What I meant to consider may be better expressed this way: since the human hardware is subject to the same principles of physics that govern the resonant behavior of those materials that produce musical sound, might we not be more inclined to respond in an analogous way to stimuli which excite our hardware/software receivers. In other words, if the stimulating vibrations and resonances "line up" in ways that reinforce each other, might we not be "programmed" to respond to those stimuli differently than those that set up "interfering" resonances? I don't, for a moment, discount the role of cultural acclimatization in changing and expanding human response to outside stimuli. I am just trying to consider whether or not there might be something to be gained by examining the fact that our hardware too, is constrained by observable physical behavior.
Beyond that - the whole consonance/dissonance issue, and its effect on the perception of musical drama and movement through time is a big "question" and is clearly subject to cultural biases. There are those who perceive Phillip Glass's music as moving and dramatic in some way. I don't, but that's because of deeply ingrained "Western" expectations. I like my expectations, and believe in them for me. Others clearly differ.
I speak and hear a certain kind of musical language - with a fairly broad range of possibilities, but I don't respond equally to all music. I don't know many who claim that they do. A lot of that is cultural, but I wonder about the long term durability of systems which eschew commonly perceived musical responses - those which purposely avoid them. In my experience, they miss things which have a kind of "normal" (to me) communicative power, and are therefore in some way less effective. Strict 12 tone music seems to me to be an intellectual construction that discounts (purposefully, I understand) some basic elements of the way I perceive and process music. It's a choice, but it is one that does not arise from the same impulses and social processes (loosely controlled, or perhaps even uncontrolled consensus) that create and govern verbal language. Esperanto is a similarly controlled language environment. Where are the Esperanto poets?
Anyway - my 2c.
Chuck
On Feb 6, 2005, at 1:19 PM, Andrew Stiller wrote:
Chuck IsraelsMaybe an interesting hypothetical question: does our "hardware" (inner ear bones etc.) react to outside stimuli that bear some relationship to the physical laws that govern the resonant behavior of the bones themselves? Just an idle thought. I'm in no position to explore this.
Chuck
The auditory ossicles transmit incoming sounds, more or less unmodified, from the eardrum to the cochlea. The cochlea is lined with hair cells of different sizes, neatly lined up in size order. Hair cells of different sizes vibrate in response to different frequencies. When a cell is triggered, it sends an impulse up the auditory branch of the VIII cranial nerve, which impulse is eventually processed by the brain. Everything we have been arguing about here has to do with what the brain does--the rest is simple physics.
--
Andrew Stiller
Kallisti Music Press
http://home.netcom.com/~kallisti/
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