This lecture, hosted by the Music Department, examines aspects of musical form in the opening sections of Japanese Noh drama from the vantage point of tone color morphology. The first portion of the paper, through analysis and live demonstration, presents the individual sonic components of Noh's sound spectrum and their combination into a stratified complex. These components include the two drums, the otsuzumi and kotsuzumi (along with their respective drum calls, or kakegoe, the nohkan and the various modes of singing (utai) available to the actors and chorus. The second half of the paper looks at color constellations/assemblages created through the temporal arrangements of these sonic materials. We name these color morphologies 'chromatopes' (chroma = color, topos = space).

Joyce S. Lim of Malaysia is on faculty at the Noh Training Project, which offers the most extensive Noh training available in the United States. Her research and choreography has been presented internationally.

Michael Gardiner is a music theorist and composer and a member of the inaugural cohort of Arts and Sciences Postdoctoral Fellows at the University of Pittsburgh.