copyright © 2003 Tatiana Hamboyan

Music is a movement through time in which the tones are the body, the beat the sense of balance, and the rhythm the way the body moves. As examples, consider Reaper Death and Pange Lingua in the Phrygian mode. Both of these pieces seem to function as complete bodies of music; however, one of their main differences seems to be their rhythms.

In Pange Lingua, the rhythm cannot be separated from the words and, to a lesser degree, the tones. The rhythm, however, does not seem to be arbitrary. While listening to 3 versions of this song (one on the Music for Learning CD, one sung by Mr. Marks, and one sung by Ms. Hamboyan), it became clear that the same notes were being accented by all 3. All 3 accented the piece in this way:

The uppercase sounds are the ones that sound most like a downbeat in a metered piece of music. The biggest difference is that this piece makes no sense when metered. Just by looking at the diagram of the accents, this piece appears to be divided into twos. It’s not PAN-ge LING-GUA-a O-O-si we hear, which is what we would hear if the piece followed a 3/4 time wave exactly. Even if we can say the piece seems to be divided into twos, it does not follow any time signature that is based off of twos. The closest one seems to be 2/8, but as soon as we put the bar line in, it’s clear the downbeats aren’t where they should be.

It is clear that Pange Lingua has a beat, for never do we feel off-balance or lost in the piece. We may not know exactly where we are going, but we do not feel lost. In fact, we feel calm and relaxed. This seems to be indicate something about the nature of this piece which could be related to its religious overtones. It seems to take a great deal of faith in something (yourself, God, the person you happen to be journeying with) to not know where you’re going but still feel calm and relaxed.

If one ignores the words of Pange Lingua and tries to sing, or tap, this piece, one is left with chaos and confusion. It seems to be impossible to separate the rhythm of this piece from the words. The dependence of the piece of music upon the words suggests that this musical entity must be sung. It must not only be sung, but sung in its original language. This is very different from anything yet experienced in metered music. To use Reaper Death as a concise example, if we remove its words and sing it, or tap it, it still makes sense. We know where we are and where we’re going. It ends in a way that Pange Lingua, even with words, does not seem to.

Pange Lingua doesn’t seem to end because we are never sure of where we are heading. We can feel the pull of the dynamic quality of 1 several times in the song, but rhythmically there is no pull. Since there is no rhythmic pull, it does not end rhythmically. As stated earlier though, we are not lost. When the piece ends, we don’t feel jarred or as if it stopped well before its time. The division by two of this piece allows the ending to not be arbitrary. For example, if we sing Pange lingua gloriousi and stop, it sounds abrupt, like there’s more for us to do that we are consciously choosing to ignore. If we continue on to corporis mysterium, though, and stop after that, the ending feels as complete as the intended one.

This leads to the following question: if rhythm is the movement of the body of music and you assert that Pange Lingua has rhythm, how does it move? If one considers metered music to have these two basic types of movements: on the ground moving forward from your starting point until you reach an ending point that can either be arbitrary or known from the beginning and on the ground moving away from your starting point only to return to it at a later time, Pange Lingua cannot move in either of those ways. The best description of Pange Lingua’s movement seems to be a movement in outer space. To explain, if you can imagine yourself to be floating somewhere in space with nothing around you that you can see or touch and you start moving, (assuming you have the power to move yourself and stop your own motion) when you stop, you will have no idea where you are or even if you have moved. Obviously this description contains many difficulties because it is not clear how a movement is actually a movement if it’s not recognized as such.

If we say that Pange Lingua doesn’t have rhythm but has a beat, does that imply that rhythm is an optional part of music? With Pange Lingua, if it truly has no rhythm at all, we are still moved. Listening to Pange Lingua has an effect on the listeners and if the music isn’t taking you somewhere, how is it affecting your emotions? Is the power of the tones in Pange Lingua truly that strong? It doesn’t appear so, for if they were, one would feel moved when just playing the piece on a piano without the words. Instead of feeling moved, one feels nothing but confusion. It is a more cohesive musical whole than hitting random keys on the piano, but still not a musical whole.

To further consider whether rhythm is an optional part of music, consider the tune Reaper Death. As stated previously, if one taps it without speaking the words or thinking them, the tune makes sense rhythmically. When it ends, we don’t have a desire to move on. It feels complete as not only a rhythmic whole, but a rhythmic whole with four distinguishable parts. The phrasing is as follows: A from measure 1-5, B from 5-8, C from 8-16, and D measures 17 and 18. Phrase A forms what appears to be a semicolon, phrase B a comma, phrase C a comma, and phrase D a period.

Phrase A seems to be dominated primarily by the tones rather than the rhythm. The rhythm of the phrase is very straightforward, which allows the tones to shine. Phrase B is merely a complication of phrase A with different tones. We progress from half note-quarter note to dotted quarter note-eighth note-quarter note which ends on a half note. Though phrase B is merely a small complication of phrase A, it is in this phrase where the piece starts to become interesting rhythmically. We want to hear more of this rhythm that was just been introduced, and phrase C follows up on that desire. Phrase C really only switches the location of the eighth notes and quarter notes (it’s now dotted half note-eighth note-quarter note), but this seems to be the rhythm we are pulled towards. In fact, this rhythm is so captivating to us that we lose track of the tonal center D. There is a D seemingly thrown in at the start of measure 14 that does not sound like a center in any respect. If we attempt to end the piece there, we are left hanging. It is the rhythmic equivalent of the dynamic qualities 2 or lowered 7. When phrase C ends, it’s dramatic. Not only was the rhythm infectious enough for us to want it to continue, but the tone it ends on is the lowered 5 which is the lowest tone in the entire piece. The effect is jarring and prepares us both rhythmically and tonally for the ending phrase of the melody. The final phrase is just similar enough to the first phrase to be recognizable to our ears while being dramatic enough to leave us hanging at the end. The shift from 3/4 time to 4/4 both catches us by surprise and makes perfect sense. Since the tune rhythmically has already gone where we wanted it to go, the only thing left for it to do is to slow down. The slowing down also allows for the tones to be re-established in their dynamic qualities, allowing D to become the center once again. Still, the ending leaves us confused. We know we have arrived where we’ve wanted to go for the whole song, but we are confused about where that is.

What is interesting about the tones of both Reaper Death and Pange Lingua is that they are inseparable from the rhythm. With Reaper Death, we can separate the rhythm from the tones and focus on that alone by tapping it out. What would be the process to separate the tones from the rhythm? If we go to a piano and just hold each tone for 4 beats, aren’t we just imposing a different rhythm on the piece? It seems impossible to completely separate tones from any rhythm. Rhythm can be separated from the tones but tones cannot be separated from rhythm; this implies that rhythm can have its own existence completely free from tones while tones cannot exist without rhythm. Music in this way has become not only a movement through time in which the tones are the body, the beat the sense of balance, and the rhythm the way the body moves, but one whole and complete fluid movement through time.