Hocket
Medieval voice technique with short rests.
What it means
The hocket (Latin hoquetus, from the word for hiccup) is a compositional technique in which a melody is distributed among two or more voices that alternate with one another: when one sings, the other is silent. From the rapid alternation of notes and rests a line arises that no single voice performs alone.
Musical use
The technique was widespread in the polyphonic music of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, especially in motets and clausulae. It appears there as a section within a movement, often over the cantus firmus of the tenor, or forms whole independent pieces. The appeal lies in the rhythmic liveliness: the listener perceives a coherent melody that, however, leaps back and forth between the voices at high speed, which produces a halting, pulsating impression, as the name suggests.
The technique makes high demands on ensemble playing, because every entry must sit exactly and the rests are just as precise as the notes.
The principle is not limited to European music. Similar procedures are found in musical traditions of different cultures, for instance in ensembles in which each player contributes only one or a few notes and the melody arises only from the cooperation. In the twentieth century, too, the technique was taken up again.
The hocket is to be distinguished from voice exchange, in which voices swap whole sections of their material, and from imitation, in which voices imitate one another.
In the hocket, two or more voices distribute a melody among themselves so that in each case one sings while the other rests. The name is derived from Old French hoquet, hiccup. The procedure flourished in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and was used artfully in the Ars nova. Related techniques are found in numerous non-European musics as well as in minimal music.
Performance practice
Practise the hocket first together with a distinct shared pulse and increase the tempo only when the transitions sit. Think the overall line along, not only your own notes — only in this way does the melody become coherent. And take the rests as exactly as the notes; they are part of the figure.