I’ve reached the halfway point of this field study, and I’m proud to say that, over this past week, I’ve really hit my stride. I’m proud of what I have accomplished thus far, and, while this workload is certainly stressful, it no longer feels overwhelming. Instead, I feel constantly revitalized by the information I’m acquiring. On top of this, I’m starting to see my field study really blossom as all of the connections in my curriculum become more and more apparent, and I begin to take on new subjects and responsibilities.
This past week I’ve done a bit of research in an attempt to understand the peculiar sound qualities of a site here in Olympia. In West Bay Park there’s a path that leads to a stone circular area. In the center of this spot is a metal circle with what looks like a cog or wheel printed on it along with the words “Rotary Point.” When you stand on it and speak your voice sounds like it’s being thrown back at you. I contacted Dan Lehuta of the Rotary Club of Olympia in hopes of finding out if that spot was consciously designed to create this effect, and, if so, what it was that actually caused it. Dan told me that the company that constructed the site was called Berschauer/Phillips, now FORMA Construction. I contacted them, and asked about the site. The man who was assigned to designing the construction was out for the day, but they let me leave a message. I’m still waiting on a reply, so… cliffhanger.
Last Tuesday I watched the film, Amadeus. The entire time I watched it, I was wondering which aspects of the movie were historically accurate, and which were embellished or entirely fictional. The next day I watched the A&E biography on Mozart, and was surprised to find that the film was closer to the truth than I had anticipated. Most of the embellishments occurred in the construction of Antonio Salieri’s character as the villain.
Since my last post I’ve also watched the first two videos in Howard Goodall’s series, How Music Works. Each of the videos in this series is based on a different aspect of music, and the first two are about melody and rhythm. It’s a difficult thing to sum up such huge concepts in the course of a fifty minute video, but I think Howard Goodall does an effective job. Though some of the ideas he presents are very familiar, he often explains them in a fresh way which I hadn’t previously considered. Such as the human tendency to divide beats into twos and fours as connected to how we walk on two legs, or how the popularity of compound meter in Anglo-Celtic folk music could be related to their “speech patterns and popular poetry” (think of limericks). There are also plenty of ideas he discusses that I was previously unaware of. His explanations for the development of different scales and modes throughout history was a great supplement to Helmholtz’s account. In particular, I found his demonstration of the melodic minor mode in three part harmony to be helpful. Perhaps the most interesting thing I learned from him though, was actually an explanation for something I had begun to notice in the popular music I’ve listened to. I remember the first time I noticed it actually. I was listening to Elton John’s Rocket Man and I noticed that the melody tended to land right before the chords were actually voiced. Afterwards, I noticed this in a lot of other popular songs. In his video on rhythm, Goodall traces this phenomena to Afro-Cuban music in which the melody tends to anticipate the harmony.
As you may have noticed, I began posting definitions to the list of terms found at the end of each chapter of Allen Forte’s Tonal Harmony in Concept in Practice
Right now, I want to write about Helmholtz. I finished Hermann Helmholtz’s On the Sensations of Tone – As a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music earlier today. I don’t think I could have picked a better book to begin my study with. It was certainly a challenge to work through some of the denser sections, and I had to do a fair amount of research outside of the text in order to fully grasp the material. However, the text has proven to be one of the most thought provoking and informative books I have ever, or likely will ever, read. I highly recommend that anyone with any serious interest in music or sound read this book.
In Part I, Helmholtz develops Fourier’s Theorem which posits that all sound which is reasonably continuous is, at its most fundamental level, a sum of sine or cosine waves. He makes the distinction between simple tones (a sine wave) and compound tones (a series of partial tones based on the fundamental pitch- each of these tones can be expressed as a sine wave). The notes which are most commonly used in music are compound tones with partial tones based on the harmonic series. He also explains how the ear has the tendency to create its own compound tones when it hears a simple tone of significant volume.
In Part II, Helmholtz tackles the physical properties of two or more tones sounded in tandem. He describes the how, when two tones are sounded together, a combination tone is created in the ear. He also writes about how the phase of two tones creates beats, explaining why discordant tones sound rough while consonant tones sound pleasant and stable. With these two phenomena in mind, Helmholtz sets out to describe which intervals are most consonant and which are most discordant.
In Part III, Helmholtz develops his physical analysis of sound to explain the development of music theory. Here, Helmholtz gives an historical account for the development of what he calls “modern music,” and by this of course he means Western Classical Harmony. Though Helmholtz obviously holds Western Classical Harmony in a higher regard than any other musical system, he stresses the fact “that the system of Scales, Modes, and Harmonic Tissues does not rest solely upon inalterable natural laws, but is also, at least partly, the result of esthetical principles, which have already changed, and will still further change, with the progressive development of humanity” (235). It was in this part that Helmholtz’s research became much more applicable as he applied it to a musical system which I am familiar with, and am currently studying. Of particular interest to me was his explanation for the evolution of equal temperament. I found it fascinating that Helmholtz cites a Chinese prince, Zhu Zaiyu, as having probably developed equal temperament as we know it. I had also known for a long time that continually moving in fifths would get you through all twelve notes, but I had no idea that this was actually the process by which the twelve notes were developed. I also hadn’t known that equal temperament is actually produced by slightly detuning each of these fifths so that each semitone is of equal distance. The result is that we now have instruments which can play in any key, but the effect is that no interval is as “pure” as it would be if all of the notes were tuned in relation to a single tonic. Since equal temperament is so pervasive, it’s easy to not notice this, but, when compared to just intonation, the effect is startling. If you’re at all interested in hearing this difference, I’ll provide a link to a video which compares the two here.
In the conclusion of his book, Helmholtz touches on the philosophy of art, esthetics, as it relates to music. I find Helmholtz’s personal viewpoint on the subject fascinating, and am ecstatic that he leaves off here, writing: “Certainly this is the point where the more interesting part of musical esthetics begins, the aim being to explain the wonders of great works of art, and to learn the utterances and actions of the various affections of the mind” (371). I’m happy because this is precisely the line of thought I aim to continue in my study as I begin reading Philosophies of Art & Beauty.
