Performers of classical music face two contradictory imperatives set by 19th-century Werktreue ideology: first, to faithfully realize a composer’s intentions through studying notated scores, and second, to interpret their music in an original manner that achieves some form of self-expression. Accordingly, certain aspects of performances appear to adhere to score notations (e.g. pitches, rhythms) while others are left to the performer’s discretion (e.g. changes in tone). Traditionally, both performers and scholars have identified musical shape – specifically variations in tempo and dynamics – as a primary vehicle for individual interpretation, overlooking other critical performance dimensions like timbre. In sum, both performers and musical scholarship point to shape – a relatively limited domain – to characterize individual performance identity.

In this paper, I will present original research that challenges the assumption that shaping distinguishes individual interpretations and finds other sources of interpretive variety. I report findings from quantitative and qualitative analyses of tempo, loudness, and timbre in twenty-three 21st-century recordings of Bach's Fourth Cello Suite Prelude. From these analyses, I find that individual performances are distinguished by what I call static performance choices, or singular choices consistently employed throughout a piece, exemplified here in the form of general tempo and bow stroke and its associated timbre. In contrast, tempo and dynamic shaping are strikingly similar among performances.

In characterizing how tempo, timbre, and shaping vary (or do not) between these recordings, this study shows that normativity and variety in interpretations does not arise from adherence to notated scores and suggests they are rather the consequence of a widely taught and enforced performance practice tradition. If this is the case, the identification of variety and conformity in this study does not merely describe how current performers interpret Bach: more importantly, it suggests how performance practice tradition permits and restricts musical choice. Here, cellists are permitted, or perhaps even encouraged, to “sound” differently through static performance choices. These findings also suggest that cellists are not permitted to “shape” differently, and that musical shape is better understood as an area where musicians conform to tradition rather than enact self-expression.

Despite growing recognition of Sun Ra’s significance as a pioneer of Afrofuturism (Sites 2020; Youngquist 2016; Womack 2013), there has been little scholarship on his musical practices and ideas. Inspired by the field’s interest in practitioner-centered methods (e.g., Leong 2019; Maler 2025) and music theories that circulate outside institutional frameworks (e.g., Hannaford 2023; Christensen 2011), I proceed from the assumption that Sun Ra’s statements and working methods represent a theory of music that was both metaphysical and practical. I compile interviews, rehearsal tapes, and archival material to understand what Sun Ra called his “tone science,” which blended acoustic, sensory, and spiritual understandings of music with experimental techniques of collective sound production.

Drawing upon Neoplatonic conceptions of music transmitted through esoteric philosophy, Sun Ra described sound as a cosmic model, an agent of macrocosmic/microcosmic correspondence, a transformational force, and a vehicle of spiritual communication. His musical mission was to change the course of history, to create an “alter destiny” for Black Americans (Szwed 1997). His rehearsals were famously exacting, and he commanded “unity, discipline, and precision” from himself and his performers as resistance to white supremacy.

Sun Ra used two main strategies to cultivate this precision. He used notation to create “something perfect in an imperfect world” (Ra 1987) and to stretch the musical imaginations of his players (Ra 2005, 457). Sun Ra also used “baby talk,” a rehearsal technique that allowed him to communicate expressive nuance such as dynamics, microtiming, and pitch bends beyond the written notation. In rehearsal, he used both conventional music theory as well as terms of his own invention. The Arkestra interrupted their live performances with a “space chord,” a complex mass of sound comprised of percussion, diverse instrumental timbres produced through extended techniques, and keyboard clusters, designed to lift listeners to a higher planes of understanding.

Sun Ra’s tone science presents a challenge for music theory’s traditional emphasis on rationalism. If we are to accept tone science as a theory of music, the field must expand to include extrasensory, intuitive, transcendent, spiritual, and apophatic ways of knowing about music.

A growing body of scholarship analyzes how rappers craft distinctive flows (Adams 2009, Komaniecki 2019, Ohriner 2018), while other work examines the impact of production techniques (Schloss 2014, Williams 2013) and distribution technologies (Coddington 2023) on beats and song forms. This paper combines these approaches, analyzing developments in hip-hop style in relation to the forms of inscription MCs use. The key difference, for instance, Eminem and Jay-Z stem is not so much how they write rhymes, but whether they write them. Freestyling, writing, memorizing, and recording line-by-line each afford different rapping styles.

Three writing techniques have transformed hip-hop's sound. After surveying elements of "oral" style in early freestyle-based hip-hop like Wonder Mike's verses from "Rapper's Delight" (1979), I contrast this with how Rakim leveraged writing to create a new style in the mid-1980s. Rakim's memoirs describe how writing with rhythmic annotations allowed him to intensify enjambment, syncopation, and internal rhyme. I then show how writing facilitated Eminem's metrical complexity and dense rhyming.

Following this, I describe Jay-Z's technique of composing verses entirely in his head. By prioritizing words' sonic form and making the full sentence invisible, this technique introduces new rhyme possibilities, increases filler words ("oh," "yeah"), and elevates the importance of intonation.

Finally, I discuss how the "punch in" method of recording line-by-line has affected hip-hop since 2010. Contrasting Lil' Wayne's Jay-Z-influenced style with 2Chainz (a pioneer of systematic punching in) shows how the latter's technique can lead to more fragmented lyricism. Yet rappers like Kendrick Lamar use punching in to create new effects like unpronounceably long strings of bars ("Rigamortis," 2011) or impossibly abrupt flow switches ("family ties," 2021).

This history reveals fissures within "orality" and "literacy" themselves: oral techniques like freestyle, memorization, and voice memoing contrast with each other almost as much as with writing. Similarly, Jay-Z's influence resists purely determinist interpretations—orally composed music affects even those who stick to visual inscription. These episodes in hip-hop history thus show in a nuanced fashion how techniques of inscription unlock evolutions in musical style, a dynamic that continues today.