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Microsound
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Curtis Roads

Microsound

The MIT Press


Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
( 2001 Massachusetts Institute of Technology

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any elec-
tronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage
and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher.

This book was set in Times New Roman in `3B2' by Asco Typesetters, Hong Kong and
was printed and bound in the United States of America.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Roads, Curtis.
Microsound / Curtis Roads.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-262-18215-7 (hc. : alk. paper)
1. MusicÐAcoustics and physics. 2. Electronic musicÐHistory and criticism.
3. Computer musicÐHistory and criticism. I. Title.
ML3805 .R69 2001
781.20 2Ðdc21 2001030633
Contents

Introduction vii
Acknowledgments ix

Overview xi

1 Time Scales of Music 1

2 The History of Microsound from Antiquity to the Analog Era 43


3 Granular Synthesis 85

4 Varieties of Particle Synthesis 119


5 Transformation of Microsound 179

6 Windowed Analysis and Transformation 235


7 Microsound in Composition 301

8 Aesthetics of Composing with Microsound 325


9 Conclusion 349

References 353
Appendixes

A The Cloud Generator Program 383


B Sound Examples on the CD 389

Name Index 399


Subject Index 403
This page intentionally left blank
Introduction

Beneath the level of the note lies the realm of microsound, of sound parti-
cles. Microsonic particles remained invisible for centuries. Recent technological
advances let us probe and explore the beauties of this formerly unseen world.
Microsonic techniques dissolve the rigid bricks of music architectureÐthe notes
Ðinto a more ¯uid and supple medium. Sounds may coalesce, evaporate, or
mutate into other sounds.
The sensations of point, pulse (regular series of points), line (tone), and sur-
face (texture) appear as the density of particles increases. Sparse emissions leave
rhythmic traces. When the particles line up in rapid succession, they induce the
illusion of tone continuity that we call pitch. As the particles meander, they
¯ow into streams and rivulets. Dense agglomerations of particles form swirling
sound clouds whose shapes evolve over time.
In the 1940s, the Nobel prize winning physicist Dennis Gabor proposed that
any sound could be decomposed into acoustical quanta bounded by discrete
units of time and frequency. This quantum representation formed the famous
Gabor matrix. Like a sonogram, the vertical dimension of the Gabor matrix
indicated the location of the frequency energy, while the horizontal dimension
indicated the time region in which this energy occurred. In a related project,
Gabor built a machine to granulate sound into particles. This machine could
alter the duration of a sound without shifting its pitch.
In these two projects, the matrix and the granulator, Gabor accounted for
both important domains of sound representation. The matrix was the original
windowed frequency-domain representation. ``Windowed'' means segmented in
time, and ``frequency-domain'' refers to spectrum. The granulation machine, on
the other hand, operated on a time-domain representation, which is familiar to
anyone who has seen waveforms in a sound editor. This book explores micro-
sound from both perspectives: the windowed frequency-domain and the micro
viii Introduction

time-domain. Both concern microacoustic phenomena lasting less than one-


tenth of a second.
This book is the fruit of a lengthy period of activity involving synthesis
experiments, programming, and composition dating back to the early 1970s.
I started writing the text in 1995, after completing my textbook The Computer
Music Tutorial (The MIT Press 1996). Beginning with a few strands, it eventu-
ally grew into a lattice of composition theory, historical accounts, technical
overviews, acoustical experiments, descriptions of musical works, and aesthetic
re¯ections. Why such a broad approach? Because at this stage of development,
the musical, technical, and aesthetic problems interweave. We are inventing
particles at the same time that we are learning how to compose with them. In
numerous ``assessment'' sections I have tried to summarize the results, which in
some cases are merely preliminary. More experimentation is surely needed.
Microsound records this ®rst round of experimentation, and thus serves as a
diary of research. Certain details, such as the speci®c software and hardware
that I used, will no doubt become obsolete rapidly. Even so, I decided to leave
them in for the historical record.
The experimentation and documentation could go on inde®nitely. One could
imagine, for example, a kind of synthesis ``cookbook'' after the excellent exam-
ple of Jean-Claude Risset (1969). His text provided detailed recipes for making
speci®c sounds from a variety of synthesis techniques. This would be a worthy
project, and I would encourage others in this direction. As for myself, it is time
to compose.
Acknowledgments

This book derives from a doctoral thesis written for the Universite de Paris VIII
(Roads 1999). It would never have started without strong encouragement from
Professor Horacio Vaggione. I am deeply indebted to him for his patient ad-
vocacy, as well as for his inspired writings and pieces.
The congenial atmosphere in the DeÂpartement Musique at the UniversiteÂ
de Paris VIII was ideal for the gestation of this work. I would also like to ex-
tend my sincere appreciation to Jean-Claude Risset and Daniel Ar®b. Despite
much pressure on their time, these pioneers and experts kindly agreed to
serve on the doctoral committee. Their commentaries on my text resulted in
major improvements.
I owe a debt of thanks to my colleague GeÂrard Pape at the Centre de
CreÂation Musicale «Iannis Xenakis» (CCMIX) for his support of my research,
teaching, and composition. I must also convey appreciation to Iannis Xenakis
for his brilliant example and for his support of our work in Paris. My ®rst
contact with him, at his short course in Formalized Music in 1972, started me
on this path.
I completed this book while teaching in the Center for Research in Electronic
Art Technology (CREATE) in the Department of Music and in the Media
Arts and Technology Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
I greatly appreciate the friendship and support of Professor JoAnn Kuchera-
Morin, Director of CREATE, during this productive period. I would also like
to extend my thanks to the rest of the CREATE team, including Stephen T.
Pope for his collaboration on pulsar synthesis in 1997. It was a great pleasure to
work with Alberto de Campo, who served as CREATE's Research Director
in 1999±2000. Together we developed the PulsarGenerator software and the
Creatovox synthesizer. I consider these engaging musical instruments to be
among the main accomplishments of this research.
x Acknowledgments

Allow me to remember my late colleague Professor Aldo Piccialli of the


Department of Physics at the University of Naples «Federico II.» His intense
fascination with the subject of microsound inspired me to dive deeper into the
theory of musical signal processing, and led to the notion of pulsar synthesis.
This exploration has been most rewarding. I also appreciate the discussions
and correspondence with my friends in Naples, including Sergio Cavaliere, Gian-
paolo Evangelista, and Giancarlo Sica.
Many other colleagues provided information and advice, including Clifton
Kussmaul, Corey Cheng, Tom Erbe, Christopher Weare, and Jean de Reydel-
let. Brigitte RobindoreÂ, Pierre Roy, Jakub Omsky, Luca Lucchese, and Thom
Blum kindly read parts of the manuscript and provided much valuable feed-
back. Their comments are most appreciated. The MIT Press arranged for three
anonymous reviews of the book. These critiques led to many improvements. I
would also like to thank Douglas Sery of The MIT Press for his enthusiastic
sponsorship of this project.
Parts of this book were written during vacations at the family home in Illi-
nois. I will always be grateful to my mother, Marjorie Roads, for the warm
atmosphere that I enjoyed there during sabbaticals.
Overview

Chapter 1 projects a view of nine time scales of musical sound structure. It


examines this hierarchy from both aesthetic and technical viewpoints. Major
themes of this chapter include: the boundaries between time scales, the partic-
ularities of the various time scales, and the size of sounds.
Chapter 2 traces the history of the idea of microsound, from the ancient
philosophy of atomism to the recent analog era. It explains how particle models
of sound emerged alongside wave-oriented models. It then presents the modern
history of microsound, beginning with the Gabor matrix. It follows the writings
of a diverse collection of authors, including Ezra Pound, Henry Cowell, Werner
Meyer-Eppler, Iannis Xenakis, Abraham Moles, Norbert Wiener, and Karl-
heinz Stockhausen. It also looks at the viability of a microsonic approach in
analog synthesis and instrumental music.
Chapter 3 presents the theory and practice of digital granular synthesis in its
myriad manifestations. It examines the di¨erent methods for organizing the
grains, and looks at the e¨ects produced in each parameter of the technique. It
then surveys the various implementations of computer-based granular synthe-
sis, beginning with the earliest experiments in the 1970s.
Chapter 4 is a catalog of experiments with newer particles, featuring glissons,
grainlets, pulsars, and trainlets. We also examine sonographic and formant
particles, transient drawing, particle cloning, and physical and abstract models
of particle synthesis.
Chapter 5 surveys a broad variety of microsonic sound transformations.
These range from audio compression techniques to micromontage and granula-
tions. The brief presentation on the Creatovox instrument emphasizes real-time
performance with granulated sound. The chapter then covers transformations
on a micro scale, including pitch-shifting, pitch-time changing, ®ltering, dy-
namics processing, frequency-domain granulation, and waveset transformations.
xii Overview

The ®nal sections present techniques of spatialization with sound particles, and
convolution with microsounds.
Chapter 6 explores a variety of sound transformations based on windowed
spectrum analysis. After a theoretical section, it presents the main tools of win-
dowed spectrum transformation, including the phase vocoder, the tracking
phase vocoder, the wavelet transform, and Gabor analysis.
Chapter 7 turns from technology to compositional applications. It begins
with a description of the ®rst studies realized with granular synthesis on a digi-
tal computer. It then looks at particle techniques in my recent compositions, as
well as those by Barry Truax, Horacio Vaggione, and other composers.
Chapter 8, on the aesthetics of composing with microsound, is the most
philosophical part of the book. It highlights both speci®c and general aesthetic
issues raised by microsound in composition.
Chapter 9 concludes with a commentary on the future of microsound in
music.
Microsound
1 Time Scales of Music

Time Scales of Music


Boundaries between Time Scales

Zones of Intensity and Frequency


In®nite Time Scale

Supra Time Scale


Macro Time Scale
Perception of the Macro Time Scale
Macroform
Design of Macroform
Meso Time Scale
Sound Masses, Textures, and Clouds
Cloud Taxonomy
Sound Object Time Scale
The Sensation of Tone
Homogeneous Notes versus Heterogeneous Sound Objects
Sound Object Morphology
Micro Time Scale
Perception of Microsound
Microtemporal Intensity Perception
Microtemporal Fusion and Fission
2 Chapter 1

Microtemporal Silence Perception


Microtemporal Pitch Perception
Microtemporal Auditory Acuity
Microtemporal Preattentive Perception
Microtemporal Subliminal Perception
Viewing and Manipulating the Microtime Level
Do the Particles Really Exist?
Heterogeneity in Sound Particles
Sampled Time Scale
Sound Composition with Individual Sample Points
Assessment of Sound Composition with Samples
Subsample Time Scale
Aliased Artefacts
Ultrasonic Loudspeakers
Atomic Sound: Phonons and Polarons
At the Physical Limits: the Planck Time Interval
In®nitesimal Time Scale

Outside Time Music


The Size of Sounds

Summary

The evolution of musical expression intertwines with the development of musi-


cal instruments. This was never more evident than in the twentieth century.
Beginning with the gigantic Telharmonium synthesizer unveiled in 1906 (Wei-
denaar 1989, 1995), research ushered forth a steady stream of electrical and
electronic instruments. These have irrevocably molded the musical landscape.
The most precise and ¯exible electronic music instrument ever conceived is
the digital computer. As with the pipe organ, invented centuries earlier, the
computer's power derives from its ability to emulate, or in scienti®c terms, to
model phenomena. The models of the computer take the form of symbolic
code. Thus it does not matter whether the phenomena being modeled exist
outside the circuitry of the machine, or whether they are pure fantasy. This
3 Time Scales of Music

makes the computer an ideal testbed for the representation of musical structure
on multiple time scales.
This chapter examines the time scales of music. Our main focus is the micro
time scale and its interactions with other time scales. By including extreme time
scalesÐthe in®nite and the in®nitesimalÐwe situate musical time within the
broadest possible context.

Time Scales of Music

Music theory has long recognized a temporal hierarchy of structure in music


compositions. A central task of composition has always been the management
of the interaction amongst structures on di¨erent time scales. Starting from the
topmost layer and descending, one can dissect layers of structure, arriving at
the bottom layer of individual notes.
This hierarchy, however, is incomplete. Above the level of an individual piece
are the cultural time spans de®ning the oeuvre of a composer or a stylistic
period. Beneath the level of the note lies another multilayered stratum, the
microsonic hierarchy. Like the quantum world of quarks, leptons, gluons,
and bosons, the microsonic hierarchy was long invisible. Modern tools let us
view and manipulate the microsonic layers from which all acoustic phenomena
emerge. Beyond these physical time scales, mathematics de®nes two ideal
temporal boundariesÐthe in®nite and the in®nitesimalÐwhich appear in the
theory of musical signal processing.
Taking a comprehensive view, we distinguish nine time scales of music,
starting from the longest:
1. In®nite The ideal time span of mathematical durations such as the in®nite
sine waves of classical Fourier analysis.
2. Supra A time scale beyond that of an individual composition and extend-
ing into months, years, decades, and centuries.
3. Macro The time scale of overall musical architecture or form, measured in
minutes or hours, or in extreme cases, days.
4. Meso Divisions of form. Groupings of sound objects into hierarchies of
phrase structures of various sizes, measured in minutes or seconds.
5. Sound object A basic unit of musical structure, generalizing the traditional
concept of note to include complex and mutating sound events on a time
scale ranging from a fraction of a second to several seconds.
4 Chapter 1

6. Micro Sound particles on a time scale that extends down to the thresh-
old of auditory perception (measured in thousandths of a second or milli-
seconds).
7. Sample The atomic level of digital audio systems: individual binary sam-
ples or numerical amplitude values, one following another at a ®xed time
interval. The period between samples is measured in millionths of a second
(microseconds).
8. Subsample Fluctuations on a time scale too brief to be properly recorded
or perceived, measured in billionths of a second (nanoseconds) or less.
9. In®nitesimal The ideal time span of mathematical durations such as the
in®nitely brief delta functions.

Figure 1.1 portrays the nine time scales of the time domain. Notice in the
middle of the diagram, in the frequency column, a line indicating ``Conscious
time, the present (@600 ms).'' This line marks o¨ Winckel's (1967) estimate of
the ``thickness of the present.'' The thickness extends to the line at the right
indicating the physical NOW. This temporal interval constitutes an estimate
of the accumulated lag time of the perceptual and cognitive mechanisms asso-
ciated with hearing. Here is but one example of a disparity between chronosÐ
physical time, and tempusÐperceived time (KuÈpper 2000).
The rest of this chapter explains the characteristics of each time scale in turn.
We will, of course, pay particular attention to the micro time scale.

Boundaries between Time Scales

As sound passes from one time scale to another it crosses perceptual bound-
aries. It seems to change quality. This is because human perception processes
each time scale di¨erently. Consider a simple sinusoid transposed to various
time scales (1 msec, 1 ms, 1 sec, 1 minute, 1 hour). The waveform is identical,
but one would have di½culty classifying these auditory experiences in the same
family.
In some cases the borders between time scales are demarcated clearly; am-
biguous zones surround others. Training and culture condition perception of
the time scales. To hear a ¯at pitch or a dragging beat, for example, is to
detect a temporal anomaly on a micro scale that might not be noticed by other
people.
5 Time Scales of Music

Figure 1.1 The time domain, segmented into periods, time delay e¨ects, frequencies,
and perception and action. Note that time intervals are not drawn to scale.
6 Chapter 1

Digital audio systems, such as compact disc players, operate at a ®xed sam-
pling frequency. This makes it easy to distinguish the exact boundary separat-
ing the sample time scale from the subsample time scale. This boundary is the
Nyquist frequency, or the sampling frequency divided by two. The e¨ect of
crossing this boundary is not always perceptible. In noisy sounds, aliased fre-
quencies from the subsample time domain may mix unobtrusively with high
frequencies in the sample time domain.
The border between certain other time scales is context-dependent. Between
the sample and micro time scales, for example, is a region of transient eventsÐ
too brief to evoke a sense of pitch but rich in timbral content. Between the
micro and the object time scales is a stratum of brief events such as short stac-
cato notes. Another zone of ambiguity is the border between the sound object
and meso levels, exempli®ed by an evolving texture. A texture might contain a
statistical distribution of micro events that are perceived as a unitary yet time-
varying sound.
Time scales interlink. A given level encapsulates events on lower levels and is
itself subsumed within higher time scales. Hence to operate on one level is to
a¨ect other levels. The interaction between time scales is not, however, a simple
relation. Linear changes on a given time scale do not guarantee a perceptible
e¨ect on neighboring time scales.

Zones of Intensity and Frequency

Sound is an alternation in pressure, particle displacement, or particle velocity propagated


in an elastic material. (Olson 1957)

Before we continue further, a brief discussion of acoustic terminology might be


helpful. In scienti®c parlanceÐas opposed to popular usageÐthe word ``sound''
refers not only to phenomena in air responsible for the sensation of hearing
but also ``whatever else is governed by analogous physical principles'' (Pierce
1994). Sound can be de®ned in a general sense as mechanical radiant energy
that is transmitted by pressure waves in a material medium. Thus besides the
airborne frequencies that our ears perceive, one may also speak of underwater
sound, sound in solids, or structure-borne sound. Mechanical vibrations even
take place on the atomic level, resulting in quantum units of sound energy called
phonons. The term ``acoustics'' likewise is independent of air and of human
perception. It is distinguished from optics in that it involves mechanicalÐrather
than electromagnetic, wave motion.
7 Time Scales of Music

Corresponding to this broad de®nition of sound is a very wide range of


transient, chaotic, and periodic ¯uctuations, spanning frequencies that are both
higher and lower than the human ear can perceive. The audio frequencies, tra-
ditionally said to span the range of about 20 Hz to 20 kHz are perceptible to the
ear. The speci®c boundaries vary depending on the individual.
Vibrations at frequencies too low to be heard as continuous tones can be
perceived by the ear as well as the body. These are the infrasonic impulses and
vibrations, in the range below about 20 Hz. The infectious rhythms of the per-
cussion instruments fall within this range.
Ultrasound includes the domain of high frequencies above the range of hu-
man audibility. The threshold of ultrasound varies according to the individual,
their age, and the test conditions. Science and industry use ultrasonic techni-
ques in a variety of applications, such as acoustic imaging (Quate 1998) and
highly directional loudspeakers (Pompei 1998).
Some sounds are too soft to be perceived by the human ear, such as a cater-
pillar's delicate march across a leaf. This is the zone of subsonic intensities.
Other sounds are so loud that to perceive them directly is dangerous, since
they are destructive to the human body. Sustained exposure to sound levels
around 120 dB leads directly to pain and hearing loss. Above 130 dB, sound is
felt by the exposed tissues of the body as a painful pressure wave (Pierce 1983).
This dangerous zone extends to a range of destructive acoustic phenomena. The
force of an explosion, for example, is an intense acoustic shock wave.
For lack of a better term, we call these perisonic intensities (from the Latin
periculos meaning ``dangerous''). The audible intensities fall between these two
ranges. Figure 1.2 depicts the zones of sound intensity and frequency. The a
zone in the center is where audio frequencies intersect with audible intensities,
enabling hearing. Notice that the a zone is but a tiny fraction of a vast range of
sonic phenomena.
Following this discussion of acoustical terms, let us proceed to the main
theme of this chapter, the time scales of music.

In®nite Time Scale

Complex Fourier analysis regards the signal sub specie aeternitatis. (Gabor 1952)

The human experience of musical time is linked to the ticking clock. It is


natural to ask: when did the clock begin to tick? Will it tick forever? At the
8 Chapter 1

Figure 1.2 Zones of intensities and frequencies. Only the zone marked a is audible to
the ear. This zone constitutes a tiny portion of the range of sound phenomena.

extreme upper boundary of all time scales is the mathematical concept of an


in®nite time span. This is a logical extension of the in®nite series, a fundamental
notion in mathematics. An in®nite series is a sequence of numbers u1 ; u 2 ; u 3 . . .
arranged in a prescribed order and formed according to a particular rule.
Consider this in®nite series:
X
y
ui ˆ u1 ‡ u 2 ‡ u 3 ‡   
iˆ1

This equation sums a set of numbers ui , where the index i goes from 1 to y.
What if each number ui corresponded to a tick of a clock? This series would
then de®ne an in®nite duration. This ideal is not so far removed from music as
it may seem. The idea of in®nite duration is implicit in the theory of Fourier
analysis, which links the notion of frequency to sine waves of in®nite duration.
As chapter 6 shows, Fourier analysis has proven to be a useful tool in the analy-
sis and transformation of musical sound.
9 Time Scales of Music

Figure 1.3 The scope of the supratemporal domain.

Supra Time Scale

The supra time scale spans the durations that are beyond those of an individual
composition. It begins as the applause dies out after the longest composi-
tions, and extends into weeks, months, years, decades, and beyond (®gure 1.3).
Concerts and festivals fall into this category. So do programs from music
broadcasting stations, which may extend into years of more-or-less continuous
emissions.
Musical cultures are constructed out of supratemporal bricks: the eras of
instruments, of styles, of musicians, and of composers. Musical education takes
years; cultural tastes evolve over decades. The perception and appreciation of
10 Chapter 1

a single composition may change several times within a century. The entire
history of music transpires within the supratemporal scale, starting from the
earliest known musical instrument, a Neanderthal ¯ute dating back some
45,000 years (Whitehouse 1999).
Composition is itself a supratemporal activity. Its results last only a fraction
of the time required for its creation. A composer may spend a year to complete
a ten-minute piece. Even if the composer does not work every hour of every
day, the ratio of 52,560 minutes passed for every 1 minute composed is still
signi®cant. What happens in this time? Certain composers design a complex
strategy as prelude to the realization of a piece. The electronic music composer
may spend considerable time in creating the sound materials of the work. Either
of these tasks may entail the development of software. Virtually all composers
spend time experimenting, playing with material in di¨erent combinations.
Some of these experiments may result in fragments that are edited or discarded,
to be replaced with new fragments. Thus it is inevitable that composers invest
time pursuing dead ends, composing fragments that no one else will hear. This
backtracking is not necessarily time wasted; it is part of an important feedback
loop in which the composer re®nes the work. Finally we should mention docu-
mentation. While only a few composers document their labor, these documents
may be valuable to those seeking a deeper understanding of a work and the
compositional process that created it. Compare all this with the e½ciency of the
real-time improviser!
Some music spans beyond the lifetime of the individual who composed it,
through published notation, recordings, and pedagogy. Yet the temporal reach
of music is limited. Many compositions are performed only once. Scores, tapes,
and discs disappear into storage, to be discarded sooner or later. Music-making
presumably has always been part of the experience of Homo sapiens, who it is
speculated came into being some 200,000 years ago. Few traces remain of
anything musical older than a dozen centuries. Modern electronic instruments
and recording media, too, are ephemeral. Will human musical vibrations some-
how outlast the species that created them? Perhaps the last trace of human
existence will be radio waves beamed into space, traveling vast distances before
they dissolve into noise.
The upper boundary of time, as the concept is currently understood, is the
age of the physical universe. Some scientists estimate it to be approximately
®fteen billion years (Lederman and Scramm 1995). Cosmologists continue to
debate how long the universe may expand. The latest scienti®c theories con-
tinue to twist the notion of time itself (see, for example, Kaku 1995; Arkani-
Hamed et al. 2000).
11 Time Scales of Music

Macro Time Scale

The macro level of musical time corresponds to the notion of form, and
encompasses the overall architecture of a composition. It is generally measured
in minutes. The upper limit of this time scale is exempli®ed by such marathon
compositions as Richard Wagner's Ring cycle, the Japanese Kabuki theater,
Jean-Claude Eloy's evening-long rituals, and Karlheinz Stockhausen's opera
Licht (spanning seven days and nights). The literature of opera and contempo-
rary music contains many examples of music on a time scale that exceeds two
hours. Nonetheless, the vast majority of music compositions realized in the past
century are less than a half-hour in duration. The average duration is probably
in the range of a kilosecond (16 min 40 sec). Complete compositions lasting less
than a hectosecond (1 min 40 sec) are rare.

Perception of the Macro Time Scale

Unless the musical form is described in advance of performance (through pro-


gram notes, for example), listeners perceive the macro time scale in retrospect,
through recollection. It is common knowledge that the remembrance of things
past is subject to strong discontinuities and distortions. We cannot recall time
as a linearly measured ¯ow. As in everyday life, the perceived ¯ow of musical
time is linked to reference events or memories that are tagged with emotional
signi®cance.
Classical music (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, etc.) places reference events at
regular intervals (cadences, repetition) to periodically orient the listener within
the framework of the form. Some popular music takes this to an extreme,
reminding listeners repeatedly on a shorter time base.
Subjective factors play into a distorted sense of time. Was the listener en-
gaged in aesthetic appreciation of the work? Were they paying attention? What
is their musical taste, their training? Were they preoccupied with stress and
personal problems? A composition that we do not understand or like appears
to expand in time as we experience it, yet vanishes almost immediately from
memory.
The perception of time ¯ow also depends on the objective nature of the mu-
sical materials. Repetition and a regular pulse tend to carry a work e½ciently
through time, while an unchanging, unbroken sound (or silence) reduces the
¯ow to a crawl.
12 Chapter 1

The ear's sensitivity to sound is limited in duration. Long continuous noises


or regular sounds in the environment tend to disappear from consciousness and
are noticed again only when they change abruptly or terminate.

Macroform

Just as musical time can be viewed in terms of a hierarchy of time scales, so it


is possible to imagine musical structure as a tree in the mathematical sense.
Mathematical trees are inverted, that is, the uppermost level is the root symbol,
representing the entire work. The root branches into a layer of macrostructure
encapsulating the major parts of the piece. This second level is the form: the
arrangement of the major sections of the piece. Below the level of form is a
syntactic hierarchy of branches representing mesostructures that expand into
the terminal level of sound objects (Roads 1985d).
To parse a mathematical tree is straightforward. Yet one cannot parse a so-
phisticated musical composition as easily as a compiler parses a computer pro-
gram. A compiler references an unambiguous formal grammar. By contrast, the
grammar of music is ambiguousÐsubject to interpretation, and in a perpetual
state of evolution. Compositions may contain overlapping elements (on various
levels) that cannot be easily segmented. The musical hierarchy is often frac-
tured. Indeed, this is an essential ingredient of its fascination.

Design of Macroform

The design of macroform takes one of two contrasting paths: top-down or


bottom-up. A strict top-down approach considers macrostructure as a precon-
ceived global plan or template whose details are ®lled in by later stages of com-
position. This corresponds to the traditional notion of form in classical music,
wherein certain formal schemes have been used by composers as molds (Apel
1972). Music theory textbooks catalog the generic classical forms (Leichtentritt
1951) whose habitual use was called into question at the turn of the twentieth
century. Claude Debussy, for example, discarded what he called ``administra-
tive forms'' and replaced them with ¯uctuating mesostructures through a chain
of associated variations. Since Debussy, composers have written a tremendous
amount of music not based on classical forms. This music is full of local detail
and eschews formal repetition. Such structures resist classi®cation within the
catalog of standard textbook forms. Thus while musical form has continued to
evolve in practice in the past century, the acknowledged catalog of generic forms
has hardly changed.
13 Time Scales of Music

This is not to say that the use of preconceived forms has died away. The
practice of top-down planning remains common in contemporary composition.
Many composers predetermine the macrostructure of their pieces according to
a more-or-less formal scheme before a single sound is composed.
By contrast, a strict bottom-up approach conceives of form as the result of a
process of internal development provoked by interactions on lower levels of
musical structure. This approach was articulated by Edgard VareÁse (1971), who
said, ``Form is a resultÐthe result of a process.'' In this view, macrostructure
articulates processes of attraction and repulsion (for example, in the rhythmic
and harmonic domains) unfolding on lower levels of structure.
Manuals on traditional composition o¨er myriad ways to project low-level
structures into macrostructure:
Smaller forms may be expanded by means of external repetitions, sequences, extensions,
liquidations and broadening of connectives. The number of parts may be increased by sup-
plying codettas, episodes, etc. In such situations, derivatives of the basic motive are for-
mulated into new thematic units. (Schoenberg 1967)

Serial or germ-cell approaches to composition expand a series or a formula


through permutation and combination into larger structures.
In the domain of computer music, a frequent technique for elaboration is to
time-expand a sound fragment into an evolving sound mass. Here the unfolding
of sonic microstructure rises to the temporal level of a harmonic progression.
A di¨erent bottom-up approach appears in the work of the conceptual and
chance composers, following in the wake of John Cage. Cage (1973) often con-
ceived of form as arising from a series of accidentsÐrandom or improvised
events occurring on the sound object level. For Cage, form (and indeed sound)
was a side-e¨ect of a conceptual strategy. Such an approach often results in
discontinuous changes in sound structure. This was not accidental; Cage dis-
dained continuity in musical structure, always favoring juxtaposition:

Where people had felt the necessity to stick sounds together to make a continuity, we felt
the necessity to get rid of the glue so that sounds would be themselves. (Cage 1959)

For some, composition involves a mediation between the top-down and


bottom-up approaches, between an abstract high-level conception and the con-
crete materials being developed on lower levels of musical time structure. This
implies negotiation between a desire for orderly macrostructure and impera-
tives that emerge from the source material. Certain phrase structures cannot
be encapsulated neatly within the box of a precut form. They mandate a con-
tainer that conforms to their shape and weight.
14 Chapter 1

The debate over the emergence of form is ancient. Musicologists have


long argued whether, for example, a fugue is a template (form) or a process
of variation. This debate echoes an ancient philosophical discourse pitting
form against ¯ux, dating back as far as the Greek philosopher Heraclitus. Ulti-
mately, the dichotomy between form and process is an illusion, a failure of
language to bind two aspects of the same concept into a unit. In computer
science, the concept of constraints does away with this dichotomy (Sussman and
Steele 1981). A form is constructed according to a set of relationships. A set of
relationships implies a process of evaluation that results in a form.

Meso Time Scale

The mesostructural level groups sound objects into a quasi hierarchy of phrase
structures of durations measured in seconds. This local as opposed to global
time scale is extremely important in composition, for it is most often on the
meso level that the sequences, combinations, and transmutations that constitute
musical ideas unfold. Melodic, harmonic, and contrapuntal relations happen
here, as do processes such as theme and variations, and many types of devel-
opment, progression, and juxtaposition. Local rhythmic and metric patterns,
too, unfold on this stratum.
Wishart (1994) called this level of structure the sequence. In the context of
electronic music, he identi®ed two properties of sequences: the ®eld (the mate-
rial, or set of elements used in the sequence), and the order. The ®eld serves as
a lexiconÐthe vocabulary of a piece of music. The order determines thematic
relationsÐthe grammar of a particular piece. As Wishart observed, the ®eld and
the order must be established quickly if they are to serve as the bearers of musical
code. In traditional music, they are largely predetermined by cultural norms.
In electronic music, the meso layer presents timbre melodies, simultaneities
(chord analogies), spatial interplay, and all manner of textural evolutions. Many
of these processes are described and classi®ed in Denis Smalley's interesting
theory of spectromorphologyÐa taxonomy of sound gesture shapes (Smalley
1986, 1997).

Sound Masses, Textures, and Clouds

To the sequences and combinations of traditional music, we must add another


principle of organization on the meso scale: the sound mass. Decades ago,
15 Time Scales of Music

Edgard VareÁse predicted that the sounds introduced by electronic instruments


would necessitate new organizing principles for mesostructure.

When new instruments will allow me to write music as I conceive it, taking the place of the
linear counterpoint, the movement of sound masses, or shifting planes, will be clearly per-
ceived. When these sound masses collide the phenomena of penetration or repulsion will
seem to occur. (VareÁse 1962)

A trend toward shaping music through the global attributes of a sound mass
began in the 1950s. One type of sound mass is a cluster of sustained frequencies
that fuse into a solid block. In a certain style of sound mass composition,
musical development unfolds as individual lines are added to or removed from
this cluster. GyoÈrgy Ligeti's Volumina for organ (1962) is a masterpiece of this
style, and the composer has explored this approach in a number of other pieces,
including AtmospheÁres (1961) and Lux Aeterna (1966).
Particles make possible another type of sound mass: statistical clouds of
microevents (Xenakis 1960). Wishart (1994) ascribed two properties to cloud
textures. As with sequences, their ®eld is the set of elements used in the texture,
which may be constant or evolving. Their second property is density, which
stipulates the number of events within a given time period, from sparse scat-
terings to dense scintillations.
Cloud textures suggest a di¨erent approach to musical organization. In
contrast to the combinatorial sequences of traditional meso structure, clouds
encourage a process of statistical evolution. Within this evolution the com-
poser can impose speci®c morphologies. Cloud evolutions can take place in the
domain of amplitude (crescendi/decrescendi), internal tempo (accelerando/
rallentando), density (increasing/decreasing), harmonicity (pitch/chord/cluster/
noise, etc.), and spectrum (high/mid/low, etc.).
Xenakis's tape compositions Concret PH (1958), Bohor I (1962), and Per-
sepolis (1971) feature dense, monolithic clouds, as do many of his works for
traditional instruments. Stockhausen (1957) used statistical form-criteria as one
component of his early composition technique. Since the 1960s, particle
textures have appeared in numerous electroacoustic compositions, such as the
remarkable De natura sonorum (1975) of Bernard Parmegiani.
VareÁse spoke of the interpenetration of sound masses. The diaphanous na-
ture of cloud structures makes this possible. A crossfade between two clouds
results in a smooth mutation. Mesostructural processes such as disintegration
and coalescence can be realized through manipulations of particle density (see
chapter 6). Density determines the transparency of the material. An increase in
16 Chapter 1

density lifts a cloud into the foreground, while a decrease causes evaporation,
dissolving a continuous sound band into a pointillist rhythm or vaporous back-
ground texture.

Cloud Taxonomy

To describe sound clouds precisely, we might refer to the taxonomy of cloud


shapes in the atmosphere:
Cumulus well-de®ned cauli¯ower-shaped cottony clouds
Stratocumulus blurred by wind motion
Stratus a thin fragmented layer, often translucent
Nimbostratus a widespread gray or white sheet, opaque
Cirrus isolated sheets that develop in ®laments or patches
In another realm, among the stars, outer space is ®lled with swirling clouds of
cosmic raw material called nebulae.
The cosmos, like the sky on a turbulent summer day, is ®lled with clouds of di¨erent sizes,
shapes, structures, and distances. Some are swelling cumulus, others light, wispy cirrusÐall
of them constantly changing colliding, forming, and evaporating. (Kaler 1997)

Pulled by immense gravitational ®elds or blown by cosmic shockwaves,


nebulae form in great variety: dark or glowing, amorphous or ring-shaped,
constantly evolving in morphology. These forms, too, have musical analogies.
Programs for sonographic synthesis (such as MetaSynth [Wenger and Spiegel
1999]), provide airbrush tools that let one spray sound particles on the time-
frequency canvas. On the screen, the vertical dimension represents frequency,
and the horizontal dimension represents time. The images can be blurred, frag-
mented, or separated into sheets. Depending on their density, they may be
translucent or opaque. Displacement maps can warp the cloud into a circular
or spiral shape on the time-frequency canvas. (See chapter 6 on sonographic
transformation of sound.)

Sound Object Time Scale

The sound object time scale encompasses events of a duration associated with
the elementary unit of composition in scores: the note. A note usually lasts from
about 100 ms to several seconds, and is played by an instrument or sung by a
17 Time Scales of Music

vocalist. The concept of sound object extends this to allow any sound, from
any source. The term sound object comes from Pierre Schae¨er, the pioneer of
musique concreÁte. To him, the pure objet sonore was a sound whose origin a
listener could not identify (Schae¨er 1959, 1977, p. 95). We take a broader view
here. Any sound within stipulated temporal limits is a sound object. Xenakis
(1989) referred to this as the ``ministructural'' time scale.

The Sensation of Tone

The sensation of toneÐa sustained or continuous event of de®nite or inde®nite


pitchÐoccurs on the sound object time scale. The low-frequency boundary for
the sensation of a continuous soundÐas opposed to a ¯uttering succession of
brief microsoundsÐhas been estimated at anywhere from 8 Hz (Savart) to
about 30 Hz. (As reference, the deepest sound in a typical orchestra is the open
E of the contrabass at 41.25 Hz.) Helmholtz, the nineteenth century German
acoustician, investigated this lower boundary.

In the ®rst place it is necessary that the strength of the vibrations of the air for very low
tones should be extremely greater than for high tones. The increase in strength . . . is of
especial consequence in the deepest tones. . . . To discover the limit of the deepest tones it is
necessary not only to produce very violent agitations in the air but to give these a simple
pendular motion. (Helmholtz 1885)

Helmholtz observed that a sense of continuity takes hold between 24 to 28


Hz, but that the impression of a de®nite pitch does not take hold until 40 Hz.
Pitch and tone are not the same thing. Acousticians speak of complex tones
and unpitched tones. Any sound perceived as continuous is a tone. This can, for
example include noise.
Between the sensation of a continuous tone and the sensation of metered
rhythm stands a zone of ambiguity, an infrasonic frequency domain that is too
slow to form a continuous tone but too fast for rhythmic de®nition. Thus con-
tinuous tone is a possible quality, but not a necessary property, of a sound ob-
ject. Consider a relatively dense cloud of sonic grains with short silent gaps on
the order of tens of milliseconds. Dozens of di¨erent sonic events occur per
second, each unique and separated by a brief intervals of zero amplitude, yet
such a cloud is perceived as a unitary eventÐa single sound object.
A sense of regular pulse and meter begins to occur from approximately 8 Hz
down to 0.12 Hz and below (Fraisse 1982). Not coincidentally, it is in this
rhythmically apprensible range that the most salient and expressive vibrato,
tremolo, and spatial panning e¨ects occur.
18 Chapter 1

Homogeneous Notes versus Heterogeneous Sound Objects

The sound object time scale is the same as that of traditional notes. What dis-
tinguishes sound objects from notes? The note is the homogeneous brick of
conventional music architecture. Homogeneous means that every note can be
described by the same four properties:
1 pitch, generally one of twelve equal-tempered pitch classes
1 timbre, generally one of about twenty di¨erent instruments for a full orches-
tra, with two or three di¨erent attack types for each instrument
1 dynamic marking, generally one of about ten di¨erent relative levels
1 duration, generally between @100 ms (slightly less than a thirty-second note
at a tempo of 60 M.M.) to @8 seconds (for two tied whole notes)
These properties are static, guaranteeing that, in theory, a note in one
measure with a certain pitch, dynamic, and instrumental timbre is functionally
equivalent to a note in another measure with the same three properties. The
properties of a pair of notes can be compared on a side-by-side basis and a
distance or interval can be calculated. The notions of equivalence and distance
lead to the notion of invariants, or intervallic distances that are preserved across
transformations.
Limiting material to a static homogeneous set allows abstraction and e½-
ciency in musical language. It serves as the basis for operations such as
transposition, orchestration and reduction, the algebra of tonal harmony and
counterpoint, and the atonal and serial manipulations. In the past decade, the
MIDI protocol has extended this homogeneity into the domain of electronic
music through standardized note sequences that play on any synthesizer.
The merit of this homogeneous system is clear; highly elegant structures
having been built with standard materials inherited from centuries past. But
since the dawn of the twentieth century, a recurring aesthetic dream has been
the expansion beyond a ®xed set of homogeneous materials to a much larger
superset of heterogeneous musical materials.
What we have said about the limitations of the European note concept does
not necessarily apply to the musics of other cultures. Consider the shakuhachi
music of Japan, or contemporary practice emerging from the advanced devel-
opments of jazz.
Heterogeneity means that two objects may not share common properties.
Therefore their percept may be entirely di¨erent. Consider the following two
examples. Sound A is a brief event constructed by passing analog diode noise
19 Time Scales of Music

through a time-varying bandpass ®lter and applying an exponentially decaying


envelope to it. Sound B lasts eight seconds. It is constructed by granulating
in multiple channels several resonant low-pitched strokes on an African slit
drum, then reverberating the texture. Since the amplitudes and onset times of
the grains vary, this creates a jittering sound mass. To compare A and B is like
comparing apples and oranges. Their microstructures are di¨erent, and we can
only understand them through the properties that they do not have in common.
Thus instead of homogeneous notes, we speak of heterogeneous sound objects.
The notion of sound object generalizes the note concept in two ways:

1. It puts aside the restriction of a common set of properties in favor of a het-


erogeneous collection of properties. Some objects may not share common
properties with other objects. Certain sound objects may function as unique
singularities. Entire pieces may be constructed from nothing but such
singularities.
2. It discards the notion of static, time-invariant properties in favor of time-
varying properties (Roads 1985b).

Objects that do not share common properties may be separated into diverse
classes. Each class will lend itself to di¨erent types of manipulation and musical
organization. Certain sounds layer well, nearly any mixture of elongated sine
waves with smooth envelopes for example. The same sounds organized in a
sequence, however, rather quickly become boring. Other sounds, such as iso-
lated impulses, are most e¨ective when sparsely scattered onto a neutral sound
canvas.
Transformations applied to objects in one class may not be e¨ective in an-
other class. For example, a time-stretching operation may work perfectly well
on a pipe organ tone, preserving its identity and a¨ecting only its duration. The
same operation applied to the sound of burning embers will smear the crackling
transients into a nondescript electronic blur.
In traditional western music, the possibilities for transition within a note are
limited by the physical properties of the acoustic instrument as well as frozen by
theory and style. Unlike notes, the properties of a sound object are free to vary
over time. This opens up the possibility of complex sounds that can mutate
from one state to another within a single musical event. In the case of synthe-
sized sounds, an object may be controlled by multiple time-varying envelopes
for pitch, amplitude, spatial position, and multiple determinants of timbre.
These variations may take place over time scales much longer than those asso-
ciated with conventional notes.
20 Chapter 1

We can subdivide a sound object not only by its properties but also by its
temporal states. These states are composable using synthesis tools that operate
on the microtime scale. The micro states of a sound can also be decomposed
and rearranged with tools such as time granulators and analysis-resynthesis
software.

Sound Object Morphology

In music, as in other ®elds, the organization is conditioned by the material. (Schae¨er


1977, p. 680)

The desire to understand the enormous range of possible sound objects led
Pierre Schae¨er to attempt to classify them, beginning in the early 1950s
(Schae¨er and Moles 1952). Book V of his Traite des objets musicaux (1977),
entitled Morphologie and typologie des objets sonores introduces the useful no-
tion of sound object morphologyÐthe comparison of the shape and evolution
of sound objects. Schae¨er borrowed the term morphology from the sciences,
where it refers to the study of form and structure (of organisms in biology, of
word-elements in linguistics, of rocks in geology, etc.). Schae¨er diagrammed
sound shape in three dimensions: the harmonic (spectrum), dynamic (ampli-
tude), and melodic (pitch). He observed that the elements making up a com-
plex sound can be perceived as either merged to form a sound compound, or
remaining separate to form a sound mixture. His typology, or classi®cation
of sound objects into di¨erent groups, was based on acoustic morphological
studies.
The idea of sound morphology remains central to the theory of electro-
acoustic music (Bayle 1993), in which the musical spotlight is often shone on
the sound object level. In traditional composition, transitions function on the
mesostructural level through the interplay of notes. In electroacoustic music,
the morphology of an individual sound may play a structural role, and tran-
sitions can occur within an individual sound object. This ubiquity of mutation
means that every sonic event is itself a potential transformation.

Micro Time Scale

The micro time scale is the main subject of this book. It embraces transient
audio phenomena, a broad class of sounds that extends from the threshold of
21 Time Scales of Music

timbre perception (several hundred microseconds) up to the duration of short


sound objects (@100 ms). It spans the boundary between the audio frequency
range (approximately 20 Hz to 20 kHz) and the infrasonic frequency range
(below 20 Hz). Neglected in the past owing to its inaccessibility, the microtime
domain now stands at the forefront of compositional interest.
Microsound is ubiquitous in the natural world. Transient events unfold all
around in the wild: a bird chirps, a twig breaks, a leaf crinkles. We may not
take notice of microacoustical events until they occur en masse, triggering a
global statistical percept. We experience the interactions of microsounds in the
sound of a spray of water droplets on a rocky shore, the gurgling of a brook,
the pitter-patter of rain, the crunching of gravel being walked upon, the snap-
ping of burning embers, the humming of a swarm of bees, the hissing of
rice grains poured into a bowl, and the crackling of ice melting. Recordings
of dolphins reveal a language made up entirely of high-frequency clicking
patterns.
One could explore the microsonic resources of any musical instrument in its
momentary bursts and infrasonic ¯utterings, (a study of traditional instruments
from this perspective has yet to be undertaken). Among unpitched percussion,
we ®nd microsounds in the angled rainstick, (shaken) small bells, (grinding)
ratchet, (scraped) guiro, ( jingling) tambourine, and the many varieties of
rattles. Of course, the percussion rollÐa granular stick techniqueÐcan be ap-
plied to any surface, pitched or unpitched.
In the literature of acoustics and signal processing, many terms refer to
similar microsonic phenomena: acoustic quantum, sonal atom, grain, glisson,
grainlet, trainlet, Gaussian elementary signal, Gaussian pulse, short-time segment,
sliding window, microarc, voicel, Coi¯et, symmlet, Gabor atom, Gabor wavelet,
gaborette, wavelet, chirplet, LieÂnard atom, FOF, FOG, wave packet, Vosim pulse,
time-frequency atom, pulsar, waveset, impulse, toneburst, tone pip, acoustic pixel,
and window function pulse are just a few. These phenomena, viewed in their
mathematical dual spaceÐthe frequency domainÐtake on a di¨erent set of
names: kernel, logon, and frame, for example.

Perception of Microsound

Microevents last only a very short time, near to the threshold of auditory per-
ception. Much scienti®c study has gone into the perception of microevents.
Human hearing mechanisms, however, intertwine with brain functions, cogni-
tion, and emotion, and are not completely understood. Certain facts are clear.
22 Chapter 1

One cannot speak of a single time frame, or a time constant for the auditory
system (Gordon 1996). Our hearing mechanisms involve many di¨erent agents,
each of which operates on its own time scale (see ®gure 1.1). The brain inte-
grates signals sent by various hearing agents into a coherent auditory picture.
Ear-brain mechanisms process high and low frequencies di¨erently. Keeping
high frequencies constant, while inducing phase shifts in lower frequencies,
causes listeners to hear a di¨erent timbre.
Determining the temporal limits of perception has long engaged psycho-
acousticians (Doughty and Garner 1947; Buser and Imbert 1992; Meyer-Eppler
1959; Winckel 1967; Whit®eld 1978). The pioneer of sound quanta, Dennis
Gabor, suggested that at least two mechanisms are at work in microevent de-
tection: one that isolates events, and another that ascertains their pitch. Human
beings need time to process audio signals. Our hearing mechanisms impose
minimum time thresholds in order to establish a ®rm sense of the identity and
properties of a microevent.
In their important book Audition (1992), Buser and Imbert summarize a large
number of experiments with transitory audio phenomena. The general result
from these experiments is that below 200 ms, many aspects of auditory per-
ception change character and di¨erent modes of hearing come into play. The
next sections discuss microtemporal perception.

Microtemporal Intensity Perception

In the zone of low amplitude, short sounds must be greater in intensity than
longer sounds to be perceptible. This increase is about ‡20 dB for tone pips
of 1 ms over those of 100 ms duration. (A tone pip is a sinusoidal burst with
a quasi-rectangular envelope.) In general, subjective loudness diminishes with
shrinking durations below 200 ms.

Microtemporal Fusion and Fission

In dense portions of the Milky Way, stellar images appear to overlap, giving the e¨ect of a
near-continuous sheet of light . . . The e¨ect is a grand illusion. In reality . . . the nightime
sky is remarkably empty. Of the volume of space only 1 part in 10 21 [one part in a quin-
tillion] is ®lled with stars. (Kaler 1997)

Circuitry can measure time and recognize pulse patterns at tempi in the range
of a gigahertz. Human hearing is more limited. If one impulse follows less than
200 ms after another, the onset of the ®rst impulse will tend to mask the second,
23 Time Scales of Music

a time-lag phenomenon known as forward masking, which contributes to the


illusion that we call a continuous tone.
The sensation of tone happens when human perception reaches attentional
limits where microevents occur too quickly in succession to be heard as discrete
events. The auditory system, which is nonlinear, reorganizes these events into
a group. For example, a series of impulsions at about 20 Hz fuse into a con-
tinuous tone. When a fast sequence of pitched tones merges into a continuous
``ripple,'' the auditory system is unable to successfully track its rhythm. Instead,
it simpli®es the situation by interpreting the sound as a continuous texture. The
opposite e¨ect, tone ®ssion, occurs when the fundamental frequency of a tone
descends into the infrasonic frequencies.
The theory of auditory streams (McAdams and Bregman 1979) aims to ex-
plain the perception of melodic lines. An example of a streaming law is: the
faster a melodic sequence plays, the smaller the pitch interval needed to split it
into two separately perceived ``streams.'' One can observe a family of streaming
e¨ects between two alternating tones A and B. These e¨ects range from coher-
ence (the tones A and B form a single percept), to roll (A dominates B), to
masking (B is no longer perceived).
The theory of auditory streaming was an attempt to create a psychoacoustic
basis for contrapuntal music. A fundamental assumption of this research was
that ``several musical dimensions, such as timbre, attack and decay transients,
and tempo are often not speci®ed exactly by the composer and are controlled
by the performer'' (McAdams and Bregman 1979). In the domain of electronic
music, such assumptions may not be valid.

Microtemporal Silence Perception

The ear is quite sensitive to intermittencies within pure sine waves, especially in
the middle range of frequencies. A 20 ms ¯uctuation in a 600 Hz sine wave,
consisting of a 6.5 ms fade out, a 7 ms silent interval, and a 6.5 ms fade in,
breaks the tone in two, like a double articulation. A 4 ms interruption, con-
sisting of a 1 ms fade out, a 2 ms silent interval, and a 1 ms fade in, sounds like
a transient pop has been superimposed on the sine wave.
Intermittencies are not as noticeable in complex tones. A 4 ms interruption is
not perceptible in pink noise, although a 20 ms interruption is.
In intermediate tones, between a sine and noise, microtemporal gaps less
than 10 ms sound like momentary ¯uctuations in amplitude or less noticeable
transient pops.
24 Chapter 1

Microtemporal Pitch Perception

Studies by Meyer-Eppler show that pitch recognition time is dependent on fre-


quency, with the greatest pitch sensitivity in the mid-frequency range between
1000 and 2000 Hz, as the following table (cited in Butler 1992) indicates.
Frequency in Hz 100 500 1000 5000
Minimum duration in ms 45 26 14 18

Doughty and Garner (1947) divided the mechanism of pitch perception into
two regions. Above about 1 kHz, they estimated, a tone must last at least 10 ms
to be heard as pitched. Below 1 kHz, at least two to three cycles of the tone are
needed.

Microtemporal Auditory Acuity

We feel impelled to ascribe a temporal arrangement to our experiences. If b is later than a


and g is later than b, then g is also later than a. At ®rst sight it appears obvious to assume
that a temporal arrangement of events exists which agrees with the temporal arrangement
of experiences. This was done unconsciously until skeptical doubts made themselves felt.
For example, the order of experiences in time obtained by acoustical means can di¨er from
the temporal order gained visually . . . (Einstein 1952)

Green (1971) suggested that temporal auditory acuity (the ability of the ear to
detect discrete events and to discern their order) extends down to durations as
short as 1 ms. Listeners hear microevents that are less than about 2 ms in du-
ration as a click, but we can still change the waveform and frequency of these
events to vary the timbre of the click. Even shorter events (in the range of
microseconds) can be distinguished on the basis of amplitude, timbre, and spa-
tial position.

Microtemporal Preattentive Perception

When a person glimpses the face of a famous actor, sni¨s a favorite food, or hears the voice
of a friend, recognition is instant. Within a fraction of a second after the eyes, nose, ears,
tongue or skin is stimulated, one knows the object is familiar and whether it is desirable or
dangerous. How does such recognition, which psychologists call preattentive perception,
happen so accurately and quickly, even when the stimuli are complex and the context in
which they arise varies? (Freeman 1991)

One of the most important measurements in engineering is the response of a


system to a unit impulse. It should not be surprising to learn that auditory
25 Time Scales of Music

neuroscientists have sought a similar type of measurement for the auditory


system. The impulse response equivalents in the auditory system are the audi-
tory evoked potentials, which follow stimulation by tone pips and clicks.
The ®rst response in the auditory nerve occurs about 1.5 ms after the initial
stimulus of a click, which falls within the realm of preattentive perception
(Freeman 1995). The mechanisms of preattentive perception perform a rapid
analysis by an array of neurons, combining this with past experience into a
wave packet in its physical form, or a percept in its behavioral form. The neural
activities sustaining preattentive perception take place in the cerebral cortex.
Sensory stimuli are preanalyzed in both the pulse and wave modes in interme-
diate stations of the brain. As Freeman noted, in the visual system complex
operations such as adaptation, range compression, contrast enhancement,
and motion detection take place in the retina and lower brain. Sensory stimuli
activate feature extractor neurons that recognize speci®c characteristics.
Comparable operations have been described for the auditory cortex: the ®nal
responses to a click occur some 300 ms later, in the medial geniculate body of
the thalamus in the brain (Buser and Imbert 1992).

Microtemporal Subliminal Perception

Finally, we should mention subliminal perception, or perception without aware-


ness. Psychological studies have tested the in¯uence of brief auditory stimuli
on various cognitive tasks. In most studies these take the form of verbal hints to
some task asked of the listener. Some evidence of in¯uence has been shown, but
the results are not clear-cut. Part of the problem is theoretical: how does sub-
liminal perception work? According to a cognitive theory of Reder and Gordon
(1997), for a concept to be in conscious awareness, its activation must be above
a certain threshold. Magnitude of activation is partly a function of the exposure
duration of the stimulus. A subliminal microevent raises the activation of the
corresponding element, but not enough to reach the threshold. The brain's
``production rules'' cannot ®re without the elements passing threshold, but a
subliminal microevent can raise the current activation level of an element
enough to make it easier to ®re a production rule later.
The musical implications are, potentially, signi®cant. If the subliminal hints
are not fragments of words but rather musical cues (to pitch, timbre, spatial
position, or intensity) then we can embed such events at pivotal instants, know-
ing that they will contribute to a percept without the listener necessarily being
aware of their presence. Indeed this is one of the most interesting dimensions of
microsound, the way that subliminal or barely perceptible variations in the
26 Chapter 1

properties of a collection of microeventsÐtheir onset time, duration, frequency,


waveform, envelope, spatial position, and amplitudeÐlead to di¨erent aesthetic
perceptions.

Viewing and Manipulating the Microtime Level

Microevents touch the extreme time limits of human perception and perfor-
mance. In order to examine and manipulate these events ¯uidly, we need digital
audio ``microscopes''Ðsoftware and hardware that can magnify the micro time
scale so that we can operate on it.
For the serious researcher, the most precise strategy for accessing the micro
time scale is through computer programming. Beginning in 1974, my research
was made possible by access to computers equipped with compiler software
and audio converters. Until recently, writing one's own programs was the only
possible approach to microsound synthesis and transformation.
Many musicians want to be able to manipulate this domain without the total
immersion experience that is the lifestyle of software engineering. Fortunately,
the importance of the micro time scale is beginning to be recognized. Any sound
editor with a zoom function that proceeds down to the sample level can view
and manipulate sound microstructure (®gure 1.4).
Programs such as our Cloud Generator (Roads and Alexander 1995),
o¨er high-level controls in the micro time domain (see appendix A). Cloud
Generator's interface directly manipulates the process of particle emission,
controlling the ¯ow of many particles in an evolving cloud. Our more recent
PulsarGenerator, described in chapter 4, is another example of a synthetic
particle generator.
The perceived result of particle synthesis emerges out of the interaction of
parameter evolutions on a micro scale. It takes a certain amount of training to
learn how operations in the micro domain translate to acoustic perceptions on
higher levels. The grain duration parameter in granular synthesis, for example,
has a strong e¨ect on the perceived spectrum of the texture.
This situation is no di¨erent from other well-known synthesis techniques.
Frequency modulation synthesis, for example, is controlled by parameters such
as carrier-to-modulator ratios and modulation indexes, neither of which are
direct terms of the desired spectrum. Similarly, physical modeling synthesis is
controlled by manipulating the parameters that describe the parts of a virtual in-
strument (size, shape, material, coupling, applied force, etc.), and not the sound.
One can imagine a musical interface in which a musician speci®es the desired
sonic result in a musically descriptive language which would then be translated
27 Time Scales of Music

Figure 1.4 Viewing the micro time scale via zooming. The top picture is the waveform
of a sonic gesture constructed from sound particles. It lasts 13.05 seconds. The middle
image is a result of zooming in to a part of the top waveform (indicated by the dotted
lines) lasting 1.5 seconds. The bottom image is a microtemporal portrait of a 10 milli-
second fragment at the beginning of the top waveform (indicated by the dotted lines).

into particle parameters and rendered into sound. An alternative would be to


specify an example: ``Make me a sound like this (sound®le), but with less
vibrato.'' This is a challenging task of parameter estimation, since the system
would have to interpret how to approximate a desired result. For more on the
problems of parameter estimation in synthesis see Roads (1996).

Do the Particles Really Exist?

In the 1940s, the physicist Dennis Gabor made the assertion that all soundÐ
even continuous tonesÐcan be considered as a succession of elementary par-
ticles of acoustic energy. (Chapter 2 summarizes this theory.) The question then
arises: do sound particles really exist, or are they merely a theoretical con-
28 Chapter 1

struction? In certain sounds, such as the taps of a slow drum roll, the individual
particles are directly perceivable. In other sounds, we can prove the existence of
a granular layer through logical argument.
Consider the whole number 5. This quantity may be seen as a sum of sub-
quantities, for example 1 ‡ 1 ‡ 1 ‡ 1 ‡ 1, or 2 ‡ 3, or 4 ‡ 1, and so on. If we
take away one of the subquantities, the sum no longer is 5. Similarly, a contin-
uous tone may be considered as a sum of subquantitiesÐas a sequence of over-
lapping grains. The grains may be of arbitrary sizes. If we remove any grain,
the signal is no longer the same. So clearly the grains exist, and we need all of
them in order to constitute a complex signal. This argument can be extended
to explain the decomposition of a sound into any one of an in®nite collection
of orthogonal functions, such as wavelets with di¨erent basis functions, Walsh
functions, Gabor grains, and so on.
This logic, though, becomes tenuous if it is used to posit the preexistence (in
an ideal Platonic realm) of all possible decompositions within a whole. For ex-
ample, do the slices of a cake preexist, waiting to be articulated? The philoso-
phy of mathematics is littered with such questions (Castonguay 1972, 1973).
Fortunately it is not our task here to try to assay their signi®cance.

Heterogeneity in Sound Particles

The concept of heterogeneity or diversity of sound materials, which we have


already discussed in the context of the sound object time scale, also applies to
other time scales. Many techniques that we use to generate sound particles as-
sign to each particle a unique identity, a precise frequency, waveform, duration,
amplitude morphology, and spatial position, which then distinguishes it from
every other particle. Just as certain sound objects may function as singularities,
so may certain sound particles.

Sampled Time Scale

Below the level of microtime stands the sampled time scale (®gure 1.5). The
electronic clock that drives the sampling process establishes a time grid. The
spacing of this grid determines the temporal precision of the digital audio
medium. The samples follow one another at a ®xed time interval of 1= fS , where
fS is the sampling frequency. When fS ˆ 44:1 kHz (the compact disc rate),
the samples follow one another every 22.675 millionths of a second (msec).
29 Time Scales of Music

Figure 1.5 Sample points in a digital waveform. Here are 191 points spanning a 4.22 ms
time interval. The sampling rate is 44.1 kHz.

The atom of the sample time scale is the unit impulse, the discrete-time coun-
terpart of the continuous-time Dirac delta function. All samples should be con-
sidered as time-and-amplitude-transposed (delayed and scaled) instances of
the unit impulse.
The interval of one sample period borders near the edge of human audio
perception. With a good audio system one can detect the presence of an indi-
vidual high-amplitude sample inserted into a silent stream of zero-valued sam-
ples. Like a single pixel on a computer screen, an individual sample o¨ers little.
Its amplitude and spatial position can be discerned, but it transmits no sense of
timbre and pitch. Only when chained into sequences of hundreds do samples
¯oat up to the threshold of timbral signi®cance. And still longer sequences of
thousands of samples are required to represent pitched tones.

Sound Composition with Individual Sample Points

Users of digital audio systems rarely attempt to deal with individual sample
points, which, indeed, only a few programs for sound composition manipulate
directly. Two of these are G. M. Koenig's Sound Synthesis Program (SSP) and
30 Chapter 1

Herbert BruÈn's Sawdust program, both developed in the late 1970s. Koenig and
BruÈn emerged from the Cologne school of serial composition, in which the in-
terplay between macro- and microtime was a central aesthetic theme (Stock-
hausen 1957; Koenig 1959; Maconie 1989). BruÈn wrote:

For some time now it has become possible to use a combination of analog and digital
computers and converters for the analysis and synthesis of sound. As such a system will
store or transmit information at the rate of 40,000 samples per second, even the most
complex waveforms in the audio-frequency range can be scanned and registered or be
recorded on audio tape. This . . . allows, at last, the composition of timbre, instead of with
timbre. In a sense, one may call it a continuation of much which has been done in the elec-
tronic music studio, only on a di¨erent scale. The composer has the possibility of extending
his compositional control down to elements of sound lasting only 1/20,000 of a second.
(Brun 1970)

Koenig's and BruÈn's synthesis programs were conceptually similar. Both


represented a pure and radical approach to sound composition. Users of these
programs stipulated sets of individual time and amplitude points, where each
set was in a separate ®le. They then speci®ed logical operations such as linking,
mingling, and merging, to map from a time-point set to an amplitude-point set
in order to construct a skeleton of a waveform fragment. Since these points
were relatively sparse compared to the number of samples needed to make a
continuous sound, the software performed a linear interpolation to connect in-
termediate amplitude values between the stipulated points. This interpolation,
as it were, ¯eshed out the skeleton. The composer could then manipulate the
waveform fragments using logical set theory operations to construct larger and
larger waveforms, in a process of hierarchical construction.
Koenig was explicit about his desire to escape from the traditional computer-
generated sounds:

My intention was to go away from the classical instrumental de®nitions of sound in terms
of loudness, pitch, and duration and so on, because then you could refer to musical elements
which are not necessarily the elements of the language of today. To explore a new ®eld of
sound possibilities I thought it best to close the classical descriptions of sound and open up
an experimental ®eld in which you would really have to start again. (Roads 1978b)

Iannis Xenakis proposed a related approach (Xenakis 1992; Ho¨mann 1994,


1996, 1997). This involves the application of sieve theory to the amplitude and
time dimensions of a sound synthesis process. As in his Gendyn program, the
idea is to construct waveforms from fragments. Each fragment is bounded by
two breakpoints. Between the breakpoints, the rest of the waveform is ®lled in
31 Time Scales of Music

by interpolation. Whereas in Gendyn the breakpoints are calculated from a


nonlinear stochastic algorithm, in sieve theory the breakpoints would be calcu-
lated according to a partitioning algorithm based on sieved amplitude and time
dimensions.

Assessment of Sound Composition with Samples

To compose music by means of logical operations on samples is a daunting


task. Individual samples are subsymbolicÐperceptually indistinguishable from
one another. It is intrinsically di½cult to string together samples into meaning-
ful music symbols. Operations borrowed from set theory and formal logic do
not take into account the samples' acoustical signi®cance. As Koenig's state-
ment above makes clear, to compose intentionally a graceful melodic ®gure, a
smooth transition, a cloud of particles, or a polyphonic texture requires extra-
ordinary e¨ort, due to the absence of acoustically relevant parameters for build-
ing higher-level sound structures. Users of sample-based synthesis programs
must be willing to submit to the synthesis algorithm, to abandon local control,
and be satis®ed with the knowledge that the sound was composed according
to a logical process. Only a few composers took up interest in this approach,
and there has not been a great deal of experimentation along these lines since
the 1970s.

Subsample Time Scale

A digital audio system represents waveforms as a stream of individual samples


that follow one another at a ®xed time interval (1= fS , where fS is the sampling
frequency). The subsample time scale supports ¯uctuations that occur in less
than two sampling periods. Hence this time scale spans a range of minuscule
durations measured in nanoseconds and extending down to the realm of in®n-
itesimal intervals.
To stipulate a sampling frequency is to ®x a strict threshold between a sub-
sample and the sample time scale. Frequencies above this thresholdÐthe
Nyquist frequency (by de®nition: fS =2)Ðcannot be represented properly by a
digital audio system. For the standard compact disc sampling rate of 44.1 kHz,
the Nyquist frequency is 22.05 kHz. This means that any wave ¯uctuation
shorter than two samples, or 45 msec, is relegated to the subsample domain. The
96 kHz sampling rate standard reduces this interval to 20.8 msec.
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Title: Life in the forests of the Far East (vol. 2 of 2)

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE IN THE


FORESTS OF THE FAR EAST (VOL. 2 OF 2) ***
LIFE IN THE FORESTS
OF

THE FAR EAST.


F. Jones, lith.
Published by Smith, Elder & Co. Day & Son, Lithrs to the Queen
65 Cornhill, London
SHOOTING THE CATARACT—LIMBANG RIVER.
LIFE IN THE FORESTS
OF

THE FAR EAST.


BY

SPENSER ST. JOHN, F.R.G.S., F.E.S.,


FORMERLY H.M.’S CONSUL-GENERAL IN THE GREAT ISLAND OF BORNEO,
AND NOW
H.M.’s CHARGÉ D’AFFAIRES TO THE REPUBLIC OF HAYTI.

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS.

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.

LONDON:
SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL.
M.DCCC.LXII.

[The right of Translation is reserved.]


CONTENTS.

Chapter I.
EXPEDITIONS TO EXPLORE THE INTERIOR TO THE SOUTH AND SOUTH-EAST OF
THE CAPITAL.
PAGE
Preliminary Expeditions—The Limbang River—Stories
connected with it—The Madalam—River flowing under a Pile
of Rocks—Caverns—Batu Rikan—The River issuing from
under the Mountain of Molu—Ascend the Precipices—No
Water—Long Roots—No Soil—Second Expedition—A Flood—
Dangerous Position—Wakeful Night—Beautiful Flowers—
Palms and Rhododendrons—Old Kayan Encampment—
Detached Rocks—Ascent of Molu—Two new Species of
Nepenthes—Difficult Climbing—New Rhododendrons—
Stopped by a Precipice—Sharp-edged Rocks—Descent—
Limestone Rock—Cave—Heavy Rain—Swollen River—Quick
Return—Prepare for a distant Expedition—Alarm of the
Brunean Government—Warnings—Preparations—Boats—My
Headman, Musa—A Travelled Dayak—Stories of Molu—
Weapons—Merchandise 1

Chapter II.
MY LIMBANG JOURNAL.
Start—Discovery of Bones and ancient Ornaments—At the Site 16
of the Old City—At the Stone Fort—At Sarawak—The Trusan,
or connecting Passage—Apathy of the Government and
People—Sago—Method of preparing it for the Market—The
Limbang River—The Inhabitants—Winding Stream—The
Orang Kaya Upit of Kruei—Sampirs—Gadong Hill—Scenery—
Molu—The Raman Palm—Delays—Cholera—Orang Kaya
Napur—Panglima Prang—The Weather—State of the River—
Origin of the Ponds—Native Geographical Information—The
Upper Country—Cataract—Enchanted Mountain—Native
Travelling—Dreams and Omen Birds—Religion of Pakatans—
Cause of Head-hunting—The Wild Boar—Trouble in procuring
Guides—Pengkalan Tarap—Desolation of the Country—
Causes of it—Selling Children—Kayan Barbarity—Chinese at
Batang Parak—Site of Burnt Villages—Posts of Houses—Two
kinds of Sago Palm—Their Growth—Kayan Encampment—
Cultivation—The River—Rocks—Salt Springs—Native
Explanation—Anecdote—Time to halt—Birds—Rare, except in
certain Districts—Monkeys—Alligators—The Man-eater—A
Challenge accepted—Disappearance of the Siol Alligator—
Combat with two in a Cave—Method of Capturing them in
Siam—Laying Eggs in the Jungle—Ducks and Drakes—Malay
Cookery—Very tasty—Blachang—How to make a Curry—
Anecdotes of Bornean Rule—Attack on the Limpasong Village
—Insurrection of the Aborigines—Forced Trade—Qualities
necessary in a Malay Ruler—The great Mountain of Tilong—
Discomfort of possessing a large Diamond—Diamonds found
in Borneo

Chapter III.
MY LIMBANG JOURNAL—Continued.
Wet Morning—Wild Cattle—A Night Adventure—View of Molu 49
Mountain—A Pebbly Flat—Moose Deer—Our Tents—Kayan—
Their Attack—Desolation—Course they pursue to invade these
Districts—Difficulties—Attack the Lepuasing Muruts—Fearful
Retaliation—Attacks on the Villages of the Lower Limbang—
Makota’s Treachery—His Cupidity—Surprise of Balat Ikan—
Alarm Signal—Advance—Fresh Kayan Marks—Inundations—
Unskilful Sportsmen—Difficult Rapids—The Sertab Hills—
Enter the Limestone District—A New Kayan Hut—High Pork
—Effect of Pebbles on the Rock—Agreeable Evening—Omen
Birds—Japer’s Method of easing a sore Heart—The Punan
Tribe—The Spy—The Alligator Omen—The Bird Omen—
Attack the Village—Poisoned Arrows—Destruction of a Tribe—
Effect of such Forays on the Country—The Ghosts on the
Tapang Tree—Numerous Bees’ Nests—Sand Flies—Seribas
Omen Bird—The Salindong—Kayan Resting-place—Traces of
Captives taken—Precautions—Difficulties increase—
Limestone Country—Severe Toil—Accidents avoided—
Hauling the Boats—River narrows—A Fresh—Towing-ropes—
Story of the Death of Orang Kaya Apo—Enter the Sandstone
District again—Broader River—Snakes on Trees—The same
Colour as the Boughs and Foliage—Biawaks or Guanas—A
large One—Their Ways—The Fowls and the Cobra—Heavy
Day’s Work—Future Plans—Two Ways of reaching Adang—
The flying Foxes—Huge Frog—The Madihit—Leave our Boats
—Handsome Trees—Appearance of the Country—Sand Flies
—Preparations for the Overland Journey—Division of Food—
Our famous Hunters—A Cache—The Chinese on the Madihit

Chapter IV.
MY LIMBANG JOURNAL—Continued.
Start on the Land Journey—Our Course—Ascend the Rawan
Torrent—Attacked by Hornets—Native Remedy—Severe
Effect of Sting—Disturbed by Ants—Japer left behind—Fresh
Traces of Strangers in the Forest—Appearance of the Country
—Water Snake killed—Our Adventure with One—The
Swimming Cobra—Romantic but timely Meeting—Story of
Pangeran Mumein and the Murut Concubine—Malay Revenge
—Punishment of an Offender—Cause of the Borneans being
converted to Mahomedanism—Capturing the Daughter of
Johore—Independent Position of the Pablat Borneans—Reach
the Wax-seekers’ Hut—Flesh of the Wild Boar—The Adang
Muruts—Their Sumpitans—The Poison on the Arrows—
Melted in hot Water—Weapons purchased, not made by them
—Dress of the Muruts—Japer rejoins us—Continue our
Journey with new Guide—Method of catching Fish—Effect of
Loss of Blood by Leeches—Extraordinary Insect—The
Freshwater Turtle—Its Description—Curious Fly—Poisoning
the River—Getting short of Provisions—Galton’s Method of
dividing Food—Adopt it—Improvidence of the Malays—Cry of
the Wahwah—Rejoin the Limbang—Omen Bird—Prepare for
Enemies—Quarrel among the Guides—Divide the Party—
Hard Walking—The Otter—A Fight with my Dogs—Still beyond
the Mountain—Find good Huts—The Stragglers—The last of
the Food—Ascend the Mountains—Exhaustion of the Guides
—The Remains of the Ham—Its Effects—Reach the Summit—
Descend to the Farms—Meet the Adang Muruts—Hearty
“Welcome—Names—Recent History of these Villagers—
Kayan Attacks—Driven from the Limbang—The Geography of
the Country—The Houses—Cold, and Fire-places—Arrival of
my Followers—Sir James Brooke—The Friend of the
Aborigines—His Fame had preceded me—How Reports
spread—The Tigers’ Cave—Curious Story 80

Chapter V.
MY LIMBANG JOURNAL—Continued.
Women’s Ornaments—Adorning in Public—Confidence shown 109
by a young Girl—Geography—Leech Bites—Tapioca—The
Manipa Stream—The False and True Brayong—Nothing but
Rice to be purchased—Wild Raspberries—Good Shots—The
Rifle Carbine—Death of a Kite—Picking a Cocoa-nut—Curious
Statement—A Village of Runaways—Proposed Slave Hunt—
Disappointment—Appearance of the Women—Old Look of the
Children—Devoid of Drapery—Preparing the Plantations—No
Goods for Sale—Edible Bird’s-nest Cave—Difficulties in
penetrating farther—Determine to return—Climate—New
Route—Custom in Drinking similar to the Chinese—Anecdote
of Irish Labourers—Change of Plans—Fashion of wearing
Brass Wire—Start on a Tour among the Villages—The Burning
Path—Village of Purté—Refreshing Drink—The Upper Trusan
—Distant Ranges—Inviting and receiving Invitations—Fatal
Midnight Revel—Tabari’s Village—Alarm of Orang Kaya Upit—
Suspension Bridge—Inhabitants—Scheme of the Adangs to
return to their old Districts—Deers’ Horns—Mourning—Difficult
Walking—The Tiger’s Leap—Meet Si Puntara—No Real
Enemies—Murud—The Gura Peak—The Main Muruts—Salt
as well as Slave Dealers—Bearskin Jacket—White Marble—
Uncertainty whence procured—Leaden Earrings—
Unbecoming Custom—Lofty Mountains—Lawi Cloud-hidden—
Muruts busy Farming—Two Harvests a Year—Agricultural
Produce plentiful—Obtain a Goat—Dress of the Men—Bead
Petticoats—Custom of burying on the Tops of the Lofty Hills—
Desecration of Graves—Jars—Discovery of one in Brunei—
Similar Millanau Customs

Chapter VI.
MY LIMBANG JOURNAL—Continued.
Commence the return Journey—Kayan Embassy—Indian Corn 131
—Confidence of the People—Ophthalmia—Old Jar—Gratitude
rarely shown—Anecdote—Warning to Amateur Doctors—
Bezoar Stones—Arrangements at Si Lopong’s—A Nightcap—
Desertion of our Guides—Murut Music—Start for the Adang—
Warned of Difficulties—Abundance of Rice—Cross the Adang
Mountains—Active Girls—The Anœctochilus—Attack of Fever
—Arrangements in case of its continuance—Loss of Chamber
to Revolver—Reach the Adang—Legend—Construct four
Rafts—Pleasant Movement—Trying Position of one of the Men
—The first Rapid passed—Difficulties at the second—Bold
Swimmer—A Whirlpool—Danger of Drowning—Our Raft
tested—Abandoned—The rest wrecked—Pass the Umur—
Reach the Limbang—Construct fresh Rafts—Uneasy
Anticipations—Heavy Fresh—Fine Specimen of a Raft—Push
off—Dangers and Troubles—The Rafts ungovernable—The
Roaring of Waters—Overhanging Cliffs—The Cataract—Awe
of the Men—Shoot the Cataract—Narrow Escape—Its Height
—The Men recover their Voice—Ineffectual Attempts to stop
the Raft—Caught in a Whirlpool—Safety—Arrival of the other
Rafts—Dangers ahead—Walk—Abandon the Rafts—State of
Provisions—Nearly all consumed—Ahtan’s Secret Store—
Rocks—Advance over the Kalio Hills—Sparing the Food—
Exhausting climbing—“Jog on”—Feed on the Cabbages of the
Bengkala Palm—Almost a Mutiny—Facing the Difficulty—
Reach the Summit of the Paya Paya, or “very difficult” Hills—
Night on the Summit—Our Tent—The last Fowl—Molu—The
greatest Difficulties passed—Country more open—Follow the
Banks of the River—Distress of the Men—Improvidence—
Curious Sounds in the old Forests—Cry of the Argus Pheasant
—Of the Jelatuk—Rending of a Mighty Tree—Danger from
Decaying Trees—Cock-fights among the Argus Pheasants

Chapter VII.
MY LIMBANG JOURNAL—Concluded.
Stopped for a Day—Five Start for Provisions—The Sick Men left 154
behind join us—No Shoes—Weakness from want of Food—
Leeches—Stop again—Collect Food—Anecdote of Female
Orang Utan and Murut—Again construct Rafts—Present of a
Cup full of Rice—Start on the Rafts—Abandon them—A Bear
—The River—Immense Pebbly Flats—Long Walks—Traces of
the Advance Party—Wild Fruit—Sour Oranges—Recognize a
Hill—Fruit of the Jintawan, or India-rubber Plant—Find
Remains of Bees’-nest—The British Flag—Reach the Madihit
—Bad Conduct of the Advance Party—Food nearly all
consumed—An unfeeling Father—Proposed Punishment—
Ravages of the Bears—Anecdote of Ahtan—Return in the
Boats—The Herd of Wild Cattle—Wound a Bull, but do not get
it—A slight Supper—Start in a Sampir—Ahtan ill—The last of
the Food—News from Brunei—Reach the Town—Arrival of the
rest of the Party—Bornean travelling—Measure Distance by
Fatigue—Slow Progress necessary—Active Murut—Average
Rate of Advance—Great Mistakes made in the Estimates of
Distance—Instances—Mr. Motley’s Account of his advance up
the Limbang—Mr. De Crespigny’s Mistake in the Latitude of
the River Damit and Position of the Mountain of Molu—
Remarks on the Map—Causes of the continued Health of my
Followers—The Tents—Mistake in trusting to Native Huts—
Native Geographical Information tested—Found correct—
Arrival of the Orang Kaya Upit—Tragical Death of Pangeran
Mokata, the Shabandar—Two Years after—Sad Fate of a
Party of Adang Muruts—Murder by Orang Kaya Gomba—
Head-hunting—Heads valued, but none seen—Incident of
meeting Head-hunters—No treacherous Designs—Inefficient
Government—Desecration of the Graveyards—Chinese
Secret Societies, or Hués—Ahtan joins one—Robbery of the
Iron Chest from the Consulate—The Sultan’s Method of
extorting a Confession—Obstinacy of Ahtan—Officers of the
Secret Society—Chest restored—Prisoners released—The
Hué broken up—Treatment of Prisoners—Musa and the Priest
—Threats—Personal Regard for some of my Followers

Chapter VIII.
THE SULU ARCHIPELAGO.
FIRST VISIT.
Picturesque Islands—Balambañgan—An old English Settlement 178
—Large Monkeys—Optical Illusions—Flights of Birds—The
Curlew—The way we shot them in Sarawak—Game—
Banguey—Mali Wali—Cleared Hills—Fine Water—Sweet-
smelling Jasmine—Cagayan Sulu—Intercourse with the
Inhabitants—Appearance of the Country—Lovely Scenery—
Market—Inhabitants—Insolent Traders—The Crater Harbour—
Wall of Evergreen—Inner Lake—Climb the Cliff—Scenery—
Alligators numerous—Sulu—Appearance from the Ship—
Sugh, the Capital—Mr. Wyndham—The Watering-place—
Suspicious Natives—Fugitives from Balignini—Reports—A
Market—The Mountaineers civil—Walk to the Palace—The
Stockades—Armed Crowd—Audience Hall—Absurd Reports
—The Sultan and his Nobles—Dress—Politeness of the
Sultan—Return to the Ship—Datu Daniel—The Racecourse—
Effect of Dutch Shot—Tulyan Bay—Alarm of Villagers—Sulu
Government—Laws—Feuds—The Mahomedan and the Pork
—Population—Fighting-men—Slave Market—Dignified
carriage of the Nobles—Dress—The Balignini—Dutch Attack—
Appearance of the Country—Good position of Island—Tulyan
—Basilan—Numerous Islets—Samboañgan —Spanish
Convict Settlement—Description of Country—Fort—Town—
Shops—The Church—The Men—The Women—The Corner
Shop—A Ball—Dancing difficult—Waltzes—Supplies at
Saraboañgan—A lonely Grave

Chapter IX.
THE SULU ISLANDS.
SECOND VISIT.
Reach Sugh—Mr. Wyndham comes on board—His News— 200
Commercial Rivalry—The Stockades—Visit the Audience Hall
—Appearance of the Sultan—Visit Datu Daniel’s Stockaded
House—Guns—Datu Daniel—Appearance of the principal
Chamber—The Bed—Boxes—Property—General look of
Discomfort—Spittoons—Dismounted Iron Guns—Taken from
the English—Excitement in the Town—Hereditary Hatred of
the Sulus to the Spaniards—Their Treaty with Spain—
Sandakan Bay—Supplies—Variegated Wood—Salute—
English popular—An Exception—Death of a Sulu Lady from
Grief—The Rumah Bechara—A Ship taken—Interview with the
Sultan—Rope—Character of Datus—The Balignini—Capture
an English Ship—Captives brought to Sulu—Result of the
Action of the Nemesis—The Lanuns—At Magindanau and
Cape Unsang—A narrow Escape—Mate to Lord Cochrane—
Capture of the Maria Frederica—Cold-blooded Murder of the
Captain—Jilolo Prahus—Their Rencontre with Sir Edward
Belcher—Pirates off the Arru Group—Sulu Justice—
Appearance of the People—Attack on the Spanish Gunboats
—Public Audience with the Sultan—Private Visit to the House
of his Bride—The Women—Opium-smoking—Invitation to
revisit Sulu—The Spanish Gunboats—Samboañgan—The
Corner Shop—Sunday’s Amusements—Appearance of the
Neighbourhood—A Breakfast in the Country—Long Walks—
People comfortable—Story of the Loss and Re-capture of the
Dolphin—The Dolphin sails for Maludu Bay—Quarrels—
Surprised—Death of Mr. Burns and the Captain—Murder of a
Woman—Injury to Trade—Datu Badrudin’s Monopolies—The
Tungku Pirates—Visit the chief Town of Maludu—Sherif
Hasin’s Account of the Surprise of the Dolphin—The Re-
capture of the Vessel by Sherif Yasin—Arrival at Benggaya—
Dolphin delivered up—Visit the Village of Sherif Yasin—His
Appearance—His Account of the Re-capture—His Position—
Smoking over Powder—Delivery of the Cargo—Return to the
Ship—Argus Pheasants—Meet with Baju Boats—Pearl
Fishers—Retaliation—Fishing for Pearls—Mr. Edwardes’ Pearl
—Story of the Datu, and his great good Fortune—The
Mermaid Pearl—Present State of Piracy on the North-West
Coast—Cruise of the Balignini in 1861—Ransom of Inchi Ngah
—Names of present Haunts of the Balignini—A Mangrove
Swamp—Present System of Balignini—Escape of a Native—
The Lanuns—A Dayak’s Experience—A Slave Mart—Spanish
Attack on Sugh—Severe Fight—Bravery of the Sulus—
Capture of the Town—The Sulu Government retire to the Hills,
and refuse to submit—A Teak Forest burnt—No Teak in
Borneo—Elephants extinct in Sulu

Chapter X.
THE KINGDOM OF BORNEO PROPER.
Its Nominal Extent—Its Government—The Sultan—The Viziers— 244
The Shabandar—The inferior Officers—Their Influence—“The
Abode of Peace”—Poverty-stricken Gentlemen—Possessions
of the Nobles—The Country parcelled out among them—
Distant Dependencies becoming independent—Oppression of
the surrounding Districts—Divisions among the Nobles—
Poverty of the Nobles—Population of Brunei—System of
Plunder—Sale of Children—Handsome Brass Guns—Their
Fate—No Justice—Crime nominally punished—No Possibility
of Improvement—Anecdotes—System of Local Self-
government—The Parishes—Their Names, and the
Occupation of their Inhabitants—Fishing—Shell Heaps—
Asylum—Treatment of a Slave Girl—Political Parties—
Religious Schism—An attempted Explanation—Followers of
each Party—Difference of Length of Fast Month—Visiting the
Graves of Ancestors—A pretty Custom—Search after
Excitement—Story Tellers—Conjurors—Their Arts—Practice of
Abortion—The Egg-cooking Trick—The Sultan’s Palace—Its
Inhabitants—His Wife and his Concubines—Their Treatment—
Bold Lovers—Anecdote—Tragical Termination—The Women
deceive their Lords—The Inverted Language—Education
neglected—Sight of a Harim—Mutual Disappointment—
Rajah’s pleasant Companions—Their Customs—Tenacious of
Rank—Decay of Brunei—Exactions suffered by the Aborigines
—The Kadayans—Tradition—Hill Men united—Commotion—
Kadayans have great Influence—Lovely Country—Kadayans
removed to Labuan—Short Description of that Colony—
Excellent Position—Coal—Telegraphic Communication—Good
Effect of our Colony—Trade Increasing—Pepper—Exports—
Cotton—Fine Jungle—Method of Collecting the Camphor and
the Gamboge in Siam—The Coal-fields—Revenue of the
Sultan—Brunei Government no Power—Crime unpunished—A
Bold Thief—Makota and the Fire—Nominal Punishments—
Cutting off the Hand—The Fall of Ashes—Singing Fish—
Curious Method of Catching Prawns—Tuba Fishing—
Superstition—Money—Coinage of the Capital—Cloth—Iron—
Gun-metal—Good Manufactures of Brass Ordnance—A 12-
pounder—Similarity of Customs—The Sultan—The Heir to his
Subjects—Makota and his Gold

Chapter XI.
SARAWAK AND ITS DEPENDENCIES.
First Visit—Appearance of the Country—Scenery—Lovely Isles 280
—Turtle—Method of securing their Eggs—Their Enemies—
Fish—The Dugong—Method of capturing them—Graves of
Englishmen at Po Point—First Evening in Borneo—A
Welcome to the Rajah—Boats—Salute and Manning Yards—
The Muaratabas Entrance—The River—The Town of Kuching
—Sunset—Arrival—A noisy Procession—Extent of Sarawak—
A well-watered Country—The Rejang—Extent of fertile Soil
adapted to Sugar—Its Inhabitants—Different Races and Tribes
—Population—Kuching, the Capital—Increase—Trade—Sago
Districts—Cotton—Seed sent by the Cotton Supply
Association—Imported Labour required—Increased
Production—Inferior Cultivation—Soil adapted to most Tropical
Productions— Water Communication—Minerals—Coal,
Antimony, and Gold—Indications of other Minerals—Former
Condition of the Country—Difficulties of Management—Forced
Trade—Comfortable Position of the Dayaks—Influence of New
System on the Malays—Distant Voyages—Remarkable
Honesty—Anecdote—System of Government—An
unteachable Chief—Sons of Patinggi Ali—Their good Conduct
—Effect of associating the Natives in the Government—The
System introduced into all the Dependencies—Effect of Sir
James Brooke’s Government—Anecdote of an old Chief—
Gradual Developments—Necessity for Support—The Chinese
an Industrious and Saving Nation—Soundness in the System
of Government—England with a Chinese Colony—Future of
Borneo—Chinese amalgamate with Native Population—
Female Emigration from China—Administration of Justice—
The Sarawak Courts—Character of the Malays

Chapter XII.
THE CHINESE IN BORNEO.
Intercourse between China and the Northern Part of Borneo— 308
References to the Chinese—Names of Places and Rivers—
Sites of Gardens and Houses—One of the original Settlers—
The Sultan’s Recollections—Chinese numerous in his Youth—
Reasons for their Disappearing—Anecdote of a Murut Chief—
Aborigines speaking Chinese—Mixed Breed—Good Husbands
—Chinese at Batang Parak—At Madihit—Pepper Planters—
Origin of the Borneans—Chinese Features observed also
among the Aborigines—Careful Agriculture—A remnant of
Chinese Teaching—Traditions of a Chinese Kingdom—Effect
of Treaty with Brunei—Unsuccessful attempt to revive Pepper
Planting—Chinese scattering on the North-west coast—A
Spark of Enlightenment—Attempt to prevent Intercourse
between the Chinese and Aborigines—Decay of Junk Trade—
Cochin Chinese—Conduct of the Chinese—Papar—Anecdote
—Fatal result of Insulting a Woman—Skirmish—
Misrepresented in Labuan—Question of British Protection to
the Chinese—Their Insolence—Anecdote—Unpleasant
Position—A Check—Difficulty of obtaining Information—Cause
of former Disputes—Insurrection of the Chinese of Brunei—
Sarawak—Early efforts of the Chinese to establish themselves
there—Lawless Malays—A Murder—Retaliation—Defeat of
the Chinese—Arrival of Sir James Brooke—Mixed Breed in
Sambas—Form Self-governing Communities—Defeat of the
Dutch Forces—Subjugation of the Chinese—The Pamangkat
Agriculturists—Flight into Sarawak—Change in the
appearance of the Country—Mission School—Visit the Interior
—Kunsis, or Gold Companies—Appearance of the Country—
Method of Gold-working—The Reservoir—The Ditch—The
Sluice—Wasteful method of working—Abundance of Gold—
Impetus—Failure of first Agricultural Schemes—A great Flood
—Troublesome Gold-workers—Successful Scheme—
Disturbance in Sambas—Flight of Chinese—Illiberal
Regulation—Tour through the Chinese Settlements—
Agriculture—Siniawan—Chinese Workings—Hot Spring—Gold
at Piat in Quartz—Antimony Works—Extensive Reservoirs—
Arrival of Chinese from Sambas—Denial by the Kunsi—Hard
Work at the Gold Diggings—Scenery—Path to Sambas—
Chinese Station—Numbers of the Chinese before the
Insurrection

Chapter XIII.
THE CHINESE INSURRECTION.
Secret Societies—Extensive Intercourse—Smuggling—The Gold 336
Company Fined—Punishment of Three of its Members—
Arrogance of the Kunsi—A Police Case—Real Causes of the
insurrection—An Emissary from the Tien Ti Secret Society—
Reported Encouragement given by the Sultan of Sambas—
Sambas Nobles speak Chinese—Their Nurses—The Nobles
Conspiring—An Emissary arrives in Brunei—Proposal—
Knowledge of the Intended Insurrection—Proposed Attack on
the Consulate—The Tumanggong’s Threat—The Emissary
before the Court—Letter from the Tien Ti Hué—Rumours of
Intended Insurrection—Preparations and Inquiries—
Commencement of the Revolt—Useless Warnings—Surprise
of the Government House— Danger of the Rajah—Cowardice
of the Chinese—Escape—Swims the River—Death of Mr.
Nicholets—Attacks on the other Houses—On the Stockade—
Gallant Conduct of Mr. Crymble and the Malay Fortmen—
Warm Reception of the Rebels—Death of a Madman—A
Bravo Corporal—Escape of Mr. Crymble—His last Blow—
Fortmen again behave well—Confusion in the Town—Peaceful
Assurances—Attempt to organize a Defence—Panic-striken—
Departure—Conduct of the People—Next Morning—Killed and
Wounded—The Chinese in Power—The Court-house—A
Check to Joy—Oath of Fidelity—Courage Shown by Abang
Patah—A Blow struck—Second Descent of the Chinese—A
Boat Action—Gallant Attack—Deaths—Anecdote—The
Second Retreat—The Town in Flames—The Steamer—The
Capital recovered—Pursuit of the Chinese—They retire to the
Interior—Attacks of the Land Dayaks—Foray of the Chinese—
Their Fort taken by the Datu Bandhar—Pursuit—Disorderly
Retreat—Critical Position—Brave Girls—Pass the Frontier—
The Men of the Kunsi—A Quarrel—Stripped of Plunder—
Results of the Insurrection—Forces at the Disposal of the
Sarawak Government—Conduct of the People—Disastrous to
the Chinese—New System—Arrival of Armed Chinese from
Sambas—Dutch and English Assistance—Revisit Sarawak—
Change—Conduct of the Rajah—Its Effect on the People—
Secret Society at Labuan—Dangers from the Secret Societies
and their Defenders—Curious Incident—Thoughtful Care of
the Rajah

Chapter XIV.
THE MISSIONS: ROMAN CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT.
Arrival of the Roman Catholic Mission in Labuan—Signor
Cuarteron its Head—Curious Reports—His real History—
Finding the Treasure—Turns Priest—Ostensible Object of the
Mission—Not attempted—Ease with which Captives could
escape—No Inclination to do so—Turned Mahomedans—
Return of Signor Cuarteron—Courtesy of the Brunei
Government—Intentions of the Italian Priest—Model Village—
The Italian Priests—The Churches—Old Battery—Regret at
the Withdrawal of the Roman Catholic Mission—Protestant
Mission at Sarawak—Present Condition—Comparative Failure
—Partial Success at Lingga and Lundu—Mr. Chalmers and
the Land Dayaks—Causes of his Influence—Mistake in
establishing the Mission at Kuching—The Reasons—
Objectionable Position for Schools—Proper Position for the
Mission—Suitable Spots—Waste of Funds in Boats and
Plantations—Deplorable Secession of Missionaries—Reasons
to account for it—Present Management faulty—Mr. Gomez in
Lundu—Christian Dayaks warn the Government—Missionaries
always welcome in Sarawak—Important political effect—The
Church should be among the Dayaks—Suitable Men for
Missionaries—What the Head of a Mission should be—What
he too often is, and should not be—Five Recommendations to
increase Efficiency—Unoccupied Room for a great Increase of
the Number of Missionaries—Method of distributing them—
Personal Character—Dayaks an interesting Race—A Tribe
half Mahomedans half Pagans—Use of eating Pork—Districts
unoccupied—Position of the Missionary in Sarawak—The
Bornean Mission an important one 365

APPENDICES.
Appendix A.—Dayak Languages. Sambas to Batang Lupar 383
„ B.—Ditto. Batang Lupar to Rejang 392
„ C.—Languages of Tribes between the Rejang and the Baram 399
„ D.—Languages of Northern Borneo 407
„ E.—Lanun Language 417
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