MIND AND MUSIC
by
Mitchell A. Cotter
©September 1984
Man's
ability to communicate past experience and thought has brought us to our
present day world. The vehicle of communication, that common union with the
past, is man's various natural languages. These languages may be divided into
two types, the utility languages of the spoken and written word and the arts.
The important "oral tradition", which had been communicated from
generation to generation, was apparently accompanied by "musical" qualities
and other art forms, even in the earliest forms. Sumerian writings of the
Fourth Millennium B.C. show "musical "
notation in conjunction with hymns and poetic language; examples of musical
instruments go back very much earlier. The word music, which
comes from the Old Greek, originally referred to all the arts, the work
of the nine Muses (chief among them Calliope, the one related to what we today
call "music"). Thus the word "music" originally
meant cultivation of the mental processes, as contrasted to the
"Gymnastic", or, cultivation of the physical body or outside world.
Art and utility languages, in the ancient world, were not as separated as they
are today.
The
use of written language encouraged the separation of music from the
communication of spoken ideas. As written languages developed, some of the oral
tradition and its musical aspects were lost (Old Hebrew and some other
languages still include "musical" intonational
and rhythmic scripts). The common languages eventually became the "utility"
languages of the present; the arts developed as an expression of feelings and
thoughts apart from the structure of spoken or written language.
The
"oral tradition" of past human communities bears a close relationship
to present poetry, song, and music in that it included elements of the arts
mixed with and accompanying the spoken word in order to convey concepts, ideas,
and experiences that cannot be conveyed by the spoken word alone. The arts
carry many important feelings, thoughts, ideas that are different from those
expressible in the normal structure of the utility languages. Even in
literature, which is language as an art form, the challenge is to evoke
feelings beyond mere spoken or written language. In poetry a somewhat musical
form is used to further abstract and extend the expressive possibilities of the
spoken or written word. The arts, though different from the utility languages,
are also natural languages, and thus a most important part of man's heritage.
The "natural” aspect of human language is now recognized as
deriving from basic inborn properties of man's mind and nature.
Linguistic researches have shown many cognitive structural identities exist
across languages of even highly differing roots. These developments have
greatly aided in translating languages and in understanding both the similar
and the differing human cultural character of various peoples. Classical
Western music has been shown to evoke similar emotional responses in people of
totally different culture and language who had no previous contact with Western
language or music. Attractive as these basic ideas may be, very little study of
music has been done using linguistic concepts. The origins of
both ordinary language and music from the various natural properties of the
human mind is an important area of study for an understanding of human
civilization.
Like
the spoken word, music developed an "aural tradition",
that was communicated from generation to generation, performer to
performer in a manner like oral tradition. Song and music-by-instruments
eventually developed their own written languages. These languages, which cannot
convey the musical expression or the manner of performance, are deficient as
carriers of the musical arts and have long been supported by "aural
tradition" in a long chain of direct contacts.
Since
the late 19th Century, however, the development of sound recording and
electrical transmission and reproduction of sound has profoundly influenced
this tradition. Today people experience music most often through the
media--records, radio, movies, and TV, all of which have serious flaws that
distort, change, and coarsen the artistic content.
What
effects has this produced? The question is all the more significant because the
media are controlled by forces quite apart from and outside the world of art
and artists...forces that compel art to conform to their needs, instead of
conforming to the needs of art. The result is that many of the most important
aspects of musical art have nearly been lost. Technique and mere note-playing
virtuosity have often replaced the intense expressive communication of human
values, which may not easily come through in the media, and especially not with
most record playing systems. The music-loving audience has been subjected to
such music-making for so long that it is losing its powers of discrimination
and is no longer accustomed to or listening for the finer details. Some acousticians
have imitated the poorly reproduced recorded sound in the design of new halls.
Music
communicates so much both past and present of that human spirit which we need
to better understand, that the loss of such ideas and the adulteration of such
an important aspect of our minds and history cannot be tolerated. Is it
possible that in overwhelmingly developing the physical "Gymnastic"
we are in danger of distorting and destroying the mental realm of the Muses?
The problem exists as an imperative concern today because of the many subtle
forms in which technology is employed in our lives. Music in live performance
as well as composition has been affected, yet few take much notice. We are
losing both a fragile aural tradition and a limited written musical language to
the vagaries of an immature technology of sound recording and reproduction.
It
is clear to the author and to many other workers in
the field that present processes of sound recording and reproduction seriously
alter the musical ideas communicated by a performance. The results threaten our
musical heritage and interfere with the natural language characteristics of
music.
This
grave situation urgently requires further study. Among the symptoms is the
increasing reliance of musicians upon recordings and reproduction equipment to
carry the aural tradition as complement to the teacher and the written music
score. The errors in this process have already had a strong influence on the
present interpretation and performance of music. Indeed, in "popular " music some sound reproducing equipment is
used to create the "live" performance! "P.A." systems
abound in music halls and theatres; "instruments" have been modified
to develop the sound of the distortions of reproducing equipment. A
"live" performance with such an instrument is at least still directed
and controlled by the musician-performer. In recordings of both popular and to
a lesser extent classical music the multichannel
recording medium has been used to produce a result that is manipulated later,
after the "performances”. A record of a "performance" is
produced that was not created by the "performers" and indeed did not
exist until the "mixdown" result was
created by someone often not even identified. Further, this result was created
with some playback studio equipment (also often not identified) of doubtful
similarity to the varied equipments used by the public to listen to recordings.
What are we hearing? What music? What musical ideas? And by
whom?
The
negative effects arise (1) from the various "editing' processes applied
along the chain in producing what we finally hear, and (2) from technical
imperfections in the sound recording, transmission and, particularly, sound
reproducing processes and equipment. Such imperfections seriously alter the
musical ideas. The direct impact of all this upon both performer and audience
that receive their music largely through the media is enough cause to lose no
time in making an effort to improve the accuracy in all these processes both
for future recordings as well as to retrieve (i.e., restore) the content of
existing recordings.
We
thus have a need for a kind of art restoration for the playback process.
Oddly, such restoration is even necessary with currently recorded material--but
the vast library of recorded music makes this need even greater and more
necessary. Our store of recorded music includes among other sources about one
million different commercially recorded performances. Not even the courts of
all the kings and princes of the past could equal the scope of such a sonic
treasury. These recordings, though made during the last hundred years,
represent virtually the entire range or performance styles and periods in music
known to us which were handed down by means of the aural tradition. The performances
of important deceased artists who carried the musical ideas of the past through
direct contacts are still accessible in their recordings. Can this library give
a true picture of the musical heritage? Potentially through
"restoration" there is far more to be heard than has been possible
before.
Some
efforts to understand the effects of these technologies and to uncover the
"natural" language of music as preserved through the aural tradition
have begun in limited measure. The Anstendig Institute in
Though
we are beginning to understand the "natural" cognitive structure of
human utility languages and thereby of our minds, efforts to likewise develop
such understanding of the arts and the human mind have not begun as well.
Commercial pressures exerted through powerful technologies have in a quickened
pace already affected our lives and perceptions with little reflection upon
man's history and nature, with many possible negative consequences. There is
therefore great need and urgency to begin developing our understanding and to
preserve our fragile musical heritage for that effort and for the future.
At
least the following projects should be launched to correct this long neglect:
(1)
The first step is the preservation and restoration of what already exists. The efforts of researchers such as those at The Anstendig Institute to
recover and preserve the musical values of existing recordings needs to
be expanded. A center for the development of such musical art restoration
should be undertaken. This center should be equipped to study all the technical
and musical aspects and have a fully funded permanent research staff.
(2)
Auditoria need to be built especially suited to the various musical needs of
musicians, musicologists, and the public. These music halls will function as
"reading rooms" or "museums" of results achieved by
research and restoration works.
(3)
Further research on music recording, reproduction, and transmission needs to be
done and the product of such work widely disseminated via reports, books, and
teaching efforts which will train other researchers; information and teaching
efforts should be especially directed at music industry personnel to help
educate them in these findings and hopefully to improve the quality of their
media; the public must be reached with the results of these efforts through
public performances in auditoria like those referred to and by teaching efforts
directed at universities and music schools.