If there's a better forum to place this in, let me know, or just go ahead and move it. I'm brand new here, so I'd just like to share what I'm all about, and what goes thru my head on the frontier of music.
One of the greatest things about studying a discipline is that there's always something new to learn. Whether you're a theorist or a performer or a composer, There's always a next level.
So, on a much grander scale--how humanity perceives and expresses music-- what is the next level?
Well, I suppose we could start with general historical observations.
First, music was probably used as entertainment to pass time. I mean, what is a hunter/wanderer gonna do when he's not eating, hunting/wandering, or sleeping? Well, besides planning the rest of our existence, they gotta do somethin...
When humanity desired reason for existence and things around them and began worshipping Gods and seasons and so forth, Music was ritualized as well. A tribal dance to the rain season for a good harvest....
For thousands of years, and obviously still, rhythms and combinations of pitches were played for fun and for God. Only in the last 1000 years have we attempted to a)write down/record music, and therefore b)create a system of arranging music.
But, how could one begin to organize something you could only hear? Well, what sounds natural, right? Thus, the birth of music theory. Music Theory is essentially based off of our ears, what sounds 'right' together as a group of pitches or a sequence of pitches, in equal or related rhythms. As we further and further dissected what sounds good (and bad) we began to develop reasons and even more aspects of music theory.
Now in the last 100 years or less, with analysis of physics and acoustics, we can give scientific theories, frequency analysis, etc.
And with this comes psychoacoustics--the study of the perception of sound, and how it affects us.
Bam, the history of music right? hehehe....
So, back to my original question. What's the next level? We've only begun to scrape the surface of psychoacoustics and physics, and anything discovered is only theoretical.
Everything is a wavelength, everything has a vibration. Whether it be a block of iron, water, air... everything around us exists as a frequency, and our perception somehow categorizes these frequencies into different matter.
Sound itself manipulates matter. To get from a source to your ear, air particles are moved at varying speeds in every direction, moving the next air particles, etc to arrive at your ear.
So can Sound manipulate us? Can a frequency penetrate our skin, and resonate in our bones?
EVEN MORE-- can sound penetrate your skull and manipulate the frequency of matter that is your brain? and therefore your nerve firings (thoughts)?
Touched more in Part One was different ways music affects us already, and possibly why. So-- more on that.
Different styles of existing music can do a number of things, make you change moods, make you relive a memory, make you move... whatever it does, it is manipulating our consciousness in some way.
How can a sound suddenly trigger a random memory of being in a store with an old girlfriend? or playing in the pool with your cousin?
How can sound make you feel compelled to move your body? This might be attributed to thousands of years of ritual or entertaining dances to music. Primitively, the only instruments were banging on stuff that makes different sounds--so the easiest way to interact would be to bang on something else or move to the pattern that they're banging.
How can sound make you change your mood?
Do you think true music (I mean music that is created for the purpose of being art, not solely for profit) will ever evolve into an audible story starring the listener? I can also see, from the 'dark side' it evolving into a method of propaganda, a method to insert beliefs, thoughts, or feelings into the listener.
Quite a lot of words... I really just felt like writing about music tonight
Thanks for reading, I don't usually post this long on other BBS's, only on topics that intrigue me this much.
PLEASE, post your thoughts and your links and your book titles. Everyone benefits!