Cell (music)

The 1957 Encyclopédie Larousse<ref name="Nattiez 1990">quoted in Nattiez, Jean-Jacques (1990). Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music (Musicologie générale et sémiologue, 1987). Translated by Carolyn Abbate (1990). Template:ISBN.</ref> defines a cell in music as a "small rhythmic and melodic design that can be isolated, or can make up one part of a thematic context". The cell may be distinguished from the figure or motif: the 1958 Encyclopédie Fasquelle<ref name="Nattiez 1990" /> defines a cell as "the smallest indivisible unit", unlike the motif, which may be divisible into more than one cell. "A cell can be developed, independent of its context, as a melodic fragment, it can be used as a developmental motif. It can be the source for the whole structure of the work; in that case it is called a generative cell."<ref>Nattiez 1990, p.156.</ref>

File:Tresillo divisive.png

Tresillo, a rhythmic cell of the tango and habanera.<ref>Garrett, Charles Hiroshi (2008). Struggling to Define a Nation: American Music and the Twentieth Century, p.54. Template:ISBN. Shown in common time and then in cut time with tied sixteenth & eighth note rather than rest.</ref><ref>Sublette, Ned (2007). Cuba and Its Music, p.134. Template:ISBN. Shown with tied sixteenth & eighth note rather than rest.</ref> Template:Audio

A rhythmic cell is a cell without melodic connotations. It may be entirely percussive or applied to different melodic segments.

History

The term "cell" (German: Keim) derives from organic music theorists of the nineteenth century. Arnold Schering adopted the term, along with "melodic kernels" (Melodiekerne) in his analysis of 14th-century madrigal, one of the first uses of Gestalt psychology in music theory.<ref>Template:Cite Grove</ref>

See also

• Clave (rhythm)
• Hauptrhythmus
• Ostinato
• Vamp