Interlude D, the fourth “extra-musical” discussion, explores how several key universal musical techniques—such as the frequent repetition endemic to pop music—suggest a metaphoric link between our musical predilections and the very ways our cells divide and grow. The interlude begins with a story of how the author arrived at this speculative notion in the first place: while preparing to give a lecture alongside a future Nobel laureate in physiology. After providing a very brief primer on cell biology, the interlude proper explores in turn four universal staples of music-making: repetition, motivic development, variation, and symmetry. Each technique is unwound via discourses in music history, theory, and aesthetics; is clarified with examples across myriad styles; and is correlated—metaphorically—to such cellular processes as mitosis, meiosis, and pluripotent cell division. The interlude concludes by clarifying that the main purpose of the discussion is not to convince the reader of this unlikely metaphoric link, but rather to highlight the importance of these four musical techniques to our collective musical taste.
Supplements:
( More on cells count and the human species ):
An adult human has some 40 trillion cells, give or take a few billion, making us a fairly robust eukaryote (multicellular organism).
( More on mitosis ):
The term “mitosis” was coined in 1882 by biologist Walther Flemming, derived from the “thread-like” form the chromosomes take early in the process.
( More on interphase and the subsequent phases of mitosis ):
By virtue of interphase, that is, there are now 92 chromosomes within the nucleus of a single cell —two identical sets of the original 46. Over the following 5 mitotic phases, the sister chromatids condense and pair up (prophase); get pulled by spindle-like fibers on opposite sides of the nucleus attached to each “sister” (prometaphase); line up at a mid-point in the cell (metaphase); get pulled apart toward opposite ends of the cell (anaphase); and arrive at those opposite ends, when a new nuclear envelope forms around each set (telophase). The process concludes with cytokinesis, when the cell mass (cytoplasm) divides, creating now two complete cells—each, again, with a complete set of 46 chromosomes. For a more technical introductory discussion of mitosis, see Alberts, Bruce, et al. Molecular Biology of the Cell . New York: Garland, 1994: Chapter 17: The Cell Cycle.
( More on meiosis ):
The first two daughter cells are produced after cytokinesis 1, dividing again into four at cytokinesis 2. Further differences to mitosis are that during prophase 1 of meiosis, each chromosome of a “homologous” pair exchanges DNA sequences with the other—whereby genes from both parents are preserved within each gamete. In addition, there is no interphase 2, and thus no duplication of chromosomes following the initial split. It is interesting to note that while in a male all four “daughter” cells will generally become viable sperm—an average male produces some 525 billion over a lifetime, in a female, only 2 of the 4 “daughter” cells become viable eggs—total only around 6-7 million eggs are produced by a female shortly after conception, of which only 300,000 survive by puberty. For more on meiosis, see Alberts, Molecular Biology .
( More on pluripotent stem cells ):
In time, the pluripotent stem cells become “multipotent” (many powerful) and finally “unipotent” (singularly powerful)—able only to replicate as a single cell type: themselves; the latter two types, however, are not stem cells.
( More on Dr. Yamanaka’s work on “induced pluripotent stem cells” ):
Incidentally, the Nobel Prize won by Dr. Yamanaka was for his innovative technique to induce the power of pluripotent embryonic stem cells from adult cells—long after the original ones had differentiated their way into oblivion. Among the major benefits of Yamanaka’s approach was its ability to harness the pluripotent capacity of stem cells without needing to remove and manipulate embryonic stem cells lab—which has raised ethical objectives. Interestingly, the source of his “induced pluripotent stem cells” was ordinary facial skin cells, which he “reprogrammed” to act like embryonic stem cells, and thereby gain the capacity to differentiate into any type of cell—whose applications are just now being explored.
That is, Yamanaka did not, as might have been imagined, devise his “induced pluripotent stem cells” from adult stem cells—which are a kind of multipotent stem cell we all carry in small quantities throughout our body, used to repair and replenish specialized cells within a particular region. Instead, he took ordinary facial skin cells and “reprogrammed” them (using so-called “protein transcription factors”) to act like embryonic stem cells, and thereby gain the capacity to differentiate into any type of cell.
( More on the African roots of repetition via call and response ):
To John Chernoff, this musical tradition positively reflects and reinforces the social, moral, and aesthetic cultural sensibilities of African tribes—such as the Dagomba and Ewe people of West Africa: “The repetition of a well-chosen [melody] continually reaffirms the power of the music by locking [its] rhythm, and the people listening or dancing to it, into a dynamic and open structure.” To Monson, the pervasive use of riffs in jazz, blues, and rock can then be seen as reinforcing positive Western social and moral sensibilities as well.
( More on Ockelford’s notion of zygonicity ):
As Ockelford notes, moreover, zygonicity comes into play even with regard to multiple listens of the same work, as well as related works by the same composer.
( More on Theodor Adorno’s disdain of repetition ):
As Monson notes, Adorno was likely influenced by the rise of Nazism, and its propaganda via repetitious march music, etc. (Monson, “Riffs”: 49-51).
Adorno’s specific attacks on Stravinsky’s use of repetition include: “Stravinsky’s rhythmic procedures closely resemble the schema of catatonic conditions. In certain schizophrenics, the process by which the motor apparatus becomes independent leads to infinite repetition of gestures or words, following the decay of the ego.” Cited in Adorno, Theodor. The Philosophy of Modern Music , trans. Anne G. Mitchell and Wesley V. Blomster. New York: Continuum, 1973: 178. Although Adorno never directly responded to the 1960s minimalist movement of Steve Reich and Philip Glass, et al (see Chapter 14)—which, like electronica, is largely defined by incessantly repetitions of short melodic and rhythmic units—chances are pretty good he would have hated it.
Adorno’s suspicion, moreover, also reflects the influence of Freud’s theory of the “repetition compulsion”: in observing the tendency of his patients to incessantly relive past traumas, Freud saw an unhealthy desire to achieve some longed-for state of stillness or stasis, to be ultimately fulfilled in death. As such, pervasive repetition in general was associated with an immature ego—and thus not something to embrace.
( More on the pleasure power of looping in EDM music ):
As Luis-Manuel Garcia puts it: “looping allows the listener to plot pathways between these points of attention, mapping out a landscape of shifting creation pleasure while prolonging the process pleasure of an ever-changing same.”
( More on the Kratus study on inherent composing using repetition ):
In a similar study, Jeanne Bamberger asked non-trained undergraduates at MIT to “compose” a melody by freely using or manipulating (pitch and/or rhythm) a set of 5 “tuneblocks”—using a computer program called “Impromptu”—each of which was a short melodic fragment from an unfamiliar musical source: Ambrosian chant. Once again, although the melodies each took on different characters, repetition—including as part of 2-part balanced (antecedent-consequent) phrases—was a constant. See Bamberger, Jeanne. "The development of intuitive musical understanding: A natural experiment." Psychology of music 31, no. 1 (2003): 7-36.
( More on the Margulis’ study manipulating contemporary classical works ):
For example, Margulis took complex passages of contemporary classical works—by Elliott Carter and Luciano Berio—that lacked discernible repetition and manipulated them by artificially introducing sectional repeats; when given a choice, listeners, trained music theorists, overwhelmingly preferred the manipulated versions over the original, even believing the former more likely to have been written by a human being.
( More on the lack of a musical “gist” ):
For example, as Margulis points out, while we can paraphrase the “gist” of spoken or written language without direct repetition, music affords no such ability.
( More on the composer’s metaphor on repetition as reflecting cellular processes ):
In Dr. Gasser’s research, he found one article from the scientific community making a related argument; specifically, molecular geneticist Susumu Ohno linked musical repetition to a fundamental biological reality: the natural repeating periodicities in the unit base oligomers (molecular complexes), via the duplicating nucleotide bases in the amino acid sequences that comprise DNA—which show remarkable consistency across 2 billion years of evolution, as between a bacterium, a lobster, and a pig. Ohno’s point is that repetition—duplication of amino acid sequences—is a fundamental feature of the molecular processes of life. These duplicating periodicities, Ohno explains, in turn “must soon have been chosen as the arbitrary time-measuring unit by the ancestral biological clock” which ultimately find expression in cicardian biological rhythms, and more recently, in the musical repetition in such works as the “Prelude No.1 in C Major” from J.S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier . Ohno’s questionable music analysis notwithstanding, his expertise in molecular biology gives, perhaps, some support to Dr. Gasser’s fanciful claims. See Ohno, Susumu. "Repetition as the essence of life on this earth: music and genes." In Modern Trends in Human Leukemia VII . Berlin: Springer, 1987: 511-519.
( More on the Schoenberg’s concept of Grundgestalt ):
Though never clarified with concrete examples, Schoenberg developed the concept over many years, both to explain the coherence found within the tonal masterpieces of the 18th and 19th centuries, and also as an unspoken means to substantiate his own revolutionary approach. Fundamentally, Schoenberg defined the Grundgestalt as “intervals and rhythms, with harmonic implications which combine to produce a memorable shape or contour”—to be discerned either within a single motive or a few in succession ( Fundamentals of Musical Composition , 1967). In the hands of a great composer, the Grundgestalt would be repeated, to be sure, but especially developed throughout a composition via various techniques (sequence, varied repetition, fragmentation, augmentation, etc.), to wit Schoenberg coined the term “developing variation”—not to be confused with the variation form. In this way, the Grundgestalt became a unifying “germ”: “there is nothing in a piece of music but what comes from [it], springs from it, and can be traced back to it.”
( More on the Leonard Meyer’s notion of musical coherence ):
As Meyer wrote ( Style and Music : 201): “Because they were similar in significant respects or were derived from a common source (seed), seemingly disparate patterns could be understood as forming a unified composition.” Meyer also likens the principal motive of a composition to the chief character in a novel, one whose “fortunes” are traced through development and variation, as well as via encounters with other “protagonists”—that is secondary or tertiary motives. Thus, in short order Meyer articulates Kivy’s organism as well as literary models, both of which were particularly well suited to the Romantic ideal of “endless yearning”—of approaching perfection, without ever obtaining it. From the 20th century, however, classical composers became ever more challenged on how to forge unity via development, given the cohesive syntax of tonal harmony; this, Meyer notes, led to a gradual shift from “syntactic” (motivic) to “statistical” development—that is, based on “secondary” parameters of timbre, dynamics, and sound.
( More on the musical repetition as an adaptive aid or “safe forum” ):
Such a conclusion is in fact supported by studies on children and non-musicians, including those by Kratus and Bamberger cited above (n. 393). Kratus, indeed, has connected our overall love of music to our ability “to perceive and comprehend relationships among musical patterns” (p. 1). These patterns, of course, consist of a near constant mix of repetition and development, both of which were manifest even in the children’s original songs: although motive-like structures did not appear as early as did repetitive ones, by age 11, some 80% of the original songs included some simple motivic “development” between phrases. Similarly, the original compositions in the Bamberger study—based on Ambrosian chant fragments—each included some development: specifically, they occurred within the context of antecedent-consequent or a-a’ phrases—where the second “a” is a varied repetition of the first.
( More on Lamont and Dibben’s studies on how perception of development is influenced by musical expertise ):
The authors specifically distinguished between two techniques in which a listener might recognize musical similarity: “perceived equivalence”—the degree to which a new iteration is perceived as related to an exemplar or “prototype”; and “explicitly defined concepts”—where similarity is based more on an underlying concept than merely what lies on the surface. Their study revealed that the level of complexity in the music seemed to affect what types of surface elements were most involved in recognizing similarity: dynamics, articulation, and texture for the (less complex) Beethoven; tempo and dynamics for the (more complex) Schoenberg.
( More on the laws of conservation ):
According to Noether’s theorem, for example, conservation law (a measurable property of a physical system does not change as the system evolves over time) is associated with a symmetry existing in the underlying physics.
( More on the musical impulse to “distort” symmetry ):
David Huron highlights musical “distortion” in reference to Leonard Meyer’s argument that Gestalt principles may make music better organized, but too much will dampen the power of expectation and heightened perception: “It is this dissatisfaction with the psychological organization which gives rise to expectation and perception of deviation."
Principal Bibliography:
Christopher Alexander, The Process of Creating Life , vol. 2 of The Nature of Order (Berkeley, CA: Center for Environmental Structure, 2002)
Adam, Ockelford, Comparing Notes: How We Make Sense of Music (London: Profile Books, 2017)
Theodor W. Adorno and Richard Leppert, Essays on Music (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002)
Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis, On Repeat: How Music Plays the Mind (Oxford University Press, 2014)
Peter Kivy, The Fine Art of Repetition: Essays in the Philosophy of Music (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993)
Richard Middleton, “‘Play It Again Sam’: Some Notes on the Productivity of Repetition in Popular Music,” Popular Music 3 (1983)
Alexandra Lamont and Nicola Dibben, “Motivic Structure and the Perception of Similarity,” Music Perception 18, no. 3 (2001)
Davorin Kempf, “What Is Symmetry in Music?” International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, 27, no. 2 (1996)
External Links:
"Cell Biology" (Encylopaedia Britannica)
Elizabeth Margulis TED talk on Repetition
"Musical Motive" (Encylopaedia Britannica)
"Musical Variations" (Encylopaedia Britannica)
"Symmetry and Centricity in Music" (Open Music Theory)