Rhuthmos

Rhythm as Form of Physiopsychological Process (part 1)

Pascal Michon — 2018-08-29T10:19:47Z

Sommaire

In the 1870s, a new branch grew from the trunk of physiology and transformed into what Wilhelm Wundt, who was instrumental in this change, termed “physiological psychology,” a kind of investigation of the human mind based on both experimental method and physiological perspective. Contrarily to the previous period, rhythm started to be elaborated per se which resulted in parting from the medical model. However, the interest in poetry illustrated by Brücke faded out and the theoretical trend triggered by Helmholtz's contribution on sound and music became prevalent. As a result, psychology unconditionally adopted the musical definition of rhythm.

From Physiological to Psychological Rhythm (Wundt – 1873)

In the mid-1860s, the young Wilhelm Wundt enthusiastically endorsed the ongoing transformation of the research field from physiology to psychology. From 1864, he began to lecture on what he called “physiological psychology.” This new investigation took him another ten years and he finally published in 1873-1874 his first well-known book Grundzüge der physiologischen Psychologie – Principles of Physiological Psychology, which was expanded and republished six times (last. ed. 1908-1911). This was the first textbook ever written pertaining to the field of experimental psychology, although it was still considered constituent part of physiology. In 1875, Wundt was made professor of philosophy at the University of Leipzig, where he opened in 1879 the first laboratory ever to be exclusively devoted to psychological studies. He stayed in this position until his retirement in 1917.

In the Principles, Wundt's interest in rhythm was actually only incidental to the more focal problems of “span of consciousness” and “synthetic activity of consciousness.” As a matter of fact, he dealt with the question only in three instances in the third part of the book. But this contribution was, as we shall see, already quite elaborate and it fully participated in the establishment of a new concept of rhythm—at least in psychology.

Rhythm was not any more to be taken in the medical sense but as “auditory rhythm,” that is, at least as a starting point, as the musicians defined it. After having described the “Physiological Characteristics of the Nervous System” (Part 1), then the “Sensations” (Part 2), Wundt analyzed the “Ideas” evoked in the consciousness by the various sensations generated by the nervous system (Part 3) [1]. “Taste and Movement Ideas” were first dealt with (Chap. 12), then “Auditory Ideas” (Chap. 13), “Ocular Ideas” (Chap. 14), “Imagination Ideas” (Chap 14), “Complex Ideas, General Ideas and Intuition Forms” (Chap. 16) and, finally, the “Aesthetic Feelings” (Chap. 17).

Rhythm was first discussed—and defined—in a short section of the chapter dedicated to “auditory ideas,” along with “constant sound,” “harmony,” “minor and major chords” (Chap. 13). However, music was not in itself Wundt's concern; auditory rhythm was only an entry point to address fundamental psychological issues. This explains why Wundt addressed again the question of rhythm in the chapters dedicated to the Kantian problem of the “intuition of time and space” (Chap. 16) and to the “aesthetic feelings” (Chap. 17). In my comments, I will follow the same order.

Whereas, in his previous physiological research, Wundt used almost exclusively the traditional medical concept of rhythm (alternation associated with ratio), he immediately introduced, in his physiopsychological studies, a different definition of the concept borrowed from music—at least as it was commonly defined in his time.

Wundt started by contrasting rhythm with harmony and melody. All of them were related to the translation of our successive sensations of hearing into a succession of sound ideas; but whereas the latter implied “qualitative changes,” the former resulted from “intensive changes.” From the outset, the rhythm was thus equated with a regular succession of rises and falls in sound intensity.

For the development and completion of the notion of time [Zeitauffassung], however, the intensive change of sound is of greater importance. One and the same sound can be set stronger or weaker. If such rises and falls [Hebungen und Senkungen] follow one another with certain regularity, the sounds are thereby rhythmically articulated [rhythmisch gegliedert]. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 513, my trans.)

But rhythm was not dependent only on the auditory system. It was also related with innate bodily capabilities and, therefore, also defined as “regular rhythmic alternation of movements.” Due to “the arrangement of the locomotor organs,” Wundt noticed, both kinds of rhythm entrained each other.

However, the change in sound intensity has its nearest model in the nervous feelings that accompany our own movements. For the arrangement of the moving limbs, especially the locomotor organs, explains the disposition toward a regular rhythmic alternation of movements [einem regelmäßigen rhythmischen Wechsel]. Thus, during dancing, marching, and beating, a corresponding rhythmic sequence of our movements joins, with an almost irresistible force, with the alternation of sound perceptions. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 513, my trans.)

From an evolutionary viewpoint, bodily rhythm had most probably anticipated auditory rhythm but the latter had eventually developed upon and refined the former. While being related to each other, bodily and auditory rhythms resulted from different degrees of evolution and were, therefore, endowed with various levels of sophistication.

Inspired by our movement, in which we find the earliest rhythmic [das Rhythmische am frühesten finden], we call rhythm in general a movement that progresses according to a precisely determined measure [eine nach genau bestimmten Maass fortschreitende Bewegung]. But the subtlety with which our ear understands the phases of the rhythmic movement [die Schritte der rhythmischen Bewegung] makes it surpass our original sensations of movement. On the one hand, it differentiates temporal parts as fractions of bar which are no longer discernible in one's own movement. On the other hand, it is able to immerse itself in rhythms whose slow progress can no longer be reproduced in the movement of our body. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 517-518, my trans., same idea p. 520)

In the fifth edition of the Principles (1902), which was partly translated into English (1904 – 2^nd ed. 1910), Wundt more precisely, if cautiously, explained this interaction between auditory and movement rhythms by the close localizations of the concerned nervous centers in the brain.

The acusticus is precisely the sensory nerve that gives certain objective sense impressions a specific relation to movement; our movements adapt themselves involuntarily, in a corresponding rhythm, to rhythmical impressions of sound. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1902, ed. 1910, p. 276, trans. Edward B. Titchener)

The connexions with certain sensorimotor and regulatory centres, in particular,—centres like the pregemina, cerebellum, etc.,—can, in the present state of our knowledge, be referred only quite generally to the interactions between auditory impressions and rhythmical movements. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1902, ed. 1910, p. 299, trans. Edward B. Titchener)

Having defined rhythm as regular alternation of acoustic rises and falls or bodily movements, Wundt explored the range within which the rhythm could develop. Since rises could be performed in three progressive ways (low, medium, high), he classified the “rhythmic structures” from the simplest one—one bar containing two alternate sounds—to the most complex ones—one bar containing three or four alternate sounds, each possibly endowed with three different degrees of intensity.

The simplest rhythmic structure [Das einfachste rhythmische Gebilde], which consists of a certain number of well-defined rises and falls of the sound, is called the bar [den Takt]. The simplest possible form of time signature [Taktform] is the 2/8 time signature, in which rise and fall [Hebung und Senkung] regularly alternate without further gradation. On the other hand, the 3/4 and 4/4 time signatures [Taktformen], in which all three degrees [in the intensity] of rising are represented, constitute the upper limit of the more common ones [...] The 2/4-time signature, in which two degrees of rising can be distinguished, is in a middle position. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 514, my trans.)

According to Wundt, all other “rhythmic structures” could be reduced to the four previous ones.

Several other kinds of time signatures [Taktformen], which are still admitted, can all be reduced to the four enumerated here, so the 2/1 and 2/16 to the 2/8, the 3/2 to the 3/4, the 2/2 and 4/8 to the 2/4; others are extensions of the same, in which the number of falls, which follow a rise, is increased by one or a few. In this way the 3/8 time signature arises from the 2/8, the 9/8 from the 3/4, the 6/4 and 12/8 from the 4/4, the 5/8 from the 2/4 time signature. Finally, two simpler time signatures, with regular alternation, can form a more complex one: thus, the 5/4 time signature is only a combination of the 3/4 and 2/4 time signatures. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 514-515, my trans.)

Directly borrowing from the music theorists, Wundt distinguished two- and three-part time signatures (nowadays duple and triple meters), as well as mixed ones “which are composed of two- and three-part elements at the same time” (p. 515).

He then addressed the question of accentuation. As it was already customary in music, he used “rise” or “arsis” as synonymous with “strong beat,” i.e. contrarily to the original Greek meaning of unaccented note. But he noticed that a bar could “begin with the arsis as well as with the thesis,” at least in duple meters.

It is only a matter of convention that every bar should begin with the strong beat [mit dem schweren Takttheil], and in the more complex time signatures [Taktformen] with the strongest rise [mit der stärksten Hebung] [...]. Actually, every bar [Takt] can begin with the arsis as well as with the thesis, and for the formation of the two-part bars the two forms [...] must indeed be regarded as equally possible. This is different with the tripartite measures. Here the practice of both modern and ancient rhythmics [Rhythmik] shows that the strong beat [der schwere Taktteil] is always sandwiched between two weaker ones [zwischen zwei leichteren]. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 515, my trans.)

Following the classification of time signatures, Wundt described the building of a whole piece of music by way of connecting the smallest units into increasingly larger units. The first of these aggregated units he called “rhythmic series” or “phrase,” which corresponded to a “line of verse” in poetry. Second order units were called “rhythmic periods.”

A certain number of bars [Takten] join in a rhythmic series [rhythmischen Reihe] [Footnote : It is usually referred to as a phrase [Absatz] in musical metric, and as a line of verse [Verszeile] in poetry.]; the rhythmic period [rhythmische Periode] builds up from a number of series. These more complex constituents of the rhythm are also enclosed between a lower and an upper limit. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 516, my trans.)

For physiological reasons, the “rhythmic series” could range from two to six bars, not more, but the “rhythmic periods” could be composed only of two series, not more, except in poetry.

The smallest rhythmic series consists of two bars, the largest of which, as the musical and poetic metrics equally show, is formed by six bars. In music, the medium between these extremes, the even-numbered series of four bars, is the ordinary form. Rhythmic series, which go beyond six bars (the hexapody), are extremely rare. For the period [Periode] (or stanza [Strophe]), too, two is the smallest number of series of which it is composed, and it is at the same time the most usual one: the first series forms the anterior phrase [Vordersatz], the second the posterior phrase [Nachsatz]. Relatively rare, and almost only in poetic rhythm, which in this respect provides a greater range against monotony, three, four and even five series can be connected with each other. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 516-517, my trans.)

Beyond these limits, Wundt claimed, the perception/ideation of rhythm begins to blur and the connectedness of a piece has to be sustained by the melody.

In music, the whole divided into bars, series and periods [Takte, Reihen und Perioden] is often composed into larger sections or phrases [Abschnitte oder Sätze]. But these sections lack rhythmic clarity [die rhythmische Übersichtlichkeit]. They find their connection not in rhythmic motives but in melody. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 517, my trans.)

Auditory Rhythm as Cause of Time Idea (Wundt – 1873)

In Chapter 16, which was dedicated to “Complex Ideas, General Ideas and Intuition Forms,” Wundt turned to the role played by the rhythm—as it had been previously defined on a musical basis—in the constitution of our “idea of time.” He started by borrowing from Kant the concept of “intuition of time” but he immediately added that the latter had to be explained psychologically, i.e. genetically, instead of being merely considered as innate.

Kant first proved that the forms of intuition [die Anschauungsformen] are actually subjective in nature. The problem arose then of explaining them psychologically, as soon as one went beyond the view still held by Kant himself [that] space and time are forms already set in us to which the sensory perceptions readily fit. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 580, my trans.)

In Chapter 13, elaborating on Augustine's well-known argument—our idea of time derives from our interior capacities of expectation and memory (Confessiones, 11)—but also, probably without knowing it, on a less well-known one—time must be linked with the power to utter words rhythmically (see vol. 1, p. 383 sq.)—Wundt had already claimed that the “intuition of time” derived from the existence of “rhythmic” successions of alternate auditory sensations and ideas. Even in a mere binary succession of beats, the ideas of past and future were given both through the regular division of the continuous flow of time and by the “memory” and the “expectation” entailed by this division.

An unchanging, continuous sound provides our consciousness with no hints as how to divide it into periods of time. The simplest way, in which such a division can be made, is that the sound, while remaining qualitatively unchanged, decreases and increases in intensity. As moments of rising (arsis) and falling (thesis) follow each other, they separate from each other in our consciousness. Each rise is considered as a repetition of the previous one. At the same time, as soon the alternation becomes regular, on every fall a new rise is expected, and vice versa. Thus, this simplest form of rhythmic structure [rhythmischer Gliederung] already contains the full intuition of time [Zeitanschauung] with its reference from the present sensation to those of the past and future. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 513, my trans.)

He had also suggested a little further down that only a rhythmic succession of “a constant number of rises and falls” allowed to grasp the idea of continuous duration and that of its division into segments.

The rhythmic element which sustains all composite arrangements is the bar [der Takt]. Since it contains a constant number of rises and falls [eine constant Anzahl von Hebungen und Senkungen], it takes a determined amount of time [eine bestimmte Zeitdauer]. The idea of duration [Die Vorstellung der Zeitdauer] and its division [und ihrer Eintheilung], therefore, not only finds its expression in rhythm [im Rhythmus], but also realizes itself essentially through it. We have a reasonably accurate idea of the timing of an event [von den Zeitverhältnissen eines Ereignisses] only if it proceeds in rhythmic form [in rhythmischer Form]. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 517, my trans.)

In Chapter 16, Wundt elaborated further these suggestions by psychologically deriving the “intuition of time” from the rhythmic succession of ideas triggered by rhythmic perceptions, their persistence in the consciousness in the form of “aftereffects,” and the resulting general idea that “they can easily be reproduced.”

The intuition of time [Zeitanschauung] arises from the succession of different ideas [Vorstellungen], each of which remains available to the consciousness when a new one enters into it. But the nature of the idea of time [Das Wesen der Zeitvorstellung] does not consist in the actual reproduction of ideas [Vorstellungen] but in the idea that they can be reproduced [in der Vorstellung, dass sie reproduziert werden können]. Psychologically, this is only possible if every idea, when it disappears from consciousness [aus dem Bewusstsein], leaves behind an aftereffect, which lasts alongside the new ideas. Such an immediate aftereffect does not need to extend to all reproducible ideas. Rather, we have come to know facts in the temporal conception of the auditory impressions, which point to a rather narrow scope of the immediate conception of time. It is clearly indicated by those limits which the simplest rhythmic structure [das einfachste rhythmische Gebilde], the bar [der Takt], must conform to in order to be integrated into one whole. In the conception of the more complex rhythmic forms there is already a reproduction of such ideas, whose immediate after-effects have already disappeared from consciousness, and which have retained only the general characteristic that they can easily be reproduced. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 680-681, my trans.)

The “idea of time” was thus not innate, as Kant had believed, but resulted from an “indispensable external condition”: “the succession of sensory impressions” and their reciprocal resonance by means of “intermediate imaginary image,” which he also called “memory images – Erinnerungsbilde.”

The idea of time finds originally an indispensable external condition of its formation, in any case, in the succession of sensory impressions. Let us suppose, to start with the simplest case, that the same sound impressions, for example, pendulum strokes would follow each other at regular intervals [...]. If the first pendulum stroke has passed, an imaginary picture [Phantasiebild] of it will remain until a second one occurs. [...] this simple repetition of a previous impression provides all the elements of the idea of time [Zeitvorstellung]: the first sound is the beginning of time [Zeitanfang], the second the end of time [Zeitende], and the intermediate imaginary image [dazwischenliegende Phantasiebild] represents the stretch of time [Zeitstrecke]. At the moment of the second impression, all of a sudden, the whole idea of time [Zeitvorstellung] exists, for then all three elements are given simultaneously: the second impression and immediately the imaginary image, the first impression through the reproduction. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 681-682, my trans.)

This psychological approach drove Wundt to challenge the usual infinite concept of time as too theoretical and practically inadequate, and underline instead the limits of our natural “intuition” and “idea of time”—which seemed here to almost blend together.

According to this [the fact that our immediate conception of time is based on limited time stretches], our idea of time [unsere Zeitvorstellung] is far removed from the infinite extension which we ascribe to time according to its concept [dem Begriffe nach]. The latter, like every concept, is a postulate that is never reached by the ideation [Vorstellung]. Of course, we are naturally quite close when we think of the after-effects of the ideas which are necessary for the time intuition [für die Zeitanschauung] as faded pictures or remnants. But a series of simultaneous stronger and weaker ideas [starker und schwacher Vorstellungen] is not yet a time series. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 681, my trans.)

Time could actually not be conceived of as an abstract concept emptied “from any particular ideal content,” as it was too often the case.

In forming the concept of time [Begriff der Zeit], we empty it from any particular ideal content [Vorstellungsinhalte], and thereby arrive at the assumption that time is a general form [gleichbeschaffene allgemeine Form], which is evenly available in every given moment [in jedem Augenblick], and which accompanies the ideas. The result is that image of infinite continuous straight line, forward and backward. [However], as far as the intuition of time is concerned, this picture has no reality at all. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 684, my trans.)

Our natural intuition of time had to be investigated practically. Since the flow of consciousness does not stop between strokes, the analysis of the rhythmic series could not be reduced to the mere recurrence of beats. On the one hand, due to the continuous activity of the mind, the impressions of the first and the second stroke are necessarily different; on the other hand, the echo of the first stroke meets new impressions—the origin of which Wundt did not explain—before the second stroke enters the field of consciousness.

The elementary conditions, as they have been assumed here, must be made more complex since, first of all, the end-point is related with a different impression than the starting-point, and second, there is no pause between the two points but a series of different impressions. As a matter of fact, the memory image [Erinnerungsbild] of the first impression will accompany the ideas [Vorstellungen] that fill in the time stretch [Zeitstrecke]. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 682, my trans.)

Both facts explained that we can think of the time under two different guises—as limited time stretch or as unlimited time series—and to build upon the former the idea of the latter.

At the moment when the final impression happens, however, a couple of things are possible: it can either be related to the initial impression, so that it is reproduced as above; then again the idea of the precisely determinate time stretch [die Vorstellung der bestimmt abgegrenzten Zeitstrecke] arises. Or, there can be no reason for such reproduction; then the idea of the indeterminate course of time [die Vorstellung des unbestimmten Zeitverlaufs] arises. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 682, my trans.)

A further argument concerns the impressions located between beginning and end points. Each one of them still lingers in the memory after [actually] disappearing. So every intermediate impression becomes the starting point of a subordinate time stretch. If, according to the association laws, the last impression reproduce the first one, then all these tuned and superimposed time stretches recede behind the main stretch. If, [instead,] such reproduction does not happen, then all time stretches are equal to one another, but all are, at the same time, indefinite. In both cases, the condition in which the consciousness finds herself corresponds only to a very obscure sense of time. Nevertheless, it provides the basis for the formation of the concept of time [zur Bildung des Zeitbegriffs] in which the idea of the indeterminately limited [unbestimmt begrenzten] time series is elevated to an unlimited one [einer unbegrenzten Zeitreihe]. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 682-683, my trans.)

Yet, the idea of unlimited time series is not yet complete because it still lacks the idea of course of time.

[The clear intuition of the course of time – die klare Anschauung des Verlaufs der Zeit] is not yet included in the indefinite idea of time. The addition of the new impression to the memory images only arouses in general the idea of a previous one. Since the new impression does not reproduce a preceding one in particular, the idea of stretch of time [die Vorstellung der Zeitstrecke], which constitutes an element of the course of time [in den Verlauf der Zeit], is completely absent. For every particular course of time [Zeitverlauf] consists of stretches of time [Zeitstrecken], which must be marked by beginning and end points. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 683, my trans.)

Finally, only rhythm, “because the uniform reproduction of the previous [bar] gives clear marks to the beginning and end of each simple time stretch,” provides the ultimate idea of time-course which has to supplement our sense of infinite time. Through rhythm time is interpreted as “measurable quantities.”

This accounts for the great importance of the rhythm for the formation of the idea of time [Zeitvorstellung]. Each bar [Takttheil] forms a simple time stretch [Zeitstrecke], which is integrated with others into a larger time series [Zeitreihe]. The course of the latter [der Verlauf derselben] is immediately grasped, because the uniform reproduction of the previous [bar] [Vorangegangenen] gives clear marks to the beginning and end of each simple time stretch [Zeitstrecke] and to the entire series [ganze Reihe]. In this case, therefore, the intuition of the measurement of time [Anschauung zur Messung der Zeit] becomes also immediate. The successive bars [Takte] are interpreted as quantities of time [Zeitgrössen], which are further subdivided into the rises and falls of the rhythm [Hebungen und Senkungen des Rhythmus]. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 683, my trans.)

This had two important consequences. First, Wundt opposed in advance Bergson's conception of time as durée continue and anticipated, by the same token, Bachelard's view on time as consisting of discrete time points (Bachelard, 1932 and 1936; see Lamy, 2014).

An often-used picture compares time with a line without thickness. Through this image one has been enticed to attribute to time an essential quality of space, continuity. But time itself is a discrete entity. It consists of individual ideas that fit together; a single unvarying continuous idea could never lead to time intuition. For that very reason the number, which according to its original meaning can only be referred to discrete objects, is a concept which first emerges from the idea of time. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 684, my trans.)

Second, since it entailed both concepts of time-infinity and time-measurement, rhythm was therefore granted the power to elicit “the concepts of number and quantity.”

Thus, the rhythmic idea of time [die rhythmische Zeitvorstellung] first and foremost contains the condition for the emergence of two important concepts, the concept of number and the concept of quantity [des Zahlbegriffs und des Grössenbegriffs]. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 683, my trans.)

As for arithmetic operators, addition and subtraction were conceivable as extensions of any “arbitrary alternation of ideas,” i.e. irregular series. But multiplication and division were “psychologically hardly imaginable without the rhythmic structure of the time series,” so as the concepts of power and root which result from their repetition.

Any change of ideas [Wechsel von Vorstellungen] can lead to the number concept [Zahlbegriff]. [...] Since each time interval points to a preceding and succeeding one, the concept of number combines with [that of] the unlimited. The progress from one idea to another is the model of addition, the regression in the time series the model of subtraction. Yet, while these simplest forms of the concept of number can arise from any arbitrary alternation of ideas, the more complex forms of the progressive and regressive processes are psychologically hardly imaginable without the rhythmic structure of the time series [die rhythmische Gliederung der Zeitreihe]. Every compound rhythmic structure breaks down into simpler constituents. The generation of the bar [des Taktes] from its elements, of the rhythmic series from the bars, corresponds to the multiplication, the splitting [Zerlegung] to the division. The relation of the simplest bar elements to the rhythmic series and periods finally provides the model for the repetitions of these processes, which lead to the concepts of power and root. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 684, my trans.)

Auditory Rhythm as Cause of Aesthetic Feelings (Wundt – 1873)

The second psychological dimension of rhythm that attracted Wundt's attention, and the least developed as a matter of fact, was the part it plays in our “aesthetic feelings.” In Chapter 17, he again compared and contrasted rhythm and harmony. Both were ways to bring order to sounds, in pitch for harmony, in time for rhythm. Endorsing a long Platonic tradition (see vol. 1, chap. 2), he attributed the aesthetic pleasure to this power of ordering a chaotic matter that would procure otherwise disagreeable impressions.

Because the sense of hearing brings order to [ordnet] the simultaneous as well as the successive impressions, it is endowed with two basic forms of aesthetic feelings: harmony and disharmony, rhythm and arrhythmia. The basis of harmony, as has been shown in detail, is the coincidence of certain partials of different sounds. [...] The rhythm provides pleasure through intensively or qualitatively related impressions, which are repeated in the alternation of different auditory ideas usually according to regular periods of time. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 692-693, my trans.)

Deaf to the experiments of the most important musicians of his time, not to mention the poets, who all tried to get rid of metric patterns (see vol. 2, chap. 8), and merely translating into “science” a rather classical taste, Wundt claimed that the most pleasurable series of sounds were those based on “regular alternation” and “repetition of the similar,” within yet the range of human perception. Beyond a certain limit, the rhythm could merely not be recognized.

In order to create an aesthetic pleasure, at least two different impressions, rise and fall of the sound, as in 2/8 time signature must follow each other in regular alternation. The rhythmic feeling likewise ceases when the series of different impressions becomes so long that the repetition of the similar can no longer be felt, as in 9/4 time signature or in other forms that exceed the limit of clarity. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 693, my trans.)

There was a way, though, to “extend” the “rhythmic feeling” “over larger successions” with the help of the melodic and harmonic feelings, which could beneficially enhance the more primitive means of expression provided by the rhythm.

By combining the bars into rhythmic series, the series into periods, finally the musical periods into the divisions of the melody, the rhythmic feeling can be extended over larger successions. As the harmony, the rhythm is based on the easily manageable connection of ideas. Within the general regularity of succession, various forms of pleasure become possible, then, through the variable bar structure [Taktgliederung], [and] the faster or slower succession of impressions—[forms of pleasure] which [can] expand infinitely, since they join, in the melody, with the laws of harmonic sound connection. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 693-694, my trans.)

Yet, Wundt concluded by giving the same psychological and aesthetic significance to harmony, which gave “direction to the mood,” and to rhythm, which was supposed to “portray the alternation and waves of the emotions.”

In the whole of the musical effect, it is the harmony which gives direction to the mood [der Gemütsstimmung ihre Richtung gibt], the rhythm which portrays the alternation and waves of the emotions [das Wechseln und Wogen der Gefühle schildert]. But both forms of expression are held together by the principle of unity governing the manifold. (Principles of Physiological Psychology, 1873-1874, p. 694, my trans.)

Let us recapitulate. In his Principles of Physiological Psychology, published for the first time in 1873-1874 and republished many times until the 1910s, Wundt devoted a much larger space to rhythm than any of the previous studies we dealt with. Thanks to his contribution, rhythm became from the 1870s a major subject in psychology. Under both its auditory and bodily guises, it was now considered as the physiological basis of our inner sense of time in all its complexity: continuous duration as well as division into segments, limited objective time stretch as well as unlimited time series, limited span of consciousness as well as infinite course. It was also viewed as one of the physiological causes of the pleasure we take in listening to music.

Concerning time, this physiopsychological inversion of the Kantian dogma—our sense of time is not innate but depends on physical and physiological factors (acoustic/hearing and inner perception of bodily movements)—launched a vast program of research which developed at least for the next three decades. Concerning aesthetic, the result was less convincing, though. Wundt was unconcerned with any real artistic practice and only prolonged a traditional way of looking at art (essentially music, poetry was left by the wayside) through Platonic categories.

On the conceptual level, Wundt's contribution was even more striking. If rhythm was not any more used in the old medical sense, it was now merely taken in the sense of music, most of the time as regular succession of rises and lowerings or, at best, as regular succession of measures divided into beats. Here too, as his predecessors, Wundt became one of the most efficient propagators of the Platonic metric paradigm.

Next chapter

[1] Wundt defined “an idea – eine Vorstellung” as, “according the common meaning of the word, the image of an object produced in our consciousness [in unsern Bewusstsein erzeugte Bild eines Gegenstandes].” (p. 464, my trans.)

Rhythm as Form of Physiopsychological Process (Part 2)

Pascal Michon — 2018-08-29T10:19:33Z

Sommaire

Previous chapter

Rhythm of the Limbs (Wundt – 1896)

In 1896—he was already 64—Wundt published his Grundriss der Psychologie – Outlines of Psychology “for the purpose of furnishing [his] students with a brief manual” (Author's Preface) and had it translated into English the following year. It had nine German and three English editions (last in 1911 and 1907 respectively). Although Wundt re-elaborated most of the same subjects that were exposed in his previous works, some significant and interesting changes happened in his use of the rhythm concept.

Possibly because of the stress put on the body by some of his younger colleagues as Mach or Bolton (see below), Wundt started, this time, his presentation from the sense of touch. As all temporal ideas, rhythm was first generated by the touch, not “the outer tactual sensations” however but “the inner sensations which accompany movements” and are determined by “the mechanical properties of the limbs” (p. 144-145).

The mechanical properties of the limbs are important physiological bases for the rise of these ideas. The arms and legs can be moved in the shoulder-joints and hip-joints by their muscles, and are at the same time subject to the action of gravitation drawing them downward. As a result there are two kinds of movements possible for them. First, we have those which are continually regulated by voluntary activity of the muscles and may, therefore, be indefinitely varied and accommodated at every moment to the existing needs—we will call these the arhythmical movements. Secondly, we have those in which the voluntary energy of the muscles is operative only so far as it is required to set the limbs oscillating in their joints and to maintain this movement—rhythmical movements. (Outlines of Psychology, 1896-1897, p. 145, trans. Charles H. Judd)

Wundt suggested to neglect “the arhythmical movements exhibited in the various uses of the limbs,” which were “in all probability derived from the rhythmical movements,” and concentrate on the latter (p. 145). This new way to address the problem of rhythm by starting from the limbs instead of the ears resulted in its transformation into the “principle of the isochronism of oscillations of like amplitude” or “regular oscillations.”

With rhythmical movements the case is different. Their significance for the psychological development of time-ideas is due to the same principle which gives them their importance as physiological organs, namely, the principle of the isochronism of oscillations of like amplitude. In walking, the regular oscillations of our legs in the hip-joints not only make the muscular energy expended less, but reduce to a minimum the continual voluntary control of the movements. (Outlines of Psychology, 1896-1897, p. 145, trans. Charles H. Judd)

Rhythm was now meant as regular beat and wave—the newest acceptation which had been elaborated during the last couple of decades in physiology and medicine (see vol. 2, chap. 2)—and not anymore as succession of bars and accents organized according to varying time signatures as in 1873, nor naturally as alternation and ratio as in his early works. While Wundt took into account the “continuous succession of sensations that are repeated in the following period in exactly the same order,” he was careful to precisely describe this succession as a series of oscillations or waves composed of “a continuous series of weak inner tactual sensations from the joints and muscles” and, on both sides, “a complex of outer tactual sensations” of superior intensity.

Every single period of oscillation in such a movement is made up of a continuous succession of sensations that are repeated in the following period in exactly the same order. The two limits of the period are marked by a complex of outer tactual sensations: the beginning by the impression accompanying the removal of the foot from the ground, the end by that accompanying its return to the ground. Between these there is a continuous series of weak inner tactual sensations from the joints and muscles. The beginning and end of this series of inner sensations coincide with the outer sensations and are more intense than those between them. They arise from the impulse of movement coming to the muscles and joints and from the sudden inhibition of the same, and serve also to mark off the periods. (Outlines of Psychology, 1896-1897, p. 146, trans. Charles H. Judd)

This continuous and “regular succession of sensations” had, naturally, its undulating counterpart in “a regular and exactly parallel series of feelings,” first of “strained” then of “fulfilled expectation.”

Connected with this regular succession of sensations is a regular and exactly parallel series of feelings. If we consider a single period in a series of rhythmical movements, there is always at its beginning and end a feeling of fulfilled expectation. Between the two limits of the period, beginning with the first movement, is a gradually growing, feeling of strained expectation, which suddenly sinks at the last moment from its maximum to zero, to make place for the rapidly rising and sinking feeling of fulfillment. From this point on the same series is again repeated. (Outlines of Psychology, 1896-1897, p. 146, trans. Charles H. Judd)

Wundt then introduced the “tactual ideas of beats” (title given to this section in the Table of Contents). He noticed that entirely regular beats tended to be perceived as differently stressed but, instead of using the well-known example of the hearing of regular water drops or of the puffs of a locomotive, he used the example of marching or dancing. Before penetrating and becoming active in the sense of hearing, this phenomenon grows, he claimed, from the body itself. This remark allowed him to link his new physiological to his former metric definition of rhythm.

The simplest temporal ideas of touch are made up of the rhythmically arranged sensations that follow one another with perfect uniformity in the manner described, when like oscillatory movements are repeatedly carried out. But even in ordinary walking a slight tendency toward a somewhat greater complication arises; the beginning of the first of two successive periods is emphasized, both in the sensation and in the accompanying feeling, more than the beginning of the second. In this case the rhythm of movement begins to be metrical. In fact, such a regular succession of accented and unaccented ideas corresponds to the simplest measure, 2/8 time. It arises easily in ordinary walking because of the physiological superiority of the right side, and appears very regularly when several persons are walking together in marching. In the latter case even more than two periods may be united into one rhythmical unit. The same is true of the complicated rhythmical movements of the dance. But in such composite tactual rhythms the auditory temporal ideas have a decided influence. (Outlines of Psychology, 1896-1897, p. 147, trans. Charles H. Judd)

Rhythm of the Mind (Wundt – 1896)

Wundt was now in position to redeploy his former musical conception of rhythm. In audition, the continuous and undulating form of the rhythmic succession, which characterizes bodily movements, is indeed substituted by a strictly discrete series of separate beats. There is, at least apparently, an “absence of all objective sensational content in the intervals” and the “external impressions here do nothing but divide the separate intervals from one another.”

[The temporal auditory ideas] differ from temporal ideas of touch in that often only the extremities of the single intervals that go to make up the total idea, are marked by sensations. In such a case the relations of such intervals to one another are estimated essentially by the apparently empty or heterogeneously filled intervals that lie between the limiting sensations. This is especially noticeable in the case of rhythmical auditory ideas. [...] A series of regular strokes made in this way as the simplest form of temporal auditory ideas, is distinguished from the simplest form of temporal touch-ideas, described above (p. 147), mainly by the absence of all objective sensational content in the intervals. The external impressions here do nothing but divide the separate intervals from one another. (Outlines of Psychology, 1896-1897, p. 148-149, trans. Charles H. Judd)

However, Wundt reintroduced in this binary auditory metrics a concern for the undulations of the “affective contents” of the intervals, which he found parallel to those “in the course of a rhythmical tactual movement.”

Still, the intervals of such a series are not entirely empty, but are filled by subjective affective and sensational contents which correspond fully to those observed in tactual ideas. Most emphatic of all are the affective contents of the intervals. These feelings in their successive periods of gradually rising and suddenly satisfied expectation, are the same as in the course of a rhythmical tactual movement. Even the sensational substratum for these feeling is not entirely absent; it is merely more variable. (Outlines of Psychology, 1896-1897, p. 149, trans. Charles H. Judd)

As in 1873, Wundt underlined that there are, for the perception of auditory rhythm, physiological upper and lower “limits” determined by the frequency of the beat and, consequently, a “most favorable medium rate.” From a series of experimental evidence, Wundt concluded against some of his colleagues, like Mach or Bolton, that if the motor aspect of rhythm had first appeared during human evolution, by modern man, it was not primary any more but only auxiliary to its “subjective” dimension. Rhythm was mainly a mental phenomenon.

It follows from the conditions described that the influence of the subjective elements on the character of time-ideas is the easiest to demonstrate. First of all, this shows itself in the effect which different rates of the sensations have on the formation of temporal ideas. It is found that there is a certain medium rate of about 0.2 sec. which is most favorable for the union of a number of successive auditory impressions. Now, it is easy to observe that this is the rate at which the above mentioned subjective sensations and feelings are most emphatic in their alternation. If the rate is made much slower, the strain of expectation is too great and passes into an unpleasurable feeling which becomes more and more unendurable. If, on the contrary, the rate is accelerated, the rapid alternation of feelings becomes fatiguing. Thus, in both directions limits are approached where the synthesis of the impressions into a rhythmical time-idea is no longer possible. The upper limit is about one second, the lower about 0.1 sec. (Outlines of Psychology, 1896-1897, p. 149-150, trans. Charles H. Judd)

Therefore, the “rhythmical combination”—i.e. rhythm as musical arrangement—could not explain the full “extent of the scope of consciousness.” It had to be supplemented with “the rate of the successive impressions”—i.e. rhythm as beat and frequency.

The extent of the scope of consciousness as found in measurements made when the conditions of attention remain the same, depends partly on the rate of the successive impressions and partly on their more or less complete rhythmical combination. When the rate of succession is slower than about 4”, it becomes impossible to combine successive impressions to a temporal idea; by the time a new impression arrives, the preceding one has already disappeared from consciousness. When the rate passes the upper limit of about 0.18”, the formation of distinctly defined temporal ideas is impossible because the attention can not follow the impressions any longer. The most favorable rate is a succession of strokes every 0.2—0.3”. (Outlines of Psychology, 1896-1897, p. 215, trans. Charles H. Judd)

By providing this series of numerical evidence, rhythm was made once more closer to the new scientific paradigm than to its older musical definition, which was yet still simultaneously maintained.

Thus, it has been observed that in general a period divided into intervals is estimated as longer than one not so divided. We have here a phenomenon analogous to that observed in the illusion with interrupted lines (p. 125). The overestimation is generally much greater for temporal intervals. This is obviously due to the fact that the oft repeated alternation in sensations and feelings in an interval of time have a much greater influence than the interruption of the movement through points of division in the case of the similar spacial illusion. Furthermore, if in a long series of regular beats single impressions are emphasized by their greater intensity, or by some qualitative peculiarity, the uniform result is overestimation of the intervals preceding and following the emphasized impression, in comparison with the other intervals of the same series. If, however, a certain rhythm is produced successively with weak and then with strong beats, the rate appears slower in the first case than in the second. (Outlines of Psychology, 1896-1897, p. 150, trans. Charles H. Judd)

Wundt then recalled the well-documented illusion that makes us believe that there are auditory ideas that are overstressed and others that are not in “a series of beats which are objectively exactly alike.”

The tendency found in the case of rhythmical touch-ideas for at least two like periods to unite and form a regular metrical unit shows itself in auditory ideas also, only in a much more marked degree. In tactual movements, where the sensations that limit the single periods are under the influence of the will, this tendency to form a rhythmical series shows itself in the actual alternation of weaker and stronger impressions. With auditory sensations, on the other hand, where the single impressions can be dependent only on external conditions, and are, therefore, objectively exactly alike, this tendency may lead to the following characteristic illusion. In a series of beats which are exactly alike in intensity and are separated by equal periods of time, certain single beats, occurring at regular intervals, are always heard as stronger than the others. The time that most frequently arises when there is nothing to determine it, is the 2/8-time, that is, the regular alternation of arses and theses. A slight modification of this, the 3/8-time, where two unaccented follow one accented beat, is also very common. (Outlines of Psychology, 1896-1897, p. 151-152, trans. Charles H. Judd)

This phenomenon was one more proof to him for the primacy of the subjective power in recognizing rhythm.

The phenomenon of subjective accentuation and its influence on the sensation of rhythms, shows clearly that temporal ideas, like spacial ideas, are not derived from objective impressions alone, but that there are connected with these, subjective elements, whose character determines the apprehension of the objective impressions. (Outlines of Psychology, 1896-1897, p. 152, trans. Charles H. Judd)

After this long discussion, Wundt finally introduced what he had considered first in 1873: the ordinary musical metric, which was therefore now presented as a complicated construction based upon more original and simple phenomena. The musical rhythm was only an extension and sophistication of the beat, limited by the physiological possibilities to synthesize it.

If the effort is made to unite as many impressions as possible in a unitary time-idea, the phenomena become more complicated. We have accents of different degrees which alternate in regular succession with unaccented members of the series and thus, through the resulting divisions of the whole into groups, the number of impressions that may be comprehended in a single idea is considerably increased. The presence of two different grades of accent gives 3/4-time and 5/8-time, the presence of three grades gives 4 /4-time and 6/4-time, and as forms with three feet we have 9/8-time and 12/8-time. More than three grades of accentuation or, when the unaccented note is counted, more than four grades of intensity, are not to be found in either musical or poetical rhythms, nor can we produce more by voluntarily formation of' rhythmical ideas. Obviously, these three grades of accentuation mark the limits of the possible complexity of temporal ideas, in a way analogous to that in which the maximal number of included beats (§15, 6) marks the limits of their length. (Outlines of Psychology, 1896-1897, p. 151-152, trans. Charles H. Judd)

As we can see, the first rhythmological change that resulted from the passing in the 1870s from plain physiology to physiological psychology was the demise of the basic medical model of rhythm. But this significant change—which broke with a two-thousand-year-old tradition—was not supported by any correlative interest in the poetic innovations that had been developing since the end of the 18^th century (see vol. 2, chap. 3, 4 and 8) and that had still somehow influenced Brücke's novel study. Instead, it entirely relied on the musical model of rhythm. This substitution had, actually, already be tempted in the 18^th century by Marquet (see vol. 2, chap. 2) and was implicit in Helmholtz's study on sound impressions, but Wundt gave it new impetus and the musical model of rhythm became one of the most widely spread in psychology as well as other human sciences until late in the 20^th century.

However, during the very last years of the 19^th century, Wundt introduced some innovations which noticeably transformed the way psychology dealt with rhythm. In order to address the criticisms raised by younger psychologists, he wanted to pay more heed to its motor aspect while still reasserting the primacy of its mental side. Wundt was thus driven to reduce rhythm to sheer binary alternation, regular succession of beats or oscillations, or at least to give the primacy to the physiological over the musical model. Instead of starting from the musical theory of rhythm and applying it to inner sensations of movement and hearing, he now began from the alternate movements of the lower limbs, the oscillations of the hips, and the alternate perceptions of down-beat and off-beat, before reconstructing the whole musical rhythmic system of beats, bars, and time signatures. Consequently, whereas rhythm was primarily defined as a regular and articulate arrangement of beats and bars, it was now presented, in its deeper essence, as a succession of regular beats endowed with a certain frequency. Around 1900, psychology endorsed the most modern scientific acceptation of rhythm (see vol. 2, chap. 2) at the expense of both its ancient medical and musical meanings, without yet, naturally, making them completely disappear.

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Rhythm as Aristotelian Form of Psychological Process (Part 1)

Pascal Michon — 2018-08-27T10:00:00Z

Previous chapter

During the last decades of the 19^th century, psychology emancipated itself from physiology, even though the latter remained an important basis for its development. This mutation allowed it to become an academic discipline in its own right and to be recognized in the university curricula.

This mutation coincided with the remarkable surge of interest in rhythm which characterized the “Belle Époque.” When, in 1913, Christian Ruckmich compiled a list of the recent psychological studies on rhythm, he cited more than two hundred entries and the research propagated at such a pace that he had to update his bibliography again in 1915, 1918 and 1924 (Ruckmich, 1913).

In this chapter and the next, I will concentrate on two exemplary contributions published during this period: the first by the German Ernst Friedrich Wilhelm Meumann (1862-1915), and the second by the American Thaddeus L. Bolton (1865-1948). The very same year 1894, the former published a 113-page long Habilitationsschrift (Phd) entitled Untersuchungen zur Psychologie und Aesthetik des Rhythmus – Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, while the latter circulated in the American Journal of Psychology, under the pristine title “Rhythm,” the results of an innovating research program which he had developed at Clark University, Worcester-Massachusetts, during the two preceding years (AJP, n° 6, 1894, p. 145-238).

Meumann and Bolton had a lot in common. Both were young: Meumann was only thirty-two and Bolton twenty-nine. Both, unlike most of their predecessors, were not educated as medical doctor or physiologist. Meumann failed his entrance exam for the university of medicine because of his aversion toward practical anatomy and studied instead philosophy, art sciences, theology, before working a few years as a private teacher and finally joining, in 1891, the Institut für experimentelle Psychologie founded and run in Leipzig by Wundt. Similarly, after receiving his B.A. degree from the University of Michigan, Bolton worked in school administration for a year before enrolling in the psychology program at Clark University founded by Edmund C. Sanford on Wundtian bases (1859–1924). Both announced an important shift in the history of the rhythm concept: it was the first time that rhythm became the main topic of a scientific investigation. Whereas Wundt still considered it as a secondary subject, Meumann and Bolton placed it at the center of their concerns.

For these various reasons, their contributions are of great interest to us. As we shall see, they not only illustrate the fast-growing interest in rhythm after 1890; they also provide numerous evidence of the new semantic shifts of the concept which occurred during the last decades before World War I. Moreover, they exemplify two diverging philosophical, cultural and social perspectives in psychology: although, in both cases, the rhythmological frame remained basically Platonic, Meumann gave it a strong Aristotelian twist, while Bolton, by contrast, rather radicalized its Platonic perspective.

On the Theories of Rhythm (Meumann – 1894)

Respectful of the methodological requirements in the German university, Meumann began his study by classifying and criticizing the main theories concerning rhythm that had been developed since the end of the 18^th century.

I therefore treat first all those approaches aiming at the formation of a general theory of rhythm that are not specific to a particular fact area [...] Among these I distinguish developmental [entwickelungsgeschichtliche] hypotheses, teleological theories, approaches to purely physiological explanations, psycho-physiological and purely aesthetic theories. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, pp. 5-6, my trans.)

I will dedicate some space to this reasoned critique because it was the first ever, as far as I know, to provide such a large synthesis and also because it quite clearly exposed the view, with its lights and shadows, reached by continental psychologists, I mean mostly in Germany and France, at the end of the 19^th century.

In stark contrast, as we shall see, with Bolton, he first rejected, as sheer speculation, all developmental theories aiming at reconstructing the “genesis of rhythm.”

The ambiguity of the word “genesis” [Entstehung], which can just as well be understood in terms of developmental history, as in the sense of a proof of the conditions which allow the rhythmic impression to “emerge” in each individual case of beat perception [Taktwahrnehmung], seems to have misled the researchers. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 6, my trans.)

He—rightly—gave Karl Philip Moritz's Deutsche Prosodie as an example of such genetic speculation—without, though, being aware of his remarkable contribution to the theory of poetic rhythm itself (for an alternate view, see vol. 2, p. 102 sq.). This is a characteristic of the continental psychology to be both faithful to Aristotle's empiricism and at the same time, utterly ignorant of his contribution to poetics (on the starting point of this divide in Aristotle himself, see vol. 1, chap. 3).

Moritz states: because of the overwhelming urge to move that drives the sense of power of the human beings (which and when? – the author) to leap and dance movement, one would have accidentally observed the periodic alternation of fast and slow movements, and this rhythmic order of movements, once it had accidentally emerged, would have attracted attention, aroused the feeling of pleasure, been admired and imitated. So was the genesis of the dance to be derived [from this rhythmic order of movements], and similarly the genesis of the meter from the random succession of regularly alternating long and short syllables, as they may occasionally occur in emphatic speech. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 6, my trans.)

There was nothing, he claimed, to gain from this kind of genetic perspective which had unfortunately been imitated many times since. It shed no light on the psychological genesis of rhythm, on the pleasure it brings forth, on its power on us, nor on “the principles according to which the particular rhythmic forms are brought into existence.”

This conception of the origin of rhythm from random rhythmic movements has been repeated since in every imaginable variation. There is no interest for psychological research in tracking their evolution. [...] We thus do not know neither what makes a succession of movements or sound sensations into a whole new experience, the “rhythm,” nor from where rhythmic movements and sound-strokes get their powerful emotional effect, let alone the principles according to which the particular rhythmic forms are brought into existence. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 6-7, my trans.)

Yet, some of the 19^th-century most modern views did not fare any better because they much too rapidly derived rhythm from physiological phenomena. These physiological theories were nothing but “Phantasieconstructionen – imaginary constructions” (p. 8).

As an extreme of such genetic constructions, I will only mention the dissertation of Benecke (Vom Takt im Tanz, Gesang und Dichtung – On the Beat in Dance, Song and Poetry, 1891) [...] This view brings the genesis of rhythm in connection with certain rhythmic processes of our organism, the breath, the heartbeat and the pulse. Through them we would have gotten acquainted with rhythmic movements, and after having found once pleasure in them, we would have imitated their rhythm with arbitrary movements. Along the same lines, the theories of John Hughlings Jackson [and] Friedrich von Hausegger regard the two-part rhythm as the only elemental rhythmic form and derive the latter from the two-fold division of the breath, [or] the bilateral symmetry of the body and bodily gestures. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, pp. 7-8, my trans.)

A few pages below, Meumann pointed at the quite fashionable surge of so-called “Physiologies” around the middle of the century. Because of their simplistic view of causality, none of them was useful for scientific research.

Significantly, most of them are produced by writers who are completely ignorant of both physiology and physiological psychology, and who are infected by the modern evil of popularized physiology and work with misunderstood physiological data. The characteristic of all these writings entitled Physiology of the Art of Sound, Physiology of the Melody, Physiology of the Counterpoint, Physiology of the Rhythm, etc. is always that any physiological side-effect which is in any relation, be it close or remote, to the psychic phenomenon to be explained, is taken for the “essence” of the latter, while the importance of a descriptive analysis of the psychical state remains unknown to these authors. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 21, my trans.)

A second important way to theorize on rhythm was that followed by the teleological theories. Meumann took the example of August Wilhelm Schlegel and the poetic-aesthetic tradition that developed in his wake. According to Schlegel, rhythm would be beneficial to the organism because it would allow saving strength by regulating it.

A. W. Schlegel seems to have initiated the teleological explanation of rhythm, the classics of our poetry have continued it, and modern aesthetics has very often returned to it. According to Schlegel (Ueber Silbenmaß und Sprache – On Syllable Measure and Language, S.W.VII), the unregulated frenzy of joy [as well as] the unrestrained expression of pain damage the forces of the organism; those are spared [instead] when the movements are tied by a rule that corresponds to the organic balance [organischen Haushalt]. Conversely, our affects are softened when their expression is firmly regulated. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 9, my trans.)

Faithful to a steady distrust in science since the 17^th century towards any teleological account in nature, Meumann criticized the substitution of a teleological to a causal explanation that could not be provided by lack of empirical knowledge. He recognized that it could be used as a “heuristic principle” but it entailed “the danger” of believing that the final cause was the efficient one (p. 9). Finally, this kind of explanation did not “tell us anything about what the rhythm is” (p. 10)—psychologically speaking that is, because Meumann entirely ignored Schlegel's significant contribution to the poetic theory of rhythm as “complex organization” (see vol. 2, p. 105 sq.), as he had indeed ignored Moritz's.

Meumann accepted, though, certain 19^th-century theories which combined the two previous modes of observation into a peculiar “teleological-developmental view” (p. 10). Poetic rhythm was, according to those theories, useful for memorization and helped to organize the psychic life.

Muller and Schumann have recently renovated this kind of theory [...] [by suggesting] that a rhythmically formed word sequence is easier to memorize and remember [...]. In views like these, the “origin” of verse rhythm is sought in a purposefulness of rhythm for the memory, and the development of special metric forms [in] a series of other factors. The superiority of this view over the previous one is that it at least does not merely introduce an external cause for rhythm formation, but rather considers a reliably proven psychic performance of rhythm as a possible cause. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 10, my trans.)

The third kind of theories about which Meumann was openly distrustful was the aesthetic ones. Schopenhauer's grand view on World, Art and Will was of particular dislike to him. He mocked, in a few expeditious lines, the way he developed “his theory of rhythm in analogy with architecture” and his use of sonorous concepts devoid of any content (on the analogy between rhythm and architecture in the early 19^th-century Idealist tradition, see vol. 2, p. 145 sq.).

Both arts, music and architecture, are transformed, under the strait-jacket of analogy, into a sum of very improper relations. Schopenhauer makes intelligible the aesthetic effect of rhythm by asserting an “alternating division and reconciliation” of the rhythmic and musical motive in the melody; thus giving the reader the twofold task of explaining what is meant by this image of division and reconciliation. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 13, my trans.)

Concerning rhythm, in his Aesthetik (1887), Eduard von Hartmann (1842-1906) “nowhere [went] beyond trivial and obvious matter or unproven assertions” (p. 13), while Karl von Köstlin (1819-1894), in his own Aesthetik (1869), contented himself with “symbolic descriptions” (p. 14) and “extensive play on words.”

The rhythm can either be “completely free (vag)” or “real”; the real-rhythm is “narrow” or “far,” “simple,” “concretely structured,” “even (planus),” “uneven,” and then at once “even-numbered” and “odd-numbered.” The tone-series becomes “more vivid,” “rich in change,” “freer, lighter, livelier, more graceful,” through the rhythm; it receives “emphasis, weight, significance, momentum,” and so on.

I put this presentation of the special power of the musical beat [musikalischer Takte] ahead of his general exposition of the concept of rhythm given to us by Köstlin in his Aesthetics, since it is characteristic of the previously criticized deficiency of the common aesthetics: extensive play on words instead of a systematic search for facts. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 14, my trans.)

Generally speaking, the 19^th-century aesthetics fared quite poorly in its elaborations of the concept of rhythm, confusing it, for instance, with the simple regular division of “a line,” and forgetting that rhythm only emerges through a psychological process of “rhythmization.”

According to Köstlin, a line divided by points at a regular distance and, for instance, a simple waltz beat would have to be, in the same sense, called rhythm, the former even in a stricter sense than the latter. [...] a series of uniformly recurring impressions of sound should already be rhythmic, as the simplest case of a “division of a time-stretch into sections,” while in truth it can only appear rhythmical through subjective rhythmization [Rhythmisirung]. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 15, my trans.)

Meumann was not critical about using the term rhythm to describe repetitive spatial phenomena, like in architecture, but he recommended not to forget that it was a derivation of the only sense that was really rhythmic: the sense of hearing which process the auditory sensations into a whole (p. 15-16).

Rudolf Hermann Lotze (1817-1881), most of whose contribution was dedicated to “the aesthetic side of the phenomenon” made “a few remarks on the psychological explanation of rhythm” (p. 16). But Meumann rapidly but quite accurately summarized Lotze's perspective in his Geschichte der Aesthetik in Deutschland (1868) and the objectionable reduction of rhythm to regular beat that resulted from it.

Every work of art, according to Lotze, must give a hint of the whole world structure [des ganzen Weltbaus] and “present the representation of a particular phenomenon only in the light of the latter.” It must awaken in the spectator a “memory” of an objectively real and appropriate world plan and the general law prevailing in it. Three elements “devour each other” when the “general figure of any happening” is to be expressed: first, general laws, unreservedly and without any preference for a particular form of the resulting successes, dominate all phenomena; subject to them is then a multiplicity of real elements, each equipped with its own inalienable nature, which obeys the commandment of the universal laws without, however, springing from them; an ordering thought combines, as a guiding purpose, the manifold noise of the phenomena into the whole of a plan (Gesch. D. Aesth., p. 488). Now, since the harmonically sounding tones and the melody represent [respectively] the “multiplicity of real elements” and the “ordering thought,” “the beat” [der Takt] is “that which divides time into equal parts, and repeat the rises and falls of its internal structure [die Hebungen und Senkungen seiner inneren Gliederung], always in the same way ( ?), without regard to the diversity of the musical content.” (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 16-17, my trans.)

The rhythm, as synthesized by the consciousness from “the rhythmic impression in the hearer,” is much more complex than the mere beat which is only “one of the means by which the composer makes his rhythmic intentions understandable to the player.” By contrast to the beat, which is indifferent to “the particular content of the musical motive,” the rhythm takes full charge of the latter.

Lotze evidently does not distinguish here between beat and rhythm [Takt und Rhythmus]. He intends to describe [...] the rhythmic impression in the hearer, but this description is impeded by the indifference to the particular content of the musical motive. At best, it is true of the measured beat in the score [in der Notenvorschrift gemessenen Takt], and as the latter is only one of the means by which the composer makes his rhythmic intentions understandable to the player, it does not play any role in the aesthetics of the rhythmic impression. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 17, my trans.)

Meumann criticized Lotze's associationistic perspective as utterly inadequate to grasp the synthetic nature of rhythm.

But apart from this, Lotze's fundamental mistake lies in the fact that he refers the aesthetic effect of the systemic order [der gesetzmäßigen Ordnung], which the rhythm actually brings into the melody [in die Tonfolge]—though not indifferently to the transformations of the motive—, merely to the associative apparatus of the hearer. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 18, my trans.)

The fourth class of theories identified by Meumann comprised the physiological theories of rhythm. Most of them were naive speculations, like those already alluded to above. But Meumann acknowledged one exception to this rule: Ernst Mach's Untersuchungen über den Zeitsinn des Ohres – Research on the Time Sense of the Ear (1865). According to Meumann, Mach had the exceptional quality to consider “the perception of rhythmically ordered sensations” as “a special case of time perception.”

The only theory that deserves to be taken seriously among those who are preoccupied with the physiological side of the rhythm is that of Mach. Mach has given his theory two different formulations, in both, however, he takes into account the psychological basis of the rhythm, but the most notable of them is the attempt to find a physiological equivalent of the rhythm with respect to time perception, in that the perception of rhythmically ordered sensations is rightly [considered as] a special case of time perception. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 21, my trans.).

Unfortunately, Mach wrongly associated time perception with the ear instead of consciousness, i.e. brain.

The first hypothesis is based on the fact that a (familiar) melody, the rhythm of which is made by tapping on the table, can be guessed. From this Mach concludes that the rhythm is thus bound to a special group of sensations, the “rhythm sensations.” He then considers the accommodation apparatus of the ear as the seat of the latter, [in other words], the sensations of rhythm would be accommodation sensations of the ear. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 21, my trans.)

Mach himself had given up this first hypothesis and replaced it by a new one, based on the variation of “the specific time-energy of the central organ,” viz. the brain. But it was not much more convincing.

The hypothesis that rhythm has its seat in the sensations of accommodation of the ear, has been given up by Mach himself; instead he has looked for a central process as the physiological parallel process of time perception and thus indirectly also of the rhythm. [...] The development of the rhythm could then be understood as a result of the efficacy of this specific time-energy proper to the central organ. This hypothesis of Mach is to be rejected because it is superfluous. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 22, my trans.)

Among the most recent physiological theories of rhythm, Meumann also noticed that of J. R. Ewald (1892) who associated, as Mach and Bolton, “the perception of sound beats” with “concomitant bodily movements.”

Based on the fact recently made probable by R. Ewald (which, of course, has been again questioned by Breuer) that the tone of our voluntary muscles, especially as far as it serves the finer mobility of the body, is subject to a constant regulation by the arc-labyrinth of the ear, it is quite possible to substantiate hypotheses which provide a certain anatomical foundation to the connection of the perception of sound beats [Schalltakten] with concomitant movements of our voluntary musculature. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 24, my trans.)

But he again refused any wild extension of the physiological explanation. Music and poetry could not be accounted for, he sensibly noticed, by mere bodily movements.

The possibility of somehow deriving certain rhythmic forms of music or poetry from those physiological processes [activity of the vessels, cardiac contractions, respiratory activity] must, of course, be rejected from the outset. These are all art-products which could develop only through a random and continuous building process of rhythmic elements in the course of a long development. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 25, my trans.)

The rhythm is not in “the organic changes” themselves, he contended, faithful to his master Wundt. It is always, even when we believe to perceive “organic rhythms,” the result of an “intellectual process” which “draws successive impressions out of their isolation,” and “combine” and “order” them. In this instance, Meumann stuck to the common Kantian epistemology of his time and rejected any realism, be it a materialist one. He was also faithful to his master Wundt.

At most, one can ask whether 1. the organic changes [organische Veränderungen] of this kind account for the specific rhythm [das specifisch Rhythmische] which is introduced into the simple succession with the rhythmic ordering of our sensations; or whether 2. they are merely accompanying phenomena of a rhythm perception, that is, of a substantially intellectual process. The possibility of 1. can be a priori dismissed. The succession of sensation [der Empfindungswechsel] is transformed into the subjective experience of a rhythmic succession of sensation [eines rhythmischen Empfindungswechsels], only on the condition that the intellectual work of combining and ordering the successive impressions draws them out of the isolation of single sound impression. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 25, my trans.)

This point was so important to Meumann that he felt compelled to give empirical evidence of the work of the mind in the production of rhythm, using Bolton's most recent studies. This passage is particularly interesting to us because it shows again, as in Wundt who was here duly cited, how Augustine's conception of time (see vol. 1, p. 379 sq.) was retrieved by late-19^th century psychologists and integrated into their Kantian theoretical body.

Similarly, Bolton's thirty subjects found in “grouping” [in English] the first and indispensable feature of all subjective rhythm. The conception of the present sensation as a repetition of the previous one and a preparation for the following one, which is characteristic of all perception of rhythm (see Wundt Phys. Psych., II, p. 84), also points to the never-missing participation of higher intellectual processes in rhythm formation [Rhythmusbildung]. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 26, my trans.)

The mention of Mach's work allowed Meumann to switch to the last category, the only one which appealed to him: the psychological theories of rhythm. For most late-19^th century psychologists, Meumann noticed, rhythm is only a by-product of the activity of the mind. It is the result of a “rhythmization of sound impressions” that introduces into “regularly recurring differences in intensity,” subordination, co-ordination, combination, i.e. specific arrangement.

Finally, there are a number of observations that point out, in the most definite way, that the indicated intellectual processes come first in the whole rhythm perception. 1. The subjective rhythmization [Rhythmisirung] of sound impressions always introduces into regularly recurring differences in intensity a subordination of the weaker impressions to the stronger ones, a co-ordination of the latter, an internal combination of the weaker and stronger impressions, and so on. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 26, my trans.).

Strangely given the number of opposite views, according to Meumann, there was no emotion involved in this process. On the contrary: the weaker the “emotional effect,” the greater the complexity of the combination. Rhythm was the product of a sheer mental process.

2. These intellectual processes often occur without any particular emotional effect accompanying them (we group, subordinate, inwardly emphasize even indifferent beats [Takten]), and they are independent of the change of feeling. 3. The greatest energy of the inner combination [Zusammenfassung] occurs when (with very slow rhythms) there is a very small emotional effect. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 26, my trans.).

As a matter of fact, there is always a possibility to change a given perception of rhythm into another one by simply imagining the latter. This seemed to prove to Meumann the purely intellectual nature of rhythm.

4. In subjective rhythmization [Rhythmisirung], any arbitrary change of rhythm is made possible by simply starting imagining another rhythm. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 26, my trans.).

According to Meumann, “the first ever to attempt a psychological explanation of the facts of rhythm” was Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776-1841) in his Psychologische Untersuchungen (Erstes Heft) – Psychological Investigations (Vol. 1) (1839) in the section entitled “Ueber die ursprüngliche Auffassung eines Zeitmaßes – On the Original Conception of a Measure of Time” (p. 28). But Meumann did not elaborate further Herbart's contribution which still was more that of a philosopher than of a real psychologist—to which we will have to return one day because of its extraordinary conception of consciousness as a continuous and oscillating flow of ideas or representations. From Herbart, he retained only his re-introduction of the Augustinian motive of time as generated by the mind as memory and expectation.

Lotze reproduces Herbart's opinion as follows: “[...] since the regular or irregular return of the beat strokes [Tactschläge] would either satisfy or deceive an expectation in us, there would at the same time be a reason for the pleasure and aversion which the latter respectively trigger in us.” Obviously, a completely new thought is here introduced, namely that of an expectation from which two different states of feeling may spring again, as soon as they are satisfied or disappointed. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 30, my trans.)

The program of a psychological account of rhythm was then exposed in the following terms. It was clear in Meumann's mind that it remained largely unfinished at the time.

An exhaustive account of the rhythmic facts would have, at any rate, to distinguish between time elements, elements of accentuation, intellectual processes of associative and apperceptive type, emotional facts, organic and motor side effects, and to establish their mutual relation. [Yet,] a theory of rhythm that would fulfill these demands has not yet been given. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 34, my trans.)

Finally, Meumann was brought to the conclusion that the only psychologist who had foreseen such an expansion was Wundt—his mentor at Leipzig. Yet, there was still a lot to do. His work had laid the foundations for an application of the general theory to the various “specific rhythmic domains,” by which he meant principally music and poetry.

After having realized why the previous attempts at a physiopsychological theory of rhythm remained more than incomplete beginnings, we find, for the first time, in Wundt's theory a conception of the rhythm which satisfies all requirements of the scientific approach. But I believe that this conception, as it complies with the system of representation of a general psychology, is more to be regarded, from the standpoint of a monographic research, as a program for the application of a [general] theory of rhythm to the specific rhythmic domains. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 36, my trans.)

Since I already thoroughly presented, in the preceding section, Wundt's theory of rhythm, I won't repeat it here by going through Meumann's reading, which is completely faithful to his model. I will just notice the way Meumann introduced the few pages he dedicated to it, which tells us how the latter was received by his own students and the general scientific community in the 1890s under three main headings: general system of rhythm; specific rhythmic forms; aesthetics of rhythm.

I will articulate Wundt's theory according to three viewpoints, since I will

1. present the system [Zusammenhang] of rhythmic phenomena which can be understood as special cases of the general manifestations [Erscheinungen] of consciousness. From this, it should follow

2. the development of specific rhythmic forms and

3. the justification of their aesthetic effects. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 36, my trans.)

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Rhythm as Aristotelian Form of Psychological Process (Part 2)

Pascal Michon — 2018-08-27T09:30:00Z

Previous chapter

Psychology of Musical Rhythm (Meumann – 1894)

After having discussed in the first chapter of his study most of the general theories of rhythm available in his time, Meumann addressed in the two following chapters two kinds of more specific theories concerning music and poetry, not for their own sake though, but rather to gather information which could be useful to the psychologist.

He first rapidly dismissed Moritz Hauptmann's (1792-1868) Die Nature der Harmonik und der Metrik – The Nature of Harmony and Meter (1853) as totally useless for the psychologist (p. 42). Then, he dedicated a long passage, which is worth reading, to Rudolf Westphal's Allgemeine Theorie der musikalischen Rhythmik seit J. S. Bach auf Grundlage der Antiken und unter Bezugnahme auf ihren historischen Anschluß an die mittelalterliche mit besonderer Berücksichtigung von Bachs Fugen und Beethovens Sonaten – General Theory of Musical Rhythm since J. S. Bach Based on the Ancient and Referring to their Historical Connection to the Middle Ages with Special Consideration on Bach's Fugues and Beethoven's Sonatas (1880). Westphal (1826-1892) was a German classical scholar, specialist of Greek and Latin metric. Apart from his publications on classical metric and music, he had published several translations and commentaries of Aristoxenus in 1861, 1883 and posthumously 1893.

Whereas Nietzsche reproached Westphal for actually exporting “metric” concerns under the cloak of a general theory of rhythm (see vol. 2, p. 291 sq.), Meumann, on the contrary, credited him for endorsing the Aristoxenian—and, in spirit, Artistotelian—assertion that rhythm is a general form that could be applied to different kinds of “rhythmizomena,” i.e. the various “moving matters to be rhythmized” (see vol. 1, p. 114 sq.), and consequently, that the “metric” was only the “rhythmic” when applied to poetry.

“Metric,” says Westphal, “is the same as rhythmic, but metric is more specific, since it deals only with the rhythmic form of the poetic text. Rhythmic is more general, since it refers to poetic texts as to music.” Westphal is well aware that the “rhythmizomena” i.e. “the moving matters [Bewegungsstoffe] formed according to the laws of rhythm” are different in poetry and music, on the one hand the notes, on the other hand the language. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 43, my trans.)

He naturally also approved of Westphal's interest in the relation of rhythm to the idea of time as well as of the primacy he gave to impressions—that is, in both cases, the psychological side of rhythm.

Westphal gives the following definition: “The essence of rhythm consists in a division of time perceptible to the hearer, which seizes the poetic or musical work of art presented to him.” Two things are remarkable in this definition: 1. that Westphal sees in the time organization [Zeitgliederung] the essence of all rhythmics; 2. that this time organization is judged from the standpoint of the hearer, [and] that Westphal thus defines the rhythm through a description of the rhythmic impression. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 44, my trans.)

In the same vein, he hailed Westphal for not starting from “the metrical scheme of the bars,” which was, he interestingly claimed, merely a technical device used by the composer to make his expectations concerning the rhythm clear to the player.

If one wants to find the rhythmic forms, he must disassemble [zerlegt] the rhythmic impression and not the metrical scheme of the bars, with which the composer gives the player one of many means to recognize the expected rhythm. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 44, my trans.)

However, in his conclusion, Meumann finally joined Nietzsche in his critique of the excessive importance given to poetic metric by Westphal and his tendency to consider it fit to any domain.

As much as I agree with Westphal's assertion that, from the viewpoint of the hearer in poetry as in music, it is always a matter of modification of the same phenomenon, the rhythm, and that, in both domains, common rhythmic elements necessarily become effective and analogous forms must occur, I nevertheless cannot agree with his conception of the metric. Every rhythmic area [...] admits a metrical view and contains metric determinations. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 44, my trans.)

Westphal's theory of rhythm itself was not even entirely satisfactory. Since he wrongly granted primacy to the “similarity of the time sections,” he could not deal adequately with verse which often did not fit in this regular scheme and was incorrectly reduced to a series of feet artificially accented.

But Westphal does not quite do justice either to the nature of the rhythm itself, because he does not appreciate the relatively independent significance of the accentuation element [des Betonungselementes]. As a result, he becomes embarrassed by the rhythm of poetry because the latter apparently lacks the essential element of rhythm, namely the similarity of the time sections [die Gleichheit der Zeitabschnitte] (see p. 32 sq.). On the other hand, as a result of the misjudgment pertaining to the metric point of view, the verse foot is given too great a significance. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 45)

The second music theorist taken into account by Meumann was Hugo Riemann (1849-1919). He was to become lecturer at Leipzig university in 1895 and appointed professor in 1901. In 1894 he already had published many books on music among which Musik-Lexikon (1882) and Katechismus der Musik (1888), which were extensively quoted by Meumann.

In Meumann's opinion, Riemann's approach of rhythm was the most useful to psychologists. First of all, Riemann combined a series of views that remained scattered among previous theorists. He paid heed to “the temporal organization of the impressions” as well as to “the change in intensity and quality of the notes.”

While Hauptmann, Westphal, Lobe, Herbart, Schopenhauer, and Lotze set the essence of all rhythm formation in the temporal organization [die zeitliche Gliederung] of the impressions, Köstlin sees the accent change of the notes as that which is properly rhythmic. Riemann, on the other hand, allows all rhythmic relations to be conditioned in the same way by the change in intensity and quality of the notes, as well as by the temporal organization [die zeitliche Gliederung]. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 4)

Riemann's definition of musical rhythm clearly identified “the two main means of musical rhythm, changes in tone and changes in the speed of the tone sequence.”

As general concept which encapsulates all facts pertaining to the rhythmization of sounds [Rhythmisirung der Töne], the rhythm is the “ordering of the variations in tone strength and of the change in speed of the sequence of tones by maintaining an easily pursuable division of time into equal parts.” (Katechismus der Musik, 1888, p. 1.) The advantage of this definition compared to all mentioned above is that here the two main means of musical rhythm, change in tone and change in the speed of the tone sequence, are properly identified; the temporal organization of the notes becomes rhythmic only if it is easily pursuable. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 49, my trans.)

In Meumann's view, Riemann had also correctly identified the role of the repetition, which “increases the weight of the bar parts,” in the production of rhythm (p. 51). This was, according to him, the basis of the pervasive use of parallelism and repetition in ancient Hebrew poetry (on parallelism, see vol. 2, p. 186-187).

The simple rhythmic means of the oldest poetry, especially, are based on this repetition principle, as for example, the accent system of the Hebrew language (“connectors” and “separators”) and the parallelism of the phrases in Old Testament poetry show us. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 52, my trans.)

But, most of all, and this probably was his most original contribution, he had brought to light the intricacy between accentuation and time organization. Rhythm in music was not reducible neither to a mere sequence of accents, nor to repetition; it was supported as well by the change in the speed of the note flow.

Riemann, moreover, has, as it seems purely by means of observation, sought out a greater number of systemic relations [gesetzmäßiger Beziehungen] between the two most essential elements of rhythm formation [Rhythmusbildung]: time relations and accentuation. He has observed that accentuation is not at all achieved simply by “dynamic accentuation,” i.e. stronger impact, but can also be produced “by a slight stretching of the notes falling on the center of gravity.” (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 53, my trans.)

But not unlike Westphal, Riemann still overvalued the metric model by reconstructing all time signatures from two simple meters. Although his view was richer than his counterpart's, he still elaborated the concept of rhythm from those of beat and meter.

In addition, the word “rhythm” has a narrower meaning in Riemann, which is less appropriate (see Musik-Lexikon, 1882, p. 683 and 886; Katechismus der Musik, 1888, p. 79 sq.). Since Riemann actually presents all time signatures [Taktformen] as developments or transformations of the simple duple and triple meters, he designates those transformations of the timing [Umformungen der Takte] which result in “values of unequal time length,” as rhythmic: “All really rhythmic formations [rhythmischen Bildungen] result from contractions or subdivisions of beats [Zählzeiten], especially when not equal but unequal values are obtained, by alternately dividing contracted or contracting subdivided beats [Zählzeiten].” (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 49, my trans.)

For Meumann, since Riemann derived rhythm from elementary time units, by mere increase in complexity, he still remained within the metric paradigm.

From our conception of the metric point of view, we would call Riemann's reconstruction of the more complex time signatures [Taktformen] from their basic forms, metric, and since the concept of “beat” [des Taktes] is for me a purely metrical one, then I can only speak of the development of the beat forms from the beat units [von der Entwickelung der Taktformen aus den Takteinheiten]. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 50, my trans.)

After this presentation of Westphal's and Riemann's contributions, Meumann introduced his own laboratory observations concerning musical rhythm. Psychologically speaking, the rhythm was the result of a simultaneously differentiating and combining process, within and by the consciousness, of the sound impressions—whatever their nature—by way of their accentuation, repetition, ordering, and sequencing.

Based on a compilation of the statements of 17 observers, which I have checked against each other and whose information I have controlled on myself, I can summarize the following points. In the process of rhythmization we always find 1. an apparent change of accentuation or weight of the impressions; the rhythm does not arise until we think we perceive periodically recurring accentuation differences, but [as soon we believe to hear these differences] it comes into existence and in its complete integrity. This already indicates that 2. the periodic repetition of these intensity differences is heard, i.e. the periodic alternation of accented and unaccented impressions. [...] It is also noted that 3. the impressions are grouped together, usually in such a way that the main accentuation intensity begins the group. This grouping has repeatedly been described to me by my observers as an “internal combination [innerliche Zusammenfassung]” of the impressions [...] In fact, we always estimate the rhythmic unity from the opening rise [Hebung] to the final lowering [Senkung] (and vice versa). Between the latter and the next rise lies a rhythmically dead time [rhythmisch todte Zeit], in which our attention turns, as it were, from the previous group to the next group. For some observers, 4. the combination of the impressions is at the same time a temporal sequencing [zeitliche Zusammenreihung], in that the parts of the group appear to follow each other more quickly, while there is a pause between every two groups. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 57-58, my trans.)

But, as Riemann had rightly pointed out, music is not made out of ordinary sounds but of notes and harmonies. Therefore, the analysis of the rhythmization process had to take into account the intrinsic rhythmic dimension of the latter. “The grouping of the impressions [was] no longer conditioned solely by quantitative differences in time and intensity” but also depended on the qualitative variation of the “tone sequence,” “the inner correlations of the tones,” in other words “the musical motive.”

The characteristics of the musical rhythm formation can now be determined. They are conditioned by the changes in the rhythmizomenon [...] Instead of the previous sound qualities [presented in the first part of the section], [we have to deal] now with the tone sequence (the melody and the harmonies). The rhythmic elements which result from this can be characterized from the outset as follows: 1. the grouping of the impressions is no longer conditioned solely by differences in time and intensity; a new type of group formation occurs induced by the inner correlation of the tones [innere Zusammenhang der Töne]. It is the musical motive that here makes the groups effective (Phrasing [Phrasirung]). (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 60, my trans.)

As a matter of fact, the development of “the musical motive” induced a rhythmic organization of its own. Richard Wagner's testimony was here favorably cited.

2. A new kind of variation in the significance of the tones emerges, which in turn causes peculiar rhythmic effects. Certain tones dominate within the group as the culmination points [Culminationspunkte] of a musical thought development, while others appear as preliminary and the rest as finalizing, letting the thought fade away. The rhythmic effect of this varying significance of the individual tones within the motive on the performance of the latter causes a special kind of difference in accentuation, which will hardly be reducible to an apparent increase in intensity. [...] R. Wagner has also given a number of exemplary observations concerning the rhythmic meaning of the dynamic shadings, that any theoretical consideration of the rhythm may hardly disregard. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 60-61, my trans.)

Laboratory experiments showed that the rhythmic effects of melody and harmony are partly based on a simple auditory illusion. The change in pitch of the notes induces a change in the perception of their accentuation. “Higher notes seem more intense to us than lower ones.”

3. It can be assumed that the purely subjective rhythmization through the change in tone gives greater latitude, and it is probable that there is an objective reason for this in certain fundamental relationships of particular tones to apparent intensity. It seems that higher notes seem more intense to us than lower ones of same objective strength. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 61, my trans.)

Moreover, the changes in pitch may be combined with changes in duration through legato and staccato effects.

4. In contrast to simple sound impressions, as made by the usual experimental means [the metronome], the tones allow a constant change in their duration. But in the changing duration of the individual rhythmic parts there is an extremely effective rhythmic element [...] all the rhythmic effects that derive from the so-called articulation of the tones (the legato and staccato) are here to be taken into account. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, pp. 61, my trans.)

Finally, Meumann recalled that the “empty” times or “pauses” were naturally also active constituents of the rhythm.

A special profusion of rhythmic effects must be attributed to the “empty” times which are not filled with sounds. They come into play partly as cuts, which usually are not recorded in musical notation, at the end of phrases, or musical series and periods; partly as the little “sections” [Absätze], often not even known to the musicians, which at times are periodically induced by the variation and extension of the hand- and finger movements. [...] Especially striking is the rhythmic effect of empty times [leerer Zeiten] in the various types of “pauses” [“Pausen”]. In this regard, I refer to the excellent description of the effect of the pauses Riemann gave . The causes of this effect of the pauses constitute an important object of the psychological investigation of the rhythm. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 62-63, my trans.)

All this was possible, he underlined, only because of “the higher intellectual activities” allowed by human consciousness and which the psychologists tries to observe, understand and explain.

5. Of course, the higher intellectual activities experience a considerable increase through the change of the time signature, the rhythmic motives, and the like. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, pp. 61-62, my trans.)

However, in music, there was no primary cause which could account for the whole rhythmic perception. All aforementioned elements could in turn dominate the rhythmic system.

In general, it cannot be said of any of the rhythmic elements enumerated above that it is the one that determines the rhythmic impression, although for the hearer the main emphasis and the mode of their distribution are generally the most important. Each of these elements can rather take over the dominant role in the rhythm, at least for a short time. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 64, my trans.)

Meumann finally considered the musical rhythm as a system of elements oscillating between the two extremes of “purely rhythmic relationships” and “melody and harmony.”

It is probable, then, that the perception of time relations as such, when listening to a piece of music, always moves between two extremes: on the one hand, purely rhythmic relationships form a sum of events which clearly mark the progress in time; on the other hand, the tones constantly divert the attention from the time relationships. Therefore, the more the rhythm as such dominates the impression, the more accurately the temporal relations can be perceived and the pure sound effect recedes; the more the rhythm withdraws behind melody and harmony, the less accurate the perception of time will be. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 64-65, my trans.)

The analysis of the psychological process of rhythmization of the sound- and tone impressions was Meumann's main contribution. But he also considered—this time on the pragmatic side—two other aspects of the rhythm problem, which could also be addressed from the point of view of “the player” and from that of “the composer and music theorist.”

The rhythmic phenomenon can be considered from the point of view of the hearer—in this way one arrives at a psychology and aesthetics of the rhythmic impression; it can be viewed from the point of view of the player—this leads to a measurement of the objective achievements of the beat-producing subject; he can finally be considered from the composer's and music theorist's point of view—this leads to a metric system of symbols for the obvious reproduction of the means available to the player. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 48, my trans.)

First, the performance of the player represented “a part of the objective causes of the rhythmic impression of the hearer” (p. 67). But, above all, it was the expression of “motor automatisms,” ingrained in the body, that allowed him to produce the intended rhythm.

A central adaptation to the sequence of movements occurs, and this, of course, concerns the whole process, the time as well as the relations between innervations powers. Since the rhythmic movement probably becomes very easily and rapidly automatic, the supporting performance of the rhythm seems to be sought in the quick introduction of the motor automatism. [...] The mechanism of motor time estimation, if I may say so, seems afterwards to be an interesting area of investigation. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 70-71, my trans.)

Meumann foresaw a bunch of new possible physiopsychological laboratory experiments concerning the “motor innervations” and the “motor time reproduction.”

But what immediately interests the psychologist in these tactile experiments is the sum of noteworthy laws of motor innervations, of motor time reproduction, of the relation of rhythm to the latter, and finally, a wealth of interesting details on the conditions of central adaptation and motor automatism which are expressed in the curves. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 76, my trans.)

Finally, the examination of “the composer's and music theorist's point of view” allowed Meumann to come back to the question of the notation of rhythm. He insisted that the metric was only a notation system which had been first developed in music by the composers and players in order to help them work and perform and that it should not be followed “slavishly.”

Since the metric determinations make us aware of what in the rhythmic impression is, they acquire an independent meaning. They become a system of units and rules of combination of such units into larger entities, and thus the means for the development of new rhythmic forms, for the artificial/artful [künstlich] development of the forms of the rhythmic impression. But that is also their danger. By being incomplete and ambiguous, like all schemata and symbols, they entail the danger that the player, by clinging to them slavishly, refrains from the rhythmic interpretation of the musical motive. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 72-73, my trans.)

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Rhythm as Aristotelian Form of Psychological Process (Part 3)

Pascal Michon — 2018-08-27T09:00:00Z

Sommaire

Previous chapter

Psychology of Poetic Rhythm – On Uttered Language (Meumann – 1894)

The third chapter of Meumann's essay was entitled “Der Rhythmus des gesprochenen Verses– The Rhythm of the Uttered Verse.” This should be highlighted because it shows a perspective that differentiates Meumann from most of his contemporaries: he not only quite beneficially parted from his master Wundt, who had given the primacy to music at the expense of poetry, but it also showed an interest in language not only as written but also as uttered speech. This had naturally something to do with his physiopsychological viewpoint which regards rhythm as the organization of sound impressions by the consciousness: before being heard and processed by the brain, the words must be uttered, as the notes be composed and played before being listened to. But this had also a larger implication: in this instance, Meumann partly retrieved, by his own means, Humboldt's idea of the cycle of the language between two subjects (Trabant, 1999, p. 38).

He humorously observed that “while music theory had greatly neglected the scientific treatment of musical rhythm, the number of smaller and larger works dealing with the rhythmic-metrical relations of poetry amounted to a few hundred” (p. 76). Whereas he had to deal in his previous survey only with a couple of theorists of music, he noticed that the most recent bibliography published by the Austrian literary historian and Germanist Jacob Minor (1855-1912), in his New High German Metric (1893) was 18 pages long.

Considering the debate raging over this issue since the 1850s, it is worth noting that Meumann's first concern was to criticize the definition of the term “rhythm” in most 19^th-century metric theories, which took it—thus, not unlike the music theories—as synonymous with “regularity of measure.” But, as for the best poets of his time or for Nietzsche, the metric point of view entailed, according to him, sheer confusion between rhythm and meter.

Instead, faithful to his psychological perspective, he proposed to use the term rhythm to signify “the whole sum of rhythmic processes [which occur] in the subject [while] hearing the uttered verse,” and, as he had done in the previous section on music, the term metric to denote the technical notation devices and the “system of symbols” that allows the poet or the specialist to note his intention or his findings and the actor or the reader to properly perform his act or reading.

The expressions “verse rhythm,” “rhythm of poetry” first require a justification, since in metric one usually speaks of “rhythm” in a certain sense, namely, when it comes to “regularity of measure” [Taktgleichheit] in the verse. This restriction is unjustified. By rhythm of the verse I mean the whole sum of rhythmic processes [which occur] in the subject [while] hearing the uttered verse, and this phenomenon [that occurs] in the hearer is primarily the object of the psycho-aesthetic research, in the poetic rhythm as much as in the musical one. On the other hand, in every rhythmic domains there is a metrical viewpoint [that must be taken into account]; it shows when the rhythmic phenomena are indicated, in the interest of a [performance] technique of verse, music, or sound-beat (drums, drumbeat), by a system of symbols, and are synthetically brought from units and rules of their combination, into absolute or relative measures. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 76-77, my trans.)

Following the method he had already used for the study of simple sound and music rhythm, Meumann proposed to describe, first, “the specificity of the poetic rhythm” due to “the particular rhythmizomenon,” the uttered language, it is applied on, then to examine “the rhythmic processes in the hearer,” i.e. the temporal facts, “the study of the speaker,” and finally “the separation of the rhythmic and metric point of view.”

We will 1. have to ask about the specificity of the poetic rhythm compared to the musical one, and with regard to that of simple sound impressions, and these have to be understood from the particular rhythmizomenon [i.e. uttered language, speech]. Then, we will have to analyze 2. the rhythmic processes in the hearer, [or] the observer who listens to the uttered verse, and then go to the elements of the rhythms, the laws of their interaction, the rhythmic forms that emerge from them, and their combinations into larger constructions. Then, 3. we will be able to seek out the causes of the rhythm we are listening to in the study of the speaker who utters verse, who, at the same time, is himself liable to multiple, independent interests. His statements give us an insight into the objective performances of the speaker. These constitute a complicated case of motor rhythm formation. Finally, 4. the separation of the rhythmic and metric point of view will be of particular importance for poetic rhythms because of the uncertainty prevailing on this point. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, pp. 78-79, my trans.)

Concerning the first point, the existing metric literature did not help much, Meumann noticed, because of its massive use of the musical concept of measure/bar/beat [Takt] and of its general neglect of “the psychological analysis of the rhythmic impression” (p. 78).

First question. What are the specificities of the poetic rhythm which differentiate it from the rhythm in the other rhythmic domains? One searches in vain satisfactory answer to this question in the literature. Usually, the metrists [Metrikern] determine the “essence of rhythm” according to the scheme of the musical “bars” [Takte], and then, in general, it is given as a special feature of the verse, in which the time factors play no part or a minor one. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 77-78, my trans.)

Instead, Meumann underlined some of the specificities of the linguistic material when observed through its performance and perception. He first argued, in a banal way, that language has “far more complicated acoustic structures” than simple sound or even music notes.

From this follows this new list of the verse rhythm constituents: 1. The rhythmized sensation elements are far more complicated acoustic structures [Lautgebilde] than those of the rhythmic domains examined earlier. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 79, my trans.)

But Meumann added to this a much more interesting analysis of the effect of the language on the attention. Whereas sounds and even notes easily captivate the latter through their specific rhythm, the language has an opposite effect: it frees the attention from “regularity of measure” and repetition.

4. The rhythmizomenon [the uttered language] entails a constant distraction of attention from the rhythm as such. In the simple sound rhythm the rhythm as such dominates our consciousness, the neutral nature of sound impressions does not capture our interest. With notes, the melody and harmonization become preferentially the focus of attention. The more the rhythm withdraws, the more the latter occupy us internally. For this very reason, the rhythm can be handled more freely in this case, and the “regularity of measure” [Taktgleichheit] can be followed less strictly. In this respect, all higher music forms a transitional stage to poetic-rhythmic relations. In poetry, in place of the indefinite associations such as the ones music provokes in us, some apperceptive idea associations, or systems of thought develop. Thus, sometimes the rhythmic relations withdraw so completely that the one who declaims [der Declamirende] can render the rhythm in the freest way without us missing anything in the artistic effect of the reading. This change in the direction of attention ensures the freedom of the rhythm in declamation [des declamirten Rhythmus] in contrast with the general rhythmic principle of regularity. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 80, my trans.)

If we look closer to this passage we see that Meumann's presentation was not completely clear because after having alleged that in uttering poetry the “rhythm as such” almost totally withdraws, he claimed that this withdrawal allows “to render the rhythm in the freest way.” But this little inconsistency could be reduced by tracing it back to the evolutionist paradigm, customary in his time, which drove his line of argument, as well as the structure of his essay going through sound, then music and finishing with poetry before, finally, presenting the result of his experiments. The rhythm is universal but not constantly the same: in ordinary sounds, it is binary, exclusively based on accentuation and repetition; in music, it becomes more complex since it also involves, on top of the previous kind of rhythm, that resulting from the melodic and harmonic organization, the change in duration, the pauses; in poetry, on top of the two previous ones, due to the use of language, a third layer seems to be added which is based on the rhythm of the ideas through which the consciousness organizes the sound flow of the uttered language and which ensures a certain freedom from the two previous rhythm layers.

Meumann even envisaged that, thanks to this freedom, the rhythm could produce “a certain side effect” and get “a relatively independent meaning beside that of the verse.” In this particular instance, he was—unfortunately without knowing it—very close to previous poetic elaborations by Diderot, Schiller and Schlegel concerning its similarity with hieroglyph or painting (see vol. 2, chap. 3 and 4).

Therefore, the general tendency, which is inherent to the emergence of rhythm in poetry, is this: a certain side effect should be obtained with the rhythm (verse painting [Versmalerei]), the rhythm should have a relatively independent meaning beside that of the verse. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 80-81, my trans.)

Although he ignored that this point had already been fruitfully discussed during the last decades of the 18^th century, he was also close to the idea that a particular suspension of time occurs in the poem (see vol. 2, p. 82 sq. and 105 sq.).

Now, if any factor must be affected by the attention change, it certainly is time perception. Concerning the latter, Lotze has, quite correctly, sustained “the paradox” that time plays no role at all in rhythm. It seems that the commitment to the meaning of the verse suspends time perception. The psychology of the sense of time confirms this fact. [...] The computing of the attention [Aufmerksamkeitsberechnung] in the artistic performance thus allows a relatively great freedom of the verse rhythm from the principle of the temporal regularity of the principal accents [von dem Princip der Zeitgleichheit der Hauptbetonungen]. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 81, my trans.)

Finally, Meumann also shared—though for sheer psychological reasons—the increasing rebuff of regular beat, metric feet or measures in poetry, by poets such as Baudelaire, Hopkins and Mallarmé. Since both our imagination and attention repulse any strict regularity in the processing of our ideas, which puts “the meaningful and the less meaningful” on the same level, we are “reluctant to regular scanning” which results in abusively emphasizing “logically insignificant [speech elements] in the same way as meaningful ones.”

But there probably is 6. an associative factor that virtually forbids the rigorous rhythmization of our thoughts and sentences. We require of any artistic shaping of a substance that it respects the nature of the latter. Curved chair legs made of marble are just as distasteful as larger statues made of porcelain, because the material is contrary to such formations. Similarly, it is quite contrary to the nature of our imaginative and attentional movements that a completely regular alternation [völlig regelmäßiger Wechsel] between the meaningful and the less meaningful takes place. That is the reason why we are reluctant to regular scanning [regelmäßige Scandiren] which, in an abusive manner, constantly, emphasizes logically insignificant [speech elements] in the same way as meaningful ones. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 81-82, my trans.)

Reducing the rhythmic system of accents to a strictly regular sequence produced not only boredom but also confusion and finally repulsion.

That is why any strict regularity in verse rhythm as well as any monotony in accented times, repulses us. Under regularity I understand the same recurrence of all rhythmic elements, as for example, the number of rises and falls [Hebungen und Senkungen] of a rhythmic whole [eines rhythmischen Ganzen]. From this, it follows that a certain irregularity [eine gewisse Regellosigkeit] is inherent to the poetic rhythm and absolutely demanded by the rhythmic material of poetry. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 82, my trans.)

We see that Meumann reached considerable results which show the fruitfulness of his Aristotelian empiricist perspective. But, there was also another side in his approach of the linguistic rhythmizomenon which is less useful to us.

He abusively generalized the German case and claimed that the incorporated accentuation of the words always provides a basis for the rhythmization of poetry. Worse, following this first claim, he declared that writing poetry was mostly about choosing “words,” “the manner in which they are put together,” and their “position in the rhythmic whole.”

2. The words have a firm accentuation already in prose-language, so that poetry works with a material which is already rhythmized; hence, the rhythmic impression will have to be constituted essentially by the peculiar choice of words, the manner in which they are put together, and the position of words in the rhythmic whole. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 79, my trans.)

Apparently, this assertion was reminiscent of some suggestions by Hölderlin, Poe, or later Valéry: composing poetry was a craft that had to be performed with utmost care. But the rhythm was not, as for these poets as for Baudelaire, Hopkins or Mallarmé, the organization of the signifier flow which allows a poetic transsubject to unwillingly emerge (on Hölderlin, see vol. 2, p. 108 sq.; on Baudelaire, Hopkins, and Mallarmé, vol. 2, chap. 8), but on the contrary, that of the flow of ideas running in the clearest consciousness. “The course of thoughts itself” became “the object of rhythmization” by means of “sections of meaning” made “salient to the ear” as, he claimed, in Goethe's poetry.

But 3. the course of “thoughts” itself becomes object of rhythmization. This is manifested by the strong prevalence of the smaller rhythmic sections determined by the meaning, which constantly break through the metrical structure of the verse feet [den metrischen Aufbau der Versfüsse], tear down the verses, and moreover can concatenate the verse end and the beginning (of the next verse). Frequently, the whole rhythm is determined in its character by these sections of meaning [Sinnabschnitten], all those rhythmic groups (and in this sense rhythmic “units”) made salient to the ear, a kind of rhythmic treatment which is especially characteristic of Goethe's poetry. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 79, my trans.)

Meumann explicitly claimed, putting his whole theory under the primacy of consciousness and will, that rhythm did not result from “the rhythmization of our words and sentences” but from “a rhythmic change of ideas” or “a rhythmic flow of the attention acts.”

A rhythmic sound sequence [rhythmische Lautfolge] cannot just be the result of the rhythmization of our words and sentences, but a rhythmic change of ideas [rhythmischer Vorstellungswechsel], a rhythmic flow of the attention acts [rhythmischer Fluss der Aufmerksamkeitsacte] must be initiated, and this can only be expressed in the fact that word groups (syllable groups) form the rhythmic units. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 80, my trans.)

Thus, in clear contradiction with his deep concern for the utterance and hearing of words, and although he had developed noticeable ideas concerning the role of melody, harmony, and pause in the formation of musical rhythm, he envisaged the poetic rhythm as primarily determined by the organization of logical sequences backed by a hierarchized system of accents, leaving on the side, among other phenomena, echoes, alliterations, assonances and the myriad of sound interactions that weave together the poetic material (for an alternative view see, vol. 2, chap. 8).

While in music or in the domain of sound sensations we have to deal with sensations or combinations of them, the objects of the rhythmization in poetry are the words arranged [geordnete] in sentences according to the logical contexts. It follows from this formulation of the rhythmizomenon that I do not consider words and syllables per se as the object of rhythm formation in the verse. I rather would like to emphasize, from the outset, that the logical element, the movement of ideas [Vorstellungsbewegung] participates in the rhythm. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 79, my trans.)

While he had first seemed willing to join the long list of philosophers and artists who had, since Diderot, heralded the poetic primacy of the signifier in rhythm (see vol. 2, chap. 3,4, 7, 8), he thus abruptly and quite disappointingly reintroduced the rule of the signified and its semiotic dualism.

From the logical nature of the rhythmic group of the verse, it follows, however, that the subordination of the logically insignificant [speech elements] to the more significant [ones] is expressed also in the rhythmization. This is done by marking, for the ear of the hearer, the logical group (see p. 79) by a system of graded accents, which join together in the rhythmic group under the dominance of a main accent. This subordination of the accents of a group is one of the most obvious manifestations of the poetic rhythm. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 82, my trans.)

This limitation was probably due to Meumann's mistaken assimilation between meaning and meaningfulness. Contrary to many poets of his time and also to some previous language theorists (particularly Humboldt, see vol. 2, p. 156 sq.), he thought, quite inappropriately, that stress- and emphasis-marks were the only counterparts of the signified within the domain of the signifier.

[In the speaker], the accentuation [Betonung] is also the expression of an increased inner activity, a heightened attention, a livelier sympathy of the feeling. As a result, the group formation, which is carried out through the various accentuation degrees [Betonungsstufen], becomes identical to the logical syllable-word-idea group [mit der logischen Silben-Wort-Vorstellungsgruppe] [...] and, conversely, in the hearer, the perception of the various accentuation degrees will produce the corresponding oscillation [Auf- und Abschwellung] of the meaning of the ideas, of the attentional tension, and of the feeling of sympathy. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 84, my trans.)

Meumann was actually imbued with some of the most ancient rhetorical ideas. In Antiquity, Cicero, in his De oratore, had indeed already argued for an arrangement of the words, the sentences and the whole speech, based on the logical organization of meaning. He suggested that the orator must find a non-metrical way to give his speech “rhythmic cadence, roundness, and finish, like verse,” and that this specific effect was to be produced by “tying the thoughts with words in such a manner as to enclose them in a rhythm” (De oratore, 3.44.175-176) (for more details see vol. 1, p. 230 sq.).

It is not the job of psychological research to do this in detail; but to establish the principle of the effect of the accentuation change: in verse the logically more significant is stressed. [...]: the accentuation is the result of the changing attentional energy, and especially the accentuation on the verse is an expressive movement of the vivid tension of the attention, of the vivid sympathy of the interest. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 84-85, my trans.)

Psychology of Poetic Rhythm – On Speaker's and Hearer's Consciousness (Meumann – 1894)

After having thoroughly analyzed the specificities of the linguistic rhythmizomenon and their effects on the poetic rhythm, Meumann turned to the “time factor,” i.e. the rhythm observed, this time, from the perspective of the hearer's and speaker's consciousness (p. 87).

Once again, he noticeably began by putting the older metric aside. In truth, the latter did already take into account what was called “quantities” but this was utterly unsatisfactory. Instead of the traditional count equating a short syllable with one time and a long one with two, he proposed a very detailed observation of the real performance of the speaker including the duration, which had been already touched upon by Brücke, the speed of succession, and the repetition of time proportions.

The second factor to be considered in poetry rhythmic is temporal. Very unfortunate is the choice of the name “quantity [Quantität]” for all time elements of the rhythm in the current metric. [...] Rather, we have to ask: what role do the duration, the speed of the succession, and the repetition of analogous proportions play in verse rhythm? (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 86, my trans.)

The duration and speed factor was itself to be subdivided into three categories: duration of the speech syllables proper, duration of the time-lengths between accents, and pauses.

The duration comes into consideration in three ways: 1. In the different duration of the speech syllables [Sprechsilben]; 2. in the absolute and relative length of the time-streches [Zeitstrecken] which a), in the uttered verse [gesprochenen Verse], extend between the principal accents that mark the rhythmic progress. Here is the main question: is, through the emphasis on these major accents, the time progress regularly marked as in music (provided that the regularity of the measure [Taktgleichheit] is not disturbed by a particular phrasing [phrasirendes Spiel])? Or does this principle not exist for the rhythm of uttered verse? In what extent is it observed? In addition, b) it cannot be dismissed that the same duration of the rhythmic group guarantees us the impression of regularity in verse rhythm. The duration comes 3. into consideration as the length of the “pauses,” i.e. the duration of the “empty” intervals between syllables, words, line ends, stanzas, and, above all, between the rhythmic groups of words formed in free declamation. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 86-87, my trans.)

The results of this study were quite remarkable. Contrary to Brücke who had claimed that the saying “the accent makes [the syllable] long” was wrong (see above, chap. 1), Meumann underlined the fact that “the stressed syllable always requires a longer utterance time.” But the contradiction was perhaps only apparent since Brücke compared accentuated short and unaccented long syllables and Meuman, as Lotze, probably the duration of the same syllable, short or long, when accentuated in a word or unaccented in another word.

Examinations of the speaker and hearer have to go in parallel. [...] 1. I can confirm with some certainty the assumption already made by Lotze that the stressed syllable always requires a longer utterance time. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 87, my trans.)

Meumann also noticed that, conversely, the longer syllables attract more attention and, therefore, may be used “for introducing subjective emphasis.”

The syllable duration, however, 2. must come into consideration, as long as that the longer syllable always has a greater sound effect for the ear, and is therefore suitable for attracting attention and for introducing subjective emphasis. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 87, my trans.)

The poetic rhythm could also be implemented through the use of successive syllables endowed with different [time-]lengths.

The different [time-]lengths of successive syllables also have [3.], as such, a rhythmizing effect, in that the time-factor is independently active as a rhythm-forming element. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 87, my trans.)

Concerning now the second point of the duration dimension, the speed of succession, i.e. the time-lengths between the “main accents” or “ictuses,” Brücke had shown that, in traditional poetry declamation, they were almost constant, but Meumann added that “in the free artistic declamation” the regularity of the measure could sometimes “be completely surrendered.”

Subsequently, the duration, in terms of equality of the temporal intervals between the main accents [Hauptbetonungen], had rhythmic significance for the verse (the so-called “regularity of measure”). It is indubitable, though, that in the free artistic declamation the measure regularity of the verse [die Taktgleichheit des Verses] is sometimes preserved, and sometimes can be completely surrendered, without us missing anything in the aesthetic impression. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 87, my trans.)

As Brücke who found some traditional kinds of poetry reading “ridiculous,” Meumann claimed that the reader/speaker must follow the rhythm of the ideas exposed by the poem instead of artificial traditional meter which he could dispense from and rightly “mock.”

Likewise, in poetry the words form logical contexts, groups of ideas, that often line up in very irregular lengths which are not completely compensated by any acceleration of speech, and whose emotional character often compels us to accelerate, slow down, and mock all “regularity of measure [Taktgleichheit].” (p. 90)

He recognized that the metric regularity played an important role in poetry but he underlined the fact that it was not a conditio sine qua non of the rhythm.

The “regularity of measures,” or better yet, the marking of a uniform progress in time, by indicating main moments [Hauptmomente] in the course of the ideas, equally distant in time, by means of the main accentuations [Hauptbetonungen], is so essential to all complex rhythmic formations, that nowhere can a rhythmic change of our experiences be found in which they are completely lacking. [Yet,] it is not a conditio sine qua non of all rhythm, without which no impression of rhythmized sensations could arise. Rather, each individual rhythmic group can have a strong rhythmic character, even if it is not repeated by a second one and if there is no indications marking a regular progress in time. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 87-88, my trans.)

Meumann traced the need of regularity back to the motor dimension of rhythm, which implicated “the (temporal, spatial and intensive) controlled progress of movements.”

But if a larger rhythmic whole is to be created that makes an aesthetically pleasing impression, then the rhythmic group must be resumed by others of the same or similar construction, and, provided that the pauses are not unpleasantly popping up, with equal pauses between the groups, which by itself gives a certain equality in the marking of the main accentuation times.

What is the significance of this tendency of any rhythm to maintain the same time intervals between the main moments? It seemed to me, from the timing experiments [Taktirversuchen], that, on the motor side, the rhythmic ordering of the impulses was, on the one hand, an expedient operation for a rapid automatization of the innervation change, and thus, on the other hand, at the same time, a sum of resources for maintaining the (temporal, spatial and intensive) controlled progress of movements. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 88, my trans.)

To the motor dimension Meumann added a second factor based, this time, on the limited span of human consciousness, an aspect underlined by Wundt.

All rhythm shows not only this universal tendency to observe the same time relations of the rhythm principal moments, but also the tendency to observe certain absolute time values in them. Numerous experiences in experimental psychology practice attest that there is a natural period of attention, during which the capacity of tension [Spannungsenergie] remains at its maximum. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 89, my trans.)

The conclusion of his observation on time-lengths was that two natural “tendencies,” dialectically opposed, were to be taken into account. Reading poetry mobilized simultaneously a “beating tendency” and a “phrasing tendency” which were the two extremes between which any reading performance—“apart from the scanned speech which runs contrary to the very nature of the poetic material”—oscillates.

Apart from the scanned speech [scandirenden Sprechen] which, according to what I have said above, runs contrary to the very nature of the poetic material, then one can say that the poetic reading is dominated by two tendencies, which sometimes oppose each other, sometimes harmoniously unite, sometimes successively take on the production of the rhythmic impression. I will call them the beating tendency [taktirende Tendenz], and the phrasing (grouping) tendency [phrasirende (gruppirende) Tendenz]. In the former, the original/proper [eigentlich] rhythmic need asserts itself, it always urges [us to meet] the general condition of all rhythmic order of our successive experiences, [i.e.] the equality of the intervals between the main rhythmical moments. In the latter, the independent interest in the content constantly expresses itself; since the nature of the idea movement/flow of consciousness [Vorstellungsbewegung] does not permit a complete schematization of its course, as the rhythmical interest [would] demand, we are constantly compelled by the desire of meaningful reading to get rid of the rhythmic principle. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 91-92, my trans.)

Concerning the third element involved in the duration dimension of rhythm, the pauses, Meumann rapidly underlined their significance. Interruptions in the flow are as important as the segments that they delimit.

Further, as regards the significance of the third rhythmic element deriving from time duration: the pauses, these are of the greatest importance to the verse rhythm. With the pauses we mark the smallest rhythmic units emerging for the ear, the word groups organized under one main accentuation, the larger groups into which we combine them, the verse ends (where we want to make them stand out, and especially where they are marked by the rhyme), finally the strophe conclusions. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 93, my trans.)

Having finished with the analysis of the role of duration/speed in the rhythm, Meumann switched to the last element of the “time factor”: the repetition. He thought that the experiments and conclusions reached in the chapter dedicated to music already shed some light on the subject.

The third time factor we envisaged was the repetition. The general psychic fact, expressed in the effect of repetition in rhythm, has been presented (p. 50) on the example of rhythm in music, and it is easy to transfer the indications given there to poetry. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 93, my trans.)

But he added a few interesting remarks articulating the concept of repetition with the dialectic between the “beating and phrasing tendencies,” already singled out in the examination of the variable regularity of time-lengths in rhythm. Repetition was not limited, as metrists claimed, to accents regularly dividing into equal sections the duration of the poem. Meumann perceived another type of repetition of larger groups of words, which could be the same or only “similar.”

If, by [reciting] verse, we get closer to scanned speech [der scandirende Sprechweise], the beating tendency becomes more evident, the repetition of the principal accentuations has a particular effect as the marking of the recurrence of both equal time-lengths and corresponding time moments. If, instead, we get closer to phrasing-grouping speech [der phrasirenden gruppirenden Sprechweise], the repetition comes to effect as the resumption of rhythmic groups by same or similarly built groups. Precisely in this respect, the repetition of analogous conditions has a very special, if often underestimated, significance for the freely uttered verse. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 94-95, my trans.)

By that single observation, he remarkably reintroduced the echoes, alliteration, assonances, and all forms of signifier repetitions he had regrettably forsaken in his previous analyses.

1. It is a great mistake of some modern metricists [to believe] that the repetition of groups increases their rhythmic effect only when the groups are built equal. [...] 2. A larger combination of rhythmic groups, which in itself seems quite arhythmic because of the great irregularity between the individual groups, seems at once to be well rhythmized when repeated as a whole. 3. A larger combination of rhythmic groups undergoes complete rhythmization, [even] when it is only partially repeated. The rhythmizing effect then extends to the non-repeated parts. 4. A rhythmic group is enhanced in its effect when it is taken up by a following richly articulated and more developed form. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 95, my trans.)

Although he still used the feeble term of “sum,” Meumann finished the third chapter of his essay with an extraordinary recovery and anticipation of the poetic rhythm as a system of “corresponding rhythmic parts.”

The repetition of corresponding rhythmic parts [sich entsprechender rhythmischer Theile] is finally the actually synthetic element of rhythm. By the type of resumption (increased or weakened) of former members, by the number (frequency of recurrence) of the different accentuation levels, by the number of main accents combined into a rhythmic whole, by the times after which the repetitions take place (“pauses”), by the return of the groups, series, periods, the whole sum [die ganze Summe] of the rhythmic forms arises.

In poetry, so develop the rhythmic syllable and word groups, the verse sections, the verses, the verse groups i.e. the strophe, the strophe groups i.e. the poem.

The task of psychology in relation to these particular rhythmic individual forms is the search for the factors of consciousness that are involved in this construction of form. (Research on the Psychology and Aesthetic of Rhythm, 1894, p. 96, my trans.)

In short, as his analysis of the specificities of the uttered-speech rhythmizomenon, Meumann's careful study of the actual poetic performance, whether by the speaker or the hearer, met with notable success. It brought convincing evidence concerning the variable duration of the syllables, of the time-lengths between the main accents, and the pauses. Most remarkably, although he wrongly attributed them to natural psychological trends, he accurately recognized the two main opposite poetic manners of his time: the traditional metric as well as the more modern verslibriste one. Finally, without yet being aware of his predecessors' contribution, he glimpsed anew at the 18^th-century notion of a rhythmic system based on the repetition of intertwined similar or quasi-similar groups of sounds (see vol. 2, chap. 3 and 4).

I won't go much further into Meumann's contribution and leave aside the fourth chapter dedicated to his experimental investigation of rhythm. It basically repeated the same points as the three preceding ones and added little to them. The most interesting passages, yet, concerned balanced comments on Brücke's previous experiments with the kymograph 1871 (p. 101-102), the most recent use of the microscopic phonogram (1891) by J. D. Boeke which was not really convincing to Meumann (p. 104), the result of the new voice recording apparatus (1891) conceived by the French founder of experimental phonetics Jean-Pierre Rousselot (1846-1924), which he admitted, however, not to have used due to lack of material (p. 105).

Meumann's essay on rhythm was a remarkable piece of scientific investigation.

1. For the first time in psychology, rhythm was taken as main subject of investigation. Whereas Meumann's predecessors contented themselves with incidental or partial analyses, he decisively put rhythm at the center of his concerns and was instrumental in the surge of inquiries which occurred during the last decades before WWI.

2. For the first time too, Meumann proposed a thorough and discerning critique of the main theories of rhythm available at the end of the 19^th century. His judgment was sound. He rightly rejected, as sheer speculation, all developmental theories aiming at reconstructing the “genesis of rhythm” from an original factor arbitrarily chosen by the theoretician. He highlighted, without yet recognizing other more positive aspects, some drawbacks of the teleological theories as that developed by August Wilhelm Schlegel, who considered rhythm beneficial to the organism because it would allow saving strength by regulating it. He rapidly but efficiently drew attention to the limitations of the aesthetic theories as Schopenhauer's who gave too much importance to architecture, which was actually only secondary to seeing and hearing. He even pertinently distanced himself from the physiological theories—with the important exception of Ernst Mach's—which had been very popular in the first half of the 19^th century and which too rapidly assigned the rhythm to this or that repetitive physiological phenomenon.

3. Meumann's own perspective was surprisingly innovative. Whether because of his youth and sensitivity to the newest forms of art, especially in music and poetry, or simply because of his interest in experimental observation and his unambiguous support for empiricism, Meumann elaborated a conception of rhythm which was much closer to actual artistic practices than the previous theories which usually were only speculatively derived and had mostly prescriptive aims.

4. On the theoretical level, Meumann clearly took an Aristotelian stand: for him as for Aristoxenus, rhythm should be differentiated from the matter to be rhythmized (rhythmizomenon) (see vol. 1, chap. 3). Therefore, he contended, we must be aware that its characteristics change according to the medium to which it is applied. Yet, rhythm is not a formal organization of the movement of some matter that could be interpreted in a sheer Platonic way as existing per se. Any rhythmic form, he noticed, is primarily produced by the human mind and its study, therefore, resorts to psychology. It should be grasped through scientific experimentation, observation and theorization. Sheer formal speculation à la Hermann, or mere Westphal-style philological studies are not sufficient. Rhythm must be understood both from definite psychological hypotheses and from the real practice of music or poetry, that is, from the really playing, declaiming and hearing individual.

5. One cannot help noticing Meumann's devastating critique of the traditional metric triggered by this Aristotelian stand. Just as Nietzsche, who also praised Aristoxenus and rejected most of the conceptions brought forth by Hermann, Westphal and others (see vol. 2, p. 290 sq.), but also as Brücke, Meumann rejected most of the contributions of the “metrists.”

6. He did not go as far as to reinstate the perspective of the Aristotelian Poetics or the Aristotelian poetics of the 18^th century, but he was quite close to them. Whereas Wundt and most of his contemporaries neglected poetry, his new approach resulted in stoutly reintroducing it into the picture and giving it primacy over music.

7. This move was very fruitful because, for the first time since Humboldt, Meumann showed an interest in language not only as written but also as uttered speech. This revolutionary way of addressing the question, based on the best empiricism, explains as a matter of fact a series of admirable findings.

8. Contrarily to musical rhythm, which tends to captivate the attention, poetic rhythm surmounts the metric rule. It frees the attention from regularity and repetition and, consequently, opens up new possibilities for developing the human mind. Meumann did not elaborate on this, but this stand implied an ethical and political principle that is still valid today.

9. Through its whole system, which largely overcomes the usual semiotic meaning based on linear succession of discrete signs, the poetic rhythm produces indeed what Meumann termed “a side effect,” “a relatively independent meaning beside that of the verse,” or “verse painting”—which was clearly reminiscent of what Diderot called “hieroglyph,” Schlegel “the law that poetry gives to itself,” and Meschonnic, much later, signifiance du poème (see vol. 2, chap. 3 and 4).

9.1. On the one hand, instead of the age-old metric count equating a short syllable with one time and a long one with two, Meumann proposed to carry out a detailed observation of the real performance of one who utters poetry, concerning the duration of the speech syllables, the time-lengths between the accents, and the pauses. His conclusion was that reading poetry mobilized simultaneously a “beating or scanning tendency” and a “phrasing or grouping tendency” which were dialectically opposed—but with no Aufhebung. Although he thought that these tendencies were innate to the human mind when they actually were only two battling historical ways to make poetry, this conclusion showed his sensitiveness to the real poetic practices of his time.

9.2. On the other hand, repetition was not limited, as metrists claimed, to accents regularly sequencing the poem. Meumann showed that another type of repetition of larger groups of words, which could be the same or only “similarly built,” participated in the production of the signifiance. This was again an insightful glimpse into the notion of a rhythmic system based on the repetition of intertwined similar or quasi-similar groups of sounds.

10. Naturally, Meumann met with the limitations due to his ignorance of the philosophers, artists, and theoreticians who, between 1750 and 1805, had renovated the Aristotelian poetic paradigm; to his own psychological viewpoint which, he questionably thought, was the only one to be able to expose the deeper features of rhythm by referring them to the activity of the mind on the sound impressions; to his wrong generalization of the German language case based on word accentuation; to the primacy he granted to consciousness and will in the poetic work; to the discrepancy between, on the one hand, his deep concern for utterance and hearing of words, his ideas concerning the role of melody, harmony, and pause in the formation of musical rhythm, and, on the other hand, his way to consider poetic rhythm as primarily determined by the organization of logical sequences backed by a hierarchized system of accents. In short, despite his tremendous empirical and theoretical work, he stayed within the frame of the Platonic metric paradigm and actively participated in its spreading.

Next chapter

Rhythm as Platonic Form of Psychological Process (Part 1)

Pascal Michon — 2018-08-26T11:10:00Z

Sommaire

Previous chapter

As his German counterpart, Bolton's Rhythm consisted of two parts: a lengthy “Introduction” to the problem of rhythm (p. 1-34) and a presentation of his “Experimental Investigation,” its protocol and results (p. 35-94). But, if the broader frame was equally that of the Platonic metric paradigm and if the latter section referred to similar experimental processes, the setting of the first section was entirely different and suggested a quite novel perspective, opposed in many ways to Meumann's (in this chapter, I will use the reprint of the original article, published in 1894 by the Press of F.S. Blanchard and Company, Worcester).

Rhythm in Cosmological Perspective (Bolton – 1894)

Quite noticeably, Bolton started his essay by presenting rhythm—yet defined in the most modern terms as “regular alternation,” “periodic recurrence,” or “wave” (see vol. 2, chap. 2)—as a “universal and natural phenomenon” which concerns the whole cosmos as well as all beings living in it. Since this kind of cosmological assertion—which had already been sustained in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (see vol. 2, chap. 1), as well as by Novalis and Schelling at end of the 18^th and the beginning of the 19^th century (see vol. 2, p. 124, 133 and 145 sq.)—rapidly spread and became a powerful cliché which had replicas as late as the 1960s (e.g. Lamouche's Rythmologie universelle, 1966), it is worth looking into it carefully.

Rhythm is so universal a phenomenon in nature and in physiological activity, and underlies so completely speech, that I desire to call attention to some of its manifestations in detail before presenting the experimental study.

Rhythms in Nature:— Natural phenomena very generally, if not universally, take a rhythmic form. There is a periodic recurrence of a certain phenomenon, sometimes accompanied by others, going on continuously in all that pertains to nature. Motion, whether in the broader field of the universe or upon the earth, is very generally periodic. Light, heat, sound, and probably electricity, are propagated in the form of waves. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 2)

The “cosmic rhythms,” i.e. the cosmic “periods” and the “regular alternation of light and darkness,” were the “the cause of many other rhythms in plant and animal life.”

The cosmic rhythms, however, are the most fundamental and important of natural phenomena. They may be shown to underlie in a measure and be the cause of many other rhythms in plant and animal life. The regular alternation of light and darkness due to the rotation of the earth upon its axis is the most striking rhythm in the cosmos. The two periods of light and darkness constitute a unit the day which remains always the same in length. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 3)

One could think that Bolton was only anticipating what was to be called “chronobiology” in the second half of the 20^th century. In addition to the alternation of day and night, he indeed rightly noticed that “the revolution of the moon” and that “of the earth about the sun” had “tremendous influence upon animal and plant life” and gave a series or well-chosen examples of the latter.

Days are grouped into months by the revolution of the moon about the earth, and into years by the revolution of the earth about the sun. These periodic changes have had a tremendous influence upon animal and plant life, and have stamped their impress upon all living organisms in the most striking manner. [...] In the vegetable kingdom some plants show a daily growth and repose; their flowers bloom in the morning and close before the evening. Some turn their petals towards the sun, and make a daily revolution in order to keep them so. In certain latitudes all vegetation shows normal periods of growth and fruitage which are not necessarily cut short or lengthened by early or late frosts. [...] The influence of these cosmic rhythms is not less upon the animal kingdom. The daily rhythm causes the daily periods of sleep and waking, from which no terrestrial creatures of the higher types are exempt. [...] The lunar period has had a far-reaching effect upon animal creatures, especially as regards reproduction and the nervous system. The periods of gestation and the recurrence of heat and menstrual flow in both human beings and animals bear a very close and striking relation to the lunar period. The period of gestation in some lower mammalian animals is one month. In the higher forms it is a certain number of months. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 3)

But Bolton was actually developing an argument which was encompassing much more than the present chronobiology does. Not unlike his German and Austrian contemporaries Wilhelm Fliess (1858-1928) and Hermann Swoboda (1873-1963), who at about the same time coined the term “Biorhythmus – biorhythm,” he believed in “rhythmic cycles” which would affect human beings' life, and even claimed that they were related to certain cosmic cycles such as the periodic appearance of “sun spots.”

Although we find that these cosmic rhythms have stamped themselves upon the organism more or less permanently, they have wielded a far mightier influence upon the minds of men. [...] Sun spots make their appearance in great numbers once in about eleven years, and the attempt has been made to connect these with great financial disasters and religious awakenings which seem to recur in the same time. The social customs of the race show similar changes, which may prove to have some connection with sun spots. The coincidence warrants an investigation and allows speculation. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 4-5)

Moreover, arguing, as medieval and Renaissance physicians (see vol. 1, chap. 9 and vol. 2, chap. 1), that they share a periodic form, Bolton suggested that the cosmic recurrences were of the same nature as human phenomena such as “pulse, respiration, walking and speech.” These phenomena had empirically nothing in common but Bolton thought possible to associate them.

Physiological Rhythms:—No fact is more familiar to the physiologist than the rhythmic character of many physiological processes. In physiology it means the regular alternation of periods of activity and periods of repose or of lesser activity. The term is also applied to any alternation of activity and repose, whether it is regular or not. These periods of activity and intervals of repose may succeed one another at very small intervals of time, as in the case of a clonic contraction of the muscle, or at very much greater intervals, as in the case of sleep and waking, or better still, in the periods of growth in children. Several of the most vital and important bodily activities are distinctly rhythmical, and will serve as types of all physiological rhythms. Of these, might be mentioned the pulse, respiration, walking and speech. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 5)

Noticeably, Bolton used the term rhythm to describe the succession of phases in the development of the embryo but also in children growth. To my knowledge, this was one of the first times ever that rhythm was used in this particular sense (see the discussion of the opposite view in vol. 2, chap. 5).

This rhythm in growth, which is observed in the embryonic development, is characteristic of the physical and mental growth of children. For several years previous to puberty, great increase in stature is observed, puberty itself being a period of slow growth. From fifteen to eighteen is another period of growth, in which the full stature is generally reached. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 8)

Once again loosely associating unrelated phenomena, Bolton introduced the idea that, in human beings, attention “manifests itself in a wave-like form” and constitutes “series of pulses.” Unlike the revolutions of the planets or even the heartbeat, these rhythms were yet strangely “discontinuous and intermittent,” but this did not deter Bolton from comparing them, under the aegis of an authoritative list of scientists—no less than Charles S. Pierce, Wilhelm Helmholtz, and William James.

Attention and Periodicity:—The most casual observer will discover that his attention is discontinuous and intermittent. It manifests itself in a wave-like form. It is a series of pulses. [...] Charles Pierce says in his “Philosophy of Attention” that there is “no continuum.” This periodicity in attention has been observed by Helmholtz with the stereoscope and commented upon at considerable length. [...] Two seconds seem a long time to hold any object which has no relation before the attention. James says : “There is no such thing as voluntary attention sustained for more than a few seconds at a time.” Does it not, then, seem reasonable that during each wave or pulse of attention only one undivided state of consciousness can arise? (Rhythm, 1894, p. 8)

Climbing further up—or down, according to one's own view— the cosmic ladder, Bolton finally addressed the question of rhythm in speech. “Being an involuntary and habitual function,” i.e. ingrained in the body, the human speech, he claimed rightly, “might be expected upon a priori grounds” to be “rhythmical.”

Rhythmic Speech:—The most distinguishing, and in many respects the most important, function of the human body is vocal utterance and articulate speech. Being an involuntary and habitual function in a large measure, it might be expected upon a priori grounds to be rhythmical. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 12)

But the rhythm in ordinary speech amounted, according to him, only to “the regular recurrence of strongly accented sounds in a series.” This idea, which was obviously based on the linguistics of the English language, could not account for Chinese where monosyllabic words are in important number or even for French (which features only very mobile word-group accents), but Bolton claimed, as Meumann as a matter of fact, that syllable accents were the bases of human language rhythm.

Speech becomes rhythmical not simply by sounds succeeded by pauses, but also by the regular recurrence of strongly accented sounds in a series. Aside from the simplest shout or exclamation of joy or pain, all vocal utterances are primarily rhythmical. Every word that contains more than one syllable consists of strong and weak syllables. These accents occur upon every other syllable in varying intensity, or at most the accented syllables are separated by two unaccented syllables. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 12)

Bolton seemed, however, to recognize that this simplistic definition was not sufficient to account for the whole organization of human speech—especially when the latter becomes poetry. When he addressed the problem of what makes a poem into a whole, he interestingly considered it as an organic structure made of time relations, successions of accents, sound relations, and spread of themes.

By what coordinations and subordinations of sounds with respect to their properties and meanings is the whole structure of the poem held together ? [...] How is the carrying power of the mind increased to such an extent? The answer is to be found in the fact that unities are formed out of the simplest elements of speech by coordinating some with others in respect to their time relations; secondly, unities are formed of unities by subordinating them with respect to their intensities, and sometimes, their time values; thirdly, by coordinations and subordinations with respect to intensities and qualities, higher unities still are formed; and fourthly, by coordinations and subordinations with respect to theme and aesthetic forms, the greatest unities are accomplished. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 12-13)

But the two most important phenomena were, as in the most common metric theories in the 19^th century, timing and accentuation of sound recurrences. Both allowed the mind to transform sheer acoustic “rhythmic series” into perceived and felt “rhythmical series,” i.e. to make “a rhythm in speech” rise in the human mind. By varying the intensity of the accented sounds, “larger groups” could even be formed.

In the first place vocal utterances are related as regards time, that is, the same sound may recur at regular intervals, in which case the series thus formed might be termed a rhythmic series—a series which may become rhythmical. In the next place this series might be made up of louder and weaker sounds alternating with each other. The series would then be composed of groups of sounds and might be called a rhythmical series. This is a rhythm in speech. If now the louder sounds in each group were given different intensities, these smaller groups might be brought into larger groups still. In this way the mental span may be made to extend itself over a very large number of simple impressions. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 13)

The whole cosmos, whatever the scale chosen for the observation, was thus covered and organized by rhythms—i.e. regular beats and waves.

Rhythm in Evolutionary Perspective (Bolton – 1894)

Following this first cosmological approach, Bolton introduced rhythm in a grand evolutionary view.

Since the language itself was an offshoot of the body, poetry and literature must have risen from the dance, he said. Poetic rhythm was a sheer translation into language of the “simple swaying of the body or the tramping of the feet in the march.” In prehistoric times, there was no metric rule and the verse consisted of a continuous “alternation of accented and unaccented syllables,” regularly interrupted, though, by “a pause” between two accented syllables.

When language appeared as literature, it took the form of the simplest possible rhythm. Even then it was the vocal accompaniment of a dance, and there are many analogies to the simple swaying of the body or the tramping of the feet in the march. There were no fixed rules in regard to the number of syllables to the measure. The verse, so far as we can speak of a verse, consisted of an alternation of accented and unaccented syllables. Very generally it began and ended with an accented syllable, so that a pause occurred between each verse. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 23-24)

In these early times, poetry was thus “naturally” based on very elementary repetitions, dualistic structures, symmetries. Since there was no “extant specimens of the first literary productions,” we could nevertheless access to them through “the literature of primitive peoples and of children,” which was still akin to them.

Two sounds, one strong and one weak, the one succeeding the other in time, cannot give an idea of a rhythm, but two groups of two such sounds certainly can. This being the simplest possible rhythm, we should expect that it would be the earliest form in which literature appeared. Since we have not probably any extant specimens of the first literary productions, for they were not committed to writing, we must judge from those which have come down to us from later periods, and from the literature of primitive peoples and of children, what the earliest form was. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 14)

As in dancing or better yet, marching, the succession of accents was, Bolton claimed, entirely regular. Even if specialists recall that “up to the fourth century [AD], English rhythms were temporal and then became accentual,” this, strangely, did not change the deep nature of rhythm. Poetry was like a march into the language, “sung in exact time.” The beat was the fundamental rhythm—even if Bolton downplayed his own assertion a little further down by noticing that “perfect time is the result of the application of scientific methods to music.”

Early poetry was sung to the accompaniment of the harp and hence was sung in exact time. On this account Guest says that up to the fourth century [AD], English rhythms were temporal and then became accentual. Previous to that time the syllable had a time value. This, however, is not to be taken in any absolute sense. Poetry was chanted in a kind of trance state, and the reciter aimed to produce such a state in his audience. For this purpose the thought was of minor importance. Great dependence was placed upon the rhythmical flow, and doubtless a very exact time was given to the syllables that the movement might be clearer. [...] It must be conceded that though some regard was paid to the time of syllables, no such exact time was maintained as modern musicians keep in their music. Perfect time is the result of the application of scientific methods to music. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 24-25)

A short history of English verse since the 5^th century AD was mobilized to furnish some evidence supporting his evolutionist view. According to ancient poetry specialists, the oldest extant specimens of Anglo-Saxon verse formed “a kind of balance structure, in which the first section contained a rise and the second a fall.”

The oldest extant specimens of English poetry are generally composed of verses of two sections, which are separated by a pause in the middle. Each section generally contains four, sometimes six, syllables, two of which are unaccented and two accented. [...] The two formed a kind of balance structure, in which the first section contained a rise and the second a fall. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 14)

In these early days when the Brits were still primitive people, speech rhythms were still closely linked with body rhythms. Poetry was commonly accompanied with dancing or better yet, dancing with poetry.

The phenomenon of accompanying the changes of intensity in a series of sounds with muscular contractions, led to the early association of dancing with musical and poetical recitation. Indeed, if we accept the current theory of the origin of language as arising during the celebrations of victory, dancing precedes even language. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 15)

Quite daringly, Bolton plunged into the most remote past when human beings were still close to their animal ancestors. Consequently, the rhythm “was scarcely more than the simple swaying of the body or the lifting of one foot and now the other.”

Just as an animal jumps and frisks about as an expression of pleasure at seeing his master, so our ancestors danced for joy over a victory, or in the worship of their deity. They emitted certain vocal utterances in company with the tramping of the feet, which in time came to have definite meanings and also took on the rhythm of the dance. This rhythm was scarcely more than the simple swaying of the body or the lifting of one foot and now the other. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 15)

According to Taine, whom Bolton deferentially cited, the ancient Saxons did not properly speak—they “shouted” or “growled.”

The two-rhythm was apparently the prevailing rhythm in the history of our language, if not in some others. [...] Taine in speaking of early Saxon poets says: “His chief care is to abridge, to imprison thought in a kind of mutilated cry.” “They (Saxons) do not speak, they sing or rather shout. Each little verse is an acclamation which breaks forth like a growl.” (Rhythm, 1894, p. 16)

Some of those primitive traits still characterized, according to him, current “Irish melodies,” “popular songs,” and “children's poetry.”

There still remain in our poetical compositions certain evidences of some, at least, of the stages through which our poetry has passed. The choruses in many of our hymns are still made up of non-sense syllables. Irish melodies and popular songs retain this feature. Children's poetry by that I refer to such poetry as they enjoy and recite for their own amusement has a large element of purely unmeaning sounds in it. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 16)

These primitive rhythms were common among “savages” and “children.” But there were also those of certain “maniacs” or “foreigners.”

Savage dances are often accompanied by recitations in which no meaning has been discovered. Again, savages and children are frequently found repeating for their own amusement a series of non-sense syllables in rhythmical form. The accents are very strongly marked, and frequently enforced by alliteration. The incoherent chatter of a maniac, or the sound of a foreigner speaking his language to one who is unacquainted with the language, is distinctly rhythmical. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 16)

Bolton dedicated a full section to “The Emotional Effects of Rhythm upon Savages and Children.” According to his dualistic anthropology and philosophy of history, “savages,” “primitive” or “uncivilized people” were to “civilized” men what “children” were to “adults.” Whereas rhythms had a mild effect on the latter, they could strongly “excite” the former and even sometimes bring them into a “state of frenzy.”

There is no more striking fact in the whole field of rhythm than the emotional effect which rhythms produce upon certain classes of people, savages and children. [...] Savages are well aware of the exciting effects of certain rhythms, and are accustomed to use them to bring about the state of frenzy in which their priests give their prophecies and in which religious dances are danced. [...] Such airs seem to appeal to the primitive sense common to all people, but upon savages, that is, upon children with the possession and power of men, its influence is immense, and the state of excitement into which an assemblage of uncivilized people may be wrought by the mere rhythm of drums and the repetition of a simple melody would hardly be created. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 19)

Bolton noticed the well-known dancing performances during the Shakers religious services but he added that “a highly civilized people is not easily affected by mere rhythms.” By contrast, in “the lower classes of people” or in “negro” communities the preacher “often resorts to recitative speaking to produce the desired emotional state in his hearers.”

The religious services and singing among the Shakers are often accompanied by dancing, and more frequently by beating of the time by all the members of the congregation. The excitement among them never rises to an extreme degree. A highly civilized people is not easily affected by mere rhythms. A simple tone is not so expressive as it is to the lower classes of people. The negro preacher often resorts to recitative speaking to produce the desired emotional state in his hearers, which is generally known as the “power.” (Rhythm, 1894, p. 20)

Quite inconsistently, he mentioned, however, the “variations of the rhythmical effects” and the new “harmonies” that musicians could find in “the negro melodies” of “our slaves” (sic) and went on to speak, in the same ambivalent spirit, of the “Hungarian melodies.”

The musician, who desires now to produce new effects, turns to the Volks-Lieder for a theme. He aims at variations of the rhythmical effects and introduces new harmonies. Mendelssohn is said to have remarked, when he heard some of the negro melodies of our slaves, that here was a field for a great musical talent. Wagner, taking the suggestion, has made such an adaptation of the Hungarian melodies, and with what success the musical world is well aware. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 23)

With the civilization process, the simple binary and repetitive rhythms that had been borrowed in the early times from the dance became more complex.

The line of development along which poetry followed was an increase in the number of unaccented syllables as compared with the accented, and also an increase in, the number of accents to the verse; the verse preserving for some time the same balance of structure that it had in the beginning. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 24)

Due to the growth of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and the sophistication of their culture, the rhythm of their language and poetry, which originally was only repetitive and binary, became more complex.

After the people became settled down in their new homes, they lost the ruder and rougher characteristics, and such wild outpourings would be no longer suited to their milder spirits. The changes that took place in the development of our literature are due in some measure to the change in the life and habits of the people. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 16)

As accentuation and strict timing lost ground to the thought that was carried by the poem, the alliteration, “which was very prominent in Anglo-Saxon, was gradually lost” and replaced by the “final rhyme” (p. 25-26). The poetic form, that was, according to him, originally almost empty of thought, became less important than the thought itself. In Bolton's evolutionary account, there was thus a kind of spiritualization of the rhythm, a penetration and occupation of the acoustic form by the mind.

Final rhyme succeeded alliteration. The chief reason seems to have been for a more emphatic or distinguishing mark of the rhythm than could be obtained through accents alone; especially when run-on lines came to be used and the thought was about to usurp everything. When two successive sentences or words begin with the same sound, it interferes with the understanding of them. Both the reader and hearer are more likely to confound them. For this reason alliteration must give way, except for purposes of emphasis, when the thought becomes of the first importance. Simple intensities are not sufficient as unifying factors; they cannot be properly subordinated to give unity to the line. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 26)

Next chapter

Rhythm as Platonic Form of Psychological Process (Part 2)

Pascal Michon — 2018-08-26T11:00:00Z

Previous chapter

Rhythm in Experimental Perspective (Bolton – 1894)

In the experimental part of his dissertation, Bolton realized a spectacular reversal of perspective. By contrast with his introduction, in which he had tried to encompass all “rhythmic phenomena” in a grand cosmological and evolutionary view, this part was entirely dedicated to a very limited phenomenon: the famous “metronome sound illusion” or, to put it in more scientific terms, the “subjective accentuation of an objectively uniform series of sounds,” which had already been noticed by Mach (1865) and Wundt thirty years before. Naturally, this limited phenomenon opened on a larger problem that had far-reaching consequences: how the human mind transforms an entirely regular series of auditory impressions into regular groups?

This work was undertaken with several objects in view. The first and most important object was to determine what the mind did with a series of simple auditory impressions in which there was absolutely no change of intensity, pitch, quality or time-interval. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 34)

Making a point not to confuse physics and psychology, Bolton called a “rhythmic series” the physical “regular variations with respect to the intensity or time-interval of the sounds” and “rhythmical series” the transposition of the latter by the consciousness into “series of groups of impressions.”

Regular variations with respect to the intensity or time-interval of the sounds in this series, which will be called a rhythmic series, were then to be tried separately and together, with the purpose of determining what values these properties of sound have in forming a rhythmical series—that is, a series of groups of impressions—out of a rhythmic series. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 34)

Bolton wanted to improve Wundt's protocol which was based on the use of a metronome and therefore could not produce entirely similar sounds (p. 61-62). Bringing into play the most modern technology, he used instead a telephone connected to an induction circuit generating totally similar clicks by way of a uniformly rotating drum equipped with contact-arms, which during rotation came into contact with a series of contact-plates linked with the telephone.

This apparatus was able to produce an infinity of particular metric arrangements by making, first, the intensity of the clicks vary regularly.

By using both single and double ended arms on the shaft, and operating the five pairs of keys, it was possible to get an arrangement by which variations in intensity might occur every sixth or eighth click. Taking all the possible arrangements together, the operator might introduce a more intense click every two, three, four, five, six or eight clicks. Again, he might make a series of clicks which were composed of two, three, four or five different intensities of sound. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 39)

Second, the frequency of the clicks was measured with a stop-watch and could also be changed at will.

The rate at which the drum-shaft revolved determined the rate of the clicks in the telephone. This was controlled by the fan regulator upon the chronograph. Faster or slower rates were obtained by using smaller or larger fans. The rate was determined by counting the clicks in the telephone by a stop-watch. Rates between one click in two seconds and ten in one second were possible. As the rate was a very important factor, it will be given in all cases in the presentation of results. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 40)

The protocol of the experimentation was carefully designed in order to avoid any suggestion by the operator.

When the experiment began, the apparatus was first set so that about three or four clicks to the second were heard in the telephone. The subjects were not informed in any particular in regard to the experiment. They were invited to be seated and listen to the telephone. This they did, taking very generally a rather critical attitude. They were then invited to say anything that suggested itself to them, whatever the character. These statements were all carefully recorded, and will be given in substance. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 40)

Bolton did not underestimate the methodological difficulties he met. Concerning the apparatus, he admitted that it allowed to produce variations in intensity and frequency but not in pitch and quality or color of sounds.

It was seen at the outset that it would be practically impossible with the apparatus at our disposal to employ pitch variations, and for that reason no attempts were made with variations in pitch. Variations in quality or tone-color were contemplated, but the experiment was not carried out, first on account of a lack of time, and secondly of proper apparatus. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 34)

Concerning the subjects, he also recognized that he had sometimes to induce them in paying attention to the “to the grouping of the sounds.”

The statement most generally given, and voluntarily, was that the sounds were all alike, and seemed to be separated by the same interval of time. After this statement the subject paused, as if most that could be said had been said. In some cases they asked for particulars in regard to what they should look for. Sometimes, however, they went on to say that there was an apparent change of intensity in the sounds ; the clicks seem to group themselves by twos or fours, as the case might be; generally, however, it required some kind of a suggestion to direct the attention of the subject to the grouping of the sounds. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 41)

Despite these two limitations, he thought that the results were trustworthy enough. The experiment had been performed with thirty subjects and the observations documented in substance (p. 42-60) before being thoroughly commented and explained (p. 60-84).

Bolton's first conclusion was to agree with the empirical findings of his predecessors. The mind groups similar sounds by “accenting regularly certain sounds more than others.”

The first point in the preceding records to which attention is called is the rhythmical grouping of the sounds. The grouping was the same in every case. It was accomplished by accenting regularly certain sounds more than others. The weaker or less accented sounds seem to run together with the stronger, and to form organic groups which are separated from one another by intervals which are apparently longer than the interval which separates the individual clicks. Such rhythmical grouping has been observed frequently at other times by many persons. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 60)

To give more weight to this assertion, he reminded the reader with a series of already common auditory experiences in the second half of the 19^th century: the particular sound made by locomotive, mill-wheel, winnowing machine, feed cutter and, last but not least, metronome.

Several of the subjects testify to have known of their tendency to group the puffs of the locomotive, even in early childhood, and they have taken great delight in it. [...] The puffs are grouped by four. The first and third are accented, the first generally stronger than the third. [...] A kind of rhythm is also observed in the noise of mill-wheels. The winnowing machine and feed cutter, such as are found upon many farms, produce a rhythmical sound which few persons fail to observe. [...] Several experimenters have also observed this same grouping of rhythmic sounds. In the work undertaken by Dietze in Wundt's laboratory upon the Umfang of consciousness, this rhythmical grouping of the sounds of the metronome was observed and employed to determine the length of the mental span. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 61)

Then, going from the data to the scientific elucidation, Bolton explained, using the model provided by Wundt, the sound-grouping phenomenon, i.e. what he called rhythm, by “a series of efforts of the mind,” “a sequence of acts” or better yet, “waves of attention.”

This rhythmical grouping was a series of efforts to attend to the sound. The grouping results from a sequence of acts of attention. When the attention is directed to the sensation, it lays hold upon the first impression with great force and makes it the sole object of consciousness. If this were the only sound, the attention would turn to something else, but as succeeding impressions follow before the first wave of attention has subsided, they are seized upon with less force than the first impression, and are subordinated to it in different degrees according to the strength of the apperceptive act. Subsequent waves of attention follow the same process as long as the will directs the attention to the phenomenon. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 67-68)

Bolton claimed that a series of auditory impressions must be organized by the attention “with a kind of subordination among them” to enter the consciousness.

The view taken, then, was that only one undivided state of consciousness might arise during each pulse or wave of attention, and that the number of objects which can be grasped in that state must form an organic unity or be presented as a single object—have the appearance of a unit. A given number of auditory impressions within certain time limits, when presented in such a way that there is a kind of subordination among them with respect either to time, intensity, pitch or quality, or with respect to any two or more of these properties, always stand as a unit in consciousness. They form an organic unity which is the essential condition of a number of impressions entering into a state of consciousness. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 69)

If no “organic unity” objectively exists in the impressions, the mind provides them with an arrangement that allows them to enter the consciousness.

If such organic unity does not exist and it is possible to make it, the mind imposes such an arrangement upon a given number of the elements that they may enter into a state of consciousness. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 69)

Thus, each wave of attention allows the synthesis of one rhythmic unit organically composed of subordinate sounds. This “rhythmical grouping is due to the unifying activity of the mind.”

The conscious state accompanying each wave of attention grasps together or unifies all the impressions that fall within the temporal period of a wave. As the result of a series of attentive efforts, a series of auditory impressions takes the form of a sequence of groups. This rhythmical grouping is due to the unifying activity of the mind; it is an attempt to conceive a series of sounds in a simpler form. When the mind acts upon a continuous series of auditory impressions, it groups all the impressions that fall within the period of a wave of attention, and conceives them as a single impression, or a unity. Each succeeding wave groups a like number, so that the series is conceived in the form of groups. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 76)

Naturally, this rhythmic power of the mind was based on an analogous rhythm in “the activity of the nerve cell.”

This rhythm in the attention, and hence in conscious activity, finds its counterpart in the activity of the nerve cell, which we have seen reason for believing was a series of explosions an alternation of periods of activity and periods of repose. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 77)

But it was above all related with “the muscular movements” (p. 90). Bolton had already noticed that most subjects of his experiment were “unconsciously keeping time, with the foot tapping to every fourth or every second click” (p. 41). He now developed the argument based on Wundt's Physiologische Psychologie (vol. II, p. 73).

Most subjects felt themselves impelled by an irresistible force to make muscular movements of some sort accompanying the rhythms. If they attempted to restrain these movements in one muscle, they were very likely to appear somewhere else. Wundt says that the intensive clang change has its nearest pattern in the sensation of motion. A corresponding rhythmical series of motions associates itself in dancing, marching and beating time, with almost irresistible force to the changes of strength in the clang. The most common forms of muscular movement were beating time with the foot, nodding the head, or swaying the body. Subjects 3, 10 and 17 accompanied the rhythmical grouping by muscular contraction of the diaphragm and chest, and it was exceedingly difficult to restrain them. [...] Most subjects were unconscious of their muscular movement. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 90-91)

However, concerning the question of the primacy of the muscular movement or the mental power, Bolton decided against Wundt, who believed in the second option, and for Mach and Ribot, who insisted on the first. As we have seen, that was, probably, one of the reason for Wundt's new intervention in the debate in his 1896 Psychology.

The question we have to decide upon is, are these muscular movements and associations the result or the conditions of the rhythmical grouping? With Ribot we accept without hesitation the latter. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 91)

In the last pages of his dissertation, Bolton rapidly exposed “a further investigation into the nature of rhythmical groups, especially with reference to poetical rhythms” (p. 84). Since “the click of the telephone is almost instantaneous,” he used another apparatus based on the interruption of the sound of an electric tuning fork, which was placed before one of Helmholtz's resonators. “Regular interruptions resulted in a series of uniform sounds and silences” (p. 85). The results of this second experiment, presented in a table, complemented the previous one. Groups spontaneously formed in the consciousness of the subjects out of the perception of regular “series of sounds of uniform length and intensity.” But the accents played again an important role in the grouping.

Several facts are to be observed in this table. First, a series of sounds of uniform length and intensity may be grouped by two, three or four. [...] Second, a more intense sound occurring regularly imposes a grouping according to the number of sounds between the accents. The accented sound comes first in the 2 and 3-groups, and in the 4-group the first and third receive accents. [...] Third, a longer sound occurring regularly in the series, imposes a grouping according to the number of sounds between the longer ones. The long sound, as a rule, is the last in the group, and is frequently accented. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 87-88)

Among many other results, as Meumann, Bolton noticed the effect of an accent on the apparent duration of a sound—which, as we have already noticed, was a slightly different problem than “Der Accent macht lang” discussed by Brücke (see above, chap. 1).

The accented long sound frequently appeared more prolonged than the unaccented sound of the same length ; the accent had the effect both to increase the length of sound and of the interval which followed. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 88)

In the conclusion, Bolton risked discussing aesthetic matters. According to him, the empirical evidence showed that poetic rhythm had to be made into “a perfectly regular sequence of impressions.” If, in any case, a series of impressions stood in an arbitrary “order of arrangement” of even in a “state of confusion,” “each member of the sequence [had to be at least] exactly the same in the arrangement of its elements.”

This general principle may be stated: The conception of a rhythm demands a perfectly regular sequence of impressions within the limits of about 1.0 sec. and 0.1 sec. A member of the sequence may contain one or more simple impressions. If there are a number of impressions, they may stand in any order of arrangement, or even in a state of confusion, but each member of the sequence must be exactly the same in the arrangement of its elements. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 93)

This “general principle” explained why the “best” poetry, i.e. the most “pleasurable,” was that in which “the accents recur at regular intervals” and “the successive feet” are “of precisely the same character.” Since it disturbed “the temporal sequence of the accents,” the introduction of a 3-syllable foot was, for example, to be avoided, at least in iambic verse.

The application of this principle to poetry demands that the accents in a line shall recur at regular intervals; it requires also that the successive feet in a line shall be of precisely the same character. The introduction of a 3- syllable foot into an iambic verse is allowable on this condition only, that the 3- syllable foot can be read in the same time of the two, so that there shall be no disturbance in the temporal sequence of the accents. [...] The frequent use of such a foot would be fatal. (Rhythm, 1894, p. 93)

To tell the truth, aesthetics was not Bolton's main concern but, as his quite objectionable cosmological and evolutionary views, which paradoxically articulated most of the monistic as well as dualistic clichés of the period, his support for the most rigid metric, which was so far from the experience of the contemporary poets (see vol. 2, chap. 8 and 9), tells us a lot about the radicalized version of the Platonic metric paradigm he helped to put into circulation.

Bolton's essay is fascinating—in a different way, though, from Meumann's. It shows how the new scientific interest in rhythm which spread in the late 19^th and the early 20^th century was partly colonized by ideological and phantasmagoric elements, and how, simultaneously, the empiricist and Aristotelian perspective involved in experimental investigation was included in a larger Platonic frame.

The second part of his essay was based on experimentation and resulted in some findings which mainly confirmed Wundt's theory of limited time-span attention and sound-impressions grouping, while giving more room to Mach's emphasis on the motor factor. However the first part, which is nowadays often euphemistically considered as “outdated,” unveiled the metaphysical, social, and historical background of this “scientific” investigation.

1. On the theoretical level, although Bolton endorsed the newest mechanist meaning of rhythm as period and wave, he re-established a metaphysical continuity between man's life and the cosmic dynamics, reinstating, by the same token, beliefs which dated far back to the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (see vol. 2, p. 297 sq. and p. 390 sq.; vol. 2, p. 15 sq.).

2. On the social and historical level, he simultaneously introduced into psychology—and by the same token legitimized—most of the worst clichés on “savages,” “primitives,” children, and women, which were widespread in the 19^th century. Completely at odds with his self-proclaimed empiricism, he developed a fact-proofed ideological vision of the world.

In short, quite inconsistently, Bolton associated a monistic view of nature, based on the most modern physic and life science, with a dualistic view of man, based on an evolutionary conception of history and a strongly differentialist anthropology.

If we now compare Bolton to Meumann, we find deep differences but also some similarities. As we have seen, Meumann and Bolton's studies clearly exemplified two divergent trends in experimental psychology. The first was more skeptical, empiricist, interested in poetry and critical of metric—somehow more Aristotelian than Platonic. The second, instead, was more speculative, historicist, embracing the most ancient Idealist doctrine associating cosmos and man, and the more modern Evolutionist assumption concerning man's history, paying little attention to art and endorsing the most traditional metric—in some way, more Platonic than Aristotelian.

However, both of them took rhythm as main subject of investigation and based their research on experimental observation. As a result, their contributions marked a turning point in psychological rhythmology. Through their works, a new generation appropriated the concept of rhythm and considered it crucial for at least two decades.

Both of them inherited and somehow summarized the successive shifts in the definition of the concept. In the 1860s and 1870s the medical and physiological definition had been slowly replaced by a new one drawn from poetic or musical metrics. The former had seemed too crude to adapt to the needs of the new investigations into poetry utterance and perception (Brücke), sound and music perception (Helmholtz), or sound perception, generation of the time idea, and pleasure of music hearing (Wundt). If Vierordt still understood rhythm mainly in a medical way as alternation of durations endowed with a certain ratio, Brücke, Helmholtz, Wundt and Meumann borrowed their notion of rhythm mainly from linguistic, metric, or music, equating it with notions such as “accents,” “ictuses,” “beat,” “bar,” “time signature,” “phrases,” and “periods.”

However, in the 1890s, eager to establish itself solidly in the University and the scientific world, psychology revived its original link with physiology, which had in the meantime transformed its own concept of rhythm. Thus, a new shift transformed the psychological concept into a regular succession of beats or waves. This is less obvious in Meumann's study, due to his rejection of metric, but clearly discernible in Bolton's contribution as well as Wundt's late studies. By 1900, this new definition of the term became widespread in psychology.

Finally, both of them, although in divergent perspectives, illustrated the Platonic metric paradigm. Indeed, around 1900, psychologists could argue about the origin of rhythm: some thought it was triggered by the pleasurable feeling due to the fulfilled expectation of the return of an event, others by an innate corporal power, others by a synthetic power of the mind. But most, if not all of them, agreed about the basic Platonic understanding of rhythm as order of movement.

Despite the recent explosion of research compiled in 1913 by Christian Ruckmich in his more-than-two-hundred-entries bibliography, this presupposition was common to all psychologists, who discussed rhythm in a plethora of ways but never questioned its definition. This is well evidenced by the article Ruckmich published the same year in the previous number of The American Journal of Psychology, in the introduction of which he emphasized the extraordinary success of the notion of rhythm “both inside and outside of the science of psychology,” its kaleidoscopic use at the hands of psychologists, but in which he also ingenuously noticed that “no one, as far as the literature tells, has since that time [Bolton's essay published in 1894] attempted to make a complete study of rhythm.”

The experimental investigation of the perception of rhythm has grown so extensive and, at the same time, so indefinite in scope that the writing of an introduction which shall be adequate to the general problem is now altogether out of the question. The subject of rhythm has been carried over into many fields both inside and outside of the science of psychology: within, it has been related to attention, work, fatigue, temporal estimation, affection, and melody; without, it is frequently mentioned in connection with music, literature, biology, geology, gymnastics, physiology, and pedagogy. If we follow out its progress within the range of psychological investigation, we find, again, an intricate plexus of results, theories, and issues. Emphasis has been laid on various component factors of consciousness involved in the perception of rhythm: changes of affective processes; effect of pitch, of duration, of intensity of stimulus on rhythmic perception; types of possible rhythmic perception; part played by different modalities of imagery; bases for rhythmic grouping and accentuation. An adequate summary of the work done even in this limited field would fill a fairly large monograph. It is now, furthermore, no longer possible to undertake a set of experimental investigations, as was done twenty years ago, [reference in footnote to Bolton's essay published in 1894] to cover the entire range of the perception of rhythm. Attacks directed at the problem from various points of view, and with various methods of procedure, are the run of the day. No one, as far as the literature tells, has since that time attempted to make a complete study of rhythm. (Christian A. Ruckmich, “The Role of Kinaesthesis in the Perception of Rhythm,” The American Journal of Psychology, vol. XXIV, n° 3, July, 1913, p. 305-306)

Next chapter

Les aptitudes rythmiques – 1968

Edmond Hiriartborde & Paul Fraisse — 2017-11-06T06:00:00Z

Edmond Hiriartborde & Paul Fraisse, « Les Aptitudes rythmiques », Monographie française de psychologie, n° 14, 1968 (numérisation par la BNF, incomplète malheureusement).

Paul FRAISSE, Les structures rythmiques, 1956

Gérard Montpellier — 2013-06-02T13:13:00Z

G. Montpellier, compte rendu de P. Fraisse, Les structures rythmiques, Paris-Bruxelles, Éd. Érasme, 1956, Revue Philosophique de Louvain, 1958, vol. 56, n° 50, p. 332-333.

La structuration tonale des rythmes – 1956

Paul Fraisse, Geneviève Oléron & Stéphane Ehrlich — 2012-12-04T17:08:00Z

Cet article a paru pour le première fois dans L'Année psychologique, vol. 56, N° 1, 1956, p. 27-45.

Au point de vue psychologique, il y a rythme quand une organisation périodique apparaît dans une série de stimuli.

Les anciens travaux sur la rythmisation subjective avaient fait apparaître que cette organisation pouvait se manifester même quand une suite de stimuli identiques se suivent à intervalles temporels égaux ; cependant, toute différenciation périodique d'un stimulus sur deux, trois, ou quatre... détermine la perception de groupes définis de deux, trois ou quatre éléments. Cette différence entre les stimuli peut être temporelle, intensive, tonale, etc. (Bolton, McDougall).

Mais ces résultats généraux ne suffisaient pas car il restait à interpréter le fait sous deux aspects :

1) Ces différenciations ont-elles un rôle identique dans la structuration de la séquence ? Le son différencié, par exemple, commence-t-il ou termine-t-il le groupement spontané ? Cette place varie-t-elle avec la nature de la différence entre les éléments ?

2) Ces différenciations ont-elles toutes un effet direct ou certaines d'entre elles ne jouent-elles pas un rôle par association avec un autre type de différenciation. Ainsi de nombreux auteurs ont-ils pensé par exemple que Y accentuation d'un son jouait un rôle sur la structure en entraînant une différenciation temporelle, allongement de l'intervalle qui le précède (Woodrow, 1909). Sur ce point, nous avons montré (Fraisse et Oléron) que cette conception méconnaissait le véritable rôle de l'accentuation. L'allongement relatif de l'intervalle qui termine un groupe rythmique n'est pas dû à la présence de l'accent au début du groupe suivant, mais à des lois de structures plus générales. L'accent a pour effet d'allonger l'intervalle temporel qui le suit, mais ce n'est pas cet effet qui détermine sa place dans le groupement, puisque l'accent est plus souvent placé au début qu'à la fin du groupement. Il y a un effet propre de l'intensité.

Pour les différenciations tonales, le problème d'une influence directe ou indirecte se pose aussi, mais en d'autres termes. En poésie, par exemple, on constate une liaison fréquente entre l'intensité et la hauteur des sons ; le son le plus accentué est en général plus haut que les sons non accentués. Meumann et Squire pensaient qu'une différence de hauteur tonale entre les sons détermine un groupement rythmique par l'intermédiaire d'une accentuation : « Elle peut être considérée comme un substitut de l'intensité, soit à cause des sensations de tension communes à la hauteur et à l'intensité, soit à cause d'associations qui, réduites à leurs fondements, sont de caractère intensif » (Squire, p. 558). Woodrow (1911) a pensé réfuter cette thèse en montrant qu'une différence de hauteur entre les sons n'entraînait pas de structuration rythmique. Ses expériences prouvent seulement que, dans une suite de deux sons de hauteurs différentes par exemple, on passe aisément de la perception du groupement grave-aigu au groupement aigu-grave en modifiant très légèrement les différences temporelles entre les intervalles. Parce que le son aigu ne semble pas commencer ou finir systématiquement le groupement des sons, il est exagéré de conclure comme Woodrow (p. 76) que les différences de hauteur ne déterminent pas le rythme. En réalité, ses sujets percevaient toujours un groupement puisqu'ils étaient capables à chaque instant de dire quel était le son qui commençait ou qui terminait le groupe.

Si l'expérience de Woodrow montre que l'effet structurant des différences de hauteur est modifié facilement par des variations temporelles des intervalles entre les sons, elle laisse entière la question de savoir s'il y a liaison entre la hauteur des sons et leur intensité apparente.

En réalité, les études d'autrefois sur le rythme laissaient échapper de nombreuses caractéristiques du rythme en faisant appel essentiellement à l'introspection.