It has been nice to order a book "Physics and the Sound of Music" which is written by John S Rigden. This book was written in 1977 so at least in the arena of electrical transmission of music the science was still in it's infancy. However he does write about some concepts that as a musician has always intrigued me. How does the sense of, for example listening to the rhythm of a train or the rhythms of traffic for example translate into our perception of rhythm and pace in music? How have industrial sounds that we are all surrounded with on a daily basis affect our daily perception of music? This book says that it cannot answer the question of how sound is perceived by the listener but that it can delve into what is sound itself.
He talks about frequency. There is a frequency - a beginning and an end, to for example the moon rotating around the earth as there is a frequency to a hummingbirds wings. This beginning and end in physics apparently is called a 'period'. The periodic motion is the motion repeating itself, for example, the moon's orbit or the wing pattern of a hummingbird. The frequency then is the number of cycles given in a period of time. The frequency of the heart is one beat per second for example. He then moves on to the subject of 'simple harmonic motion' of which involves and makes music possible. This is where the amplitude exceeds the action or the force to create the amplitude. A tuning fork or a guitar string would exemplify this. However for right now I am content to dwell on frequency; for example the frequency of a waves hitting the shoreline, or what it is like waking up in the morning to the rocking of a boat when the sun is just peering over the horizon. I would like to ask how this gets transcribed into a sense of rhythm.
Somewhere in all this we can perceive a deftly laid out rhythm like a rocking of a boat or the occurrence of waves hitting the shore. Other rhythms might sound more like the rush of a train or the hitting of windshield wipers against the windshield. We have industrial rhythms, traffic rhythms, the radio or television in the background; we have music playing and we have sounds throughout the day that are in our work or recreation environments. Somewhere in all this the listener is listening to music that reflects his or her value systems and personal outlooks. Also somewhere in all this we have the musician creating and listening to his or her own pieces in analysis and interpretation. Some songs are like a reading of a good story and other songs are more like intricate instrumentals. Physics might cover the mechanics and characteristics of sound and it is physics that says that you cannot have sound without motion. However who knows what that types of sound is perceived by the listener? Who knows how that sound gets translated by a creator and writer of music? This answer of course is found in all the endless compositions that we have in our known history and in our known environments in which those compositions were created.
Who conceived the drone and melodies of a bagpipe presumably in the depths of history itself or who conjured up the reed in the clarinet? A quick look on the internet says that the clarinet is a recent arrival with Mozart being the first to use it in his symphonies. Most of all what was it like to listen to the worship of David as described in Psalm 81 "Sing for joy to God our strength, shout aloud to the God of Jacob! Begin the music, strike the tambourine, play the melodious harp and lyre. Sound the ram's horn"... one can only imagine what it was like to be in the presence of such divine influences. The writer thinks that all these previous ponderings are like a pale reflection compared to the joy expressed in one of David's symphonies. Here we are talking about an expressed connection and music seems to affirm that connection.However here we are breaking off into another subject. The art of listening and composing is much older and it is as old as history itself and then we have the inspired worship, the connection in faith to the Judeo Christian God and that is another subject. The book "Physics and the Sound of Music" certainly has inspired some thought on the subject of music perception with this writer even though it is simply about the mechanics of sound and music itself.
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