Function description will be discussed under the headings of temporal phase functions; instigation, signal; and rupture, shift, interruption, interpolation. These are not
discrete categories, but rather provide complementary ways to describe structural functions, often feeding into one another.
5.2.1. Temporal Phase Functions
Temporal phase functions are concerned with how events at both lower and higher
levels of structure might begin (onset), progress (continuant), and end (termination).
Many of Roy’s orientation functions serve a similar descriptive purpose to Smalley’s expanded collection of structural function terms (see 5.1.4 above); Table 5 illustrates where Roy’s terminology fits within Smalley’s broad categories. 63 The terms of both authors provide essential concepts and vocabulary for structural function description.
Onset Continuant Termination
Smalley’s terms Departure, emergence, anacrusis, attack, upbeat, downbeat
Roy’s terms Introduction, appoggiatura Suspension, extension,
prolongation, transition Conclusion
Table 5: Function typesdefined by Smalley and Roy.
62 The Stratification functions outlined by Roy display a degree of commonality with Smalley’s behavioural relationships in that many of the stratification functions are defined by an identity’s prominence relative to other simultaneous identities, and thus exhibit characteristic behavioural relationships. Roy’s Relational Rhetoric deals with temporal relationships, and while some of these concepts are valuable to this research, they are most appropriately discussed when dealing with temporal relationships.
63 Both authors use the terms transition and prolongation.
Additionally, Smalley and Roy draw attention to a variety of processes that are significant in describing or attributing structural functions regarding the directional motion and activity that they convey over shorter or longer timescales (see Table 6).
Motion and Growth processes
• vortex; pericentrality; centrifugal motion
• acceleration/deceleration
Table 6: Aspects of directional motion and activity.
Smalley’s motion and growth processes refer to different kinds of spectral and morphological evolution related to expectation and directionality in spectral space (1997, 115-117), many of which can be applied to both external contours and internal, textural details. The paired terms of ascent/descent, agglomeration/dissipation, dilation/contraction and divergence/convergence articulate processes particularly relevant to structural function description. As Smalley states, these motion pairs
“create expectations, and most have a sense of directed motion. They can be regarded as having both gestural and textural tendencies, and could be large structures in themselves”(1997, 116). Accordingly, expectations regarding the forward motion and predicted outcomes of these processes will likely evoke feelings of tension.
Cyclic/centric motions can create impressions of either stasis (through cyclic
repetition) or growth (for example, they might appear to accumulate spectrally), while reciprocal motions are characteristically balanced through a return motion.
Roy’s process functions of Acceleration/Deceleration, Accumulation/Dispersion, and Intensification/Attenuation (Stewart 2007, 93–94) are also directional and largely self-explanatory, complementing the terms proposed by Smalley. However, there are some distinctions to be drawn. While Smalley’s terms address motion in spectral space, Roy’s acceleration/deceleration is not a spectral process, and
intensification/attenuation may not always be. Despite this morphological emphasis, the notion of directional activity remains.
These concepts complement the temporal phase terms, and are potentially combined with them for more detailed function descriptions. For example, an emergent onset function might be attributed because of dynamic and spectral intensification, combined with spectral dilation. In some circumstances function attribution may take time, and a function may be attributed only once the directional tendency is established.
5.2.2. Instigation, Signal
Some of Roy’s functions can be considered instigative, as can particular onset functions and behavioural relationships (Smalley 1997, 117–118) (briefly outlined in 4.4.2 above), so it is useful to employ the term instigation to account for the principles common to these ideas. Instigation actively brings about a change of some kind, such as initiating or removing sound material, or occasioning a different spectral
composition, texture or spatial perspective. An instigator is most significantly interpreted as a motivator for change, and is characterised by a pressured causal behavioural relationship with the consequent sound material (Smalley 1997, 118). 64 If the response to the instigation is too slow, the instigative relationship will be
weakened.
64 Smalley’s behavioural notion of motion passage concerns the movement between contexts, illustrated by the voluntary–pressured continuum. These terms describe different impressions of causality, “where one event seems to cause the onset of a successor, or alter a concurrent event in some way” (Smalley 1997, 118).
Instigation is initially concerned with the onset phase and with how the change is brought about, although attention soon shifts to the post-instigation moment and the instigated event or state. The initial energetic gesture must be sufficiently brief and marked to suggest that its presence has occasioned the change. For example, an impulse that coincides with a change in texture will exhibit a strong sense of motion coordination and might further suggest a pressured causality (Smalley 1997, 118) between
the instigator (the impulse) and the instigated (the textural change). Alternatively an instigator might initiate a growth process that pushes forward or pressurises for change over a slightly longer period of time, such as a brief but marked amplitude swell or crescendo. In either case, change is influenced by an instigating event. Of course, a longer spectromorphology with a striking onset may initially function as an instigator, but then become part of the ensuing texture. Like other structural functions, instigators may exhibit dual functionality, and might, for example, terminate the material preceding the instigative event, while simultaneously acting as an onset.
Roy’s trigger function is instigative, but is characterised by its brevity and absence of preparation: it “abruptly and suddenly introduces an event, group of events, a musical phrase, a section or the complete work” and “is a causal unit that only has a consequent” (1998, 181). Begetting is another type of instigation, which
“prepares and furthers the immediate arrival of another event or group of events” yet
“is characterised by a directional morphological gesture (fast dynamic and spectral growth or atrophy, or a melodic rise or fall). Begetting has a causal link with the consequent and, in some exceptional cases, can also be linked to an antecedent” (1998, 181).
Temporal synchronicity among identities may not, in itself, be sufficient to suggest an instigative process. When the resulting change exhibits a weak sense of
‘physical’ causality, for example, when the involved identities exist in sufficiently disparate spatial locations that the impression of a directly causal relationship is less tangible, the weakly causal identity might be more appropriately considered a signal
for the change rather than one that physically enacts it. Thus, instigation and signal suggest different types of synchronous change, based on the degree of physical causality conveyed.
5.2.3. Rupture, Shift, Interruption, Interpolation
Rupture, shift, interruption, and interpolation address the types of change between
states in the fabric of the acousmatic image. Ruptures of, and shifts between, particular spaces, contexts and ongoing identities can become significant recurrent features. 65 The speed of the change will affect the degree of dramatic impact, and this provides a useful way to distinguish between rupture and shift. Rupture implies suddenness, as if the existing impression is instantaneously shattered by a change to a new state or context, a process that may well elicit feelings of surprise. 66 Ruptures can be
particularly striking, and changes might move between, for example: inside/outside;
distant/close; or real world/otherworld; either singly or in combination. Shift, on the other hand, implies a less sudden change from one state to another, or a less overt contrast between what is shifted from and what is shifted to.
Interruption, used in Roy’s sense of the term, occurs when ongoing material is
halted without a consequent (1998, 181). Significantly, it could occur at any point, and implies neither a preparation nor a resolution (Stewart 2007, 93), suggesting that interruption engenders a feeling of surprise. In contrast, deflection, a concept which Roy borrows from Meyer (also see 5.1.5 above), occurs when “the continuity of a main process is interrupted by another process which aims towards a new goal” (Roy 1998,
65 The definition of space is taken to involve source-bonded, spectral and perspectival aspects.
In combination these may convey additional cultural associations.
66 The continual presence of sudden ruptures throughout a work may reduce the sense of surprise as the listener becomes accustomed to the recurring process.
180). 67 While it may be sudden, it is of course possible that a deflection can be a graduated process.
Interpolation, related to rupture, is the interjection of different material within an
existing context, suggesting sudden change, and potentially surprise, but with a return to the initial state. Extreme masking of sound material might be interpreted as another aspect of interpolation when the point of focus appears to switch between the two different identities, and this may occur within spatial zones as well as between them.
Distal interpolation (Smalley 2007, 49-50) occurs when a proximate space is ruptured,
momentarily opening out into a distal space before returning to the proximate, and this may serve to extend the bounds of the perspectival space.
Naturally, these kinds of processes may feature dual function attribution, and can be interpreted in terms of the temporal phase functions, as suggested above. For example, an interruption will likely fulfil a termination function, while a rupture might both instigate and terminate. However, the overriding impression of rupture or
interruption remains.