Cycles and Change

Rudhyar conceives structure in space as form, and structure in time as rhythm, concluding that the “full and perfect Form is the Sphere; the complete Rhythm manifests as the Cycle.” He distinguishes two different kinds of cycles: cycles of position and cycles of relationship (or relatedness). The first can be exemplified by the rotation of the earth, or a seed becoming a full-grown plant, which returns back to its natal position when it becomes a seed again. The second type involves two bodies or factors moving at different speeds on separate planes “upon a third factor, the earth.” Their conjunction comes to an end when a new conjunction occurs at a different point in space, “because no relationship is static. It must be either progressive, or regressive.” A crucial thread here is his emphasis on the combination of different types of cycles. Rudhyar explains that

For Rudhyar, rhythmic irregularity is a positive pattern because it signifies a certain release from a restricted or controlled environment. (An instance of this was uncovered in the previous chapter's remarks on the first thirteen measures of the second movement of Three Melodies.) Time, on the other hand, is “the succession of ever-changing situations which any organized whole has to meet.” Rudhyar gives the movement of the earth as an example; as an organized whole, it is indicative of time as the experience of change:

Whether directed toward success and fulfillment or toward failure and disintegration, change is the one constant for Rudhyar because there can be no time “where there is no process of change”: