Receiving the Approaching Memory
- Submitting institution
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The University of Huddersfield
: A - Music
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies : A - Music
- Output identifier
- 50
- Type
- T - Other
- DOI
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- Location
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- Brief description of type
- Multi-component: Composition and CD including Contextual Information
- Open access status
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- Month
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- Year
- 2014
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This composition is one in a series of works that explores aspects of temporal perception through the deployment of musical materials that deal directly with notions of repetition and memory. Each piece approaches this aspect in a distinctive way. In this work, the pervasive use of cyclical repetition is intended to generate proliferations of activity that demonstrate the degree to which exact repetition can never remain the same. The intention is toward a heightened sense of temporal awareness, with the emphasis on encouraging a listener to perceive each moment as it occurs. The title of this work, Receiving the Approaching Memory, suggests the inter-relatedness of past, present and future events: loops of differing length are superimposed so that their relationships are constantly changing. Since each bar is a variant of the last, this puts into question notions of sameness and difference. Aspects of difference are also reflected in the macro-structure of the work, in which each of its five ‘panels’ can be seen as a reflection upon, and slight variation of, the preceding panel. Diana Deutsch observes that ‘Demonstrations of pitch circularity illustrate that the human mind tends to form linkages between elements that are close together rather than far apart’. In this work, pitch circularity is formed from linear successions of chromatic scales that are subjected to continual octave transposition. A further level of nuance is offered through slight, but clearly perceptible, displacements in rhythm – an off-kilter alignment of pitches between the violin and piano that results in a ‘ghosting’ effect between the two instruments. Related issues are discussed in the chapters by Harrison in Being Time: Case Studies in Musical Temporality (Bloomsbury, 2017).
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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