[Smt-talk] Gravity (Was: Car names)

[Thomas Noll]

Dear Donna, dear Colleagues,
I wonder wether this metaphor can be made productive without provoking a thought-terminating controversy about the incorruptibility of a natural law on the one hand and the freedom in musical creativity on the other. To prevent that cliché right from the start it might be useful to first acknowledge that Newtonian mechanics provides high explanatory power for the study of dance, say. This pertains to purely mechanical limb movements and - on a psychological meta-level - it also pertains to the experience and the mechanical expertise of the body/mind of the dancer. One could say, that this level of Newtonian expertise provides a medium wherein choreographic creativity develops. 
I think that it is worthwhile to search for an analogous medium (within the human mind), wherein musical creativity develops. The "gravity"-metaphor is maybe too special, though, for a productive transfer to music. Hamilton's mathematical formulation of classical mechanics has been proven to be more flexible in many regards. It is therefore a better candidate for the description of a dynamics expertise that is exemplified in our body/minds. Paragraph [139] of "Modes, the Height-Width Duality, and Handschin’s Tone Character"  suggests a very first speculative link:
http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.11.17.1/mto.11.17.1.clampitt_and_noll.html   
The idea is that musical tone relations are organized in pairs of conjugated variables, such as tone height and tone width (Handschin's Tone character). We support our argument also with a side glance to surprising findings in neuro-acoustics. 
At this year's John Clough symposium in Yale I sketched a hypothesis about the interaction of modal tone relations with those of counterpoint. It includes the interpretation of the subsemitonium modi (musica ficta) in the standard cadence as a "thrust reversal" of the tone character. This hypothesis enriches the grammatical interpretation of the cadence by the assumption of some psychological trick. A lot of work has to be done to nail this hypothesis down. Nevertheless I mention it here to challenge your statement that "we seem to be less successful" in defying gravity with sound.
Sincerely
Thomas Noll                  

 

> In response to a private response, I'd like to clarify my previous post: Since most things on planet Earth (e. g., automobiles) are subject to gravity's laws and work with them in order to 'defy' them, is sound also subject to gravity? Or is this 'just' a metaphor? If sound is affected by gravity, how (no need to repeat Schenker)? And how can/should we work with it when we create and analyze? Someone once said, "If an architect builds a faulty building, people are killed and he/she goes to jail--when someone writes a bad piece of music, fortunately, no one goes to jail (at least not post-Stalin)."
> So perhaps these questions are inconsequential? Not answering them allows people to employ themselves, right? (Someone else once said to me, "Oh well, who cares? Not caring gives us something to do.") But, for whatever reasons, it matters to me and I would really appreciate some good answers! 
> 
> Best,
> Donna Doyle
> Queens College
> Flushing, NY 11367
> 
> 
> 
> On Jul 27, 2012, at 10:40 AM, Donna Doyle <donnadoyle at att.net> wrote:
> 
>> Can someone tell me why we're able to design cars that 'defy' gravity while we seem to be less successful
>> doing the same with sound? We certainly have given it a good try.
>> 
>> Donna Doyle
>> Queens College CUNY
>> Flushing, NY 11367
>> 
>> 
>> On Jul 27, 2012, at 9:07 AM, Donna Doyle wrote:
>> 
>>> Yes, the 8 line is practically nonexistent and the 5 line more interesting than the 3, despite its unsupported stretch.
>>> Good your car goes uphill as well.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Best, 
>>> Donna Doyle
>>> Queens College
>>> Flushing, NY 11367
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Jul 26, 2012, at 12:10 PM, Samarotto, Frank wrote:
>>> 
>>>> We recently bought a Mazda 5, obviously a reference to scale degree numbers. We also liked the Mazda 3, and found it difficult to decide between the two. (The company does not make a Mazda 8, perhaps it should.)
>>>> 
>>>> Curiously, the car does equally well uphill and downhill.
>>>> 
>>>> Frank
>>>> 
>>>> Frank Samarotto
>>>> Associate Professor of Music Theory
>>>> Jacobs School of Music
>>>> Indiana University Bloomington
>>>> 
>>>> -- 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On 7/23/12 12:27 PM, "William Caplin" <caplin at music.mcgill.ca> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> > What do you all make of the latest trend of Asian car manufacturers naming 
>>>> > their cars after musical terms?
>>>> > 
>>>> > We already have Hyundai's "Sonata" and "Accent" (two of my own major areas of 
>>>> > research).  Then there's Kia's "Rondo."  And just today I read about a new 
>>>> > electric car from China named "Coda."  (I suppose a "Cadence" can't be too far 
>>>> > in the future.)  
>>>> > 
>>>> > Clearly there's a prestige factor associated with music in Asia that doesn't 
>>>> > seem to resonate with North American or European makers.  
>>>> > 
>>>> > Have I missed others?  
>>>> > 
>>>> > Wishing you all a pleasant summer!
>>>> > 
>>>> > Bill
>>>> > 
>>>> > 
>>>> > ____________________________
>>>> > William E. Caplin
>>>> > James McGill Professor of Music Theory
>>>> > 
>>>> > Department of Music Research
>>>> > Schulich School of Music
>>>> > McGill University
>>>> > 
>>>> > 555 Sherbrooke Street West
>>>> > Montreal, Quebec
>>>> > Canada H3A 1E3
>>>> > 
>>>> > office: (514) 398-4535 x00279
>>>> > home: (514) 488-3270
>>>> > http://www.music.mcgill.ca/~caplin/Home.html
>>>> > 
>>>> > 
>>>> > 
>>>> > 
>>>> > 
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>>>> > rg
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*********************************************************
Thomas Noll
http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~noll
noll at cs.tu-berlin.de
Escola Superior de Musica de Catalunya, Barcelona 
Departament de Teoria i Composició 

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