[johnjen]

Ah, I think I see…
The music resides (at least initially) in un-manifested potential and then when changed into acoustical power, is defined/refined during the interaction of the consciousness(s) 'playing' the music, by the creative process, while making it manifest.
 
The last remaining piece in this sequence is the listener themselves, as they feel and experience, and 'interpret' the 'meaning' of the intent of the composer of the work itself.
 
And to a (hopefully much) lessor degree, the means of delivering the performance of the musician(s) to the listener(s), will make minimal changes to the performance itself.
 
This entire 'sequence of causality' seems a better and more complete description, than previous attempts at trying to 'locate' where music resides.
As in, is music to be found 'in' the notes, or between the notes, or in the harmonic relationship between the stream of notes, or in the nature of the different intonations of each voice, etc etc.
All of which seem to be involved in one way or another, but are just aspects, which are related to the whole.
 
Thanks everyone for helping to dial this in for me! 

 
JJ

 

[Baldr]

   
A quote from the songwriter named in this thread title:
 
"Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow"

 
Duhr, I forgot to credit the co-writer, none other than the amazing Jerome Garcia, whose songwriting acumen remained long after his voice failed him.

 

[johnjen]

Something you might find interesting is conceptions of music in non-US/Western European cultures, or historical civilizations. For example there are many tribes in South America, Africa, and even Europe in the Middle Ages, where Music was/is inherently a religious practice. It's invested with spiritual power, and is totally alien (blasphemous to some) to think of listening to music for pleasure. Likewise music in the punk and early industrial scenes was an outlet or expression of rebellion against the system or "the man." Lots of Bruce Springsteen is protest music, like Born in the USA. It's a heartbreaking song about the horrors of PTSD and mistreated veterans. Yet we hear it in sports stadiums across the country. In the early renaissance a huge debate that raged in the Catholic Church was over how music had become too complex and different from gregoruan chant. That this more complex music was sinful and indulgent. O bet there are millions of very talented musicians who couldn't tell you the difference between it and early 900's mass ordinaries. And there's thousands of such traditions all around the world with long histories. In fact, we've forgotten more musical history of humanity than we currently know!
Kinda puts a lot of things in perspective : )

Ah yes music as a form of overcontrol and how the associated institutions/cultural norms use this form of technology to establish and maintain their power base, much like the technology of today is used in the same way.
 
Interesting perspective, thanks!

 
JJ

 

[johnjen]

   
 
Pfft.  Easy.  In the soothed savage breast...
 
Seriously?  In the pulsing of the perceived universe and resonating expressions thereof.

Along the same lines as the music of the sphere's?
 
JJ

 

[landroni]

  Ah, I think I see…
The music resides (at least initially) in un-manifested potential and then when changed into acoustical power, is defined/refined during the interaction of the consciousness(s) 'playing' the music, by the creative process, while making it manifest.

 
The last remaining piece in this sequence is the listener themselves, as they feel and experience, and 'interpret' the 'meaning' of the intent of the composer of the work itself.

 
And to a (hopefully much) lessor degree, the means of delivering the performance of the musician(s) to the listener(s), will make minimal changes to the performance itself.

 
This entire 'sequence of causality' seems a better and more complete description, than previous attempts at trying to 'locate' where music resides.
As in, is music to be found 'in' the notes, or between the notes, or in the harmonic relationship between the stream of notes, or in the nature of the different intonations of each voice, etc etc.
All of which seem to be involved in one way or another, but are just aspects, which are related to the whole.

 
Thanks everyone for helping to dial this in for me! 

 
JJ

Dabbling into philosophy this week, eh JJ?
 
I feel like the old adage applies perfectly fine here: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
 
Music 'comes to life' only once it is being interpreted and perceived by the human brain. Play music to a rock, to a plant, to a worm or to a rat (with no human attendance), and 'music' will likely simply represent an incoherent babbling of sounds with no particular meaning of interest and which can be assimilated to noise and thus ignored. Just like a flushing toilet or a honking truck or a plane in flight. (I should disclaim this as research into how other animals and plants respond to music would be very interesting indeed, though it seems a bit trickier to compel them to participate in a carefully set-up DBT experiment...)
 
What we mean by 'music' becomes 'music' only when the neurons in the brain have done their pattern-spotting job and have attached sense and meaning to the incoming sounds. Same would be true of other perceptions, say a Rembrandt or Escargots au vin blanc: without the intervention of human sensory perceptions and brain processing, none of them have any particular meaning or importance in the vast reams of the universe.
So in this sense, music would 'reside' in the human brain.
 
I feel like this is indeed relevant:
"But it only becomes music when played, which prompts me to wonder if the composer never played the music except in his mind, is it still music if it is never rendered into acoustic power?"
 
Before the composer codes music into notes, the 'music' resides solely in their brain. So, is it still 'music' if it has never existed in the acoustic space?

 

[jacal01]

  Along the same lines as the music of the sphere's?
 
JJ

Musica universalis, the dance of the celestial bodies.  Interesting concept.  Actually I was thinking along the lines of 'all encompassing nature' when I wrote that.  But you know, it could be as simple as the resonating beat of your mother's heart.
 
Schumann resonance is another interesting concept, where 432 Hz is the harmonic frequency of nature and the universe, and tuning your instruments to A at this frequency instead 440 Hz attunes your music to your environment, promotes healing, synchronizes the 2 halves of your brain at 8 Hz (the fundamental 'beat' of the planet) (8 Hz being five octaves below C = 256 Hz & A = 432 Hz), etc....  it's actually a lively controversy. 

 

[US Blues]

 

   
A quote from the songwriter named in this thread title:
 
"Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow"

 
Duhr, I forgot to credit the co-writer, none other than the amazing Jerome Garcia, whose songwriting acumen remained long after his voice failed him.

Thank you for remembering Jerry on the anniversary of his passing.

 

[johnjen]

 
Dabbling into philosophy this week, eh JJ?
 
I feel like the old adage applies perfectly fine here: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder."
 
Music 'comes to life' only once it is being interpreted and perceived by the human brain. Play music to a rock, to a plant, to a worm or to a rat (with no human attendance), and 'music' will likely simply represent an incoherent babbling of sounds with no particular meaning of interest and which can be assimilated to noise and thus ignored. Just like a flushing toilet or a honking truck or a plane in flight. (I should disclaim this as research into how other animals and plants respond to music would be very interesting indeed, though it seems a bit trickier to compel them to participate in a carefully set-up DBT experiment...)
 
What we mean by 'music' becomes 'music' only when the neurons in the brain have done their pattern-spotting job and have attached sense and meaning to the incoming sounds. Same would be true of other perceptions, say a Rembrandt or Escargots au vin blanc: without the intervention of human sensory perceptions and brain processing, none of them have any particular meaning or importance in the vast reams of the universe.
So in this sense, music would 'reside' in the human brain.
 
I feel like this is indeed relevant:
"But it only becomes music when played, which prompts me to wonder if the composer never played the music except in his mind, is it still music if it is never rendered into acoustic power?"
 
Before the composer codes music into notes, the 'music' resides solely in their brain. So, is it still 'music' if it has never existed in the acoustic space?

I sorta see music and its subsequent consequences as the intersection of philosophy, consciousness, physiology, perception, and experience, (especially experience that is personally significant and involving).
 
And the need to bring it into physical form (acoustic energy) also has additional aspects where the musicians performing the music enter the picture and subsequentially in how we hear and feel it.
And by feel it I'm referring to both emotionally as a consequence of experiencing the music in real time.
But also physically as a form of energetic input into the body (not just our ears) for the mind/brain to use to 'decode' the incoming real time stream of input that we process into the music we 'hear'/experience.
 
It reminds me of the brain teaser if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a noise.…
And certainly if no one is there to hear music being played back, it will have next to nothing in impact.
 
So it strikes me as our participation is mandatory (as composer/performer/listener) just in order for music to even exist, let alone for it to manifest and have any impact.
 
JJ

 

[johnjen]

 
Musica universalis, the dance of the celestial bodies.  Interesting concept.  Actually I was thinking along the lines of 'all encompassing nature' when I wrote that.  But you know, it could be as simple as the resonating beat of your mother's heart.
 
Schumann resonance is another interesting concept, where 432 Hz is the harmonic frequency of nature and the universe, and tuning your instruments to A at this frequency instead 440 Hz attunes your music to your environment, promotes healing, synchronizes the 2 halves of your brain at 8 Hz (the fundamental 'beat' of the planet) (8 Hz being five octaves below C = 256 Hz & A = 432 Hz), etc....  it's actually a lively controversy. 

For me resonance and harmonic relationships in music (and really all forms of sound) is the 'glue' that holds all of this together.
 
When the sound is dissonant or 'ugly', all we want to do is turn it off or get away from it and conversely when the harmonic structure is resonant we seem to be drawn towards it.
 
And I know what you mean about the 432Hz vs the 440Hz as the primary tuning of 'modern' instruments.
I have adjusted the pitch of my system in DSP to match the 432Hz tuning and I must say I will not go back.
Others have had an even more profound reaction to this seemingly small and subtle change.
 
And the Schumann resonance is and has been shifting for the past few years.
It used to be quoted as 7.83Hz but now is somewhere in the 11Hz range and some speculate it will stabilize on 13Hz at some point.
And really the Schumann resonance isn't a single frequency but a spread of frequencies from near zero to well beyond 30Hz (I forget how far up it extends).
 
Even so the series of 8Hz and up (16, 32, 64 etc.) is far more harmonious than 6.875Hz (which leads to the 440Hz now used as the primary tuning these days).
 
And I when I was researching this topic I found it 'significant' that this change from 432 to 440 was instigated in germany during the Nazi rise to power.
That alone was enough to motivate me to delve further into all of this… 

 
JJ

 

[jacal01]

The Nazis were actually big on mysticism to codify their Aryan supremacy beliefs and aspirations, especially Himmler.  His SS troops were elite by definition. Oh, wait, you meant the other way... .
 
But yeah, the 'God Note' (432 Hz) evokes other divinely named relationships in nature: the God Particle (Higgs boson), God's Fingerprint (Fibonacci sequence), God's Mote (Niven's finest)

  ...  

 

[rtaylor76]

Fibonacci...that dude was onto something.

It is the basis of many things in nature....tree growth, nautilus, pine cones, snowflakes, fingerprints...fractals. There is evidence it is also tied to solar systems and possibly things like hurricanes. They are now using the Fibonacci spiral in photography to replace the rule of thirds as the Fibonacci spiral is more natural.

If somehow we could put all this knowledge together.

 

[Baldr]

 
Schumann resonance is another interesting concept, where 432 Hz is the harmonic frequency of nature and the universe, and tuning your instruments to A at this frequency instead 440 Hz attunes your music to your environment, promotes healing, synchronizes the 2 halves of your brain at 8 Hz (the fundamental 'beat' of the planet) (8 Hz being five octaves below C = 256 Hz & A = 432 Hz), etc....  it's actually a lively controversy. 

 

  And I know what you mean about the 432Hz vs the 440Hz as the primary tuning of 'modern' instruments.
I have adjusted the pitch of my system in DSP to match the 432Hz tuning and I must say I will not go back.
 
JJ

 
The above pitch is relatively easy to implement in DSP.  Pull the pitch down 1.8181818 percent down and you're done.  Also, it is true that most music before somewhere from turn of to mid 20th century was written for C=256 pitch.  This leaves out another even more significant factor for music composed in the same period, which is NOT trivial to implement in DSP:  linear vs. well temperament.  It is a stunning experience to hear the tonal shades of well temperament absent in equal temperament for perhaps any music except Webern, Berg,  Schoenberg, etc.  I had never heard Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner, Puccini, Bruckner, Mahler, or even modern music until i heard it in C=256 well tempered.  As important as the C=256 is, the temperament is superior as a key to unlocking the composer's intention.  The problem is it requires elaborate setup for each musical example in DSP.  (Or instrument tuning.)

 

[rtaylor76]

But just a DSP tuning down wouldn't be true. Meaning, it would just be pitched down.

In studying Stradivarius instruments and what makes them so great, I do remember coming across the harmonics of the wood at A=432.

 

[kstuart]

The 12-foot reptilian aliens from the 9th Dimension are going to be angry with me.... but you guys are Sheep !
 
http://www.miltonline.com/2014/01/07/hertz-so-good/
 
http://www.zengardner.com/music-theory-432-hz-tuning-separating-fact-fiction/
 
https://acousticengineering.wordpress.com/2013/12/13/pitch-shifting-to-432-hz-doesnt-improve-music/
 
Whenever you read an article, google for an article debunking it.   For example, if you hear someone say "We need to take action against crime", a simple web search will bring up the data that violent crime has been decreasing for many years...

 

[johnjen]

When I first ran across the 440 vs. 432 idea, I did some initial cursory investigation.
But it was after implementation and listening that helped me decide to stay with this 'adjustment'.
 
It is subtle, or perhaps makes a subtle change in the tonality is a better way of describing it, but where and what I noticed as the most significant result was in the emotional shift these 2 'tunings' provided.
That was the kicker, at least for me.
 
I'll keep my impressions to myself so as to not 'influence' anyone else should they decide to experiment for themselves.
 
 
 
And Baldr's raising the idea of linear vs well temperament opens up a whole can of worms where I can see where this does get VERY sticky VERY quickly with no simple viable 'correction' as a result.
Or as Baldr put it, it "is NOT trivial to implement in DSP" or as far as I can see using any other means either.
 
I did run across this discussion/explanation which might be helpful for some.
http://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=47356.0
 
All of this just lends itself to the stated perspective that 'music is magical'.
 
JJ