Upon reviewing these readings, it seems that the composition of music and the theory therein reflects nature. This may be a function of music as a medium to represent the surrounding world as are visual art and literature. The comparisons Helmholtz makes between musical concepts and natural occurrences such as moving water support this notion. The decisiveness of using a certain gesture also echoes the permanence of actions performed upon nature: a grown organism cannot regress as a melody’s gestural component cannot shift. 

Questions:

What would music sound like if the foundations of its development over time were of an intention to break away from nature? Would artistic movements tend toward order, contrasting with the real chain of musical change?

Why does gesture possess such finality? Is there a psychological component to examining melody that prevents us from acknowledging fluid gesture? 

Brian Eno’s “Music for Airports” begins with fluid phrases that stack, creating layers of complex harmonies. The enhanced reverb of the piano, coupled with the multiplicity of voicings, illustrates a scene of an airport terminal with travelers idly waiting for their flights. The second section employs more static voices that retain tones for a long duration. The gestural content changes from wistful, active sounds to steady, slow drones. The inner voices of the resulting harmony shift, resembling travelers moving about the cabin of an aircraft in flight. The final section blends elements of the other two. The parts either move about freely like the piano of the first section or sustain their tones like the cantus firmi of the second section. 

Maryanne Amacher’s “Synaptic Island” uses a plethora of white noise and rumble to create a frenetic piece. It seems to suggest a storm with its ebbing and flowing glitches and beeps. It reminds me of footage from a camera dropped in a body of water. The swelling effects further accentuate the water imagery. The frantic beeping that occurs toward the middle of the piece have regularity and rhythm, yet seem to lack an overarching melody. It does seem to have some harmonic contour since the sounds are not entirely discordant.

The voice can be modulated to sound non-human by increasing the energy of the sound waves produced by an action such as blowing. This must accentuate certain frequencies that would otherwise be less noticeable. Gesture seems to be a product of a pivotal musical decision made by the composer. The feeling and shape of the melody implementing the gesture cannot change its motivic path, tethered to the driving force of the gestural contour. This concept of gesture can be applied to the phonemes of languages. Contrapuntal structure can be broken down into two areas: architectural principle, the reference for the general development of the musical ideas; and dynamic principle, the quality of the movement. The introduction of another melodic stream in a piece necessitates the application of the contrapuntal principles described above. Otherwise, separate uniformly moving streams can be interpreted as a single entity through mixing and close timing. Three measures of gesture are magnitude, morphology, and second-order morphology. Magnitude considers the intensity of vibrato. The morphological characteristics examine the heterogeneity of the piece, note-to-note. Another dimension of analysis focuses on the relationships between parts of the piece, how they interact or ignore each other. 

Questions:

Are the classifications defined by Wishart intuitive to the general audience of music? Were these born out of complex contemplation and thought experiment or through visceral methods such as attributing qualities to feelings evoked by certain pieces against others. 

How does the mind react to the different qualities defined in the morphology of a gesture? Are there biological queues that indicate enjoyment of the gestural contour of a noise?

Does quantifying and categorizing musical composition make it easier, or is it more advantageous to let inspiration and creative freedom motivate the majority of a piece? 

Questions:

1. The morph feature seems to give the most interesting and nuanced control over timbre.
2. I prefer AM synthesis. It seems to have more room for experimentation than does FM synthesis.
3. The chaotic oscillator gave an unpredictable pattern that other modules could not reproduce. It requires recording over a period of time and picking out parts that fit what the composition needs.

The Max Neuhaus and John Cage piece performs additive synthesis before the listener. It starts with an almost inaudible tone that gradually collects other signals and evolves into a richer sound. The timbre of this sound is dynamic, varying from full and vibrant to disjoint and metallic. The panning gives the piece movement and a sinister atmosphere. The other noises that emerge, oscillating low frequencies and a piercing beep, accentuate the ominous imagery evoked by the music.

“The Synthesis of Synthesis- The Telharmonium” elaborates on Thaddeus Cahill’s invention, the Telharmonium. It moves electrons in the same fashion as air molecules do when handling sound energy. It can therefore replicate the entire sound spectrum digitally.

Wendy Carlos’s compositions make significant use of synth pads to generate full sounds. Sometimes, she creates disharmony, possibly to convey a darker feeling. Given that this is a movie soundtrack, it is natural that the music adapts to the scene on the screen. Other analogue instruments are incorporated as well, maybe echoing the human-computer interaction depicted in Tron. The range of frequency of sounds is very wide across the entire sound track. This helps to separate the pieces into discrete layers. 

James Tenney’s piece is similar to that of Neuhaus and Cage in that it performs additive synthesis. It differs in its panning, which is generally balanced, and in its atmosphere. The signals are added gradually and are mostly homogeneous. The piece evokes a feeling of floating.

The members of Huun Huur Tu create a rich, room-filling sound with only their voices. There is an audible second frequency overlaying the fundamental of each note they sing. It is most apparent with their bass, or lowest voice. The voices mix almost seamlessly with the string instruments they play.

The ability to distinguish a complex tone with particular upper partials from that same tone without those additional elements can only be attained through concerted training. Musical experience does not factor into any natural proficiency in discerning these sonic nuances. It is easier to identify odd partials such as fifths, thirds, and sevenths. The methodology to address the mental augmentation of a tone that adds perceived missing partials seems complex. The difficulty of hearing the partials on a wind instrument relative to that of hearing partials on a stringed instrument makes sense since the sound waves have a solid medium through which to emanate. The technique described to isolate the upper partials of astringed instrument has a practical application in musical performance. It is interesting that the high, singular tones of a guitar string dampened by a player’s finger has appeal to the prevailing demographic of rock music listeners. This shows how musical preferences have changed through time to focus on more unique and unexpected sounds. The human voice has been used to capture simultaneously the fundamental of a tone and harmonics on that fundamental. The multiple forms of such singing found across cultures may speak to some unity in the human methodology of music. The most notable of these instances is the Tuvan throat singing phenomenon. The mechanism of performing such sounds with a human voice is complex and most likely difficult to learn. It may be an instinctual act or something that comes from practice and emulation rather than targeted training. The biological component seems too complex for the skill to be easily transferred through edification. The concept of a call and response type of performance by a Tuvan throat singer between the singer and nature is interesting.

Questions: 

Can the construction of tones through superimposing individual signals adequately recreate the sound image of a live musical performance? Are there additional elements of senses aside from hearing that synthesize a complete soundscape with what is perceived through hearing?

Would it be possible for humans to produce three or more tones using further expanded versions of techniques such as throat singing?

Why does the addition or subtraction of a few upper partials make such a drastic change to the sound image of a signal? 

“Three variations on plum blossom” exhibits strong panning of the instruments. The rich strings on the immediate right and the blithe flute on the left create a juxtaposition that intrigues the listener. The independent melodic paths of the two parts complement each other well and seem to switch off the role of main melody. 

Clara Rockmore’s performance on the theremin is haunting because of her precision and intentional wavering. It feels as though she is creating the illusion of vibrato in a human voice through her oscillating instrumentation. She demonstrates expert control in performing dynamics.

“Still and Moving Lines of Silence in Families of Hyperbolas” applies the drone technique to an unexpectedly high tone. It is almost piercing in quality. The high-energy percussion that drops in helps to mitigate the sensation. The high-pitch drone seems to weave up and down to the sound of the percussion. It may be due to an applied effect or a natural interaction between the sound waves. 

“Dune” focuses on percussion and ambient sounds. The fast rhythm uses a bouncy kick, sharp snares, and shimmering overheads. The introduction of the sub-bass completes the sound image of the piece in the context of the drum and bass genre. The looped vocalization panned to the back-right feels as if it could be artificially generated. 

The increasing subtlety of the marginal effects achieved by adding partials to a fundamental suggests that an arbitrarily numerous quantity of partials would observe negligible change with the superposition of another partial. The example of the stiff piano string causing a positive warmth quality to permeate the sound envelope of a piano’s tone shows that not all of the prevailing soundscape in popular musical culture can be broken down to neat, uniform subunits. Some appealing sounds come from asymmetry and imperfection. The comparisons to nature made by the Chinese musical notation of chi’in provide a more concrete image of the characteristics of sound colors. The addition of sound color to musical interpretation expands the complexity of musical intent. It appends new dimensions such as register to the likes of melody, harmony, and rhythm. Helmholtz compares the interaction of sound waves to those of a rippling body of water. He explains that the waves coexist and phase through each other, summing as they overlap. The wide range of perspective offered by sight relative to hearing makes apparent the limitation of the human ear to detect only individual sounds or multiple sounds in a vague clump, rather than all details of a complete soundscape. 

Questions:

Have other cultures adapted some writing convention for musical components such as register?

What is the absolute threshold for humans to distinguish a tone color from another?

How does the interaction of sound waves create tertiary sonic qualities such as register?