual display; rather, they reveal what it really means for musicians to move with the beat, organizing the flow of notes from beat to beat and shaping the sound produced. By developing "focal impulse theory, " Ito shows how a performer's choices of how to move with the meter can transform the music's expressive contours. Change the dance of the performer's body, and you change the dance of the notes. As Focal Impulse Theory deftly illustrates, bodily movements carry musical meaning and, in a very real sense, are meaning.

PART 1

INTRODUCTION

1

INTRODUCING THE FOCAL IMPULSE AND ITS THEORY

1.1. The Focal Impulse

The musicians stop in the midst of their rehearsal. Somehow the music isn’t feeling right. It seems stuck, grounded, unable to take flight. Should it be faster? No, the tempo seems about right. The problem is more elusive. “I think that we’ve been feeling the music too much in four, and the quarter-note beats are feeling like lead weights,” says one of the musicians. “Let’s try feeling it more in two.” They try it, and they agree this solves their problem.

Like most musicians, these performers had goals about the sound of the music; they found some expressive qualities desirable, others undesirable. Their ears alerted them to the problem, and their ears evaluated the solution. But although the problem itself was one of sound, the solution they adopted made no reference to sonic parameters. In fact, their one discussion of the sound in concrete, nonmetaphorical terms occurred when they rejected tempo as a possible source of the problem. Instead, they spoke in terms of an abstraction—meter—and decided to shift some kind of primary investment from one level of beat to another. But what kind of investment is this? If I had been one of those musicians, I would have had a very physical understanding of what it might mean to feel the music more in two. I would understand an investment of much of my body in the half-note level; going well beyond pressing my toe against the floor to keep time, feeling the music in two would mean filling my body with a visceral pulse that would organize the motions I made in playing the music.

“A visceral pulse”—what exactly does that mean? Just what is it that changed between the two performances? What are musicians really talking about when they speak of feeling music in two or in four? In this book I argue that the difference is a matter of the placement of what I call focal impulses. A focal impulse is a special kind of motion that not only produces direct, immediate results—often the playing of a note or a chord—but also sets the body moving in ways that facilitate subsequent motions. Focal impulses are used by performers in the organization of physical motion, and they commonly align with some level of the meter, especially in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Western classical music that is the primary focus of this book. What changed between the two performances in the story was the placement of focal impulses: the musicians went from placing them on the quarter-note beats to placing them only on the half-note beats. In general the placement of focal impulses influences the resulting sound in holistic ways; for example, it is not simply a matter of the notes produced by the focal impulses having sharper attacks. Changing the placement of focal impulses makes global changes in the expressive character of the music, and this is how the change to the half-note level solved the musicians’ problem.

Example 1.1. Beethoven, Trio op. 70/1, i, “Ghost,” mm. 1–5.

But this explanation is still rather abstract. To further pursue the concept of the focal impulse, let us consider the following three thought experiments. First, imagine playing, on any instrument, a single eighth note of any pitch, in a comfortable register, forte and with a strong accent. Imagine the physicality of this action, what it would feel like to play such a note.

Second, imagine playing the opening of Beethoven’s “Ghost” Trio (ex. 1.1), playing any of the parts on any instrument. Again, focus on what it would feel like to play this music.

For the final thought experiment, again imagine playing the beginning of the “Ghost” Trio, but this time use only motions of the kind you imagined in the first thought experiment. That is, imagine constructing a performance out of a sequence of isolated, separate motions in which the only differences among the motions were the minimal changes needed to produce the different pitches. For string players, this would likely mean that all notes were played down-bow, attacked from the air. For a pianist, only one finger of each hand would be used, and each keystroke would probably start more than an inch above the keyboard. Singers and wind players would probably find this mode of performance particularly awkward: each note would require first a strong contraction of the abdominal muscles and then a relaxation in preparation for the next note, and the relaxation would probably need help from the diaphragm.

I feel safe in assuming that the results of the second and third thought experiments were quite different. Outside of contrived experiments, musicians rarely use isolated physical impulses for each note. In most cases, the physical motions involved in musical performance are integrated into sequences of motion, with focal impulses used only for some of the notes. In the first thought experiment, it seems most likely that the isolated note would be produced using a focal impulse. In the second thought experiment, with so many notes following each other in close succession, focal impulses would presumably be used to produce only some notes, with the other notes falling between the focal impulses. The third experiment asks for a very strange performance in which a focal impulse is used to produce each note in the passage. This strangeness underscores the fact that sequences of motion are organized in units of more than one individual motion; they cannot simply be assembled by producing isolated motions one after another.

The contrast between the second and third thought experiments does not arise from an equally strong contrast at the level of individual notes. For notes that are produced directly by focal impulses when the passage is played normally, the difference between the experiments would be less salient; at least for the start of the note, the performance in isolation would not be so different from the performance in context. For notes not produced directly by focal impulses, however, the difference between context and isolation would be stark. The way any one of these notes is played relates strongly to the ways in which the surrounding notes are played; remove one of these notes from its context and that note is no longer the same.

Approaching from a different angle, suppose that we leave out all of the notes not directly produced by focal impulses. For one possible way of performing the start of the “Ghost” Trio, this would yield example 1.2. If we play examples 1.1 and 1.2, there should be a basic similarity between the two experiences—if we are indeed placing focal impulses on the notes shown in example 1.2. Example 1.1 should feel like an elaborated version of example 1.2. Music theorists commonly use reductions that show only the most important events from a perspective of harmony and voice leading. Example 1.2 shows a reduction that preserves important events from the perspective of the organization of physical motion, again based on one possible way of playing the passage.

Example 1.2. Reduction of op. 70.

Focal impulses often reveal their presence particularly clearly when they are placed on rests, as the performer will often move during the rest in a way that helps to set up the music that follows. Example 1.3 shows a passage in which this is likely, the opening melody from Bach’s Harpsichord Concerto in A Major, BWV 1055. It will be easier to make the music sparkle out of the downbeats if the performer moves on the downbeats, making motions that do not seem necessary from the standpoint of sound production. The difference that meter makes to performance is highlighted in the simple recomposition shown in example 1.4, in which the music has been shifted to begin on the downbeat. This recomposition will likely sound different from the original and feel different to play. Take a moment to imagine how playing these two passages would differ, paying attention to the notes’ accentuation, attack, and timing—and even more to the physicality of playing them. At a macroscopic level, the sequences of motions might be very similar, but the details of motion and the organization of that motion would be quite different.

Sometimes a melody seems to make a point of omitting strong beats, and such melodies have special rhythmic characters. Consider the principal theme from the final movement of Mozart’s Concerto for Two Pianos in E-flat Major, K. 365 (ex. 1.5). The rests and ties found on so many of the hypermetrically strong downbeats have tremendous energy because of their (silent) focal impulses. If the melody is recomposed to give those downbeats attack points, the result is flat and lifeless by comparison (ex. 1.6).

Example 1.3. Bach, Harpsichord Concerto BWV 1055, i, mm. 1–3.

Example 1.4. Recomposition of BWV 1055.

The effect of focal impulses on strong-beat rests is probably particularly salient to me as a violist because certain kinds of nineteenth-century orchestral textures frequently omit strong beats in the inner voices. Characteristic instances are given in examples 1.7 and 1.8, from Verdi’s La Traviata and the overture to Johann Strauss Jr.’s Die Fledermaus. The violists’ notes should sound like consequences of the strong beats, and that requires that the notes be consequences at a motional level; the notes must be produced by motions that flow out of focal impulses on the strong beats. In these cases, the silent focal impulses would probably be produced in the abdomen and bow arm, initiating states of motion conducive to playing the off-beat notes but not directly initiating any notes.

In these examples of focal impulses on strong-beat rests, the physical motion on the rest reveals the presence of the focal impulse. If we viewed performance as the stringing together of isolated motions, there would be no need to move on these rests—after all, when rests do not fall on strong beats, they do not usually inspire motion of this sort. The helpfulness of this motion can reside only in its influence on the motions that follow. We become aware of this organizing role of motion because the motion occurs on a rest, but there is no reason to suppose that only motions on rests can play this role. If it is helpful to move this way on a rest, then the motions we make to play notes on strong beats may actually serve two functions, both producing the notes on the strong beats and helping to organize subsequent motion. Strong-beat rests are among the best clues to focal impulses—in fact, the long path that led to the focal impulse concept began with my attempts as a pit musician to give convincing shape to the off-beat “pah-pahs” in the waltzes of Fledermaus.¹

Example 1.5. Mozart, Concerto for Two Pianos, K. 365, iii, mm. 1–16.

Example 1.6. Recomposition of K. 365.

The nature of the focal impulse is also illuminated by the contrast between strong attacks that are produced by focal impulses and strong attacks that are not. A helpfully extreme example is found in the “Glorification de l’Élue” from Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring (ex. 1.9). The two parts shown are similar as sequences of rests and notes, approaching exact rhythmic canon; but if we assume that all but the last of the bass notes coincide with the strong beats in the mixed meter—and thus with the focal impulses—they will be very different in their physical execution. The bass players will feel a solid grounding that comes from playing on the beat, and their parts will be substantially easier. The wind players will need to produce not only vigorous focal impulses on the strong beats but also strong accents on the notes that follow, with their bodies constantly jarred as one or the other of these strong muscular contractions flies by. Where the bass players will feel stable and grounded, the winds will feel quite unsettled. As before, it will be helpful to imagine playing these parts, again on any instrument.²

Example 1.7. Verdi, La Traviata, Act I, mm. 116–119, Allegro brillantissimo e molto vivace.

Example 1.8. Johann Strauss Jr., Die Fledermaus, Overture, mm. 166–173, Tempo di Valse (nicht zu schnell).

Example 1.9. From Stravinsky, Rite of Spring, “Glorification de l’Élue,” mm. 1–3. Adapted by permission from Ito (2013c), © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013.

This example shows that a performer’s strong attacks are not all the same; strong attacks that align with focal impulses are performed quite differently from those that fall between focal impulses. It also shows us two things about the sound of focal impulses. First, strong accents either aligned with focal impulses or not are different not just in the way the motion is organized but also in their sound. Considering the nature of the motion involved, I would expect the accents in the wind parts to sound substantially more dynamic and unstable than the accents in the bass part. The possible uses of this distinction will be explored in chapters 7 and 12, which consider cases of metrical dissonance and metrically malleable music.

Second, the sonic traces of the physical demands of playing the wind parts will affect the expressive character of the passage, leading especially to greater intensity and instability in the sound. Music often creates this kind of sonic excitement through similar means: strong syncopated accents at fast tempo put the body through a rapid push and pull, and shifting asymmetrical meters prevent the establishment of a regular groove. Music that has these features will be exciting for many reasons, some of which are primarily cognitive; for example, we understand the conflicts between the syncopated notes and the metrical hierarchy, and we are unable to predict either the next accent or the next strong beat. But such music will also have a visceral excitement that is communicated from one spinal column to another via details of sound, as we intuit the bodily states that were inv...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Accessing Audiovisual Materials
• Preface
• Copyright Acknowledgments
• Part 1. Introduction
• 1. Introducing the Focal Impulse and Its Theory
• 2. Foundations in Music Theory and Cognitive Science
• Part 2. Basic Focal Impulse Theory
• 3. The Basic Concept of the Focal Impulse
• 4. Focal Impulses and Meter: The Simplest Cases
• 5. The Sound of Focal Impulses
• 6. More on Focal Impulses and Meter
• 7. Focal Impulses and Characters of Syncopation
• Part 3. Expanding Focal Impulse Theory
• 8. Special Cases of Focal Impulse Placement
• 9. Anticipations and Secondary Focal Impulses
• 10. Inflecting Focal Impulses Downward and Upward
• 11. More Advanced Uses of Inflected Impulse Cycles
• 12. Performing Metrical Dissonance
• Part 4. Connecting Focal Impulse Theory
• 13. Connections with Psychology
• 14. Connections with Other Music Scholarship
• Part 5. Applying Focal Impulse Theory
• 15. Metrical Dissonance in Brahms
• 16. The First Movements of the Brahms Sonatas op. 120
• Conclusions: Placing Focal Impulse Theory in Larger Contexts
• Glossary: Focal Impulse Symbols and Their Definitions
• References
• Discography
• Index
• About the Author