Heinrich Biber

Because church music served no liturgical function in the Zwinglian cantons of the Old Swiss Confederacy, music was largely pushed into the private sphere.  From 1600 on, the thirst for music in parts gave rise to the development of Collegia Musica in the reformed cities of German-speaking Switzerland.  These organizations recruited their members from the middle classes, who enjoyed a musical education from a young age.  The statutes of the Collegia Musica show that their members brought their own instruments and sheet music to the Collegium and occasionally took them home as well.  Gifts of sheet music, instruments or money from individual donors to the Aargauer Musikkollegium demonstrate the widespread importance of music within the middle class, and documents from Winterthur show that certain musical townspeople made extensive donations of music to the Collegia.  The breadth of the musical repertoire documented is quite astonishing, ranging from music published in German-speaking regions and northern Italy to compositions from Catholic areas and even some pieces from the 16th century.  At the same time, however, figures such as the Zurich merchant Salomon Ott (1653-1711) owned the latest musical prints and also favored much-frowned-upon dance music.

The present study establishes meaning and linkage among a cluster of specific structural features —the snap, twang, and blue note— and between this cluster and the temporal deviations they can be found accompanying. These features are explored through their perceived sonic, textual, and motional properties, as they have emerged across cultures and historical periods, with distinct ethos. Consideration is taken for the ethnic, social, and spiritual meanings invoked by each feature, their interrelationships as a cluster, and with temporal deviation. Interrelationships include: snap and temporal deviations both emerging from polytempic interactions, yet contrasting in their respective grounded and floating qualities; snap and twang each articulating (i.e.: ‘worrying’) flexible blue note pitch regions; and twang and blue note’s respective articulations of vocal harmonics. I propose an isomorphic continuum may explain the ratios of temporal deviations identified in a number of African-American musics, suggesting deep interrelationships among snap, twang, blue note, and temporal deviations. If the blue note and certain temporal deviations are isomorphic, we can also learn about temporal deviation by studying the ethos of the blue note: I compare the ‘blue third’ with the diatonic minor third. The relationships between these features and temporal deviations suggest they function as co-expressions of, or redundant cues for, the performer’s awareness and commitment. I interpret the consistency of heightened arousal invoked by these features, as embodied understanding across cultural contexts. When embodied, the cue is perceived directly: for example, commitment and intensity is experienced, not merely represented, in the snap. Such cross-cultural consistency of meaning does not preclude the possibility that the features function as code-switching cues to mark transformative moments in music, since consistency of meaning doesn’t indicate consistency of ideology. Connecting the features to their subdivided variations opens the door to understanding the relevance and applicability of this study’s findings across an even wider breadth of musical practices. The spontaneous participant —artist, witness, researcher— kinesthetically channelling the creative spirit, stands to gain appreciation for the compatibility and complexity of different gestures, their consonances and dissonances, across disciplines and traditions.