by Hei-Yeung (John) Lai
[00:00–00:35] from Track #6, Music of Panama Cuna Indians, from “Primitive Music of the World” [sic], collated by Henry Cowell and released in 1962.
From the original liner notes: “flute music played by two men, recorded by Prof. Clyde Keeler. Two players on homemade alto flutes improvise polyphony together. Each flute has several contiguous tones of breathy quality. The flutes are a fourth of fifth apart, and the result reminds one of the period, tenth century or so, when in the history of Western fine-art music organum was developing into early counterpoint.”
John Lai’s transcription of a Panamanian flute music excerpt
Notes & Observations:
- The transcription shows a composite melody of the duet, focusing on the top line. The flutes are usually a fifth apart. The first flute sometimes holds the note longer, and the second flute fills in the eighth-note space. For example, in the D3-G3-D3-C3 gesture in each cycle, the first flute plays the first two eighth notes, holding G3, while the second flute fills in the last two eighth notes with D3-C3.
- The duet keeps a constant tactus of bpm = 142 quarter notes.
- Cycle 1 constitutes the basic shape of the cycle. The duet then continues with two types of extended cycles (Type A: Cycles 2, 3, 8, 9; Type B: Cycles 4, 5).
- Based on the repetition and change of the cycle type, the ten cycles can be segmented into three sections that are suggestive of a ternary form. Section A (Cycles 1, 2, 3), Section B (Cycles 4, 5, 6), Return of Section A (Cycles 7, 8, 9), Coda (Cycle 10).
- The duet, especially those extended cycles, plays with the metrical processes continuously. Cycle 1 establishes a primary ground for the upcoming metrical processes. The repetition of the D3-G3-D3-C3 gestures suggests a half-note projection, while the cycle as a whole can be heard as a dotted-whole-note projection.
Example 1: Metrical projections in Cycle 1 (the basic type).
- Cycle 2 presents the first type of the extended cycle (Type A). One can still hear a consistent half-note projection at the local level (see the green projective representations in Example 2). However, the grouping boundary and the metrical realization of the cycle are not clear cut. Although the first six quarter notes of Cycle 2 repeat exactly that of Cycle 1, the cycle is then expanded. Hence, the dotted-whole-note projection initiated by Cycle 1 is not realized in Cycle 2 (see the orange projective representations in Example 2). As a result, it is unclear when the next cycle begins again until another ending marker (A3-G3), followed by the beginning marker (D3-G3), arrives.
Example 2: Metrical projections in Cycle 2 (Type A).
- Cycle 4 presents the second type of the extended cycle (Type B), where its metrical effect is entirely different from that of Cycle 2. Instead of keeping a constant half-note projection or suggesting an unmeasured expansion, Type B breaks the half-note projection: an octave leap to the registral high point C4—a melodic interval that has not appeared before—articulates a metrical reset (Example 3).
Example 3: Metrical projections in Cycle 4 (Type B).
- When Cycle 5 repeats Cycle 4, the listeners may then be accustomed to the metrical reset at the sixth quarter-note beat. They may anticipate the same metrical progression in the next cycle. Hence, although one may notice from hindsight that Cycle 6 returns to the primary form of the cycle, the listeners may experience another metrical experience in time due to the previous entrainment in Cycles 4 and 5. After a supposed metrical “reset” at the sixth quarter-note beat, Cycle 6, however, does not continue with the C4-Bb3-A3-G3 descent; it goes directly to the (A3-G3) ending gesture. It thus results in another metrical reset where the original last half-note projection in Cycle 5 is disrupted (Example 4).
Example 4: Metrical projections in Cycle 6 (the basic type).
- Finally, the metrical effect characteristic of Cycle 4 may even suggest a third mode of metrical experience in the Type-A extended cycle (the first two modes are demonstrated in Example 2). This mode of listening may already be implicit when Type A is first presented in Cycle 2. It can further be brought to the fore after experiencing the metrical effect suggested in Section B. The listeners may hear a metrical reset at the sixth quarter-note beat upon the expansion of Type A. The repetitions of the dyads (A3-G3-A3-G3 and C4-D4-C4-D4) then project and realize a half-note projection. The A3-G3 ending gesture is then subject to another metrical reset, similar to what happened in Cycle 6 (Example 5).
Example 5: Metrical projections in Cycle 8 (Type A).