Evan Jones
Assistant Professor, Music Theory
School of Music, Florida State University
Tallahassee, Florida 32306 USA
jones_e@music.fsu.edu
Iannis Xenakis’s Nomos Alpha for solo cello (1966)
exploits the three principal methods of sound pro-
duction on a cello string—bowing, plucking, and
col legno (hitting the string with the stick of the
bow)—to a remarkably extensive degree. Each of
these methods of sound production has been the fo-
cus of acoustic research. Conceptually, the sim-
plest of these three sound production methods is
the plucked string, the physics of which is summa-
rized in Backus (1977) and elsewhere. The spec-
trum of harmonic partials activated by the action
of plucking depends upon the location along the
string where plucking occurs. The sinusoidal com-
ponents of the resulting waveform will reflect, in
their respective amplitudes, the degree to which
the point of plucking approached or coincided with
their own peaks and nodes. The displacement of
the string caused by plucking forms a ‘‘hump’’ that
propagates along the string; upon reaching one end
of the string, the hump is reflected to form a ‘‘dip’’
that travels back in the reverse direction. Through
Fourier analysis, this rapid circulation of humps
and dips can be reduced to the harmonic partials
that comprise, in varying amplitudes, the spectrum
of the generated sound.
The idealized image of the waveform produced
by bowing a string is that of a sawtooth shape (pro-
duced by the bow sticking to and slipping against
the string in quick alternation) in which the ampli-
tude of the nth harmonic is that of the fundamen-
tal divided by n. In order that no slipping occurs
during the long period of ‘‘sticking’’ during a bowed
stroke, a minimum bow force is required, which
rises in proportion to an increasing bow speed but
which tends towards a finite non-zero minimum at
very slow bow speeds (Schelleng 1973). The
minimum-required bow force can as much as dou-
ble when the fundamental frequency coincides
with the air resonance or the principal wood reso-
Computer Music Journal, 26:1, pp. 73–86, Spring 2002
䉷 2002 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
An Acoustic Analysis
of Col Legno Articulation
in Iannis Xenakis’s
Nomos Alpha
nance—commonly known as ‘‘wolf tones’’ (Raman
1918). Using a machine described by Saunders
(1937), Schelleng (1973) identified a ‘‘dropoff’’ from
perfect inverse frequency harmonic strength be-
tween the fifth and tenth partials. Response was
found to fall off sooner with less flexible strings or
bow pressure closer to the minimum.
The physics of a struck string, however, has been
studied more from the perspective of the mecha-
nism of a piano than that of col legno playing on a
string instrument. Studies such as Bacon and
Bowsher (1978) and Suzuki (1987), for example, fo-
cus on issues not entirely relevant to the situation
of a col legno attack on a cello. For example, they
discuss the hardness of the hammering agent,
which in the case of a piano hammer is assumed al-
ways to be less hard than a cello bow stick. Certain
aspects of sound production are common to both
instrumental contexts. When a string is plucked or
struck, for example, a peak is created at a point in
the wave-action of the string where some of the
sound’s harmonic components would otherwise
have a node. This has the result of nullifying those
components, a process known as ‘‘harmonic damp-
ing.’’ In the case of a bowed string, however, the ef-
fects of harmonic damping are circumvented.
Parametric Extremes in Xenakis’s Nomos Alpha
An acoustic description of Nomos Alpha is of inter-
est because of the wide variety of extended tech-
niques that the composer juxtaposes in quick
succession. In this piece, Xenakis achieves ex-
tremes of affect (setting new standards of potential
for what might be characterized as ‘‘eerieness,’’ ag-
gression, and hyperactivity), extremes of register
(exploiting a range of over seven octaves, retuning
the lowest string down an octave to C1 ⳱ 32.7 Hz
and vaulting as high as E8 ⳱ 5274 Hz), and ex-
tremes of timbre (from the composer’s dictum for-
Jones 73
bidding vibrato completely to the frequent
employment of col legno, sul ponticello, and trem-
olo effects). Given the inclinations to disorder in
the variety of effects in Nomos Alpha, it is not dif-
ficult to agree with Griffiths (1975), who questions
the significance of the logical constructions govern-
ing both in-time and out-of-time pitch procedures
in the piece. A detailed explication of these proce-
dures is provided in Formalized Music (Xenakis
1992).
Xenakis even attains extremes of pitch-space de-
limitation: witness the frequent glissandi of various
speeds and scopes, frequent quarter-tone indica-
tions, and frequent notation of a precise number of
beats per second to be heard in slightly ‘‘mistuned’’
unison double-stops. In conventional styles, such
beating would usually be disguised by vibrato, but
since Xenakis forbids vibrato, the beats are more
readily perceptible here. However, Xenakis’s no-
tated requirements of varying numbers of beats per
second between the two notes of a near unison
(which I call ‘‘beat-count successions’’) would seem
be at odds with Benade’s view of the difficulty of
producing beats between string instruments’
pitches. Owing to ‘‘jitter’’—a variation by as much
as a fifth of a semitone in the pitch of a bowed
note—string ensembles blend comparatively effort-
lessly and attain a characteristically ‘‘warm’’ sound
without offending the ear with clashing beats (Cre-
mer 1973). Notwithstanding this ‘‘jitter,’’ however,
such closely tuned double stops as indicated in No-
mos Alpha are easily heard to ebb and flow closer
and farther apart, and the beats themselves are of-
ten clearly perceptible.
A Proposed Acoustic Event-Class Space
Some of the most extreme effects in Nomos Alpha
seem to be linked together in the music in a per-
haps purposeful web of allusions between acoustic
event-classes. Although this article only explores
the acoustic properties of one end of this contin-
uum, I would propose a critical reading of the
acoustic space inhabited by the piece—one that ties
together diverse textural and timbral elements
based on a phenomenological criterion of adja-
74
cency. That is, a certain listening strategy is as-
sumed whereby a series of resemblances are
noticed between adjacent timbral or textural enti-
ties, and these are judged to be valid connections in
part by virtue of their very adjacency. Though this
reading will find a fuller exposition in a subsequent
study, I will make brief allusion to it here to con-
textualize the present study.
At the center of the web of interrelations be-
tween acoustic phenomena, I locate the ‘‘beat-
count successions’’ described above, in which
Xenakis indicates the exact number of beats per
second that should be heard at each of several
time-points through the course of a sustained
double-stop consisting of two notes very close in
pitch. Perhaps because of their striking nature, Xe-
nakis’s beat-count successions comprise the hub of
my analytic reading of Nomos Alpha, around
which at least three other acoustic phenomena re-
volve. Xenakis frequently pairs such beat-count
successions with double-stop glissandi, which are
ubiquitous throughout Nomos Alpha and occur
with both tremolo and legato articulations. The
two phenomena share important identifying char-
acteristics and make similar technical demands of
the performer. We may draw a further connection
between the beats themselves and the unnaturally
low, slow tunes played on the cello’s lowest string
(which is re-tuned down an octave).
Finally, Xenakis makes use of a third acoustic
phenomenon, a recurring col legno texture, denoted
consistently in the score by the abbreviation fcl
(‘‘frapper col legno’’). In his legend, Xenakis notes
‘‘fcl ⳱ frapper avec le bois de l’archet’’ (to hit the
string with the stick of the bow). Figure 1 illus-
trates this technique in temporal proximity to sev-
eral beat-count successions and to a double-stop
glissando immediately preceding the first fcl indi-
cation. In Figure 1, the beat-count successions are
notated with double staves, and that the numbers
between the staves indicate the desired beats per
second created by the given de-tuned double-stop.
Although any of these acoustic phenomena would
make worthy subjects of a timbral analysis project
such as this, I have decided to focus exclusively on
what is perhaps the least traditional timbral event-
class in the piece: the recurring col legno texture.
Computer Music Journal
Figure 1. Rhythmic col
legno attacks, beat-count
succession: Nomos Alpha,
page 8, lines 2–3.
My agenda in this examination of Xenakis’s use of
fcl sounds is to reveal exactly what acoustic
component-phenomena this manifestation of ex-
tended technique, the col legno, entails.
Realizations of Col Legno: Taps and Slaps
An elaboration of the possible acoustic products of
the fcl technique is necessary because there are two
distinct, perhaps compositionally unanticipated, as-
pects of the resulting sound. The most typical
sound of col legno involves the gently percussive
articulation of a brief high note, to which I will re-
fer as a ‘‘tap.’’ The pitch of such a tap corresponds
to the distance from the bridge at which the bow
comes in contact with the string, and is the same
pitch that would be heard if a cellist’s finger had
been placed at the same point and the remaining
few inches of string were either plucked or bowed.
Taps are especially easily audible over several suc-
cessive col legno attacks on the same fingered
pitch. They change over a very wide pitch range
over only a few inches of string, of course, since
the bottom two inches of the A string on the cello
can produce any note from about C6 to beyond the
threshold of human pitch perception. In addition to
taps, however, a rather aggressive striking with the
wood of the bow on either an unstopped string or a
string fingered no higher than approximately a per-
fect fifth above the open string results in the noisy
bouncing of the string against the fingerboard. This
is a much more aggressively percussive ‘‘slap’’
sound, and it characterizes many instances of the
fcl sounds in recordings of Nomos Alpha.
The pinpointing of either tap or slap sounds on
printouts of the evolving harmonic spectra of Xe-
nakis’s fcl segments on commercial recordings of
Nomos Alpha is very difficult and usually requires
the isolation of a highly localized instant of sound
to observe. To identify both tap and slap sounds
graphically, I will be examining brief excerpts from
Rohan de Saram’s recording of Nomos Alpha, is-
sued in 1991 as part of the Arditti Quartet’s com-
prehensive 35-year retrospective of Xenakis’s
chamber music (Xenakis 1991). Many listeners,
even string players familiar with col legno tech-
nique, may find it difficult to pick out the various
sonic components of col legno sounds. (Similarly,
while most people are capable of identifying, classi-
fying, and producing sustained vowel sounds, most
will fail to perceive even the lower partials as dis-
tinct from the fundamental frequency of a sung
Jones 75
Figure 2. Nomos Alpha,
page 5, line 6.
Figure 3. Waveform repre-
sentation of first attack in
Figure 2 excerpt.
Figure 4. Waveform repre-
sentation of all of Figure 2
excerpt; melody of ‘‘tap’’
tones notated in pitch
names.

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4

vowel.) I am motivated, then, by the unawareness Taps

of tap/slap components among musicians, includ-
ing (presumably) most composers who employ col
legno techniques, and even string players, to whom
these complicated col legno sounds are intimately
familiar.
My examination of tap sounds on this recording be-
gins with the excerpt reproduced in Figure 2, from
the bottom of page 5 of the score. The instantane-
ous shifts in dynamic level, combined with the

76 Computer Music Journal

Figure 5. Fast Fourier
Transform of Figure 2
excerpt.
steady sixteenth-note tempo to which the com-
poser expects the fcl attacks to adhere, require a
dexterity of bow control in manipulating the con-
tact point, particularly to produce the rapid
changes of volume as directed. Once the initial fff
dynamic is discarded for the ensuing p, Mr. de
Saram’s unusually prominent tap-components indi-
cate where his bow is striking the string in an emi-
nently audible ‘‘melody’’ of tap sounds over the
course of the A-‘‘sharp-and-a-half’’ (three quarter-
tones above A) and the G-sharp in the second mea-
sure of Figure 2. Each note of this melody seems
almost to precede the articulation of the fingered,
notated pitch; this particularly clear in Figure 3,
which reproduces the waveform representation of
the first attack of the A-‘‘sharp-and-a-half.’’ This
melody is notated with letter names in Figure 4,
above the waveform representation of the recorded
performance, but below other letter names describ-
ing the fingered pitches given in the score.
One can deduce from the taps’ pitches that Mr.
de Saram’s bow begins on the string around where
most cellos’ fingerboards end (F6), recoils a little (as
far from the bridge as D6), and then pursues the
higher dynamic marking on the G-sharp by ap-
proaching the bridge (as close to the bridge as B
6),
finally recoiling again in anticipation of the quieter
dynamic after the barline. However, it is very diffi-
cult to confirm one’s own aural experience con-
vincingly by comparison with a Fourier analysis of
the recorded excerpt. Figure 5 reproduces part of
the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) of this long
stretch of music. A few peaks that coincide with
the melody of taps taken in dictation
are discernible: several of the taps around F6 ⳱
1400 Hz show up as the highest peaks (as marked)
at time points 1.05 sec, 1.8 sec, and 2.5 sec, corre-
sponding very closely to the points at which Mr.
de Saram’s tap-melody is heard to intersect that
pitch level. But the veritable forest of fcl attacks
Jones 77
Figure 6. Nomos Alpha, Figure 7. Waveform repre-
page 6, lines 1–2. sentation of second-last
attack in Figure 6 excerpt.

Figure 6

Figure 7

conspire to obscure any continuous, clear-cut
curve one might have hoped to see from 1400 Hz
down to 1175 Hz, up to 1865 Hz, and back down
to 1175 Hz.
It is necessary to restrict one’s purview drasti-
cally to be able to confirm one’s aural sensations
through computer sound analysis. Figure 6 repro-
duces an fcl excerpt from the top of the sixth page
of the score. Figure 7 provides the waveform repre-
sentation of the second-last attack in this excerpt
on Rohan de Saram’s recording, in which the rapid
higher-frequency oscillation is apparent at the out-
set of the sound. Over the course of this particular
fcl section, the pitches of the tap sounds migrate
gradually higher (in tandem with the tempo of the
rhythmic articulations), beginning around E7 ⳱
2637 Hz, and finishing (by the time of Figure 7)
around G  7 ⳱ 3322 Hz. While this final frequency
is not immediately apparent in the waveform repre-
sentation, it is easily observable on the graphic rep-
resentation of its FFT (given in Figure 8) at about
3200–3600 Hz. Moreover, this frequency has some-
what of a timbral personality, evidenced by its own
apparent harmonic spectrum, consisting of incon-
testable overtones to the tap sound itself at fre-
quencies of 6500–6800 Hz and 10000–10500 Hz.
This harmonicity confirms the validity of the aural
sensation of the tap-component in the fcl articula-
tion.
I have reported the same excerpt to have begun
with tap sounds at approximately E7 in Rohan de
Saram’s hands; one hopes that similarly encourag-
ing evidence might appear in an FFT of the other
end of this excerpt. Indeed, as shown in Figure 9,
another spectrum of at least two harmonics (ap-
proximating 2500–2700 Hz and 5100–5300 Hz) cor-
respond to the perceived tap pitch of E7 at the
outset of this fcl figure. These two FFT graphs

78 Computer Music Journal

Figure 8. Fast Fourier Figure 9. Fast Fourier
Transform of second-last Transform of first attack
attack in Figure 6 excerpt. in Figure 6 excerpt.

Figure 8

Figure 9

Jones 79
Figure 10. Nomos Alpha, Figure 11. Waveform repre-
page 6, line 5. sentation of two adjacent
fcl attacks from middle of
Figure 10 excerpt.

Figure 10

Figure 11

serve as mutual confirmations, propelling the phe-
nomenon of tap sounds beyond the status of aural
illusion.
Slaps
The slap sound is much less easily definable in
acoustical terms than is the tap. Very similar to the
characteristic slap of a single snare-drum articula-
tion, the slap sound is most familiar to string play-
ers as the defining sonic attribute of what is known
as ‘‘Bartók pizzicato,’’ a style of plucking the string
so as to displace the string along an axis roughly
perpendicular to the direction in which the string
runs. When released, the string snaps against the
fingerboard with a sharp, explosive report. Compo-

80 Computer Music Journal

Figure 12. Fast Fourier
Transform of the two
fcl attacks graphed in
Figure 11.
nents that are likely part of the resulting sound—
whether produced with ‘‘Bartók pizzicato’’ or with
an aggressive col legno attack—include the resonat-
ing of the wood of the fingerboard in response to
the string’s impacts (possibly more than one), the in-
harmonic vibration of the string after one or more
interactions with the fingerboard, and the inhibition
of certain harmonics of the pitch of the string.
This discussion of the various traces left by slap
sounds is, however, necessarily restricted to a nar-
row focus, stemming exclusively from simple vi-
sual comparisons of the graphic representations of
the sounds themselves. Just as the tap sounds dis-
cussed earlier are not necessarily heard on each of a
series of col legno attacks (through which, never-
theless, an audible overall rising or falling of the
taps’ pitches gives a picture of how the bow stick’s
contact point progresses along the string), so too
may a slap sound occur on one of a series of such
attacks and not the next.
Figure 10 reproduces a brief excerpt from page 6
of the score. Figures 11a and 11b contrast two tem-
porally adjacent fcl attacks from the middle of this
excerpt on Rohan de Saram’s recording, the first of
which (around time 1.13 sec) has no slap compo-
nent, and the second of which (around time 1.40
sec) has a high degree of slap. As seen earlier in this
study, the high-frequency attack noise seems to
precede the establishment of the deeper frequencies
associated with the pitch of the fingered note. Fig-
Jones 81
Figure 13. Fast Fourier
Transform of two adjacent
fcl attacks from middle of
Figure 14 excerpt.
ure 11b clearly features a much noisier attack,
which is itself seemingly preceded by some aspect
of the attack at a high frequency but low ampli-
tude. The low-amplitude, high-frequency compo-
nents observable at the outset of each example
might correspond to the initial impact of the bow
stick against the string, and the explosive report
that follows on its heels in the case of Figure 11b
could conceivably correspond to the impact of the
string against the fingerboard. It might be proposed
that the amplitude of the resulting noise reflects
the greater capacity for resonance of the finger-
board than either the string itself or the stick of the
bow. On the other hand, the motion of the string
82
will be disrupted to a much greater degree by its
impact against the fingerboard (occurring along a
long segment of the string) than by the bow’s im-
pact against the string (occurring along only a few
millimeters of the string. This may account for the
greater impulsiveness and amplitude of the slap
against the fingerboard compared to the impact of
the bow against the string.
These same two attacks are subjected to FFTs in
Figures 12a and 12b (which are, respectively, the
FFTs of Figures 11a and 11b). The peaks of Figure
12a are duplicated very faithfully in Figure 12b. Al-
though those in Figure 12b appear to be of lesser
amplitude (and less jagged), the reality of the situa-
Computer Music Journal
Figure 14. Nomos Alpha, Figure 15a. Nomos Alpha, Figure 15b. Fast Fourier
page 1, line 4. page 7, line 4; page 8, Transform of part of Figure
line 1. 15a excerpt.

Figure 14

Figure 15a

Figure 15b

tion is that 12b simply contains more noise than
12a. Notice the near total absence of flat ‘‘valleys’’
in 12b reaching as far down as the zero-plane,
whereas such valleys are quite prominent in the
upper third of 12a. It would seem that the ‘‘slap’’ of
Figures 11b and 12b is less harmonic an event than
those illustrated in Figures 11a and 12a.
A similar result is gleaned from a comparison of
Figures 13a and 13b, which show the FFT analysis
of two temporally adjacent attacks from a different
excerpt (Figure 14). Rohan de Saram’s rendering of
Figure 14 contains even more starkly differing at-
tacks than seen previously in Figures 11 and 12; as
Mr. de Saram subjects a greater and greater length
of the C string to his fcl attacks, his realization of
Xenakis’s crescendo makes an increasing propor-

Jones 83
Figure 16. Magnification of
two frequency regions
from Fast Fourier Trans-
form in Figure 15b.
tion of slap inevitable. There is no way to achieve a
col legno attack at a dynamic level of fff on an
open C string (the lowest of the four strings), or on
a low fingered note on the C string, without the
string impacting the fingerboard to some degree. In
the midst of his crescendo, Mr. de Saram proceeds
from the spectrum of Figure 13a to that of Figure
13b in a fraction of a second. Much of the lower-
frequency harmonic material is similar between
the two FFTs: the peak around 550 Hz, for exam-
84
ple, is prominent in each graph. The two FFTs,
however, rapidly assert their differences. While Fig-
ure 13a contains practically no harmonic material
above 1500 Hz (the hump at 2150 Hz is perhaps a
tap component), Figure 13b hardly reaches the zero-
plane at all.
Any attempt to narrow down the nature of all
this noise might begin by isolating some of the fre-
quencies involved. Despite the continuous, ran-
dom, indistinguishably noisy aspect conveyed by
Computer Music Journal
Figure 16. Continued
both Figures 12b and 13b, individual frequencies
are discernible with more careful applications of
computer capabilities. Figure 15a contains an ex-
cerpt spanning pages 7–8 of the score, which Rohan
de Saram realizes in quite a ‘‘slappy’’ manner, and
Figure 15b shows an exceptionally ‘‘black’’ FFT
representation of part of the excerpt. Not much
useful information is easily gleaned from Figure
15b, but the most distant horizon of Figure 15b (the
topmost contour) reveals a distinctly rolling profile.
These hills and valleys are discriminable into re-
markably pronounced areas of resonance, as seen in
Figures 16a and 16b, which reveal formant-like
humps in the frequency profile at 2100–2400 Hz,
3300–3600 Hz, and 9200–10000 Hz. I hypothesize
that these areas of resonance are not the formants
of the instrument but are instead associated with
the modes of vibration of the fingerboard itself, in
reference to which I know of no published litera-
ture. The fingerboard to which I have immediate
access, however, seems to resonate at a fundamen-
tal pitch approximating 190 Hz. I would anticipate
that a similar set of inharmonic partials apply to its
modes of vibration as to a xylophone bar, which—
like a cello’s fingerboard—is wooden and is charac-
terized by a hollowed-out underside. As in the case
of the xylophone, the hollowing-out of the under-
side of a cello’s fingerboard might have evolved
in order to attain a more harmonic set of natural
vibrations.
Jones 85
Conclusion
It is my hope that the present study will serve not
only to widen a compositional understanding of the
complex character of the col legno articulation, but
also to point towards the importance of the details
of a performative realization of a piece to the analy-
sis thereof. A useful step for future research would
be to analyze other performances of Nomos Alpha,
as well as instances of the col legno technique in
other pieces, in order to reach a broader acoustic
understanding of this effect and to make such an
understanding available both to performers and to
composers. More generally, much research has yet
to be done into questions of the musical ramifica-
tions of various instruments’ construction and
acoustic properties, in exploration of the musical
possibilities inherent in such acoustic findings. It is
the task of a study such as the present one, I be-
lieve, to accommodate and synthesize not only the
bare facts of an instrument’s makeup and the range
of its output, but also the degree to which the com-
poser’s understanding of the medium informed the
construction of the music, as well as issues sur-
rounding the realization of structural aspects of the
music in performance.
86
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Computer Music Journal