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Sound Scripts

Sound Scripts

The Evaluation of Nonlinear Musical Structures

Abstract

Our experience of time through music is diverse and often irregular. In Western and non-Western music, composers have explored the idea of exploiting this relationship to create structures that destabilize, fragment and even suspend time. A definition of Nonlinear Structure is proposed based upon evaluation of the level of integration, contingency, compressibility and determinacy of a work. Exemplar works by composers Earle Brown, Béla Bartók, Olivier Messiaen and Brian Eno are discussed.

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