The Evaluation of Nonlinear Musical Structures
Lindsay Vickery · Australasian Journal of Paramedicine · 2011
Our experience of time through music is diverse and often irregular.In Western and non-Western music, composers have explored the idea of exploiting this relationship to create structures that destabilize, fragment and even suspend time.A definition of Nonlinear Structure is proposed based upon evaluation of the level of integration, contingency, compressibility and determinacy of a work.Exemplar works by composers Earle Brown, Béla Bartók, Olivier Messiaen and Brian Eno are discussed.