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The Music of the Temporalists
A Parisian drugstore owner (André Pogoriloffsky), a man in his early fifties, who is also a skilled amateur piano player, experiences a two year long mental trip to a parallel (Temporalist) world, as an avatar. He will soon find out that he was purposely "imported” there in order to be taught the basics of that culture’s music theory. Pogoriloffsky is permanently accompanied by a local musicologist – Jean-Philippe, an expert in the European musical tradition – and, for a while, initiated by an old psychologist (Herr Sch… etc.) in the cognitive aspects of Temporalist music theory. The two men ask Pogoriloffsky to memorize as much as he is capable to from the theoretical notions that he is presented with so that, once returned to Paris, be able to transcribe all that information for the use of his own musical culture. In order to become more familiarized with Temporalist music and musical interpretation, in the following months Pogoriloffsky tours an important number of music schools, universities, musical libraries, concert halls and audition rooms or is encouraged to attend various lectures and conferences.
The music of the Temporalists describes a journey into a parallel world that is populated with humans like us who just happened to have cultivated music as "the art of time” and not as "the art of sounds”. Pogoriloffsky recounts all that experience with honesty, doing his best to meet his two guides’ expectations. For this reason, with a very few exceptions, he only describes Temporalist music theory, pedagogy and practice – ignoring most of the unusual things that the parallel world (in which he spends more than two years) surprised him with.
The book is composed of a 30 pages long fictional introduction, a 115 pages long description of the Temporalist music theory (and history), a 10 pages long fictional ending and a table of references.
Evidently, the main focus of the book resides in the music theory chapters that contain a perceptual approach towards the way humans process the many possible aspects of discrete, musical time. The theory is the result of a 20 year long effort by its author to define an alternative system for the classical bar-rhythmical theory. In order to achieve that, he had to read literally thousands of pages of scientific contributions, articles and books on time perception/cognition and rhythm production – all that being consequently filtered down to a standalone theory, presented in the main section of the book.
Thus, along the 28 theoretical chapters the book presents all the perceptual thresholds extant in the 20-3000 ms per musical pulsation range, along with the musical implications of each and every such threshold. It also introduces many other perceptual phenomena (e.g. entrainment, chunking, subjective accentuation, pulsatory inertia, temporal gap perception etc.), thus mapping all the aspects of temporal discretization that are relevant from a musical point of view.
In order to achieve cohesion and accessibility, the theoretical system is presented as if it already constituted the basis of a complex, hands-on, musical tradition.The inherent shortcomings of this kind of fictional musicology are well counterbalanced by the fact that musicians who will read the book will benefit from the fact that the theory is presented as a real, fully functional system. It could never be stressed enough the fact that, despite the unusual approach, the theory itself is all but 100% based on real perceptual phenomena substantiated by the many scientific studies mentioned above and detailed in the list of references.
The music of the Temporalists describes a journey into a parallel world that is populated with humans like us who just happened to have cultivated music as "the art of time” and not as "the art of sounds”. Pogoriloffsky recounts all that experience with honesty, doing his best to meet his two guides’ expectations. For this reason, with a very few exceptions, he only describes Temporalist music theory, pedagogy and practice – ignoring most of the unusual things that the parallel world (in which he spends more than two years) surprised him with.
The book is composed of a 30 pages long fictional introduction, a 115 pages long description of the Temporalist music theory (and history), a 10 pages long fictional ending and a table of references.
Evidently, the main focus of the book resides in the music theory chapters that contain a perceptual approach towards the way humans process the many possible aspects of discrete, musical time. The theory is the result of a 20 year long effort by its author to define an alternative system for the classical bar-rhythmical theory. In order to achieve that, he had to read literally thousands of pages of scientific contributions, articles and books on time perception/cognition and rhythm production – all that being consequently filtered down to a standalone theory, presented in the main section of the book.
Thus, along the 28 theoretical chapters the book presents all the perceptual thresholds extant in the 20-3000 ms per musical pulsation range, along with the musical implications of each and every such threshold. It also introduces many other perceptual phenomena (e.g. entrainment, chunking, subjective accentuation, pulsatory inertia, temporal gap perception etc.), thus mapping all the aspects of temporal discretization that are relevant from a musical point of view.
In order to achieve cohesion and accessibility, the theoretical system is presented as if it already constituted the basis of a complex, hands-on, musical tradition.The inherent shortcomings of this kind of fictional musicology are well counterbalanced by the fact that musicians who will read the book will benefit from the fact that the theory is presented as a real, fully functional system. It could never be stressed enough the fact that, despite the unusual approach, the theory itself is all but 100% based on real perceptual phenomena substantiated by the many scientific studies mentioned above and detailed in the list of references.
214 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 28, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 14, 2020
The premise of this book was so intriguing--a science fiction novel about music theory! Wow--two completely different genres, both so fascinating for me! However, it turned out that neither aspect of the book held any interest in the book--until I found yet a third aspect; the book's humor. The sheer inanity of the book makes it quite humorous, though after a while it just becomes so tedious.
I don't know if the book was originally written in French, and then translated. It doesn't matter. The writing is abominable. At every chance where a common English word would be sufficient, a more esoteric word--or even an imaginary word--is substituted. The book is filled with typos. Many of the sentences are so awkwardly constructed--they don't seem to be written with English grammatical structure at all! The book requires an editor, so that the stream of consciousness writing can be understood.
At first, I thought that the strange style of writing was intentional, to remind the reader that it was written in a parallel universe where people think differently. Perhaps. But then, I realized that so much of it is to render the writing in a fabulously humorous tone. For example,
or
The funniest paragraph is:
There may be some interesting concepts about music theory hidden in these pages. It is all about tempo and rhythms. It is about hearing music in time, where everything of interest is in the rhythm, with no mention of pitch or harmony. The theory disregards the need for measures (bars), and instead substitute the use of milliseconds between notes or phrases. In attempts to help the main character understand this different type of music, many analogies are made between "temporalist" music and our Western style of music. As a composer, though, I cannot think of any way to incorporate this music theory into my own compositions.
I don't know if the book was originally written in French, and then translated. It doesn't matter. The writing is abominable. At every chance where a common English word would be sufficient, a more esoteric word--or even an imaginary word--is substituted. The book is filled with typos. Many of the sentences are so awkwardly constructed--they don't seem to be written with English grammatical structure at all! The book requires an editor, so that the stream of consciousness writing can be understood.
At first, I thought that the strange style of writing was intentional, to remind the reader that it was written in a parallel universe where people think differently. Perhaps. But then, I realized that so much of it is to render the writing in a fabulously humorous tone. For example,
Jean-Phillipe pointed out to me that a whakerbaleenist can verticalize only some of the pulsatory structures that two interpreters usually are able to.
or
I have noticed that for temporal modes from the IOI 400-550 ms range interpreters pay more care for the sonorous marking of the prosodical relationships.
The funniest paragraph is:
I must call the pharmacy and tell them that I take the whole week off. In just a few days I managed to make my wife believe that I am impotent and frustrated--while in reality I feel like flying from one flower to another, like a happy bumblebee.
There may be some interesting concepts about music theory hidden in these pages. It is all about tempo and rhythms. It is about hearing music in time, where everything of interest is in the rhythm, with no mention of pitch or harmony. The theory disregards the need for measures (bars), and instead substitute the use of milliseconds between notes or phrases. In attempts to help the main character understand this different type of music, many analogies are made between "temporalist" music and our Western style of music. As a composer, though, I cannot think of any way to incorporate this music theory into my own compositions.
August 17, 2016
Music has been defined as the art of sound in time, and this book describes a theoretical system of music that, in contrast to the western European classical tradition, privileges the durational aspect over the pitch aspect in terms of precision, elaboration, and general focus. As in Edwin Abbott's Flatland, a fictional and fantastic frame story is used to help the reader grasp some quite abstract theoretical concepts. It raises some interesting questions about what features we pay attention to when composing, performing, or listening to music, and what aspects we consider more peripheral or incidental. The ideas presented are fascinating, even mind-bending.
The main character, like the author, does not speak English as his first language, and the book appears to have been self-published, perhaps without an editor. The ensuing typos and occasionally eccentric choices in vocabulary and syntax make this intriguing exposition of some complex ideas a little more difficult to follow than perhaps it needs to be.
The main character, like the author, does not speak English as his first language, and the book appears to have been self-published, perhaps without an editor. The ensuing typos and occasionally eccentric choices in vocabulary and syntax make this intriguing exposition of some complex ideas a little more difficult to follow than perhaps it needs to be.
May 22, 2018
The premise of this book was fun and could have made a good setup for teaching the reader about the perception and cognition of tempo and rhythm. This goal was impeded by bad writing, implicit racism and sexism, use of archaic and made-up English words when basic English would have sufficed, and several errors and misconceptions, not just about music. I managed to slog through the convoluted prose, some of which was incomprehensible, only to be rewarded with an exasperating story about how the main character starts a craze of smoking the tea that had magically allowed the Temporalists never to sleep or be fatigued. (The tea's name is "tota"--a little too obvious?) I would like to be able to recommend this book, but it fails in too many areas to be worth the effort.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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January 30, 2015I have tried very very hard to make some sense of this. unfortunately, its impossible. I am a very smart person and I love music. However, I have shuddered my way through this jabberwok, and will not finish it. I am so sorry, I wanted to.like it
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August 3, 2022Reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/music-Temporali...
http://www.arteidolia.com/pogoriloffs...
http://blogs.nmz.de/badblog/2016/10/0...
http://ratkje.no/2015/06/temporalistene/
https://lnkd.in/gEbZg3p
http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/li...
al246.wordpress.com/2019/04/16/
https://theoryofmusic.wordpress.com/2...
http://www.amazon.com/music-Temporali...
http://www.arteidolia.com/pogoriloffs...
http://blogs.nmz.de/badblog/2016/10/0...
http://ratkje.no/2015/06/temporalistene/
https://lnkd.in/gEbZg3p
http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/li...
al246.wordpress.com/2019/04/16/
https://theoryofmusic.wordpress.com/2...
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews