Spatially Expanded - Time Condensed Music

In order to achieve more stimulation and meaning, one can use aggressive rhythm. But on a more essential way, music can do the same by dynamization of all musical developments.

By making the distance between subsequent elements greater – metrically expanding compositions – one can gain new possibilities of expression. This metrical expansion is directly connected with universal music -- structures of musica humana and instrumentalis, since driven with our voice, body and construction of instruments, and that are again constructed according to our bodies, have that character, that notes are generally close to each other, since we tend to sing and play notes that are not too far away one from another. With electronic instruments, structures can be more dispersed around. And not only individual notes, but all other entities such as chords and sounds.

At that, the distance between the two chords is not in how much theirs root notes (keys) are far away from each other, but how different topologically a chord is in relation to the previous or the next one. C major and C minor differ far more than C major and F major (heard in isolation), despite in the first case only one note is changed, and in the second all the notes. JM Jarre’s chords progression are a great example of music where every next chord is distant from the previous one – substantially, harmonically distant, since on the example of his chord progressions you can clearly see that pitch–vise harmonic movement is small, not rarely he changes only a single note, or bass, but that creates a much greater change harmonically than moving all the notes. For example, after giving a G minor in Oxygene 1, there comes an F minor, which is a much greater harmonic change than jumping to, say, C minor – because F minor falls out of the minor scale of G minor. But after giving this sudden F minor, Jarre proceeds with C minor, which goes back to the G minor scale, so all together there is a lot of harmonic shifting in only a few moves.

The main problem with making music that is metrically expanded is to achieve real musical structure. These pieces look like they are going to fall apart, every next move seems to sudden, too unexpected. There is not a lot of motion mechanically speaking, but all the movements are aggressive and drastically change the order created only a moment ago. Sometimes there is even a feeling that every next element is random. Composing such pieces is like building a tower of cards, and with every next move the building might easily crumble.

What makes you find the next note Vic-a-verse the previous one is an accident, in a way… Jean Michel Jarre

But the miracle is, there is articulation, and the feeling of overwhelm of articulation appears. Every next move seems like a dead end, and then comes a next one that still manages to draw it somewhere further.

Metrical expansions are visible from the work of many composers of the time: for example, on Vangelis “Bachanalle” (opening of Heaven&Hell) melody line goes through more than one bar. The scales from Oxygene 1 are stretching through several bars for a short time, disorientating the listener.

Polyphony of which we talked on the beginning, could be seen as metrical expansion of music vertically, which means the contrast between layers of music is greater. The aim is to create larger musical space. Metrical expansion works well for the cause of minimalism, since it allows one to convey much more than expected within a minimalistic, simplistic outset. It is allowing the precious economy of means.

From the other side, there is the idea of metrical condensation – we use notes “in-between” notes from a scale. This would be called micro-tonal music, structurally using the space between 12 chromatic notes to make melodies. Quarter-tones are routinely employed in Indian music (which I can’t recall I've ever heard). I myself am yet to hear any interesting microtonal melody, although there is a “scream” motive from opening of JM Jarre’s Ethnicolor I, and usage of dissonant (“pitch-bent”) tones on some places in some of his melodies - say “Diva” or the ending of Equinoxe 6. This approach ultimately leads towards making custom scales. Stravinsky was thinking that this possibility is the most revolutionary among the ones brought by electronic instruments.

There is another related “experimental” change, that again has to do with achieving more happenings in a unit of time -- this time, it is fastening things up. This leads towards “fast melodies”, or “micro-melodies” or “melodic arpeggios” or how they call them. These melodic arpeggios are not of the sort often found in classical music, especially baroque, where an arpeggio is just a time-split chord, which goes in background and serve only as an ornament. Here all notes are perceived as key parts of a tune, they all have equal importance; musical entities too fast to be called melodies, and too melodic to be called arpeggios.

These “too fast tunes” our minds don’t follow quite like a traditional melody; comparing with the effect of it, this is a kind of “immaterial melody”, a melody that actually rather only suggests a melody; a melody that is tickling our consciousness, like before going to sleep. It is like a hyper-melody, came from a moment in-between dream and awake – and conveys an idea and feeling so subtle and vague, that we can’t fully grasp, and that can only be conveyed through this almost immaterial sort of tune. To use mathematical vocabulary, these melodies give out the impression of being “implicit”, as opposed to explicit melodies we are accustomed with -- meaning melodies that are not literary stated, but the sense of melody appears as “in-between the lines”, coming from nothing firm that we could get hold of in a given moment of time.

The first famous such melody is Tubular Bells opening theme of Mike Oldfield (which has more features, about which later). But maybe the best example of both metric expansion and time condensation is the second arpeggio of Oxygene 2, where notes jump over long distances in short time, bombarding the listener with high-pitched sounds; like came out from the mind of some super-computer, using more notes for a few seconds than some musicians used in their whole carriers, this arpeggio creates a feeling of hyper-articulation, music created by higher intelligence. The effect is rather condensed mental impact; as listeners we get the feeling that a melody is touching a “super-human” part of our mind, expanding our intellect. That the faster tempo is important and that these tunes can only work in it, we can see if we slow down arpeggios of Oxygene 2 -- its melodic idea is lost, starting to sound like sequence of random notes, or outlining the scale, not like a melody. But when speeded up again, the sense of melody – this strange kind of melodicism – appears again. The other arpeggio of Oxygene 2, when we are at it, the one which plays constantly, shows great sublimation of styles – the riff is some kind of a mixture between baroque and jazz, having jazz-like improvised quality, and orderliness, style and elegance of baroque music. Another example of time-condensation is JM Jarre's Equinoxe 4, whose bass line is time compressed/space expanded to create effect of striking non-bodily rhythm.

It is misguiding to describe these arpeggios as “sensual”, as some writers often do, maybe because they are superficially reminiscent on Debussy’s arabesques. The impact of these arpeggios is actually not sensual, but rather 'spiritual'. It's a procession of tones which, with theirs disorientating speed and structure, create this feeling of hyper-melodic tune, like some reincarnation of Johan Sebastian Bach in an alien version. This music paces steps, and also makes them long, traveling at staggering speeds.