Folke Rabe is a Swedish composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

. Works include the electronic drone

Drone (music)

In music, a drone is a harmonic or monophonic effect or accompaniment where a note or chord is continuously sounded throughout most or all of a piece. The word drone is also used to refer to any part of a musical instrument that is just used to produce such an effect.-A musical effect:A drone...

 pieces What?? (also translated as "Was??") (1968), Basta for solo trombone, Escalations for brass quintet (1988), Concerto for trombone: "All the Lonely People" (1989) featuring quotes from The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...

' "Eleanor Rigby

Eleanor Rigby

"Eleanor Rigby" is a song by The Beatles, simultaneously released on the 1966 album Revolver and on a 45 rpm single. The song was written primarily by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney...

", and With Love No. 1 and 2 for piano (1988).

According to Robert Erickson

Robert Erickson

Robert Erickson was an American composer.He studied with Ernst Krenek from 1936-1947: "I had already studied—and abandoned—the twelve tone system before most other Americans had taken it up." He influenced notable students Morton Subotnick, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, and Paul Dresher...

 (1975, p.95) What?? contains "no obvious discrete changes" and "no sharply defined sections

Musical form

The term musical form refers to the overall structure or plan of a piece of music, and it describes the layout of a composition as divided into sections...

". The piece uses several drone pitches

Pitch (music)

Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...

, though they are presented at a time scale where pitch change is "hardly noticed." Interference beats are highlighted (as the only apparent rhythm

Rhythm

Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...

) and, as "an elegant touch," the microtonal pitches that produce those beats "are worked into a larger pattern of pitch relations

Harmony

In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...

". "All possible timbral

Timbre

In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...

 dimensions are manipulated: spectral envelope

Spectral envelope

A spectral envelope is a curve in the frequency-amplitude plane, derived from a Fourier magnitude spectrum. It describes one point in time ....

, including harmonic

Harmonic

A harmonic of a wave is a component frequency of the signal that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency, i.e. if the fundamental frequency is f, the harmonics have frequencies 2f, 3f, 4f, . . . etc. The harmonics have the property that they are all periodic at the fundamental...

 and inharmonic partials

Overtone

An overtone is any frequency higher than the fundamental frequency of a sound. The fundamental and the overtones together are called partials. Harmonics are partials whose frequencies are whole number multiples of the fundamental These overlapping terms are variously used when discussing the...

; time envelope phenomena, such as beats and tremolo

Tremolo

Tremolo, or tremolando, is a musical term that describes various trembling effects, falling roughly into two types. The first is a rapid reiteration...

; micropitch changes, both fast and slow. Transformations between pitch (with timbre) → chord

Chord (music)

A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...

, chord → 'a sound

Sound

Sound is a mechanical wave that is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid, or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations.-Propagation of...

', 'a sound' → pitch (with timbre) abound."

Selected discography

• What?? (1997, Dexter's Cigar 12). Reissued with an added half-speed version, formerly on Wergo.

Source

• Erickson, Robert (1975). Sound Structure in Music. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-02376-5.

External links

• Folke Rabe's homepage