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Duration




A duration is an amount of Time or a particular time interval. For example, an Event in the common sense has a duration greater than zero (but not very long), but in certain specialised senses, a duration of zero. It is often cited as one of the fundamental aspects of Music , see also Rhythm .

Durations, and their beginnings and endings, may be described as long, short, or taking a specific amount of time. Often duration is described according to terms borrowed from descriptions of Pitch . As such, the ''duration Complement '' is the amount of different durations used, the duration scale is an ordering ( Scale ) of those durations from shortest to longest, the ''duration Range '' is the difference in length between the shortest and longest, and the ''duration Hierarchy '' is an ordering of those durations based on frequency of use (DeLone et. al. (Eds.), 1975, chap. 3).

Durational patterns are the foreground details projected against a background (weak-strong), Anapest (weak-weak-strong), Trochee (strong-weak), Dactyl (strong-weak-weak), and Amphibrach (weak-strong-weak), which may overlap to explain ambigouity (Cooper and Meyer, 1960).

''See also:'' Time Scale .


SOURCES

  • Cooper and Meyer (1960). ''The Rhythmic Structure of Music''. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226115224. Cited in Delone directly below.

  • DeLone et. al. (Eds.) (1975). ''Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music''. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0130493465.