Dwell in the Time of music as
a dialectical whole of what became and is becoming.
(Aristoxenos)
Music laws were not invented by learned scholars: they had been
comprehended by many generations of musicians far from immediately, in fact
over a long period of time. Musical harmonies had been discovered gradually,
through the process of refinement of the perceptive powers of listening. It
became clear that as everything in the material world, music abides to certain
laws, specifically those of mathematics, physics and dialectics.
It seems
to be necessary to mention, that still the first measure and judge of musical
sound is human hearing. The finer the property of listening (the more naturally
gifted the person is, the more his listening is trained), the better the human
ear can distinguish clarity of tones, colors and nuances of a musical fabric.
An enormous role in the development of music
art is played by the invention of the well- tempered tuning.
Regardless of the fact that there is only a
zoned hearing, and with the invention of the Regardless of the fact that there is only a
zoned hearing, and with the invention of the well- tempered (even) tuning, an
inner tuner of the European musician and a listener became bound to accurately
calculated, and not approximated by a human voice, pitch. The virtues of this
truly revolutionary invention are hard to be overestimated:
1.
It is quite suitable for the hearing.
2.
It is
cyclic and that gives the wide-open space for modulations B- transposition from
one tonality into another.
As it often happens in life, with the loss
there is a gain. The tempered tuning allowed classical harmony to develop in
the way in which we know it today. Musicians gained a common ground for tuning.
That gave man an opportunity to discover harmonies, unattainable before. The word "discover" is used here not by
mere chance. It is not I who first said tha The word "discover" is used here not by
mere chance. It is not I who first said that all that is, or was, or will be
has been existing since the beginning of Times. One can paraphrase Shakespeare
and say that the process of cognition is only a matter of the ability of the
perceiver to perceive.
According to Aristoxenos (354-300 BC), we comprehend music because that
which is becoming is being perceived and that which became is being
recollected. Another words, music is being perceived by the way of the unison
and a struggle of the consonant (calm) and its disruption B- dissonance
(uncalm); transformation of the one into the other; a denial of one another.
These relationships are familiar to us by the laws of dialectics: movement is a
disruption of peace that leads to peace. The calm (peace) in music is represented by the
sound itself and by its five closest to the primary tone overtones. They are
born simultaneously with the primary sound, since according to the acoustic
laws, a string, vocal chords or air in the wind instruments vibrates not only
with its full length, but also with its parts. The primary tone and the first
(the loudest aside from the primer) overtone, actually as well as the other
four create a state of calm. The closer to perfection a person's hearing is,
the more it is developed, the larger amount of overtones he can differentiate.
Quantative accumulation of comprehendible (perceivable) overtones leads to a
revolutionary event: the sixth overtone creates distraction or denial of calm
and creates uncalm and is joined by the preceding five overtones. They can not
dwell in this state for long, so they are striving for a resolution or creation
of a new calm.
As paradoxical as it may sound, all of the
existing tremendously complicated musical fabric, all of the great classical
harmony is created in fact out of two sounds and chords built upon them. They
are a consonance (a chord of calm) B- tonic, primary tone, and a dissonance (a
chord of uncalm) B- dominant, the first overtone that does not double the
primary tone. This is what I am going to talk in part about in this book.
Besides I will try to follow the evolution of the development of harmony of the
baroque, classical and romantic periods based on the laws of acoustics and
dialectics. I will show that diatonic and chromatic as well as those harmonies
that developed on their basis (and are studied in music schools) are not
incidental, they are regulated by universal laws of all of creation.
To be continued