{jctv}//[if] music....[then] .... [if] architecture... [then]....[if] music....[then] .... [if] architecture... [then]....[if] music....
music & architecture |
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the inner ear, Gray's anatomy |
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| Wittgenstein asked himself....... |
What does it consist in: following a musical phrase with understanding? Contemplating a face with sensitivity for its expression? Drinking in the expression of the face? Think of the demeanour of someone drawing a face in a way that shows understanding for its expression. Think of a sketcher's face, his movements; what shows that every stroke he makes is dictated by the face, that nothing in his drawing is arbitrary, that he is a finely tuned instrument? Is that really an experience? What I mean is: can this be said to express an experience? What is it to follow a musical phrase with understanding, or to play it with understanding? Don't look inside yourself. Consider rather what makes you say of someone else that this is what he is doing. And what prompts you to say that he is having a particular experience? For that matter, do we ever say this? Wouldn't I be more likely to say of someone else that he is having a whole host of experiences? Perhaps I would say, "He is experiencing the theme intensely"; but consider how this is manifested. One might again get the idea that experiencing a theme intensely, consists in sensations of the movements, etc., with which we accompany it. And that (again) looks a soothing explanation. But do you have any reason to think it is true? Such as for example a recollection of this experience? Isn't this theory once again just a picture? No, it is not so, the theory is no more than an attempt to link up the expressive movement with a 'sensation'. If you ask me: How did I experience the theme? - perhaps I shall answer "As a question” or something of the sort, or I shall whistle it with expression, etc. "He is experiencing the theme intensely. Something is happening within him as he hears it." What exactly? Doesn't the theme point to anything beyond itself? Oh Yes! But this means: the impression it makes on me is connected with things in its environment, (...) A theme, no less than a face, wears an expression 1946 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, edited by G.H. von Wright, transl. by Peter Wynch, 1980, p. 51e |
phonotectonica building sound
Gasparis Schott, Magia universalis naturæ et artis 1677 |
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Wittgenstein asked himself...............................................................................................
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Understanding and explaining a musical phrase. - Sometimes the simplest explanation is a gesture; on another occasion it might be a dance step, or words describing a dance. But isn't understanding the phrase experiencing something while whilst we hear it? In that case what part does the explanation play? Are we supposed to think of it as we hear the music? Are we supposed to imagine the dance, or whatever it may be, while we listen? And suppose we do do this - why should that be called listening to the music with understanding? If seeing the dance is what is important, it would be better to perform that rather than the music. But that is all misunderstanding.
I give someone an explanation and tell him "it's as though..."; then he says "Yes, now I understand it" or "Yes, now I see how it's to be played."It's most important that he didn't have to accept the explanation; it’s not as though I had, as it were, given him conclusive reasons for thinking that this passage should be compared with that and the other one. I don't, e.g., explain to him that according to things the composer had said this passage is supposed to represent such and such.
If I now ask "So what do I actually experience when I hear this theme and understand what I hear?"- nothing occurs to me by way of reply except trivialities. Images, sensations of movements, recollections and such like.
Perhaps I say, "I respond to it" -but what does that mean? It might mean something like: I gesture in time with the music. And if we point out that for the most part this only happens to a very rudimentary extent, we shall probably get the reply that such rudimentary movements are filled out by images. But suppose we assume all the same that someone accompanies the music with movements in full measure, - to what extent does that amount to understanding it? Do I want to say that the movements he makes constitute his understanding; or his kinaesthetic sensations? (How much do I know about these?) - What is true is that in some circumstances I will take the movements he makes as a sign that he understands.
But (if I reject images, kinaesthetic sensations, etc. as an explanation), should I say that understanding is simply a specific experience that cannot be analysed any further? Well, that would be tolerable as long as it were not supposed to mean: it is a specific experiential content. For in point of fact these words make us think of distinctions like those between seeing, hearing and smelling.
So how do we explain to someone what "understanding music" means? By specifying the images, kinaesthetic sensations, etc., experienced by someone who understands? More likely, by drawing attention to his expressive movements - And we really ought to ask what function explanation has here. And what it means to speak of understanding what it means to understand music itself. And in that case we should have to ask "Well, can someone be taught to understand music?", for this is the only sort of teaching that could be called explaining music.
There is a certain expression proper to the appreciation of music, in listening, playing, and at other times too. Sometimes gestures form part of this expression, but sometimes it will just be a matter of how a man plays, or hums the piece, now and again of the comparisons he draws and the images with which he as it were illustrates the music. Someone who understands the music will listen differently (e.g. with a different expression on his face), he will talk differently, form someone who does not. But he will show that he understands a particular theme not just in manifestations that accompany his hearing or playing that theme but in his understanding for music in general.
Appreciating music is a manifestation of the life of mankind. How should we describe it to someone? Well, I suppose we should first have to describe music. Then we could describe how people react to it. But is that all we need do, or must we also teach him to understand it for himself? Well, getting him to understand and giving him an explanation that does not achieve this will be "teaching him waht understanding is" in different senses of that phrase. And again, teaching him to understand poetry or painting may contribute to teaching him what is involved in understanding music.
1948 Ludwig Wittgenstein, Culture and Value, edited by G.H. von Wright, transl. by Peter Wynch, 1980, p. 70e
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houses have ears: the bell horn antenna |
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A dictionary of musical terms: wikipedia |
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John Cage 4'33" is an exercise in making space make music Pierre Schaeffer, Etude noir Karlheinz Stockhausen: Gesang der Junglinge
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An illustration of rhizomic behaviour used in Milles Plateaus by Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari |
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Robert Morris, Proportional system based on simple harmonies
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| Je hebt nooit ervaren, wanneer je een plechtig feest bijwoonde, of als je deelnam aan een banket, en het orkest de zaal vulde met klanken en fantomen? Kwam het je dan niet voor alsof de oorspronkelijke ruimte vervangen werd door een ruimte die je kunt verstaan en die verandert; of eerder, dat de tijd zelf je aan alle kanten omringde: Leefde je dan niet in een gebouw dat bewoog en zonder ophouden vernieuwd werd en in zichzelf geconstrueerd; helemaal geweid aan de transformaties van een ziel die de ziel van de ruimte was? Was dan niet een veranderende volheid, analoog aan een continue vlam die je hele wezen verlichtte en verwarmde door een onophoudelijke verbranding van herinneringen, voorgevoelens, gevoelens van heimwee en voortekenen, en van een oneindig aantal emoties zonder precieze oorzaak? En die momenten, en hun versierselen; en die dansen zonder danseressen, en die beelden zonder lichaam en zonder gezicht (maar toch zo fijnzinnig getekend), leken die je niet te omringen, jou, slaaf van de algemene aanwezigheid van de muziek?
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Paul Valéry, Eupalinos, of de Architect, uit Hilde Heynen, Dat is Architectuur... | ||
Rhythm Taxis: arrangement, pattern |
Edgar Varèse said... music is organised sound.... |
to understand its organisational principles here are a few crucial words written up by Daniel J. Levitin in his book This is your brain on music...(see bibliography below) tone: a discrete musical sound is usually called a tone. The word note is also used but scientists reserve that word to refer to something that is noted on a page or score of music, The two terms, tone and note, refer to the same entity in the abstract, where the word tone refers to what you hear, and the word note refers to what you see written on a musical score. pitch: a purely psychological construct, related both to the actual frequency of a particular tone and to its relative position in the musical scale. It provides the answer to the question: "what note is that?" ("It's a C-sharp.") (...) Sound waves - molecules of air vibrating at various frequencies- do not themselves have pitch. Their motion and oscillations can be measured, but it takes a human (or animal) brain to map them to that internal quality we call pitch. rhythm: refers to durations of a series of notes, and to the way that they group together into units beat or tactus: the basic unit of measurement in a musical piece tempo refers to the overall speed or pace of the piece contour describes the overall shape of a melody, takiung into account only the pattern of "up"and "down" timbre is that which distinguishes one instrument from another when both are playing the same note, it is a kind of tonal colour that is produced in part by overones from the instruments vibrations. Timbre knows an attack phase( the start of a note, the introduction of energy to an instrument) and the steady state of the continuing sound after the attack.. and the flux, which refers to the way the timbre changes as the note continues to sound.(see Pierre Schaeffer's Cut Bell Experiments of the 1950's loudness is a purely psychological construct that relates to the physical ambilitude of the tone spatial location is where the sound is coming from reverberaton refers to the perception of how distant the source is from us in combination with how large a room or hall the music in, it is the quality that distinguishes the spaciousness of singing in a large concert hall from the sound of singing in your shower. It has an underappreciated role in communicating emotion when these elements are related to each othet tyhey give rise to higher order concepts which describe relationship between these elements metre is created by our brains by extracting information from rhythm and loudness cues, and refers tot he way in which tones are grouped with one antoher across time key has to do with a hierarchy of importance that exists between tones in a musical piece; this heirarchy does not exist-in-the-world, it exists only in our minds, as a function of our expression with a musical style and musical idioms, and mental schemas that all of us develop for understanding music. melody is the main theme of a musical piece, the part you sing along with, the succession of tones that are most salient in your mind harmony has to do with relationships between pitches of different tones, and with tonal contexts that these pitches set up the ultimately lead to expectations for what will come next in a musical piece tonotopic map: a map of pitches in both the basilar membrane and the brain scale: a subset of the theoretically infinite number of pitches: the octave leads to the notion of circularity in pitch perception: octave equivalence between do and do.. interval is the distance between two tones. The octave in western music is subdivided into twelve (logarithmically) equally spaced tones. We can fix pitches anywhere we want because what defines music is a set of pitch relations. The specific frequencies for notes may be arbitrary, but the distance from one frequency to the next - and hence from one note to the next in our musical system - isn't at all arbitrary. Each note in our musical system is equally spaced to our ears. Although there is not an equal change in cycles per second (Hz) as we climb from one note to the next, the distance between each note and the next sounds equal. How can this be? The frequency of each note in our system is approximately 6 percent more than the one before it. Our auditory system is sensitive both to relative changes and to proportional changes in sound. Thus, each increase in frequency of 6 per cent gives us the impression that we have increased pitch by the same amount as we did last time.
contextualising cues: see also prosody, taking a pattern and finding its significance to other memories
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Robert Fludd, Monochord, 1618, an illustration of the harmony of God's creation in musical and geometrical terms
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Jan Breugheld the Elder, The sense of hearing, 1618, a lovely detail of the painting showing the spatial arrangement of musicians around a table
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Everything vibrates. Ears are very good at picking up vibrations and sorting them so that the brain can find significance in their patterns by contextualising the sounds and placing them within its experience as a whole, but as Beethoven discovered, your teeth are also sensitive to virations; one can "hear" using one's teeth. Similarly, the antlers of reindeer and moose are used to amplify and direct sound form the environment..
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eu·ryth·my also eu·rhyth·my (y¢-rîth¹mê) noun
eurhythmy (noun) rhythm (rîth¹em) noun
Trope |
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Waar de taal ophoudt, begint de muziek. E.T.A Hoffmann Als ik naar muziek luister, ook bij het dirigeren, hoor ik heel vaak vastomlijnde antwoorden op al mijn vragen en ben ik volkomen helder en zeker van mezelf. Eigenlijk ervaar ik dan duidelijk dat er helemaal geen vragen zijn. Gustav Mahler Als ik componeer zie ik altijd een schilderij voor me – daar werk ik naar. Ludwig van Beethoven Muziek zit in de lucht – je neemt er gewoon zoveel van als je nodig hebt. Edward Elgar Het is niet voldoende om de muziek te horen, je moet haar ook voor je kunnen zien. Igor Stravinsky, 1942 Wat dissonantie van consonantie onderscheidt, is niet een grotere of kleinere mate van schoonheid, maar een grotere of kleinere mate van verstaanbaarheid. Arnold Schönberg, 1951 Een componist is iemand die zijn wil oplegt aan niets vermoedende luchtmoleculen, vaak geholpen door niets vermoedende musici. Frank Zappa Het enig juiste commentaar op een stuk muziek is een ander stuk muziek. Igor Stravinsky Muziek drukt uit wat niet in woorden kan worden gezegd, maar wat onmogelijk verzwegen kan worden. Victor hugo Geef mij een waslijst en ik zet hem op muziek. Gioacchino Rossini De noten speel ik niet beter dan de meeste pianisten. Maar de stilte tussen de noten – ja, daar ergens wordt het kunst. Arthur Schnabel We moeten luisteren als nooit tevoren. Karlheinz Stockhausen, 1971 Dans is in staat het geheim te openbaren dat de muziek verbergt. Charles Baudelaire, 1847 Beweging is de taal van ons eigenlijke instrument: het lichaam. Martha Graham, 1941 UIT: Aphorismen verzameld en vertaald door Arjen F de Groot, Soest, Kairos, 1999 |
Luigi Russolo and his Intonarumori Luigi Russolo's futurist manifesto The art of noises, 1913 Carlo Carrá, The Painting of Sounds, Noises and Smells, 1913 |
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Select Bibliography
| Daniel J. Levitin, This is your brain on music, The science of a human obsession(2006) | ||
| Oliver Sacks, Musicophilia (2008) | ||
| Elizabeth Martin, Architecture as a Translation of Music: (Pamphlet Architecture 16) (1994) | ||
| Mikesch W. Muecke and Miriam S. Zach, Resonance: Essays on the Intersection of Music and Architecture (2007) | ||
| Iannis Xenakis and Sharon Kanach, Music and Architecture (Iannis Xenakis) (2008) | ||
| Susan Rowland, Psyche and the Arts: Jungian Approaches to Music, Architecture, Literature, Painting and Film (2008) | ||
| Deborah Howard and Laura Moretti, Sound and Space in Renaissance Venice: Architecture, Music, Acoustics (2010) | ||
| Colin Ripley and with Marco Polo and Arthur Wrigglesworth, In the Place of Sound: Architecture | Music | Acoustics (2007) | ||
| Anthony Osborne, KEYBOARD CONNECTIONS: Proportion and temperament in music and architecture. Equal temperament, the golden section and a few other mysteries (2006) | ||
| Susan Elizabeth Hale, Sacred Space, Sacred Sound: The Acoustic Mysteries of Holy Places (2007) | ||
| Markus Bandur, Aesthetics of Total Serialism: Contemporary Research from Music to Architecture (The Information Technology Revolution in Architecture) (2001) | ||
| Rudolf Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism, (1977) (1st published in 1949) | ||
Examples of the integration of music and architecture
| Robert Fludd | temple of music | ||
| Richard Wagner | The concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk | ||
| Maha-Mantapa at Hampi Vithala | 15th C | ||
| Janet Cardiff | http://www.cardiffmiller.com/ | Forty-Part Motet and Opera for a Small Room | 2001 & 2010 |
| Nikola Basic | Sea organ, Zadar, Kroatia | 2005 | |
| David Byrne | The building as a musical instrument | Round House, London | 2009 |
| Bernard Heesen | Zingende Toren, Leidsche Rijn, Utrecht | 2009 | |
| Iannis Xenakis | |||
| Nicolas Jaar, | Space Is Only Noise If You Can See | ||
| Bernard Leitner | |||
| Pina Bausch | |||
| het Klankenbos in Neerpelt (België): | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kE4PXO3WkNo |
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| The Sesotho verb for singing (ho bina), as in many of the world's languages, also means to dance; there is no distinction, since it is assumed that singing involves bodily movement. (Levitin 7) | |
