THE ELECTRONIC WORKS OF GYÖRGY LIGETI AND THEIR ...

Each of these oppositional pairs describes one facet of sound, and they can also be
considered as groups–the first three deal with the registral position of the sound as a
whole. The first, easily enough, has to do with the frequency of a particular sound and is
analogous to the first items on both Randall and Morris’s lists; Cogan recommends that
the total range used in a piece be divided into three parts: acute, neutral, and grave. While
related to the first opposition, the centered/extreme category indicates whether or not a
sound contains elements in one of the outermost regions of the active spectrum of a
passage–Cogan suggests using the highest and lowest sixths as a guideline). Narrow/wide
considers the total distance between outer elements of a sound, equivalent to Randall’s
intervallic spread.
Other oppositions have to do with the characteristics of the individual formant
strands within a sound. The compact/diffuse opposition has to do with the individual
elements of a sound, whether they are more compact formant strands such as sine tones,
or diffuse bands of noise–a very useful distinction when dealing with sounds other than the
collections of sine tones that Randall proposes. Spaced/non-spaced indicates how much
distance is between individual strands, and sparse/rich refers to the total number of
elements present, compared to the maximum for any element in the piece or passage–these
correspond to Randall’s categories of density and total number of elements.
Many of the remaining categories have to do with the envelope of a given sound.
Attack/no-attack deals with the difference between the onset of a given sound and its
“steady” state. As most steady states contain a great deal of internal fluctuation, other
categories describe potential changes found in this part of the envelope, and in doing so,
20