RE: [microsound] math anxiety

[Christopher Sorg <csorg@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From: Michal Seta [mailto:mis@xxxxxxxxxxxx]
>
> Since the beginning of the sixth century music was considered, at
> least by Boethius, as part of what later became the four Platonic
> scientific disciplines: arithmetic, music, geometry and
> astronomy.  Boethius wrote a treatise 'De Institutione Musica'
> which was intended to be read along with his 'De Institutione
> Arithmetica'.  So the idea of music being part of mathematical
> (arithemtic, really) education is not new.  In fact, the books
> Boethius wrote were not his orignal work.  They were records of
> what he studied in Greece so it goes further than that, at least
> back to Pythagoras.  And for Pythagoras music is related to
> numbers very clearly.  Not only music but sound.  And thanks to
> the quantitative nature of sound one can make music which is
> related to the sound of instruments through the same numbers.
> Think of Pythagorean tunning system, which was based on the
> numerical ratios of harmonics of a vibrating string.  This
> relationship has been further explored by physists and
> mathematicians ever since.  One of the most interesting reads and
> perhaps most influential is 'On the Sensations of Tone' by
> Helmholtz.  So there is a very obvious relationship.

I know I'm bringing this up from another thread, but this is a great
example.

Who said music wasn't a language?  Xenakis?  Kind of a strange comment
coming from someone whose compositions could be described by statistics.  I
suppose it's really that music *can* be used as a language, just as a
painting can be used to describe something.  Who can't recall the specific
lion's roar for Warner Brothers, or Intel's little ditty, or tell the
difference in the guitar tone between Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page?  That's
language.  Sound is used as language in any culture, from jungle drumming
and church bells, train whistles to commercial jingles.  Synthesis
techniques could be considered to carry a certain specific message, perhaps
not one that the author intended, but a discourse that the author is engaged
in nonetheless (academically, mathematically, socially).  I can see that the
written score (or the statistical formula) is just a description of the
sound, not truly the sound itself, but music/sound is always going to be
experienced in a social context which carries not only it's abstract self
but that secondary meaning.  I also think that the occidental take on sound
is to make it concrete, like it's language, relating it to mathematics in
order to describe it fully.  In so much of occidental music, math and music
are linked philosophically, structurally and perceptually.

It would be difficult to suggest that Tuvan or Tibetan throat singing is
mathematical, although you could certainly use math (in part) to describe
the phenomena, but that doesn't describe the experience.  Interestingly
enough, Trevor Wishart demonstrates just how difficult that is by discussing
the limits of discrete time domain functions in describing/predicting
timbral changes.  Sort of a Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle for sound.
Our math has limited our ability to perceive certain aspects of sound.  The
piano is a perfect example of this, the rigorous establishment of math
applied to tone, while eliminating significant timbral effect.  Also
interesting is that Wishart uses Xenakis as an example of a composer who
moves away from these limitations.  Perhaps complexity introduces a
difficulty in applying structure.  My reaction upon first hearing Xenakis
was that it was stoic and mechanical, which would certainly jibe with
his -particular- architectural background.  Of course, humans attempt to
apply structure to everything they encounter, so I guess it shouldn't really
be suprising that we hear math in sound.  I hear the arrangement of my
living room in sound, and the recipe for a great garbonzo bean salad.

Another rambling post by....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     Christopher Sorg
   Multimedia Artist/Instructor
 The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
   http://csorg.cjb.net
     csorg@xxxxxxxxx
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