Polytempic
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The term polytempo or polytempic is used to describe
music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...
in which two or more tempi occur simultaneously. In the Western world, the practice of polytempic music has its roots in the music theory of Henry Cowell, and the early practices of
Charles Ives Charles Edward Ives (; October 20, 1874May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer, actuary and businessman. Ives was among the earliest renowned American composers to achieve recognition on a global scale. His music was largely ignored d ...
. Later on, composer Elliott Carter, in the fifties, began polymetric experiments in his
string quartet The term string quartet refers to either a type of musical composition or a group of four people who play them. Many composers from the mid-18th century onwards wrote string quartets. The associated musical ensemble consists of two Violin, violini ...
s that inevitably amounted to polytempic behavior by nature of several competing lines at different surface speeds. At around the same time, composer Henry Brant expanded on Ives's '' The Unanswered Question'' to create a spatial music in which entire ensembles, separated by vast distances, play in distinct simultaneous tempi. Some types of African drumming exhibit this phenomenon. Today's composers are employing polytempi as a compositional strategy to create total and complete independence of line in
polyphonic Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice ( monophony) or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ...
music. Composers such as Conlon Nancarrow, David A. Jaffe, Evgeni Kostitsyn, Kyle Gann, Kenneth Jonsson, John Arrigo-Nelson,
Brian Ferneyhough Brian John Peter Ferneyhough (; born 16 January 1943) is an English composer. Ferneyhough is typically considered the central figure of the New Complexity movement. Ferneyhough has taught composition at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg and ...
, Karlheinz Stockhausen,
Frank Zappa Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American guitarist, composer, and bandleader. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed Rock music, rock, Pop music, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestra ...
, and Peter Thoegersen have used various methods in achieving polytempic effects in their music. Polytempic music also harkens to the rhythmic practices of some Renaissance and medieval composers (see hemiola).


Multitemporal music

Multitemporal music is composed using sound streams that have different internal tempi or pulse speed, for example one part at 115 bpm and at 105 bpm at the same time. Multitemporal music was first heard in US-Mexican composer Conlon Nancarrow's work, discovered by Hungarian György Ligeti,{{Explanation needed, reason=The word "discovered" implies that Ligeti was the first person to find it., date=March 2018 who undertook the task of bringing Nancarrow's music to the fore. To overcome the limits posed by a human performer in playing a multitemporal score Nancarrow used two modified player-pianos, punching the rolls by hand. One of the few recordings of this composer's work is found in Wergo's " Studies for Player Piano" series. The idea was then proposed by Iannis Xenakis in the early seventies and more recently by Italian born composer Valerio Camporini Faggioni Valerio Camporini F., ''Multitemporal Designs,'' (Line)
/ref> using synthetic and software devices. A similar technique, with the tempi similar to each other is rhythm phasing – a technique introduced by
Steve Reich Stephen Michael Reich ( ; born October 3, 1936) is an American composer best known as a pioneer of minimal music in the mid to late 1960s. Reich's work is marked by its use of repetitive figures, slow harmonic rhythm, and canons. Reich descr ...
and used especially in minimalist and post-minimalist music.


See also

*
Polyrhythm Polyrhythm () is the simultaneous use of two or more rhythms that are not readily perceived as deriving from one another, or as simple manifestations of the same meter. The rhythmic layers may be the basis of an entire piece of music (cross-rh ...
and polymeter * Tuplet for Zappa's and Ferneyhough's preferred notation for this concept. * Rhythm phasing


References

Rhythm and meter