Why We Love Music

by Carl E. Seashore

The range of possibilities may be illustrated in the case of a generator for a single tone. A few years ago a graduate student came to me and said that he wanted to take as the subject for his doctoral dissertation the building of an electrical organ. I told him that if he would build a generator for a single key I would assure him a stipend for three years and all the needed facilities of the Iowa acoustical laboratories. He accepted and made good to an extraordinary degree. The tone generator he built is composed of the first sixteen partials, i. e., a fundamental and fifteen overtones in harmonic series, each virtually a single pure tone. The number of partials, the form of distribution of partials, the amount of energy contributed by each partial, the phase relationships of the partials, and the fundamental pitch are under control and may be set up in any combination. With this number of variables, mathematicians will say that any desired tone quality of harmonic structure up to more than a million kinds of tone can be produced. The ear cannot hear all these differences, but the instrument provides keys for as many steps in the entire series as may be musically significant, and the tone at each of these steps can be specified for production, described, and repeated indefinitely. Thus, it is possible to make the instrument speak any vowel in so far as it involves harmonic structure, and the harmonic composition of any musical instrument may be imitated. Provision for inharmonic elements and noise accessories which are necessary both for vowels and instruments can, of course, be installed with this generator. Given one tone with such a range of possibilities, it is but a series of logical and fairly simple steps to provide a complete musical instrument by simply multiplying notes of this kind. This is the type of development we see now in a variety of electronic instruments.

The improvement of existing instruments. Musical instruments now in use can be improved. We now have the means for the technical analysis of the character of the tone produced by any instrument as a whole or by any particular feature in its construction, so that faults and limitations can be definitely allocated. Recent investigations have revealed faults in the best of violins. Some of these faults or limitations may be corrected by change in construction. For practical purposes, a 1939 violin of American make may approximate the good qualities of the Stradivarius, and there is no doubt that improvements could be made upon the famous old instrument. The same is true in principle of all individual musical instruments now in use. One of the obstacles, however, will be the unwillingness of many musicians to face the innovation of change in the looks of their beautiful instruments so tenderly loved and guarded.

The piano, as we now have it, has limitations and defects, some of which can be reduced or eliminated by the adoption of new principles of action and activation, and by construction according to acoustical specifications, based upon the measurement of the effect of each feature upon qualitative and dynamic values of tones. For example, the characteristic tone of the piano as distinguished from most other instruments comes to a dynamic peak immediately after the hammer stroke and falls off rapidly. We have learned to make allowance for this so that in hearing music we have a tendency to hear a quarter note as of a given even loudness although the sound fades off sharply during that period. It is well known that with the drop in the loudness of the tone there is a corresponding change in the quality of the tone, which change again we have, of necessity, practically learned to ignore. If it should prove desirable, it is now quite easy to provide a mechanism which will sustain the piano tone at even loudness, and therefore uniform tone quality, during the time value assigned to it. The distribution of resonances of the instrument can be greatly improved by balancing. The necessary mechanical noises which accompany the production of tone in a piano may be largely eliminated if that should prove desirable. The acoustical engineer can now point out dozens of features in the piano which might be improved in future construction based upon analysis of the output in sound. In the same manner the organ, the king of instruments, if it is to maintain its pre-eminence in competition with substitutes, demands improvements in the light of new facilities. The more complicated the instrument, the more possibilities there are for improvement. During the last hundred years there has been a steady betterment in the mechanisms of practically all the leading musical instruments; but this movement will rise to great heights in view of the new tools for investigation and new materials and principles of construction.

New substitutes for existing instruments. Substitutes for all instruments now extant may be expected to come mainly through the development of electrical construction, although many forms of mechanical devices may be used independently or with the electrical. There is no question at all but that with such resources, substitutes for a stringed instrument, a wood wind, a horn, and many varieties of traps and accessories can be built so as to embody increased musical resources. The principles for the construction of such a violin, flute, trumpet, or any other single instrument are already in hand. The construction may embody such mechanical devices as strings, membranes, and pipes; but if so, these will be electrically energized. We may predict that substitutes for single instruments will increase in great variety and that very simple forms adapted to age and advancement in the playing of specific instruments can be supplied. The variety of means for stunt performances may be increased to an alarming degree.

New ensembles. Another significant line of development will undoubtedly appear in the matter of ensembles. By the utilization of electrical construction, a single series of generators may supply the harmonic structure of a tone from each and every instrument now in use. Thus, a bank of sixteen violins may be supplied from this single source and sixteen individual violin tones may be played in identical pitch, even dynamics, equal temporal movements, and uniform tone quality. Such uniformity would however be of limited musical significance. The important thing musically is the fact that in such a bank any desired form of artistic deviation or differential enrichment may be provided for. The same would apply to wood winds, horns, bells, drums and other percussion instruments in large part. Where further representation of mixed tone, inharmonics, or noises are demanded, they may be added. The substitute for a drum can increase the precision and range of the drum sound without the use of the drum, as, for example, in the present "Novachord[Novachord]". Thus, it is conceivable that with the exception of certain unforeseen limitations, the instrumentation of an entire orchestra or band can be built into a single unit operated from a single console.

From what we have seen in the way of marvelous demonstrations in recent years it is reasonable to suppose that entirely new types of complex instruments will be invented, bringing to music hitherto unknown resources. Furthermore, with the instrumental music as such, provision may be made in the instruments for words in speech and song, and the visual presentation of dramatic action in color, relief, and movement which may be controlled from the console. The goal of embodying in a single instrument or coupling units of instruments the means of performing chamber music, orchestra, band, and the grand opera, is without doubt no wilder prediction than was the prediction of radio or airplane a few years ago.

NEW MUSIC

The improvement of old instruments and the introduction of new ones will call for an unprecedented revision of old music and a creation of new. When music was written for the well-tempered clavichord it was limited to the resources of that instrument. The same is true of music for all instruments. The music had to be limited to the available resources of the instrument. It is reasonable to suppose that composers will respond from time to time with up-to-date adaptations and new creations, taking advantage of each of the new resources for range of pitch and loudness and new resources for variety in harmony and richness of tone. It is equally conceivable that the composer may set up new demands to which the inventor and instrument maker may respond on call. It is difficult to realize what extraordinary enrichment in musical resources may spring up under the impetus of new instrumental resources. There will be new treatments of scales and intervals, since the pitch control will be far more flexible than it has been. Perhaps one of the largest innovations will be in the freer use of intonation not built on any particular scale but soaring with the greatest freedom on an instrument as we now hear it, for example, in the singing of Negro spirituals. Performance scores show that these natural singers defy scales, but produce beautiful effects through their free and soaring pitch inflection. Stringed instruments have been hampered by accompaniment and by tradition and theory. We can anticipate significant developments outside of our diatonic scale which has come to be a sort of strait-jacket, at least theoretically. It has been shown, for example, that a quarter-tone instrument is not of much use unless music is written not only for these intervals but in modes, themes, and atmosphere adapted to such purpose. The pitch range of the composition will be extended; so also will the dynamic range. Countless new features can be introduced for enrichment of tone and variety of harmony. Nomenclature will develop so that the composer may not only think in definable terms but may be able to inject new elements of terminology into the score. For various types of ensembles the music will, of course, have to be written or adapted specifically. Stunt music will here find unlimited opportunities for novelty and escape from conventional tone. This may give us relief from the limitations of jazz and swing, which have been so boring in recent years. There will undoubtedly be great bewilderment as to the limits of tolerance for new media and new forms for musical creations. History has revealed clearly that the adaptation of taste and tolerance requires time, and conservatism is often a beneficent safeguard.

The most fundamental recent achievement in the building of new instruments is that of producing pure tones as well as rich tones in perfect harmonic structure without accessories. But for various reasons music has always utilized more or less inharmonic structures and has imitated, or at least tolerated, noises in the forms of hisses, twangs, and all kinds of inharmonic and noisy distortion. Recourse to discord will always be demanded in music; but it is a question as to what extent aperiodic sounds or noises are necessary. We have learned to accept the hisses, scratches, rattles, thuds, and bangs of countless varieties in musical tone. Some such accretions are present in the tone production of every instrument now in use. They have arisen as impediments in construction, but have come to be accepted as characteristics of the instrument and therefore have added greatly to the individuality of each instrument. Will the future musical public insist on having these or will there be a feeling of relief when we can get rid of them? The answer is probably in the middle ground because music, at least as we know it now, calls for a great variety of noises in the interest of realism. Possibly in the future, noise may be given a chastened and more honorable place in the family of tone qualities.

The significant thing to note here is that in new types of instruments any kind of crude sound or noise can be introduced at will. This will answer the purpose of program music in that perfectly realistic reproductions can be made of the sound of steps in marching, the slam of a door, the squeal of a pig, the bleat of a lamb, the crow of a rooster, the roar of an airplane, the sigh of the wind. A comparatively small outfit of sources for accessory noises can serve a great variety of purposes in the hands of the artist. New responsibilities for the composer in these respects may be foreseen.