Samuel Robert Rudd-Jones (KCL) - 2024-25 Students
k24026244@kcl.ac.uk

Composing with Limitless Accelerations and Warped Time

Music that seems to limitlessly accelerate can be created using Risset Rhythms. This remarkable fractal effect (often compared to the Barberpole illusion) remains underexploited in musical composition. Building on examples from a range of genres including classical (Haas, 2022), electronic (Autechre, 1998) and Gamelan, this practice research PhD will investigate how attributes of rhythm (metre, phrase, form) and time can be adapted to Risset Rhythm textures. It will demonstrate that the technical and expressive potential of this technique far exceeds the description in Risset (1986).

Because pulse is an emergent quality from a combination of musical parameters, while no one element can accelerate limitlessly, pulse can. This is achieved by ‘refreshing’ an accelerating texture, by discreetly removing faster durations and introducing slower durations.

Risset (1986) describes one refresh method, a loop in which the fastest durations fade out while the slowest fade in. Many compositions and the small body of technical literature (Madison, 2009; Stowell, 2011; Ghisi, 2021) are focused exclusively on this refresh method, but many others are possible. Though now widely known as Risset Rhythms (hereafter ‘RRs’), the same essential technique has been discovered independently many times (see below). This project will reframe RRs from being a mechanical auditory illusion to being a broad type of rhythmic texture with huge unrealised musical potential.

Primary research questions:

RQ1: How can RRs be exploited in composition, and how do these interact with other elements (pitch, timbre, architecture) of music?

RQ2: How can established theories of pulse, metre, phrase, and form be enriched and informed by RR contexts?

RQ3: What do limitless accelerations reveal about how musical time can be warped?

Examples of RRs exist across many genres. Gamelan music has a concept called change in irama (a refresh method) which is used to create brief decelerating RRs (Sutton and Vetter, 2006.) Sibelius’ Symphony No.5 (1919) and Symphony No.7 (1924) feature long accelerations where the fastest durations are gradually removed while a slower harmonic rhythm is introduced. Druphad features a related approach to long accelerations (Sanyal and Widdess, 2004.)

Principal Supervisor: Professor Sir George Benjamin