We all know of occasions when a piece of "music" is described as "a noise", be it the latest hit record, or a new "modern" composition performed by highly skilled musicians, with the utmost seriousness; if we remove the idea of personal taste, can we find a line, on one side of which sounds are "musical and, on the other, "noise"?
Where do we start? We will consider several factors which may determine the musicality or otherwise of a sound, starting with the physical production of the sound, and looking at the definition of "a musical instrument", and the roles of the performer, composer and listener; surely, somewhere in amongst these topics we shall find a clue to the meaning of "music"!
Sound has a number of intrinsic properties; we will look at these to see if they can help us in our quest.
Musical instruments, singularly or together, may produce an enormous range of volumes, from a lightly brushed string on a guitar or harp, to the full blooded roar of a symphony orchestra, or a rock group at maximum wattage; the range may extend from the threshold of audibility at the quiet end to actual pain at the high end. However, there seems to be no point at which the sound actually becomes "noise" due to its amplitude; if it is too quiet for us to hear, we would still allow the musicality of the note, perhaps to someone with more sensitive hearing, or if amplified in some way.
At the other extreme, we cannot say that the sound becomes noise as it gets louder; if we were to wear earmuffs, or to retreat to a safe distance, the sound level which we perceive becomes more acceptable, and we have to admit that the sound source is actually emitting music, rather than noise.
The pitch of a note is determined by the cyclic variations in air pressure produced by the instrument; hence, rapidly cycling variations give rise to a high pitch, and slower variations give rise to low pitched notes. The range of pitches which may be heard varies between individuals, but the limits range from a few tens of cycles per second (Hertz) to a few tens of thousands (at the most - for a healthy bat) of Hertz . The lower frequencies are felt rather than heard - the 32¢ pipes of the organ may produce a sound similar to that produced by vibrating machinery -but certainly don't obviously warrant the description "noise", and the higher pitches eventually become inaudible; as long as they are audible, they certainly seem reasonably musical. Of course, if the amplitude is sufficiently high, any note is potentially destructive.
When we hear a note from a musical instrument, we experience the note over a period of time; a typical note will have maybe three or more time zones which are detected by the listener and go towards making up a recognisable sound.
Initially, the note will have an attack; This period will describe how the note starts from silence and builds up to a defined pitch. Consider the pluck of a harp or guitar, or the striking of the hammer inside a piano; these make sounds that give us real clues as to the nature of the instrument that has made the sound, even though the subsequent decay of the note shows far less difference between the instruments.
After the attack, many instruments play a note that will enter a (fairly) steady period or plateau; this is obviously the case in bowed stringed instruments or the wind family, where the performer continues to apply energy, by bowing or blowing, and so the note continues. During this period, instruments that produce cyclic vibrations at a single pitch (a pure note) will all sound the same, whereas those which produce complex notes (generally a fundamental note and many related higher notes) will have a characteristic timbre that is dependent on the method of production and the relative strength of the components.
Eventually, of course, this is followed by a period of decay, where the note fades away to silence, either abruptly, as in the application of the damper on the piano, or slowly, if the sustain pedal is held down on the same instrument.
The pitch is largely determined by the plateau period, with the identification of the instrument taking place largely during the attack and start of the plateau period - depending on the instrument.
At all stages of the note, the sound is unlikely to consist of simple variations in sound pressure; most instruments produce notes that contain a fundamental pitch which is heard as the loudest or most obvious note, but also contain notes which are multiples of the fundamental; the relative amplitude and pitch of these additional notes (harmonics) determine the quality of the sound.
The instruments which tend to have the simplest sound structure tend to be wind instruments such as recorder and flute; plucked and struck instruments have more complicated structure to their notes, compounded by the fact that the notes begin to decay almost as soon as they begin. Is it possible that musicality is defined as some combination of structural factors in the sound?
If we ignore the definition of pitch for a moment, can we make a musical sound in spite of wide variations in the structure?
Well, we have already said that a recorder has a very simple sound, can we find anything simpler?
The simplest notes are those that are generated electronically, which are produced with a mathematically pure shape (called a sine wave ) during the plateau period, and with a relatively simple attack and decay shapes, achieved electronically. An instrument which could produce this type of sound is the Theremin, invented by Leon Theremin in the second decade of this century ; although sometimes described as "eerie" to modern ears, the instrument was used to perform music of many different types, classical recitals being very popular in its heyday, but featuring in diverse fields such as the Beach Boy's hit "Good Vibrations" in the '60s!
The most complex pitched notes tend to come from struck or plucked instruments, where an initial large transient (i.e. a high amplitude, complex sound of short duration) decays slowly until suddenly damped into silence. This is typified by the piano or harp. We are used to these sounds, and they certainly seem musical to us, but it is possible to conjecture that keen Theremin players find the sounds abrupt and unpleasant!
Some instruments produce sounds that have no readily determined pitch; some types of drum and cymbals come into this category, so we cannot use the absence of pitch to define a noise.
Ralph Vaughan Williams' seventh symphony - the "Sinfonia Antartica" - is scored to include a wind machine, which is of indefinite pitch, and would be classed as noise in its normal context, but here performs a musical function, as does a recorded nightingale in Ottorino Respighi's "The Pines of Rome"!
When a group of instruments such as a symphony orchestra are playing together, the resulting sound pattern can be hugely complex; this in itself does not prevent us from perceiving the result as "music" rather than "noise".
So far, we have concentrated mostly on the structure of single notes; almost all music consists of notes that occur together as well as serially. Perhaps it is the relationship between notes that determines musicality?
There is no doubt that some combinations of notes sound more pleasant than others, when played in isolation, but the harsher combinations (generally called dissonances) have been used in all sorts of music for hundreds of years; an example is the 16th Century composer Alonso Mudarra, writing for vihuela (a forerunner of the modern classical guitar), who said at one point in a piece "From here on to the end there are some false notes. When played well they do not sound bad" . Written in the late 18th century, Haydn's Symphony No. 100 in G Major has a daring harmonic clash in which the notes D, C# and C are played simultaneously by different parts of the orchestra . More modern composers frequently use dissonance to add tension to their music, but dissonance itself cannot be described as noise.
We could be forgiven in thinking that the song of the birds or a human voice gives an indication that music comes from natural sources, or at least instruments made from natural materials. This argument does not stand up on close inspection; although many people see instruments such as a Stradivarius violin as being constructed of "natural" materials using nothing more technical than "the violin maker's art", the strings will frequently by made from high tensile steel, and the varnish used on the body of the instrument, in spite of its age, is a chemical brew that still defies accurate modern scientific analysis. Other instruments are increasingly using modern materials and methods of construction, but still produce musical sounds; instruments using plastics or carbon fibre components are appearing, ranging from recorders to guitars, without compromising tone quality unduly.
If we are considering naturalness of the musical source, many of us very rarely hear real instruments, but listen to the electronically controlled movement of a loudspeaker cone - and we still can tell one instrument from another! And as if this was not enough, the modern way of producing music is using the technique of synthesis, where a keyboard is used as a controller for a piece of electronics which contains an electronic description of, say, a flute, and plays back a flute sound (which may have been created from a "sample" of a real flute) for every note of the keyboard, but with full polyphony. We seem to have come a long way since the invention of the Theremin......
Although we have touched on some very interesting aspects of the way in which the sound may be produced, there seems to be nothing obvious in the physical aspects that determines musicality or otherwise; we must therefore try to move on to an alternative definition!
An alternative avenue for the definition of a musical sound, is the sound that is produced by a musical instrument; if we go down this road, we first need to settle the role of recorded or broadcast music, in which case we are not listening to the instruments themselves, but a sort of electronic copy. This is reasonable enough, because when we listen to a (real) instrument, what our ears are doing is responding to changes in air pressure brought about by the vibration of the sound box (or whatever) of the instrument; these vibrations are detected by the ear because the air between instrument and audience acts as a "channel" through which the vibrations pass. We can quite reasonably describe the recording or broadcasting process as an alternative channel through which the vibrations pass (in some form or another) to produce a copy that is, for all intents and purposes, and certainly by the intentions of the manufacturers of the equipment involved, indistinguishable from the real thing.
Musical instruments come in three main classes; stringed, wind and percussion. Stringed instruments make use of the fact that a "string" (which may be made of nylon, animal entrails, steel, carbon fibre.......) tends to vibrate at a fixed frequency or pitch; in fact, strings vibrate at a number of different frequencies simultaneously, and it is the combinations of these different frequencies which give the particular stringed instrument its tone. The string has a fundamental frequency, generally the loudest pitched note, which depends on the tension and the mass (i.e. thickness and weight)of the string. Thinner, tighter, strings sound higher notes than thicker, slacker, ones.
The pitch of the note is altered by the player, either by changing the string tension - e.g. the pedals on a harp or pedal guitar - or by "stopping" the string to reduce the sounding length - e.g. violin family, fretted instruments.
Wind instruments work by making a tube of air vibrate, and a similar principle applies; large tubes with low air pressures produce low notes, short tubes with high air pressures make higher notes. This latter fact allows wind instrument player to increase the range of their instruments by "overblowing" them.
The pitch of the note from the tube is altered by changing the sounding length - e.g. pan pipes, trombone - or by opening a hole at a carefully calculated point in the length of the tube, to persuade the air column to vibrate at an alternative pitch; this occurs because the tube sounds by generating a wave of air pressure that reflects from one (closed) end of the tube, up to the point where the air pressure is allowed to release - i.e. a hole; hence, the hole effectively reduces the sounding length of the tube.
Percussion instruments produce a sound when struck, either directly by the player, or by using some form of implement such as a hammer or stick. The result of striking the instrument causes some part of it to vibrate; the vibrations are transmitted to the air, and hence to the listener.
There is an enormous range of percussion instrument - almost everything makes a noise when struck - but they fall into 2 classes, pitched and non pitched; pitched percussion instruments, such as the xylophone, produce a clearly recognisable note, but non pitched instruments, such as the cymbal, produce a sound that is close to random noise, in that sound energy is produced over such a large range of vibrational frequencies that no one pitch dominates.
There are numerous instruments that do not fall into any of these categories, of which the one of the weirdest must be the trusty Theremin, which is not stringed, nor wind, nor percussion, and is played by the performer by simply being close to it ! (This works by virtue of the electrical capacitance between the player and the instrument sensing pads - rather like the light switches that don't move, but just need to be touched to control the lights. As the player's hands move, the variation in capacitance is used to control the frequency of an electronic oscillator; a second oscillator has to be used to bring the note down to an audible frequency, by arranging for the difference in pitch between the two oscillators being in the audible range. This is necessary as the change in capacitance is only small and will only affect an oscillator outside of the range of hearing.)
If we take a piece of wood and hit it with a drum stick (or even a pencil!), it will make a sound; whether it is a musical sound (whatever that may be!) probably depends more on the circumstances of the performance than the acoustic properties of the wood block. Similarly, hitting an empty oil drum with a mallet forms a core musical instrument to the "steel band", making a mellifluous sound which belies its origins. Music can be made using glasses of water, comb and paper, and even by bowing a saw! Visitors to the Exploratory in Bristol are invited to produce notes from a number of unlikely objects, including lengths or plastic drain pipe . It should be stressed that the music produced in these cases is certainly "real" music, with real notes, real tunes - in theory, quite substantial works could be performed without using any instruments of the type we would normally expect; hence we cannot define music as something that only exists if played on accepted musical instruments.
What part does the performer play in all this? Could we say that music is something performed by musicians? This will require us to investigate some form of definition of the term "musician".
We could not possibly tie the definition of musician to any degree of formal training; we are all aware of people who can be described as "natural musicians" who have received no training of any sort. This is particularly true of singers, to whom the instrument is always available to practice, and never needs tuning! I propose we define "musician" as "someone who has some degree of facility on their chosen instrument".
Each instrument - even the paper and comb - requires some practice or experience to make best use of it; there seem to be things that are intrinsically "right" for the instrument, and some that are intrinsically "wrong". You would expect someone who has some degree of facility on their chosen instrument to use the instrument in the "right" way.
We immediately run into problems; there are many examples of the misuse of instruments, either as a result of the instruction of the composer, the whim of the performer, or from sheer necessity to overcome some deficiency from which the instrument suffers. This may range from the playing of stringed instruments with the back of the bow ("col legno" ) to inserting sticking plaster in a clarinet to allow very quiet notes to be played correctly to pitch . Further instances include replacing the bellows of an organ with a vacuum cleaner , and playing the banjo or guitar behind the player's head - for example, Joe Brown, of "Joe Brown and the Bruvvers". A number of pieces have been written for "prepared piano", in which the piano has screws and similar objects inserted in the strings, a technique regularly employed by the American John Cage. Some bass guitar players add rhythmic interest by pressing the strings towards the magnetic pickups - so called because they pick up the natural vibration of the string and convert into an electrical signal - until the magnetic attraction pulls on the string until it touches the magnetic pole piece, creating a loud click. All these techniques misuse the instruments, but are intended to enhance the music.
Could we say that it is not way in which the instrument is used, but the method of performance that determines musicality? There is no doubt that the skill of the performer is often the key factor in determining whether a some pieces are perceived as lightweight or electrifying - juries in piano competitions frequently hear the same piece played over and over again by different competitors, and have the unenviable task of ranking the performances - but it would be difficult to identify a point at which the performance would not be classed as music, assuming the performance is "correct" in that the right notes are played, and the composers intentions honoured.
Unfortunately for us, some music is produced without the need for any performer; the wind harp and wind chimes are played by the random action of the breeze and computers can be programmed to generate music in the style of famous composers, and can even play all the instruments, through the medium of the synthesizer. This is not to say that eliminating the performer does not cause a fundamental loss of an essential ingredient in the making of music; only to say that what is left may still be considered as music rather than noise; our only conclusion can be that the performer is not the key factor in separating music from noise!
Music may be composed by all sorts of people, and only some small proportion is ever written down. In western culture, much "formal" or "art" music is written down, but many styles of music are traditionally improvised or learnt by oral transmission. Music in the "jazz" idiom is largely improvised, and folk music is still passed through families by singing. In neither genre is there a history of particular difficulty in comprehension of the sounds produced, although inevitably some compositions are more difficult to come to terms with than others. However, these works are generally "difficult" in terms of style or content - not because the listener hears them as "noise".
Music has been written down for many hundreds of years, either by scholars who have learnt the music by having heard it performed by others, or by the composers themselves. The composers would have either created the music spontaneously - because it seemed a good idea at the time - or as a result of some plan to create a specific piece, perhaps in a specific style, and perhaps for a specific occasion. In the case of Abbess Hildegard of Bingen (a 12th century visionary poetess and composer), it seems highly likely that her creative source was inspired by visions - visual disturbances - caused by a relatively common neurological disorder, migraine.
Some compositions are built from a given premise, almost as an intellectual exercise rather than for the sake of the music itself; in this category we find the 40 part choral piece Spem in alium, written by Thomas Tallis in the 16th Century, almost certainly because he was challenged after hearing the 40 part composition by Alessandro Striggio, and by the fugues and canons by J.S. Bach, which are built on fascinating mathematical relationships but still produce music which is frequently beautiful and certainly not likely to by described as "noise" .
The ideas of style and occasion dominate most composers output, particularly by dividing music into secular or religious, or, perhaps, for dancing or listening, for fun or to make a grand impression, in many and varied combinations. Early (medieval) music would have been vocal with possibly a simple rhythmic percussion accompaniment; the vocal part would be frequently freely chanted rather than sung to a defined pattern of pitches and note durations. As the use of tools and materials allowed for the construction of more sophisticated instruments, so the prominence of purely instrumental music would have grown, until vocal and instrumental music became, at least in western culture, approximately equal partners.
Again in western culture, much early music - i.e. at the time of the Renaissance - tends to be simple in terms of structure, with the emphasis on line rather than vertical harmony and complex rhythms; at the beginning of the 17th century, taste and fashion changed to the extent that the emphasis moved to a relatively rigid harmonic structure . Hence we find composers such as Josquin des Prés and Clemens non Papa in the 16th century weaving several complex vocal lines, but rarely block chords, with all parts having equal importance; during the Baroque period, counterpoint and chordal harmonies were more frequently mixed and music tends to contain more rhythm, and by the time of the Romantic composers, complex chordal harmonies and subtle or dramatic rhythmic effects are the rule rather than the exception. As we move towards the end of the 20th century, we find music expanding in different directions, from the atonal works of Schoenberg at the beginning, to the unashamedly tonal works of Arvo Pärt at the end.
This, of course, is an oversimplification of the development of musical styles, but there is a pattern of human behaviour which shows a clear progression from "simple" to "complex" ideas and concepts over evolutionary time , and it seems likely that musical taste generally follows this in spite of local variations, such as the current vogue for composers to write music in a minimalist style.
We could envisage the composer as an individual with some knowledge of the styles of previous generations, striving to find new ways of expression rather than repeat what has gone before. However, he has to appeal to some expected audience, and if he has enough daring to extend the musical language by adding novelty to his composition, he still needs to allow the audience to accept the work as worthy of attention, which means that they need to recognise the musical language being used.
The role of the composer may have changed over the centuries, but one factor is still common; for much of the time, the composer has been "hired hand" rather than freelance artist, which must lead to the creation of music which is tailored in some way to the tastes of the employer. This is true for all periods, be it Johann Sebastian Bach for the Margrave of Brandenburg, or Malcolm Arnold for a cinema soundtrack! This does mean that composers tend to create music that is readily recognisable as music to the listener - musician or not.
As in other branches of the arts, the composers least likely to bow to the current taste in musical styles are the avant garde. Surely, if anyone is to be writing "music" that is perceived as "noise", then it will be the members of this group! Although it is likely that all periods have their avant garde individuals, it is only the introduction of recorded sound and a culture which tolerates individualism and eccentricity to a fairly high degree that has allowed these individuals to make a noticeable impact on the musical scene. We will look at some examples of unusual compositions and their composers to try to identify the scope of the music.
John Cage was an American composer who wrote much avant garde music using chance or random elements to minimise the impact of the composer's personality. He achieved notoriety in 1952 with a piece entitled 4' 33" which consists of a period of silence (or, more strictly, not playing the chosen instrument) on the part of the performer (but not silence on the part of the audience!); other pieces include Imaginary Landscape (1951) for 24 performers on 12 radios, and a large scale work for amplified harpsichord called HPSCHD.
Ligeti is a Transylvanian composer who makes use of microtonal intervals and shifting rhythms to produce frequently hypnotic compositions in which tunes appear and disappear by virtue of the multilayered nature of the composition. Key works include Poème Symphonique for multiple metronomes running at different tempos (1962), and a Requiem (1963-1965) which contains echoes of the classical vocal polyphony of the old masters.
Stockhausen is a German composer who has made much use of electronic music, interleaved with the application of mystical philosophy to produce strange and dramatic work . His works include Goldstaub, in which the performers receive no notes but only advice, in this case to starve themselves for 4 days, alone and in complete silence. In Stimmung, six voices murmur hypnotically, each on one note, and in Hymnen, elements of various National Anthems are built electronically into a unified whole.
Can we identify some pattern in this range of approaches to composing? It would seem unlikely; there seems to be no sound concept that cannot be pressed into service as part of a composition, and hence be labelled, at least by the composer and his followers, as "music". Whether or not we agree with him becomes a matter of taste, and at the start of this essay we agreed to ignore taste as the key discriminating factor.
We can go no further until we tackle this issue of taste; my proposition is that the definition of "music" is that which the listener believes to be music. The expression "one man's meat is another man's poison" is true for many styles; perhaps it should read "one man's Mersey Beat is another man's St. Matthew Passion"!
When we hear a piece of music, we take it in through our ears as a stream of information concerning pitch, loudness, timbre, tempo, rhythm, etc. on which we focus our auditory attention.
So what do we actually perceive? If we have never heard music before, then the experience will be totally alien and the result impossible to define; however, if we have heard music before, there will still be a difference in our perception if the music is totally unlike anything we have heard before than if we have already experienced something similar.
In the case where the piece bears at least some resemblance to what has gone before, we can consider our existing knowledge as a set of conceptual "frames" or prototypes that describe our current expectations concerning music, together with rules and typical values. Hence, we recognise such ideas as pitch, volume and harmony from our previous experiences . Thus, when we hear a new piece, it is quite easy to identify as music, as long as it is not too different from what has gone before. The process does not stop there; if we hear the piece as music, and yet a new sound is embedded in it, then we allow that sound as music. This applies not only to new harmonies or unusual tone colours, but also to sounds that would be classed as noise in other circumstances. Hence, Vaughan Williams' wind machine or the squeak of a guitar string or the 'chuff' of air at the start of a flute phrase become not only acceptable, but an integral part of the "music", and loss of these elements can only reduce the value of the aural experience. (This raises a side issue of how far we should go in correcting errors or extraneous noise; my feeling is that, in a live performance, the audience should be tolerant of minor mistakes, or an occasional odd noise - which is frequently generated by the audience, anyway - but that a higher standard is required in recording; this is because a recording is likely to be played many times, and a "fluffed" note may become very irritating after a few hearings. This still gives us no guidelines in how to deal with the "singing" of pianist Glenn Gould, or any similar idiosyncrasies! It seems that each case should be decided on its merits.)
What if we hear something that is radically different from our previous experience? Well, much depends on the circumstances; if the music is part of an "occasion", much of our enjoyment or otherwise will depend on non-musical factors - visual aspects, whether we are excited by the thought of hearing a new work, or nervous about the unfamiliar style. If these factors allow us to accept the new piece, at least provisionally, then we are on the way to extending our experience and possibly even liking something that in other circumstances would have provoked a totally different reaction. There are countless examples of music receiving an initial hostile reaction but becoming fully acceptable over a period of time: the most often quoted case being Stravinsky's Rite of Spring which caused uproar at its first performance due to its dissonance and unfamiliar rhythms.
Ultimately, we all become used to the music of our own cultures or sub-cultures, and anything that differs much from this is viewed with some suspicion, but there is no doubt that exposure to the music of different cultures leads to eventual acceptance, subject to the necessary conceptual frames being constructed. This is rarely a problem, as there are inbuilt cultural similarities which probably derive from physical and physiological conditions, leading to similarities in the structure of musical language in most cultures - the octave holding a privileged position, for example.
Music is essentially a cerebral activity; any physical effects take place as a result of the emotional processing of our brains. Although we might think of "ourselves" - our ego, perhaps - as an individual located somewhere in our consciousness watching the activity going on around us, this idea of a "pilot" or "captain" making decisions against a background of logical analysis is not borne out by current models of mental activity , and it is impossible to lay down hard and fast rules for the affect of anything as subtle as music except in the most straightforward of circumstances.
We have covered a lot of ground in our attempt to separate music from noise. We have seen that music cannot be described as a physically definable object, measurable, to be neatly written down and put in front of trained performers, to reproduce to order to some homogenous audience on demand; rather, it consists of a range of diverse and subtle factors, put together in all sorts of ways, from the meticulous craftsman to the capricious genius to the random throw of a die; whether you or I as a member of the audience hear music or noise depends primarily upon what we are expecting to hear, and how far it deviates from our known experience.
I say to you: Listen! You may be surprised, you may be dismayed, but you will certainly be changed by the experience!
Baines, A. The Oxford Companion to Musical Instruments
(1992) Oxford University Press, Oxford
Brymer, J. In the Orchestra (1987) Hutchinson, London
Del Mar, N. A Companion to the Orchestra (1987) Faber
and Faber, London
de Mudarra, A. Tres libros de música en cifras para
vihuela (1546)
Dennett, D.C. Consciousness Explained (1993) Penguin,
Harmondsworth
Douglas, A. The Electrical Production of Music (1957)
Macdonald, London
Eysenck, M.W. and Keane, M.T. Cognitive Psychology
(1992) Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hove
Gould, G. Arnold Schoenberg - A perspective (1964)
University of Cincinnati
Hill, R. The Symphony (1950) Penguin, Harmondsworth
Hofstadter, D.R. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal
Golden Braid (1986) Penguin, Harmondsworth
Johnson, P.N. and Wason, P.C. Readings in Cognitive
Science (1977) Cambridge University Press,
Cambridge
Mackay, A. Electronic Music (1981) Phaidon Press,
Oxford
Maconie, R. The Concept of Music (1990) Clarendon
Press, Oxford
Revill, D. The Roaring Silence: John Cage - A Life
(1992) Bloomsbury Publishing, London
Rigden, J.S. Physics and the Sound of Music (1977)
J.Wiley & Sons, New York
Sacks, O. Migraine (1991) Faber and Faber, London
Sagan, C. The Dragons of Eden (1977) Hodder and
Stoughton, London
Sloboda, J. The Musical Mind (1991) Oxford University
Press, Oxford
Smol, G., Hamer, M.P.R., and Hills, M.T.
Telecommunications - A Systems Approach (1976)
George Allen & Unwin, London
Thompson, W. with Waterman, F. Piano Competition: The
Story of the Leeds (1991) Faber and Faber,
London
Uvarov, E.B. and Chapman, D.R. A Dictionary of Science
(1976) Penguin, Harmondsworth
Westrup, J. and Harrison, F. Ll Collins Encyclopedia
of Music (1987) Chancellor Press, London
The Exploratory is based at Bristol Old Station, Temple Meads, Bristol, and has an exhibition dedicated to the production of musical sounds from unusual sources.
Ligeti's Etude no. 1 "Harmonies" was recorded in 1968 by Gerd Zacher on Deutsche Grammophon. His Requiem was recorded in 1968 by the choir and orchestra of Swedish radio under Michael Gielen on Wergo.
A chronology of John Cage's works for prepared piano is given in his biography by David Revill, referenced above.
The Theremin was the subject of a documentary television programme a few months ago (1994).
The following references have become detached from the text,
due to the file transaltion process. It is left as a excercise
for the reader to identify where they came from!
See, for example, Rigden, J.S. Physics and the Sound of
Music
See, for example, Uvarov, E.B. and Chapman, D.R. A
Dictionary of Science
See Maconie, R. The Concept of Music
See, for example, Douglas, A. The Electrical Production of
Music.
See Mackay, A. Electronic Music.
See de Mudarra, A. Tres Libros de música en cifras para
vihuela
See Hill, R. The Symphony
See, for example, Smol, G., Hamer, M.P.R., and Hills, M.T.
Telecommunications - A Systems Approach
See Baines, A. The Oxford Companion to Musical Instruments
for descriptions of a vast number of familiar and decidedly
unfamiliar instruments, but not, alas, the Theremin!
The Exploratory is Bristol's "Hands On" science centre,
and is based at Bristol Old Station, Temple Meads, Bristol.
See, for example, Del Mar, N. A Companion to the
orchestra.
See Brymer, J. In the Orchestra
As in the recording of György Ligeti's Etude No. 1
"Harmonies" by Gerd Zacher.
See, for example, Thompson, W. with Waterman, F. Piano
Competition: The Story of the Leeds
See Sacks, O. Migraine
See Hofstadter, D.R. Gödel, Escher, Bach:An Eternal
Golden Braid
See Gould, G. Arnold Schoenberg - a perspective
See, for example, Sagan, C. The Dragons of Eden.
See Revill, D. The Roaring Silence: John Cage - A life.
See Kaufmann, H. recording notes for Requiem, 1968
recording.
See, for example, Westrup, J. and Harrison, F.Ll. Collins
Encyclopedia of Music.
See, for example, Eysenck, M.W. and Keane, M.T. Cognitive
Psychology.
See, for example, Johnson, P.N. and Wason, P.C. Readings
in cognitive science.
See Sloboda, J. The Musical Mind.
See Dennett, D.C. Consciousness Explained.
If you enjoyed this essay, (or even if you read it!) why not e-mail me and tell me!
Copyright © 1996 Roger Yeates
Most recent revision 4 October 1996