Indeterminacy (‘Enigmatism’)

Experimental music does not always engage us in a way which is natural to our mind, but also on strange ways that confuse us, entertaining us by exploring unknown territories of our inside. Tubular Bells of Mike Oldfield opens with a passage which has a specific, uncanny distracting impact. When I was listening to it for the first time, my grasp of the form simply couldn’t settle – but the impression of strict composition didn’t suffer because of this. I was puzzled and mesmerized in the same time. Another great example is JM Jarre’s Oxygene 2, that creates an incredible labyrinth-like feeling. This was latter sometimes nick-named “tubular music” or “enigmatism”.

But almost all “tubular” tracks I heard afterwards – such as that from movie director and composer John Carpenter, say from 'Halloween' - were actually only superficial stylistic imitations and did not have described impact and character (by the way, Tubular Bells opening was used in a horror movie Exorcist, although it actually has nothing to do with scary feelings – it sounds more gentle and fragile than spooky). Even Oldfield's own “tubular” moments later in carrier didn’t have this impact. So what makes these arpeggios have such impact?

There is something I noticed: “enigmatic” sentences seem to always have that characteristic, that they continue after the perceived ending. Let me give a verbal example from an Art Of Noise album “Seduction Of Claude Debussy”:

Winter and summer, Debussy used to work surrounded by flowers, his study overflown with them. It would remind you of the Line de Baudelaire, sound and perfume; swirl in the evening air.

After “sound and perfume”, listener perceives the end of the sentence. But then “swirl in the evening air” suddenly comes, as a continuation of the sentence but still surprising, because sentence actually already ended, as it could have ended, after “perfume”. Subjectively, the sentence ends two times, where end was perceived because phrase seemingly didn’t have potential to be carried further.

This is what seems to happen with “enigmatic” music, and on an even more unconscious and direct level -- those are melodies that have “several endings”, they continue after they already sound finished. Tubular Bells arpeggio has an addition on the second pass that is not necessary and that happens after a theme subjectively ended (repeated the first variation). Obviously this makes the time signature vague. Oxygene 2 opening arpeggio ends three times subjectively – that is, the arabesque could be shortened two times and still sound complete. And as the phrase is cycled, listener looses grasp of where it begins and where it ends; it is difficult to be aware of how melody looks like, because it has several endings, and as it is cycled also several beginnings, so one is never sure where it actually ends and where it begins. But all the way there is an unmistakable melodic feeling – actually there are many potential melodies in there, as ones mind finds appropriate – so a tune becomes (subjectively) multifarious, its perception is indeterminate.

Indeterminacy was one of the most prominent experimental XX century ideas. Ianis Xenakis and John Cage were the greatest promoters, but they (and many other) were for indeterminacy in a very literal sense – form of a piece would literary be always different, indeterminate. But what is much more important, is music to sound indeterminate subjectively, albeit it can remain objectively unaltered. Whenever we hear an indeterminate piece, perception might shift, and this is achieved, as explained, by making multifariousness on logical level -- such as making unclear where the beginning and where the ending of a melody is. The sense of melodicism and structure must not be lost though; the piece must not be bland and diffuse, but melodious, as depicted. The feeling of "being lost" in a score, and a sensation of something having no beginning and no ending yet sounding very exciting and structured appears.

To achieve the sort of indeterminacy by blurring the beginning and ending, obviously a composer has to find the way to evolve idea that seemingly doesn’t have the potential to go further; to discover hidden potential of something that seems said and done, yet hides another facet not easy to dig out. They probably come to being after a musician let himself experiment with a theme that already sounds finished and maybe not that interesting, to than discover it has hidden potential if built up on certain way. That is what surprises our mind and what makes the “trick” work – which is why this concept is not a trick at all, but a compositional challenge of its own.

There are other ways to achieve indeterminacy. It can be also done with rhythm, by making unclear rhythmic patterns. FSOL ‘Slider’ track has an indeterminate rhythm, which similarly “continues after it ended”. In JM Jarre's Magnetic Fields 2, the last beat after the last note of a melodic riff is strange, mind can view it in the same time as the beginning of the next bar and the ending of a current bar, so rhythmic bars appear to “intersect”, have parts that belong to both bars in the same time, producing a mind-blowing effect of a relentless run.