Is music something that's heard only through the ears?
Or is it also something that happens between the two ears?
Stick around and find out.
These past few weeks, I've been digging up a lot of definitions
for "music" coming from different sources.
and ll of them hover around similar ideas, that music is an art form
that has to do with sound, structure, listening, etc.
But there's one definition that really caught my attention,
a definition that contains the obvious but subtle idea
that music isn't only what's physically heard through our ears,
but it's also what we hear in our mind's ear.
Just think of how language isn't only what we speak through our mouths,
but it's also what we read, what we write, and what we hear as a voice inside our minds.
Like the one speaking to me right now.
But back to music, here's how I think of illustrating this whole
concept of music that is heard, versus music that is
thought of:
Music that's physically heard is placed horizontally, and music that's being thought of is placed
vertically.
For instance, imagine someone hearing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" being played
and then simply thinking of the melody "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" playing in his mind.
Now that this is established, let's move to the next level, where things
get really interesting.
I'll be stepping into the world of mathematics for a bit,
but not for any formulas or calculations.
It's simply to create a parallel between some concepts in mathematics,
and to bring them over to music.
In math, numbers are usually represented along a horizontal line.
Positive numbers are on the right side, and negative numbers are to the left side.
The analogy with music is that the positive side
is for sounds that WILL be produced and the negative side is for sounds that WERE
produced . For instance, after a few notes
of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", we have the first four notes that were played
on the negative side, and three notes remaining are still on the
positive side until they are played.
Now, what about the music on the vertical orientation?
In a similar way, music that WILL be thought of is placed towards the top,
and music that WAS thought of is placed towards the bottom.
Check it out: In mathematics, there exists a category of
numbers that can not be described by using real-world references in the way
we use apples, bank debts and pizza slices to talk about whole numbers, negative numbers
and fractions.
I call these numbers "abstract" numbers as opposed the "real" numbers we're used to
on the horizontal line, The name "imaginary" is more commonly used,
but I prefer "abstract".
These numbers are abstract in a similar way that thoughts and ideas
cannot be explained physically, although they really do exist.
And I am not talking about brain chemistry and the thinking process,
I'm talking about the abstract notion of a thought,
so do not come running to me with neuroscience papers
and brain biology books, ok?
So we have the horizontal orientation for music heard,
and the vertical orientation for music in the mind.
Let's call this combination "complex music", as a reference to "complex numbers" in mathematics.
And to complete this analogy to math, let's label each one of the four different
directions: an eighth note on the real positive side,
a negative eighth note on the real negative side,
the square root of a negative eighth note on the abstract upper side,
and the negative square root of a negative eighth note on the abstract lower side.
That, my friends, is what the square root of a negative sound actually means.
As for the square root of a positive sound, I still have to figure what a sound multiplied
by itself actually means, before anything.
Anyways,a word of caution before I let you go:
There's nothing scientific about what I just talked about,
even if I used mathematics to put some structure into those ideas
All of this is more on the conceptual side, brushing up against metaphysical notions.
I use the word "melomathics" to describe this idea of
creating parallels between mathematics and the way we perceive music.
A similar word "musimathics", as used by Gareth Loy,
is the idea of making parallels between mathematics and the physics behind music.
That is one hundred percent science.
Well, there you have it!
That was our brief excursion into the world of music beyond our ears!
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Until next time, thank you so much for watching, and
See you later!
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