Time point

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Moment in time in music

title: "Time point" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["rhythm-and-meter", "serialism"] description: "Moment in time in music" topic_path: "general/rhythm-and-meter" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_point" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Moment in time in music ::

In music a time point or timepoint (point in time) is "an instant, analogous to a geometrical point in space". Because it has no duration, it literally cannot be heard, but it may be used to represent "the point of initiation of a single pitch, the repetition of a pitch, or a pitch simultaneity", therefore the beginning of a sound, rather than its duration. It may also designate the release of a note or the point within a note at which something changes (such as dynamic level). Other terms often used in music theory and analysis are attack point and starting point. Milton Babbitt calls the distance from one time point, attack, or starting point to the next a time-point interval, independent of the durations of the sounding notes which may be either shorter than the time-point interval (resulting in a silence before the next time point), or longer (resulting in overlapping notes). Charles Wuorinen shortens this expression to just time interval. Other writers use the terms attack interval, or (translating the German Einsatzabstand), interval of entry, interval of entrance, or starting interval.

Interonset interval

\header { tagline = ##f} \score { \drums \with {midiInstrument = "drums"} \with { \numericTimeSignature } { \repeat volta 1 { \break

\layout {indent=0}

\midi { \tempo 4 = 100 }

}|width=320|align=right|caption=Half-time drum pattern: the first and second measures have identical time-point, attack, or interonset intervals and will sound identical given certain instrumentation and performance practices.|max-width=400}}Half time: the snare moves to beats 3 of measure one and two (beats 3 & 7) while the hi-hat plays only on the quarter notes. Also, the quarter notes 'sound like' eighth notes in one giant measure.

The corresponding term used in acoustics and audio engineering to describe the initiation of a sound is onset, and the interonset interval or IOI is the time between the beginnings or attack points of successive events or notes, the interval between onsets, not including the duration of the events. A variant of this term is interval of onset.

For example, two sixteenth notes separated by dotted eighth rest, would have the same interonset interval as between a quarter note and a sixteenth note: ::data[format=table] | [[File:Interonset interval - sixteenth versus quarter.mid|thumb|70px|Snare]] | [[File:Interonset interval - sixteenth versus quarter piano.mid|thumb|70px|Piano]] | [[File:Interonset interval - sixteenth versus quarter clarinet.mid|thumb|70px|Clarinet]] | |---|---|---| ::

The concept is often useful for considering rhythms and meters.

Time-point sets

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Time-point_series.png" caption="Division of the measure/{{Zero width space}}chromatic scale, followed by pitch/time-point series[[File:Time-point series.mid"] ::

In serial music a time-point set, proposed in 1962 by Milton Babbitt, is a temporal order of pitches in a tone row which indicates the instants at which the notes start. This has certain advantages over a duration scale or row built from multiples of a unit, derived from Olivier Messiaen.

::quote[attribution="interval]] is a measure of distance between pitch points, we begin by interpreting interval as duration. Then, pitch number is interpretable as the point of initiation of a temporal event, that is, as a time-point number."] since duration is a measure of distance between time points, as [[interval (music) ::

For example, a measure may be divided into twelve metrical positions. In this equals sixteenth notes. The start of each position, or time point, may then be labeled, in order, 0–11. Pitches may then be assigned locations within measures according to their pitch set number, now their pitch/time-set number. In Babbitt's first example he shows subsequent numbers which ascend (0–11) as within the same measure (if four follows three it may sound immediately), and subsequent numbers which descend as in the following measure (if three follows four it must necessarily wait for the next appearance of time-point three).

Babbitt uses time points in Partitions (1957), All Set (1957), and Post-Partitions (1966), as well as in Phonemena (1969–70), String Quartets No. 3 (1969–70) and No. 4 (1970), Arie da capo (1974), My Ends Are My Beginnings (1978), and Paraphrases (1979).

Charles Wuorinen has also developed an approach to the time-point system, which differs greatly from Babbitt's.

Sources

Sources

References

  1. Lejaren Hiller and Ramon Fuller, "Structure and Information in Webern's Symphonie, Op. 21", ''[[Journal of Music Theory]]'' 11, no. 1 (Spring 1967): 60–115. Citation on p. 94.
  2. Hubert S. Howe, Jr., ''Electronic Music Synthesis: Concepts, Facilities, Techniques'' (New York: W. W. Norton, 1975): p. 28
  3. Armin Klammer, "Webern's Piano Variations, Op. 27, 3rd Movement", translated by Leo Black, ''[[Die Reihe]]'' 2: "Anton Webern" (English edition, 1958): 81–92, citations on pp. 81, 82, 86; [[Karlheinz Stockhausen]], "Structure and Experiential Time", translated by Leo Black, ''[[Die Reihe]]'' 2: "Anton Webern" (English edition, 1958): 64–74, citation on p. 64; [[Richard Toop]], ''Six Lectures from the Stockhausen Courses Kürten 2002'' (Kürten: Stockhausen-Verlag, for the Stockhausen Foundation for Music, 2005): 30, {{ISBN. 3-00-016185-6.
  4. Pascal Decroupet, "Rhythms—Durations—Rhythmic Cells—Groups, Concepts of Microlevel Time-Organisation in Serial Music and Their Consequences on Shaping Time on Higher Structural Levels", in ''Unfolding Time: Studies in Temporality in Twentieth-century Music'', Geschriften van het Orpheus Instituut 8, edited by Marc Delaere and [[Darla Crispin]], 69–94 (Louvain: Leuven University Press, 2009): p. 85. {{ISBN. 9789058677358.
  5. [[Dieter Schnebel]], "Epilogue", translated by Sharmila Bose, in ''Stockhausen in Calcutta'', selected by Hans-Jürgen Nagel, pp. 1–5 (Calcutta: Seagull Books, 1984): 2.
  6. London, Justin (2004). ''Hearing in Time: Psychological Aspects of Musical Meter'', p. 4. {{ISBN. 978-0-19-974437-4.
  7. John MacKay, "On the Perception of Density and Stratification in Granular Sonic Textures: An Exploratory Study", ''Interface'' 13 (1984): 171–186. Citation on p. 185.
  8. {{harvnb. Babbitt. 1962
  9. [[Curtis Roads. Roads, Curtis]] (2001). ''Microsound'', pp. 74–78. Cambridge: MIT Press. {{ISBN. 0-262-18215-7.
  10. [[Ton de Leeuw. Leeuw, Ton de]] (2006). ''Music of the Twentieth Century'', p. 171. {{ISBN. 9789053567654.
  11. [[Richard Taruskin. Taruskin, Richard]] (2009). ''The Oxford History of Western Music: Music in the Late Twentieth Century'', pp. 166–167. {{ISBN. 978-0-19-538485-7.
  12. [[Paul Griffiths (writer). Griffiths, Paul]] (1996). ''Modern Music and After'', p. 64. {{ISBN. 978-0-19-816511-8.
  13. Mead, Andrew (1987) "About ''About Time''{{'s Time: A Survey of Milton Babbitt's Recent Rhythmic Practice", ''[[Perspectives of New Music]]'' 25, nos. 1–2 (Winter/Summer 1987): 182–235. Citations on pp. 187–189, 192–193, 195–197, 200–205, 215, and 225–230.

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