Re: [tuning] Sound Theories

Beckah wrote,

> Does anyone here see any relevance of these things to justly tuned
logic?

David Beardsley wrote,

I've just been reading recently how the ancient Greeks (Pythagorists?)
considered ratios (proportions) part of the order of the universe.
Sounds good to me.

This is an excerpt from "On the Sensations of Tone" that I'll roll on
out for anyone who might be interested...

"'Everything is Number and Harmony,' was the characteristic principle
of the Pythagorean doctrine. The same numerical ratios which exist
between the seven tones of the diatonic scale, were thought to be
found again in the distances of the celestial bodies from the central
fire. Hence the harmony of the spheres, which was heard by Phythagoras
alone among mortal men, as his disciples asserted. The numerical
speculation of the Chinese in primitive times reach as far. In the
book of Tso-kiu-ming, a friend of Confucius (B.C. 500), the five tones
of the old Chinese scale were compared with the five elements of their
natural philosophy--water, fire, wood, metal, and earth. The whole
numbers 1, 2, 3 and 4 were described as the source of all perfection.
At a later time the 12 Semitones of the Octave were connected with the
12 months in the year, and so on. Similar references of musical tones
to the elements, the temperaments, and the constellations are found
abundantly scattered among the musical writings of the Arabs. The
harmony of the spheres plays a great part throughout the middle ages.
According to Athanasius Kircher, not only the macrocosm, but the
microcosm is musical. Even Keppler, a man of deepest scientific
spirit, could not keep himself free from imaginations of this kind.
Nay, even in the most recent times, theorizing friends of music may be
found who will rather feast on arithmetical mysticism than endeavor to
hear upper partial tones." (Hermann Helmholtz, "On the Sensations of
Tone" p. 229)

So while Helmholtz was an ardent proponent of just intonation, he was
also a great "age of reason" scientist, and he can barely subdue his
own biases here; the sting in "imaginations of this kind" is
unmistakable! Interestingly enough, I also remember Carl Sagan using
the same example of Keppler to make similarly stinging points about
"the Pythagorean doctrine"...

I don't share Helmholtz' view. All sorts of "imaginations of this
kind" make up some of the most important things in my life... so to my
mind he's selling "imaginations of this kind" much too short. However,
I must also admit that I find a lot of the contemporary "imaginations
of this kind" to be almost diametrically opposed to so many of my own
personal experiences and feelings - see "What Do Pure Intervals Sound
Like?" of Kyle Gann's "Just Intonation Explained" for a good example
of what I'm trying to get at here.

Carl E. Seashore wrote of esthetics as a normative science, and he
gave a voice to the fundamental role of "imaginations of this kind"
that I would personally find much more palatable and resonant.

"The musical medium is the music proper as executed in the form of
physical sounds which have their physiological and mental correlates.
Esthetics accepts the scientific approach to the medium as physical,
psychophysical, physiological, and psychological. Instead of assuming
that millions of phenomena of musical sounds are ethereal and
unclassifiable, not reducible to law and order, it begins at once to
put order into chaos by setting questions to nature under control. It
proceeds on the assumption that these phenomena are knowable if we
have the patience and skill to search for them; it discredits the
armchair procedure of merely thinking and talking about them; it
distrust traditions, vogues, hobbies, and mystical and theological
hunches. Instead of beginning with the pinnacle, it starts from the
ground, building its
structure patiently, block by block, even realizing that the structure
will never be completed. It will never give us the dreamed-of theory
of beauty but will progressively enrich our insights into the nature
and structure of beauty with the growing appreciation of the infinite
richness of possibilities.

It begins with the classification of the physical characteristics of
the sound wave and carries this classification through the physical
sounds, as mediated through the physiological organism, as responded
to by the psychological organism in sensory experience, and as
reproduced and elaborated in memory, imagination, thought, and
emotional drives in their marvelous possibilities of intricate
relationships.

But let us not delude ourselves into thinking that the situation is
simple or solved. If there where a one-to-one relationship between the
physical sound and the mental experience or response which it
illicits, our problem would be simplified. However, these
relationships scarcely if ever exist. The mental process never
corresponds exactly to the physical event, and it is in this situation
that the real problem of the psychologist begins on the task of
discovering law and order in the deviations of the mental event from
the physical event. This leads us first to the staggering realization
that in musical art, "All is illusion." Without the blessing of normal
illusions, musical art would be hopelessly stunted. Our profoundest
appreciation's of nature and art are detachments from the physically
exact and constitute a synthesis through the medium of normal
illusions. But the composer, the performer, and the listener all deal
with the physical medium and all the theories of form and
interpretation of message and response must in the long run be
grounded upon a true cognizance of the nature of this medium and its
possible roles." (Carl E. Seashore, "Psychology of Music" pp. 377-78)

I've brought this quote up before, but I still find it to be relevant,
grounded and 'fair.' However, should others not have this reaction, I
can understand that as well. But in the context of this topic I
thought it would be a good opportunity to run it out again... For when
Seashore writes, "our profoundest appreciation's of nature and art are
detachments from the physically exact," I'm reminded of the great
promoter and champion of wilderness Sigurd Olson who wrote, "no longer
can wilderness be saved from the standpoint of physical enjoyment but
only as a stepping stone to cosmic understanding," and, "in a world
confused and strident, a world where all the old verities are being
questioned, this is the final answer." And I've always thought that
Olson was expressing ideals from a mindset that was remarkably
analogous to Charles Ives' anagogic vision of music's -- and indeed
humanity's -- great potential... and I guess I just can't see the
great gist of "music" in this light as something too overly bound to
any one of its particulars.

Dan