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THE LATIN QUARTER IN NEW ORLEANS

THE OUTER WALLS OF THE GOSHO, THE IMPERIAL VILLA ,IN KYOTO JAPAN

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XIV The Perception of Pattern in Music

Space and Pattern

Walking through the streets of the Vieux Carre’ in NewOrleans, one experiences an intense sense of atmospherebrought about by the physical appearance of the areawhich sparks the imagination with vivid thoughts aboutits past. Simultaneously one experiences the actual senseof being there in real time. One’s imagination flits backand forth and between the present and imaginarythoughts of the past colored by one’s knowledge of itshistory. For blocks and blocks all of the streets are ofequal length and width. Recurring patterns of relatedarchitectural styles are repeated at irregular intervals.Shuttered windows and ironwork balconies heighten thesense of unity in that location and contribute to the senseof “place”. We might be moved to think of this part of thecity in light of how it might have been at the period whenit was planned and built or about how it might havelooked at particular times during the years following.

The experience of walking the Vieux Carre’ is heightenedby whatever knowledge of its past we may be able to addto it. The information about events associated with thearea intensifies the vividness of one’s images. In additionthe memory of one’s own previous visits to the place addadditional layers of color to the already intenseexperience.

Each musical event, be it a performance, a composition,an improvisation, a mental or graphic conceptualizationof any of these forms, even that aggregate of musicalevents we might call a style of music, is capable of creatingin the mind, something parallel to this sense of place andtime. Images created in response to music can becomevividly etched in the mind as one experiences patterns andcontours, formal structure, style and interpretation. Thus,listening to music, of course depending on the level ofinvolvement in that listening, can be as vivid and real asthat of walking through the streets of an old city.

To continue with this analogy a little longer, consider forexample, walking the broad avenues of the Inner PalaceCity, the Gosho, of Kyoto, Japan. Unless it is a specialfestival day, this vast walled city within the very center ofthe city of Kyoto is apt to be largely deserted and usuallyvery quiet, with only a faint murmur of Kyoto traffic

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audible beyond. Broad and long gravel roads bisect thearea at precise and regular intervals. These gravel roadsseparate the area into parks and gardens and blocks ofseemingly endlessly long light earth-gray colored walls ofthe palace buildings, each marked by five continuouswhite lines which run the length of the walls and whichindicate the Gosho’s relation to the Imperial Household ofJapan. Here no cars are allowed to enter, nor do noisycrowds interfere with one’s musings on how this sacredImperial compound might have looked and sounded inthe years before the Meiji restoration. Only an occasionalcyclist wheeling across the wide gravel roads reminds onethat this place is in the middle of a large modern city andthat passage through it is the most convenient means forwalkers and cyclists to cut through to the other side of thecity.

The Gosho of Kyoto, like the Vieux Carre’ of New Orleansgives an intense sense of place and time. It is stronglyevocative of the past and yet also makes one very muchaware of the present because of the contrast between thequiet of the inner city and the bustle of modern Kyoto justoutside. While both the Vieux Carre’ and the Inner Palaceof Kyoto evoke a strong sense of place and are colored bythose experiences and what knowledge we bring to them,each is, in addition a very different place. Each has adifferent treatment of space, a different relationship ofbuilding to thoroughfare and a different proportionalrelationship between the visitor walking through it andthe walls and buildings around him.

Perceiving Structure

The analogy with music is useful. A musical structure iscolored by previous knowledge and experience, and inparticularly by what we have most recently experienced.In addition, however, each musical structure, compositionor event has a structure and set of formal and temporalrelationships and proportions in and of itself. Theserelationships form the context to which we bring our ownindividual contributions whenever we experience it.

We perceive structure in music as well as style in music aswe pass through it, or as it passes over us through timewhile we stand still. What we really experience is aconstant string of single instants when particular soundwaves reach our eardrums. The scanning process by whichwe mentally move back and forth between what weremember of what we have just heard and compare thatand relate it to what we are now hearing, allows us to

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perceive pattern out of this continuous flow of successiveinstants. The pattern then becomes registered in ourbrains and enables us to sort out groups of patterns anddirections in the sounds and to begin to establish certainexpectancies about what will follow. The perception ofform and structure in music is possible only because ofour ability to “wander” into the pattern that our memoryhas convinced us to believe really exists. But in the instantof hearing music, we are not only engaged in scanningback to what we remember. It is also the expectation ofwhat might come next, increasingly delineated by whatwe have just heard that absorbs us and keeps us listening.

In some musics it is evident that the composer/creatorwants the listener to follow carefully and to gainmaximum appreciation by mentally analyzing thepatterns he has created. In some musics, however, it mightseem that the perception of form and structure wasintended to be subliminal, that the listener was to feel theform and pattern of the piece rather than be conscious of

it.

We experience a very differentperception of space when we entera very large space, like the mainsalon of the Palace of Versailles,than were we to enter the palacebroom closet. Our eyes tell usimmediately about the differencesin the ordering and proportions ofspace in these two places. Yet, wewould still experience much of thissame difference if we werealternately to enter these two

spaces in total darkness. What I suggest here is that thereare many constructs in music that we experience withoutresorting to conscious analysis or to the necessity ofrecalling conscious verbal descriptions which affect ourlistening. The parallel examples of the perception ofphysical space and, in particular, of the planning of citiesare useful here. Patterns of sound created in music aseither conscious or unconscious elements have the sameimportance in listening to music as do the physicalcharacteristics of the space we occupy.

The perception of form in music requires the ability tomaintain a mental reconstruction of the pattern of themusic and to apply an analysis of it that renders it intomeaningful and discernible segments. In one culture oranother of this planet the precise definition of form wouldrequire modifications enough to make such an exercise

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futile. The principle that operates in the perception ofform is, in essence, based upon the recognition of discreteevents in time. Strokes produced on two gongs ofdifferent pitches insofar as they are perceived as discreteevents can be thought of as exemplifying form. If we heartwo equally spaced strokes on the same gong we mightalso perceive this as two discrete events and thus as form.If the evenly spaced strokes continue we shall need todetermine at some point that it has become a predictableand repeating series. If two strokes of the same gong areirregularly spaced apart in time these two strokes canmuch more easily be recognized as separate and formingthe initial segment of a potential pattern.

A Visual Analogy

The visual parallel to this aural process of perceptionwould be to draw analogy to the availability of only twooptions, a space which can only be entirely white or black,that is completely covered with uniform information orcontaining none at all. The next step is to take this singlearea and divide into two different areas, one white and theother black. The process of continually subdividing anarea into increasingly smaller units creates increaseddefinition of the area. If, however, we begin to rearrangethese black and white units into different configurations,the increased subdivisions allow for a greater scope ofvariation and a higher degree of definition.

We could continue this until it would be possible toreproduce the level of definition of a high qualityphotograph. There is no particular point at which wecease perceiving discreet blocks of black and white, andbegin to see larger complex units. It just suddenlyhappens. We need to be jogged into seeing pictures incollections of arranged minute black and white dots onpaper. In the same way at some point we cease to hearindividual strokes, or beats and if they begin to comeclose together we may begin to hear them as a singlesound. Conversely, the lowest pitches we can perceive as“notes” are in the range of about 20 vibrations per second,at which range one can almost hear the individual beats.Lower than that we hear a series of rapid beats orundulations no longer aggregated into a single event.

The higher degree of subdivision allows a greater degree ofdefinition of the area within the space and by thejuxtaposition of the smaller units obtainable within thearea more complex variants of the possible patternsbecome available. Further subdivision of units thus

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allows scope for the representation of more complexpatterns. From two discrete events moving to morecomplex forms thus is a matter of degree and of level ofcomplexity. The perception of a new event helps to defineor redefine a previous one, an event that might have goneotherwise unnoticed. For example, a single group ofpitches can be perceived as forming a meaningful segmentof a larger unit because of the structural relation which webelieve to exist between the individual units in thesegment.

Meaningful Segments into Sequences

The grouping of these segments results from our havingbeen predisposed by prior experience to expect andtherefore define meaningful segments in what we hear. Inour perception of a series of sounds, it is our priorexperience which allows us to group these sounds into asingle unit for comparison with other units and thereforeto begin to predict what larger units or segments mightfollow. In this way we can group a segment of soundstogether, consider them either as a series of individualsound events if we wish, or group them together as thebeginning of a “melody” or other meaningful grouping.

The manner in which the device known as a sequence inWestern European Art music is perceived is a result of thisprocess. The sequence is, on the surface, a seeminglysimple device by which a single short melodic or rhythmicmotif is repeated at a different pitch or at a new point inthe rhythmic pattern. The listener perceives a group ofnotes, first as a new unit or grouping. At the repetition ofthe same sequence of notes at a different pitch the contourof the pattern just heard and now reinforced by repetition,becomes highlighted and fixed in attention. Repetitiondelineates the pattern, but repetition gives the pattern alife of its own and expectation then permits the sequenceto move into perhaps unusual tonal relations if theperception of the formal pattern is retained.

The sequence, because it draws on the pre-establishedpattern of the first statement, is allowed a high degree ofmelodic or rhythmic innovation in relationship to whathas already been established in the tradition of that musicor even in that particular composition. Thus in theEuropean art music tradition, the introduction of asequence based on a melodic unit can also use the entiresupporting harmonic structure as well and in both themelody and harmony introduce in the repetitions,melodic intervals and harmonies which would notusually be heard. In the context of the sequence they are

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accepted because the listener has been prepared by theestablished pattern of the first statement. At the sametime, a very important feature of the sequence is that, byits use of repetition it establishes firmly a pattern that cannow be predicted.

In the music of Burma sequences are veryfrequently employed. In certain forms ofBurmese music, the music for the theater inparticular, sequences appear almost at leastonce in every composition. Invariably suchuses of the sequence technique consist of threestatements of the melodic phrase usuallydescending by conjunct steps. Modulationfrom one mode or tonal system to another iscommon in Burmese music. However, the useof sequences allows for some modulationswhich, in the Burmese system, might otherwisebe perceived as surprising or unacceptable if

introduced without preparation. The device of thesequence in establishing first a threshold of predictabilitycreates a context that allows the listener to comfortablyrelish the still exciting shifts into surprising tonalrelationships.

The use of sequences to create this type of subtle surprisealso occurs throughout the history of European art music.Its effect is a little difficult to explain. In both the Burmesetradition as well as in Western music, the mechanicaldevice of the sequence permits the listener’s acceptance ofa short melodic phrase which outside the context of thesequence might be considered harsh and yet within itcreates a subtle stimulation for the listener.

In the music of India, by contrast, the rules for melodicgeneration as embodied in the raga system, are too firmlyfixed to allow for melodic sequences on different intervals.Such a practice might thus introduce fragments fromdifferent ragas, a practice which is allowed only in certainvery sharply defined types of performance and is usuallystrictly forbidden. By contrast, however, the Indianrhythmic system makes regular use of rhythmic sequencesin both North and South Indian classical systems. TheIndian rhythmic sequence in its most frequentlyencountered form is a rhythmic cadence called tihai in theNorth and mora in the South. As in the Burmese melodicsequence, this consists of three consecutive statements ofthe pattern culminating in this case with a synchronizedreturn to the main beat of the rhythmic cycle. Just as themelodic sequence allows for the introduction of otherwiseunusual intervals and harmonies, the rhythmic sequence

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does something similar. It allows, by virtue of having beenfirst previously established as a pattern, the introductionof a rhythmic pattern on an unusual starting beat of therhythmic cycle, one which would otherwise not beexpected.

As well as allowing for the introduction of melodic orrhythmic material which would otherwise be unusual, theprinciple of the sequence also provides an importantmeans of reemphasizing the importance of the initialstatement as a meaningful segment. The sequence is aparticularly overt expression of a principle that is goingon constantly during the process of perception. Eachnewly heard event redefines whatever is remembered tohave preceded it. The basis on which this redefinitionoccurs is different according to the particular traditionand the experience of the listener in hearing this particularform, style or tradition.

In the classical or Art music tradition of the West theparticular and unique skill of the composer lies in hisability to create forms and structures which are engagingand into which the listener can, with concentration,penetrate. This process might not necessarily requireconscious analysis. The composer, particularly, from thelate 18th century until the middle of the present century,attempted to lay out a plan, simple enough so that allwho wished to could follow, but complex enough so thatthe task would be challenging. Much of the music of theWest during this long period tended, not surprisingly, tounfold much as does literature. The listener is notengaged as an active participant but as a respectfulwitness who sits and listens attentively as the storyunfolds before his ears. He allows himself to betransported, and the composer’s intention is that heshould, by the skillful devices contained in thecomposition. At the end of the performance the listener isexpected to appreciate that something of beauty, andperhaps also of complexity has been presented to him.

How Culture Defines the Listener’s Role

This may be something of an exaggeration of the passiverole which the Western concert goer is expected to take.His response to the music may also be such that he is notconscious of himself listening to the creation of anotherhuman but may feel himself deeply engulfed in theexperience of the sound. The role of the Western concertgoer does stand in great contrast, however, to the moreactive role which is expected in many other societies. Inthe culture of many of the Indian groups of the Americas,

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every one present is expected to function as a participantand one who contributes something to the performance.North or South Indian classical music provide additionalexamples of the active roles which audiences are expectedto play. This is also true in many Sub Saharan Africancultures. The various roles which audiences are expectedto play is in direct relationship to the manner in which themusic event is structured in time, which is to say that thesedifferent audience roles are a reflection of the verydifferent conventions by which musical form is employed.

At first glance it might seem that the requirements for theIndian concert goer are essentially the same as those of hisWestern counterpart. There is, however, a vast differencein what is expected of each. In order to appreciate aconcert of Indian music the listener must be very familiarwith the structure of the music. The audience is expectedto be familiar with the raga and tala system enough torecognize the major ragas of the system in order to fullyfollow the development used by the performer of themoment and to be able to appreciate his uniquecontribution to it. He must also be well enoughacquainted with the tala rhythmic system that he canrecognize and mentally or by tapping quietly keep time tothe often complex rhythmic patterns. This requires notonly the ability to count in often very complex metricunits, but to recognize a number of fixed rhythmicpatterns and to continue counting them to oneself whilethe performing artist is executing rhythmic and melodicvariations on it.

What one sees and hears at a concert of Indian music is anaudience often physically moving to the changes in themusic. The audience is often overtly keeping time byclapping out the time patterns of the tala, and sometimesenthusiastically calling out a word or praise to theperformer for some particularly skillful turn. Members ofan audience attending a concert of Indian music oftenemit audible sighs, or gasps of appreciation. At the heightof the performance, an intense spirit of cooperativecompetitiveness takes over as the melodic soloist -instrumentalist or singer - and the drummer move intoincreasingly complex melodic and rhythmic variationsmake the audience’s task of keeping up with the countingincreasingly challenging. At the end of the performancethe audience applauds almost as though they werethemselves in part responsible for the excellence of theevent, so intense was their participation in it.

While it is true that the Western concert goer is expectedto be familiar with the basic repertoire, the level of

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required knowledge is relatively small when comparedwith the knowledge of the melodic and rhythmic theoryfound in the larger percentage of an average Indianconcert audience. The expectations are not unreasonableones in India because so many members of the audiencethere are amateur musicians themselves. The process oflistening to Indian classical music involves considerablebackground knowledge. The audience must discerndiscrete and meaningful units of sound by continuallyrelating what is being heard to that which was just heardor was heard on other some occasions. In this manner thelistener is first, able to create in his mind, the definingcharacteristics of the particular raga which is being spelledout step by step. At the same time as he comes to recognizewhich raga is been interpreted, he is also able to comparethis execution with the nuances, new phrases, new tonalrelationships which this particular composer/performer isgiving in his interpretation.

In the mbira music of the Shona people of Zimbabwe thelistener becomes immersed in the repeated pattern whichhe hears. The basic pattern repeats so much that itbecomes a strong predictable element on which then theminute and subtle variations take on greater significance.The listener does not expect dramatic changes in themusic nor displays of virtuosity. These would be out ofplace the context of this culture. Instead the audiencebecomes drawn in deeper and deeper into the pattern. Hehears constantly changing patterns like those which resultfrom the turning of a kaleidoscope. In this process ofpicking out and making up in his own imagination newpatterns and new groupings of the sounds which he hears,he may be gradually and quietly drawn into a state oftrance. The music, so long associated by the Shonapeople, with their ancestors, may move some even tospeak with their ancestors while immersed in this musicand in a state of trance (Robert Garfias, “Role of Dreamsand Spirit Possession in the Mbira Dza Vadzimu Music ofZimbabwe,” Journal of Altered States of Consciousness,Vol. 5, No. 3 (1980) pp. 211-234. ) The seemingly endlessrepeated pattern in the music, the lack of linear formalstructure and the context strongly associated with thespirits of the ancestors all contribute to the special type ofaudience response in this culture.

In both the Indian classical music as well as the Shonamusic of Zimbabwe, the listener is not listening to agradually unfolding linear pattern or form beingpresented to him in increasingly accumulated segments.To describe this other, non-European kind of listening as away of perceiving of form is to stretch the usual and

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somewhat narrower usage of the term form. Still, theprocess of listening is much the same. It is in the culturallydefined parameters of the terms we use to describe whatwe are listening for where the differences lie.

Balancing Spontaneity and Familiarity

In a sense the ideal mode of listening in Indian musicrequires sufficient time to develop the aural image of thecomplex of tonal relationships, that is, the raga, which thecomposer/performer is creating. The end result should bea construct image in sound that does exist in time, butwhich remains flexible and fluid enough to permit manyinterpretations. A performance is not one fixed map or aformal structure of tonal relationships that are repeatableand exist in only one fixed sets of time relations. Herereference to the distinction between general spacetime andmusic timespace used by the musicologist Charles Seegerwill be useful. While every performance of the BeethovenSeventh Symphony is conceptually the same in specificspace/time, in the larger context of general space time notwo events are ever precisely repeatable. Eachperformance of a raga has a unique set of temporalrelationships that constitute the actual specificperformance at that moment. Repeated performances ofthe same raga, even when by the same performerattempting to recapture the mood of an earlierperformance and even within minutes of each other,would not be heard by Indian audiences as having thesame structure in specific space/time. The differences inevery performance of the same raga, even by the sameperformer are the very essence of that which in India isconsidered the performance.

The western counterpart of repeated performances of aBeethoven symphony would not be the identical either.Each performance would be considered distinct and suchperformances could be also critically compared. However,any number of even widely divergent performances of thesame Beethoven symphony can be abstractlyconceptualized as a set of tonal relationships with asignificance of their own which stands outside the contextof any particular performance of that piece.

These three different usages of time as space in music, thetradition of European art music, the classical music ofIndia, and the mbira music of Zimbabwe, provide us witha few of the countless approaches to the organization oftime that humans have thought up during this shortperiod of existence on the planet. They provide some ideaof the scope of possibilities which man’s imagination has

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enabled him to create. Each is a solution to the challengeof working within the limits of man’s ability toconceptualize, to remember and to create from thiscombination of activities a mental image of what hasbeen defined as the preeminent “message” of the music inthe culture.

All these examples require time and pitch for definitionand thus can be thought of as being in some way mappedout in time. Yet only in the Western classical musictradition does the analogy of a map seem appropriate,that is to say a sound diagram or plan which is in someway analogous to the plan of a city or a diagram of abuilding. If an analogy may be used only to emphasizethe contrast, the conception of Indian music might bethought of as like the basic principles and theory of cityplanning which the master builder brings with him to thetask of building. By contrast the Shona mbira musicmight be exemplified differently. Think of an analogy ofan imagined scheme or blueprint that describes the formand pattern of a city. In practice the same blueprint couldbe used for many possible cities. In each realizationdifference could occur and thus each manifestation wouldbe but one of these possibilities. Many possibility couldoccur from the same blueprint, and some might never berealized or ever recreated again in the same way. Theperception of pattern or structure in music and the meansby which we exemplify it is that which enables us to relatewhat we are hearing at any one moment to what we haveheard before. In short, it provides us the key with whichwe are able to place whatever we hear in the larger contextof our own highly individual cast of our common culture.

Humanly Controlled Change

In any culture what is considered beautiful in music willbe unique and may be incompatible with what isconsidered beautiful in another even closely relatedculture. The one trait that many, if not all appear to shareis that in the process of listening to the music, the listeneris in some way aware that this is a human creation eventhough there may be only a subliminal consciousness ofthis. One might hold that the most beautiful music everheard was the sound of the wind through the trees. Thereis as yet no society known to us that uses a definition ofmusic that includes such non-humanly produced orcontrolled sounds within its boundaries although thereare many cultures in which such natural sounds areconsidered very beautiful. It is the fact of human creationand execution that in all societies defines music.

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One of the most common means for being aware of thehuman factor in what we hear is in the perception of apattern of change. Although humans are physically andmentally capable of producing sound which consists ofendless and exact repetitions of a single unit this is notdone. While there may be people in one culture who mayperceive that other peoples’ music is static and repetitivetthis is usually the view from the outside. There does notappear to be any consciously created music by humans, inwhich change of some type or another does not indicatethe active control of its creator. It is in the perception ofchange that the conscious awareness of form in relation tothe passing of time takes place. Change is perceived as thismoment being different from that moment, of “now beingdifferent from “just now”.

Perception of Change and its Limits

The perception of change in music is limited and boundedby the culturally defined delineation of the meaningfulunits in that music. The listener participates in theprocess of music by using his memory to experience anddefine each change he hears as it occurs. The perceivedchange can be used in the European manner of listeningto the gradually laying out of a plan or structure. Changecan also be recognized as the gradually increasing numberof possibilities from which the listener can contribute tothe creation of yet others as in many types of Africanmusic. It is, of course true that this same principle operatesin strong evidence in much of the contemporary popularmusic of the world. To acknowledge this fact, is torecognize the distinctly Afro-American element in theorigins and roots of this music. In all types of music timeand change work together to create that which the listenerhas been prepared to expect by his cultural conditioning.This consciousness that what is being heard now isdifferent from what was heard just now has evolved as theimportant element to create cohesion and a commonsense of predictability between creator and audience inmany cultures. As is the case in all other aspects of music,the manner in which this principle manifests itself isdifferent from one music to another.

Ways of Controlling Contrast and Change: Theme & Variations

In Western music the principle of contrast is typicallyexemplified in two classic forms, the theme and variations,and the variations on a ground. The variations on aground is a method of construction which was introducedinto Europe in the 16th century from Spain, perhapsbased on Arabic or North African variation principles. It

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consists, in essence, of a melodic line, usually in the lowerpart, which is repeated continuously while variations inthe upper voice are superimposed.

This form of contrast in which the basis for the variation,the ground, and the variations themselves are heardsimultaneously, flourished throughout Europe for overtwo hundred years, under various names while beinggradually modified. The variation form which latersupplanted the ground and which we today typicallythink when we talk of variation in Western music is thetheme and variations. In this structure a theme is statedfirst in simple form and then the theme, has in the Westcome to be that which first comes to mind when we thinkof variation. The older structure of the ground as a basisfor superimposed variation is a manner not very differentfrom that used in African mbira music or for that matter,the American form of piano blues known as boogie-woogie. In each of these three systems, the ground, mbiramusic and boogie-woogie, the bass line is not really thetheme on which variations are superimposed. The bassline is the fundamental rhythmic and tonal structurewithin which all the variations grow. Yet, no onefragment, nor even the repeated bass line itself, couldappropriately be considered the equivalent of the themeas in the linearly conceived theme and variations concept.

Distinctive approaches to variation are not only a matterof thinking in termseither of linear or ofglobal patterns. Tobe perceived changein music must occurin time but theapproaches to thisuse of time arevirtually limitless. Inthe gamelan music ofCentral Java, tochoose one of manypossible non-European examples,a large ensembleplays compositionseach of which has adistinct formalstructure. In the

tradition of Javanese music there are compositional type.These are systematized structures that delineate apunctuated rhythmic pattern and each may severalindividual compositions that employ it. Some of these

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formal types are long, others very long and rarely usedand with only a few compositions in each. The formalstructure of the composition is heard in a manner that atleast superficially parallels the ideal method ofappreciation of form in European art music. The listenerhears, remembers what he hears and adds that to thegathering information in his memory and thus graduallymakes in his mind a map of the structure of thecomposition.

The Javanese approach to the organization of space andtime seems identical to that which is characteristic ofmuch of the music of the Western world. The anticipatedaudience response to Javanese music may be trulydifferent from that expected from a Western audience. TheJavanese composer expected that his audience wouldmore than likely be wandering around during theperformance of his music and knew that periods of raptattention and concentration would be short and sporadic.Audiences in Central Java, as in many of the cultures ofSouth East Asia are free to roam about, to enter and leavethe performance area at any time, frequently arriving lateand not remaining until the end. Javanese would,however, deny that wandering around or even dozingrepresented a less satisfactory audience demeanor thansitting in rapt attention. In many Asian theatrical anddance traditions it is understood that even those whomight appear to be indifferently attending what is takingplace in the performance are, in fact active participants.In many such traditions the music is structured so that itcan be heard and enjoyed at several different levels ofconcentration.

It might seem that this practice isevidence of the low esteem inwhich music is held in Asia. Itmust be true that if focusedconcentration is not predicted orexpected from the audience itwould be unreasonable for anAsian composer to prepare musicwhich would require it. A largenumber of the listeners seated inthe Western concert hall are notwilling or able to follow theintricacies of the form that thecomposition of the moment maydemand. The expectation, that is,the attitude predicted by both

audience and composer is that they will certainly try. Theexpectations of audience and composer in the culture in

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this way have a profound affect on the path that thecreation of new forms will take. One interestingdistinction between the Asian approach to audienceperception of structure and form, for example, and that ofthe West is that music is planned in order that severaldifferent levels of involvement with the music can occur.In the West when there is the expectation that in a certaincontext, at a supermarket, for example, people will likelynot be listening attentively, they will likely be providedcanned music, Muzak - certainly a type of music whichbegs to be ignored!

The fact that the audience in a traditional Asian musicperformance, like that for the Javanese gamelan, may notbe concentrating on the gradual unfolding of thestructure and form of the composition does not meanthat the form of the music is not perceived. The lack ofrapt concentration on the part of the audience hascertainly not constrained composers to use simpler andmore easily comprehended forms for their compositions.It is indeed likely that in Javanese music the structure ofthe music is re-enforced by the complex system of layeringseveral levels of ornamentation all based on theunderlying formal structure. Even the process ofanticipating certain key notes in the unfolding of thepiece all works to subtly saturate the listeners unconsciouswith the imprint of the meandering of the melody andconsequently, its form.

Formal Pattern & Structure

We perceive formal pattern and structure in music as itunfolds in time. Since the willingness to accept the musicwe hear as something which falls within our personalcultural parameters for what constitutes music, an evenbrief conscious period of listening must take place inorder for that judgment to be possible. In its broadestsense pattern, or structure, is the organizing system bywhich we are able to discern music, since without it wecould only perceive sound at the instant the sound waveshit our eardrum. When we decide that what we arehearing is music we have already been engaged in somescanning activity, however brief, which has enabled us tofind form and relate to those categories stored in our longterm memory. The apparently sleeping elder at a Javaneseconcert must have been engaged in exactly that activitybefore he decided to relax and absorb the musicsubconsciously.

Ideally the perception of form and pattern in music

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requires conscious concentration for the pattern to beretained in memory. Yet we must be scanning the soundswe hear even when we are not actively concentrating onwhat we hear. Anyone who abhors the impersonal,artificial sound of Muzak forcibly piped into hissurroundings and who manages to avoid listening to itonly to find himself humming one of their insidious tuneslong after leaving the supermarket, should need littlemore to be convinced of that idea.