The Unbearable Weightlessness Of Music

LinearLineman

Of all the art forms only two are completely weightless (I think). Music and spoken word. Writing is pretty light, just the weight of the ink on the page. We go up from there, watercolors, oils, ceramics, all the way up to that heavyweight, sculpture. Even sunlight has weight, but the ephemeral vibrations of music... unless some physicist out there corrects me... are utterly without substance.

So one might say music and the human voice are the closest sources of expression to feelings like love, fear, empathy, hatred... all equally non substantive but all powerful when it comes to motivating those same feelings. The effect of music and the human voice have led humankind on a merry chase throughout history. Stirring our deepest passions and fears.

Musical instruments used to have weight, but software emulations are gravity free and even the iPad Pro I am holding is featherweight. Perhaps to disappear one day altogether in the cerebral convolutions themselves.

Maybe that is why music moves into our hearts and minds with such ease. And, of course, we can hum some of this stuff ourselves, recalling melodies and the associated experiences vividly thanks to the engrams music makes within us. Even the molecules of fragrance have weight, but a vibration?

Well, probably just one more specious musing from yours truly. Feel free to destroy!

brambos

Nowadays it mostly is indeed. In my youth music was almost inseparably tied to its physical carrier for me. An album referred to a piece of vinyl or a CD, a mix was usually some tape containing a home-made collage of tracks. I think the abstract/intangible nature of music must be much more pervasive in this era of digital streaming (and being able to pick-and-choose single tracks instead of buying into coherent albums).

LinearLineman

I hadn't thought about the extinction of packaging @brambos. You are right about that. And I think I must add writing to the list as it's dissemination via download is weightless as well. However, if it is written down to begin with there is tangible weight, tho pretty subtle.

horsetrainer

I think music might possibly be one of the oldest forms of expression/entertainment because of its low dependency on external resources to produce. Imagine you're living in the upper Paleolithic in a small hunter gatherer tribe. Find some sticks to bang together and sing.... Instant entertainment. But more importantly, a way to bond a community and reinforce belief systems that are beneficial to the survival of the community, and the culture.

Music and accompanying lyrics can be representational, and reinforcing of culture, cultural beliefs, cultural ethics, and religious ideology, etc...

Singing, chanting, and rhythmic patterns have the ability to effect brainwaves, influence group behaviors, and learning.
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-power-of-music-mind-control-by-rhythmic-sound/?redirect=1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melodic_learning

Military's throughout history used music to communicate commands, coordinate movement, and instill moral.

Modern advertising uses music to associate products, and make them memorable.

But from the perspective of physics, I think one might have to consider the weight of the air, and the energy required to move air to produce sound waves.

Otherwise, I agree that music is light in the essence that it can be created with nothing more than voice. Many animals and insects also use body, voice and sound to express and communicate, and they don't need anything more than what they were born with to do it.

Maybe early people first learned to sing, and then used their tool making abilities to build basic instruments like drums and flutes, as an accompaniment for enhancing vocals and singing?

JohnnyGoodyear

@brambos said:
Nowadays it mostly is indeed. In my youth music was almost inseparably tied to its physical carrier for me. An album referred to a piece of vinyl or a CD, a mix was usually some tape containing a home-made collage of tracks. I think the abstract/intangible nature of music must be much more pervasive in this era of digital streaming (and being able to pick-and-choose single tracks instead of buying into coherent albums).

Quite so

And good post @horsetrainer...

LinearLineman

@horsetrainer, vocalizing sounds of nature, inherently musical, probably came first and at the very beginning of spoken language as a particular birdsong, for example, or a lion's growl as a warning, or the susseration of a rushing stream to indicate water nearby.

Moderndaycompiler

audiblevideo

There is a song I wish to sing

There is a song I wish to sing
Unwritten, it’s initial chord stands
suspended in the breath of all,
as Gabriel’s horn yet to resound.
In the air, it shimmers.
In the light, motes dance to its preternatural form.

It percolates in the humus of the earth,
but crumbles to white, before the order of its shape.
It is unresolved, though the chorus of its longing
fills every verse.

It’s root is long and deep,
with no mode to contain a note transubstantiated,
heavier than death, lighter than the word.

–– me

Daveypoo

I think that the inherent intangibility of music is a large part of why it is the only true universal language. Animals respond to it. Plants respond to it. I often wonder how human music will be perceived by beings from outside our planet - is this music thing Earthbound or does it have the power to span the stars? Carl Sagan certainly thought so - he included music on the gold discs sent into space with the Voyager crafts...

LinearLineman

@Davypoo you triggered my memories of Dr. Masaru Emoto and his experiments exposing words to water. Maybe you are already familiar. This work is totally legit and awe inspiring.
The universal language is vibration and even unspoken words give off vibrations, it seems.

Daveypoo

@LinearLineman said:
@Davypoo you triggered my memories of Dr. Masaru Emoto and his experiments exposing words to water. Maybe you are already familiar. This work is totally legit and awe inspiring.
The universal language is vibration and even unspoken words give off vibrations, it seems.

Messages In Water - fantastic book. My wife and I picked up a copy ages ago. Amazing and powerful info - it's frankly shocking he few people know of his work.

Energy is never created nor destroyed - it merely changes forms. This we know as proveable science. The energy of vibration is another form of the energy of intention - simply a difference of kinetic vs potential energy.

audiblevideo

McD

Eric Satie pioneered phonometrography (measurement of sound) using the Metric System. Someone should make an App based upon his work. A complete understanding might require reading his work in the original French. We have all heard his music but many might not know of his pioneering applications of science to sound.

From http://www.musicalobservations.com/publications/satie_pdf.pdf

Satie wrote:

Everyone will tell you that I am not a musician. That is correct.

From the very beginning of my career I classed myself as a phonometrographer. My work is completely phonometrical. Take my Fils des Étoiles [this evening's program], or my Morceaux en Forme de Poire [program of August 23 and 24], my En habit de Cheval [August 23 and 24] or my Sarabandes [this evening's program] — it is evident that musical ideas played no part whatsoever in their composition. Science is the dominating factor.

Besides, I enjoy measuring a sound much more than hearing it. With my phonometer in my hand, I work happily and with confidence.

What haven't I weighed or measured? I've done all Beethoven, all Verdi, etc. It's fascinating.

The first time I used a phonoscope, I examined a B flat of medium size. I can assure you that I have never seen anything so revolting. I called in my man to show it to him.

On my phono-scales a common or garden F sharp registered 93 kilos. It came out of a fat tenor whom I also weighed.

Do you know how to clean sounds? It's a filthy business. Stretching them out is cleaner; indexing them is a meticulous task and needs good eyesight. Here, we are in the realm of phonotechnique.

On the question of sound explosions, which can often be so unpleasant, some cotton-wool in the ears can deaden their effect quite satisfactorily. Here, we are in the realm of pyrophony.

To write my Pièces Froides [program of July 12 and 13], 1 used a caleidophone recorder. It took seven minutes. I called in my man to let him hear them.

I think I can say that phonology is superior to music. There's more variety in it. The financial return is greater, too. I owe my fortune to it.

At all events, with a motodynamophone, even a rather inexperienced phonometrologist can easily note down more sounds than the most skilled musician in the same time, using the same amount of effort. This is how I have been able to write so much.

And so the future lies with philophony

TL:DR? Pearls before wine. Or wine first. Or just skip the pearls. Do we have more wine?