Arom - 1993 - The Question of Transcription

THE QUESTION OF TRANSCRIPTION 169
In Book VI, we will return to a detailed discussion of how analyses are substantiated
by the procedures of modelisation and production, which have only been treated here
from the methodological standpoint.
2.5 CONCLUSION
Analysis and checking procedures are ultimately intended to reveal the structure of
the music under study. But what precisely is structure? Eco (1972: 322), following
Aristotle, describes it as 'at the same time a set, the parts of that set, and the relation-
ships among these parts; . . . structure is a system in which everything is connected,
the whole as well as the system of connections'. Every piece of truly polyphonic music,
from a Bach fugue to pygmy counterpoint, provides the finest possible illustration of
this definition.
Granger, however, gives another one which is more appropriate to our own field:
A structure is an abstract entity by means of which a concrete cognitive activity defines a form of
objectivity at a specific stage of practical action. Looked at in this way, structure is not in things;
but it is also not in the mind alone as a model for, or reflection of being. It is the result of a sub-
ject working up an experience, and itself helps him accurately to pick the thing out of that
experience by investing it with the status of an object. (1965: 255)
As Caillois says, the possibility of picking an object out in this way is due precisely
to the fact that
the relations which bind concrete data together are simpler, more easily intelligible, and more
stable than the elements themselves, always so mysterious and impenetrable. . . It is thus a matter
of recognising a flexible framework which retains its identity beneath whatever contradictory
appearances it may take on. It relies on the unchanging laws of symmetry and substitution [italics
added] to hold together the linkage points and reveal their secret complicity. (!974- 22 )
3 The question of transcription
3.1 THE LIMITS OF WRITTEN NOTATION
The need for transcriptions in the analysis of Central African polyphony has already
been made abundantly clear. This should not, however, obscure the many limitations
inherent in the notation of orally transmitted music. In fact, we here encounter the
infinitely wider problem of reducing any oral expression whatsoever to a written form of
symbolisation. 'Writing veils language; it disguises rather than clothes it' (Saussure
1916, 1971: 51-2).
Senghor extols the virtues of the oral transmission of culture in Africa: 'Black Africa
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170 B O O K IV T H E O R E T I C A L TOOLS
has had the good fortune to ignore writing, even when it was not unaware of its
existence. . . For writing impoverishes reality. It crystallises it into fixed categories
and freezes it, when reality is properly alive, fluid, and shapeless' (1958, 1964: 238-9).
Whether it be language or music, writing is responsible for immobilising reality
in a univocal way. Chailley (1967: 118) also stresses the limits to notation, and defines
the role of the 'written sign' in music as follows:
Until very recently, it was never expected to represent every detail of music. It was only intended
to transmit a fleshless but indispensable skeleton of 'note music'. The recipients were then to
make use of their own sensitivity and intelligence to bring it alive again according to their own
lights. This is why, from generation to generation, music has always remained a living being,
despite being on Paper. The 'written' skeleton has been filled out with one kind of flesh after
another, as Man passes on to men the only message in music that counts: the one that sets the
limit beyond which machines, even the most wonderful of machines, can no longer rule.
Chailley is here referring to Western composers who start with a mental idea of their
works and then commit them to a written notation, from which they can come to life
again in performance.
As we have seen, the opposite procedure is followed in ethnomusicology: the investi-
gator starts with a living musical reality produced by traditional performers. Through
his notation, he tries to reveal the structural principles on which this reality is based.
In this field, even Estreicher (1957: 91), himself a stickler for accuracy in musical
transcription, recognises limits to written notation: 'It should never be forgotten that
a score is nothing but a projected shadow of the music itself, a flat and colourless
silhouette of a living being.'
All these observations lead to the same conclusion: in oral expression is life, of
which writing is only a pale reflection.
The transition from writing to oral expression involved in an act of interpretation
is represented as a 'resurrection' in Western musical practice. The performer brings
alive music hitherto frozen in notation. In the transition from oral expression to writing
involved in an act of transcription, however, the ethnomusicologist performs an
'autopsy' (Arom 1969: 174).
As Seeger (1958: 24-5) has remarked, there are two different ways of conceiving the
function of written music. The one used by all cultured Western music is prescriptive.
The other one, which allows us to show how living music works, is descriptive.
3.2 T O W A R D S A RELEVANT TRANSCRIPTION
The transcription of music from oral traditions, being descriptive, is not, of course,
intended for subsequent performance. We would be likely to get only some kind of
parody. Its only purpose is precisely to provide a description. This has given rise to
the question of whether the transcription should contain every possible acoustic
detail of the performance, or should be restricted to meaningful elements. In other
words, should it be a kind of photograph reflecting the acoustic reality as accurately
as possible, or should it be like a sketch containing only the relevant features? We, of
course, favour the latter alternative.
Obtaining 'sketches' of this kind requires prior knowledge of the principles underly-
ing the organisation of the music under study. Such knowledge is the result of long
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T H E Q U E S T I O N OF T R A N S C R I P T I O N 171
experience and constant checking of the investigator's intuitions and hypotheses against
the musicians' practice.
All aspects of acoustic reality cannot, of course, be transcribed. There are certain
parameters which are essentially impossible to reduce to written form. This is true,
for example, of tone colour. A score marked for 'oboe' or 'horn' indicates the notes
each instrument is to play, but leaves it to the reader's memory and imagination to
restore the missing dimension suggested by the mere names of the instruments, each
with its own characteristic timbre. Western scores restrict themselves to essentials.
Likewise, the scores in this study will only represent the parameters which are neces-
sary and sufficient for the description of Central African polyphony. These are: pitch,
duration, and period. With these alone, we consider ourselves able to give a satisfactory
picture of the structural principles of this music.
To write pitch, we must first determine the scales being used. All the music we will
be dealing with here uses anhemitonic pentatonic scales in which the smallest interval
is a full tone. That is why we will pay no attention to the inevitable tiny deviations
of intonation from this norm. Only the notes comprising the scale will be used in
the transcription.
This decision is imposed upon us by the principle of relevance. If, for example,
in four-part polyphony, we hear a major seventh (which is excluded by definition from
an anhemitonic scale) in one part, while the other three sing an octave interval in
the same sequence, it is obvious that the latter is the one the singer intended, and that
its second note has involuntarily come out too low. To respect the scalar system, the
note the musician intended to sing should therefore be noted, instead of the one
physically emitted.
Three criteria must be considered in the transcription of durations:
(1) the period and its relationship to the beats
(2) the way the beats are subdivided
(3) the actual durations.
Let us examine each of these in turn.

We should first recall that Central African music is cyclic or repetitive. Each piece
therefore has a period. As we have already seen, this is confirmed by its invariant
number of beats: a period can be determined by reference to the musical material
it contains, which always spans a given number of beats.
The second criterion refers to whether the beats are divided into binary or ternary
values, according to the number of minimal metric units they contain.
The third and last involves the notation of durations, for which greater strictness
is required. A smaller margin of tolerance must be allowed than in the case of pitch,
because we have no norm or scale of durations comparable to a pitch scale. In the
absence of any standard, the durations should be noted exactly as they appear in
the performance. It should be remarked that, while relevance does not appear at this
level, it nevertheless determines the relationship between the express durations and
the internal organisation of the beats, and the way they are distributed within the
period. By noting durations exactly as they are physically realised, we do not reject the
idea of a system, since the division of the beats into binary or ternary elements is
itself subject to the principle of relevance.
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We have made the deliberate choice of using transcriptions made by ear to reduce
complex musical phenomena to their cultural reality. It might be asked why we have
not used the electroacoustic equipment mentioned in some works on ethnomusicology
(in particular, see Nettl 1964: 101-2). The answer is, to avoid collecting data so full of
detail as to make it almost impossible to distinguish the essential from the extrinsic.
We have already seen that, to interpret the data provided by a machine of this kind,
the transcriber will be required to make choices depending not just on his ear but on
his judgement as well. But the only basis for judgement is the knowledge the investiga-
tor already has of the music he wants to transcribe. This brings us back to our starting
point, and obviates the need for a machine as intermediary.
We might add that on one occasion we actually attempted to clarify some extremely
complex drum patterns by using an electroacoustic device. The results we obtained
from the decoded graphs were so irrational, incoherent, and powerless to show the
slightest proportional ratio among the durations, that the drummer's formulae resisted
any inclusion in periods based on isochronous values. Yet even a novice listening to
the recording of the drum accompanied by handclaps showing the beat would quickly
conclude to the existence of a temporally structured periodic frame.
Given this outright contradiction between experience and the results furnished by
our equipment, we found ourselves forced to retranscribe all the recorded documents,
this time by ear. We take this as further proof that such devices, by their inability
to evaluate a margin of tolerance, are not yet at a stage where they can be useful for
the study of traditional music. This observation should surprise no one; the situation
is exactly the same in our own cultured music. In performing a symphony, the musicians
never play the strictly proportional durations indicated in the score, nor does the
conductor act as a metronome. This in no way prevents the listener from perceiving
the tempo of the work and the relationships of the durations which divide up the
musical substance.
We thus support List's position: 'Since music is man made, what is musically
significant must be phenomena which man can hear, not phenomena which he cannot
hear' (1963: 196). This is once again justification for the practice of transcribing by ear.
We may end this discussion by noting that the accuracy of laboratory equipment
should not be overestimated. List remarks that machines are not always as precise
as we might think: The ear can make distinctions which cannot be made by the specto-
graph. The stylus of the melograph does not always react with the speed necessary
to exactly mirror the signal received. Electronic devices are in certain directions more
limited than the ear' (ibid.: 196).
We have often had occasion to observe the truth of this judgement. Anyone who
watches a melograph record a melody can see how often the stylus will hesitate,
showing that it follows the music with less accuracy and slower reactions than the
human ear.
3.3 NOTATION
It may reasonably be asked whether it is not improper to notate music so different

from our own with the same signs. Experience quickly shows, however, that the
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parameters we have mentioned as relevant (pitch, duration, period) can easily be

expressed by conventional notation.
With respect to pitch, Central African polyphony uses a scale divided into five
degrees. Being somewhat simpler than our own, it can be fully captured by this nota-
tion. African rhythms, though more complex, are ultimately based on multiples of
binary or ternary minimal values. While the distribution of durations in the parts
inevitably involves some complications of notation with respect to ordinary usage
(particularly the frequent use of ties to express certain values), our conventional
signs are still quite capable of accurately representing these durations.
Finally, the Western system has the advantage of being already familiar to the
reader and thus requiring no prior training for consultation of our scores. This essen-
tially practical advantage should not be the least of our considerations.
In any case, it is clear that, as Estreicher puts it, 'transcription aims at an unattainable
ideal; therefore, no transcription is more than a compromise' (1957: 92). The analyst is
thus obliged to 'choose, out of all the possibilities of presenting the same acoustic
datum, the one which is conceptually most satisfying', and try 'to provide the fullest
and strongest possible support for the reader's intuition and reasoning'.
3.4 D E F I N I N G A SCORE OF MUSIC FROM AN ORAL T R A D I T I O N
Before we discuss the purpose of scores representing music from an oral tradition,
we should briefly recall the general features and function of scores in written traditions.
In the Western world, for example, scores are normative. They are intended to show
how music conceived by somebody else should be performed. They must exist prior to
performance of a work, and therefore require a suitable system of signs, or code,
which is the basis for musical notation. As a coded graphic representation, the score
can express all relationships of pitch, duration tempo, and dynamics, and suggest the
special colouring of each vocal and instrumental part. It is the means of materialising
the message so that the acoustic event of hearing the work can take place.
The ethnomusicologist dealing with music from an oral tradition, however, has
nothing but materialised messages (or sets of messages), which he scores in order to
reveal their underlying code. A score in this case is a reduction to writing of an acoustic
event which has already occurred. While the score of a work of cultured music is
the link between the abstract thought of the composer and its materialisation, the
score of music from an oral tradition is the link between living musical reality and
an abstraction of it. In both cases, the score links messages with a code, but in one,
its purpose is the reproduction of the message from the code, while in the other, it is
the discovery of the code through a study of the message or set of messages; and
after the code has been determined, the score remains indispensable for showing the
relationships between the code and the multiplicity of messages it is capable of engen-
dering. In cultured Western music, the performance of a work is perceived only in terms
of its respect for the score, the definitive textual reference from which no deviation is
allowed. In most music from oral traditions, however, there is no definitive text.
Two performances of a given piece will differ, often considerably, even though the
users treat them as identical. There is a 'text', but not a univocal one.
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We may therefore ask what status we should grant to a score of music which,
by definition, is not based on an invariant text. A reply to this question requires a
discussion of the different types of scores which, we suggest, can be provided for
music from oral traditions, and of the uses to which they can be put.
The etic score

This is the most detailed transcription. The transcriber tries to capture everything he
hears, i.e., to pick up every perceptible acoustic phenomenon and express it as
accurately as he can. In sum, it is a kind of phonetic transcription like the one Bartok
used for notating folk songs.
The disadvantage of this method is that it results in heavily overloaded scores
requiring numerous diacritics which are hard to read, and worse still, make it im-
possible to distinguish the elements which are relevant from ones that are not. This
defect is particularly serious in the case of polyphonic music. That is why we feel
such scores can throw no light on our subject. The time required to draw up such
documents furthermore seems out of all proportion with the results that can be
obtained from examining them.
This procedure, which has little to contribute to the understanding of the principles
at work in the music being transcribed, has therefore been set aside.
The emic score

This is a transcription which makes allowance for the margins of tolerance exercised
by the users. The melodic and rhythmic deviations which they consider meaningless
are restored to the norm on the basis of a cultural judgement of relevance. This is, in
sum, the equivalent of phonemic notation in linguistics.
Several pieces from a single repertory need to be transcribed to obtain a group of
messages belonging to one and the same set. Even if the code underlying this set has
not yet been fully determined at this point, major steps can be now taken towards
discovering it, as compared with the preceding type of transcription.
Writing an emic score is thus an absolutely necessary stage in the process of charac-
terising a musical repertory.
The modelised score

In some cases, further investigation will lead to the moment when the musicians
finally materialise their ultimate reference for the construction of messages, i.e., the
model underlying each of the parts in the polyphonic or polyrhythmic piece under
consideration. It then becomes possible to write a score showing this structural refer-
ence which is common to all its realisations, however many variations they may allow.
Since our main aim is to discover such structural principles, we could make it
our only goal to obtain scores of the latter type. The fact that the models they contain
may well be the very basis of the transmission of musical knowledge makes them
even more essential. It is indeed often the case that children are familiarised with the
traditional repertory by the direct acquisition of these highly simplified forms.
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We would nevertheless be wrong to content ourselves with writing only modelised

scores. As we have seen, one of the main characteristics of oral folk music is its variabil-
ity. This is particularly true of all Central African music, whether it be monodic or
polyphonic, predominantly melodic or predominantly rhythmic.
This intrinsic variability considerably reduces the practical value of the modelised
scores alone, since they tell us nothing about the processes by which the models they
contain are realised. That is why we feel the best way to show both how and with respect
to what the variations are produced will be to provide a double scoring of each piece
whenever possible. On the one hand, there will be a modelised score which will be
very short owing to the repetitive nature of the music, and on the other, an emic score
showing the different shapes the model can assume when it is realised. This will allow
the reader to inspect both the close relationship between model and realisation, and
the distance separating them. It is essential to note that, with one exception, all scores of
both types in this work have been obtained from recordings made in the field, and that
the emic version as well as the modelised version have been approved by the users.
In conclusion, we propose the following definitions of the two types of scores we
will be using:
- by emic score, we understand the reduction to writing of one of the possible

realisations of a polyphonic piece of music, in a way that respects the cultural
judgement of relevance;
- by modelised score, we mean the vertical arrangement of the basic con-
stituent parts in a polyphonic piece; this set, as presented in its barest
possible form, constitutes the model for each realisation of the piece,
and is identifiable, insofar as it enables the users to distinguish it from any
other one.
3.5 D E F I N I N G A PART IN ORAL P O L Y P H O N Y
We have seen that Central African music is repetitive and periodic. The material
contained in each period thus remains essentially the same throughout a performance.
This allows it to be modelised. We may thus say that a polyphonic or polyrhythmic
part is any individual realisation (with or without variation) of material contained
in the recurrent framework of the period. The ways of linking periods in sequences
are in fact only ways of restating the same overall material. We may recall that this
material is distributed over a number of substitution points (or paradigms) within
the period, so that the elements it contains can commute.
The score showing how the polyphonic parts are conjoined can thus be accompanied
by a representation of the principles of internal organisation which characterise each
part, in the form of a paradigmatic table. The material in its modelised form will
generally appear at the top of the table; below will be a vertical column showing a
number of possible realisations of each part, all of which are interchangeable, provided
their position in the periodic structure remains the same.
This procedure seems simple and expressive enough to show both the resources and
the limitations of the principle of variation, and to indicate how commutation and
concatenation take place.
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It also becomes possible (although this is not our main objective) to engender
new versions of polyphonic pieces from the parts transcribed and the models showing
how they fit together. It will suffice to arrange the realisations shown in the paradigmatic
column for each part in a different order from the one represented in the transcription.
There are thus many possible combinations which could give rise to as many emic
scores. If any of them were performed, the members of the community which provided
the model for it would immediately identify it. We have tried this very experiment
many times in order to check the validity of our transcriptions.
This operation is merely an imitation relying on a written score of what the Central
African musicians do themselves when they perform their polyphony orally.
3.6 CONCLUSION
A double transcription including an emic score and a modelised score is required to

explain the structure of an individual piece of music and its materialisation. We have,
however, seen that each piece becomes a free variant at the next higher level, i.e., the
level of the repertory containing a given set of pieces. That is why the emic scores
should be set aside, and reference should be made to the modelised scores alone to
obtain a characterisation of this set. A comparison of all the modelised scores will
immediately reveal the common features which distinguish them from pieces belonging
to other repertories. This will enable us to construct an abstract model characterising
this larger set.
Since modelised transcriptions are schematic representations, they constitute a partic-
ularly appropriate tool for describing the stylistic features of a repertory or even of the
polyphonic music in general of a given population. From this standpoint, a modelised
score shows itself to be as far from an emic transcription as the latter is from an etic one.
This remark must be qualified in one extremely important way: both kinds of scores we
use are relevant, differing only in level of relevance, while etic scores by definition never
are. By the same principle, the stylistic characterisation of the musical heritage of a
given population can in turn be compared with those of other populations. This
operation would yield a stylistic description of the music of an entire geocultural area.
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THE QUESTION OF TRANSCRIPTION 169

3 The question of transcription

3.1 THE LIMITS OF WRITTEN NOTATION

3.2 T O W A R D S A RELEVANT TRANSCRIPTION

Let us examine each of these in turn.

It may reasonably be asked whether it is not improper to notate music so different

parameters we have mentioned as relevant (pitch, duration, period) can easily be

3.4 D E F I N I N G A SCORE OF MUSIC FROM AN ORAL T R A D I T I O N

The etic score

The emic score

The modelised score

We would nevertheless be wrong to content ourselves with writing only modelised

- by emic score, we understand the reduction to writing of one of the possible

3.5 D E F I N I N G A PART IN ORAL P O L Y P H O N Y

A double transcription including an emic score and a modelised score is required to

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