Why We Love Music

by Carl E. Seashore

PLAYING

As in the automobile, for example, the tendency is to make everything automatic and relieve the human control of effort, we are moving fast in the direction of creating automatic devices in musical instruments. It is safe to predict that a variety of instruments for children will be more easily played than at present, and that even for the virtuoso a number of the factors which have been difficult to control will be simplified and mechanized. This will be particularly true in ensemble instruments where a single player may control a large number of instruments or where three or four players, of whom one is the conductor, may render the equivalent of an orchestral performance. Barring the limitations of the instrument it is significant that in such performance the conductor will have vastly superior control of the situation in that he is in direct manual control of all those factors which in the present orchestra he tries to control through the medium of the individuals and masses of players with the baton as a sort of whip. In the new orchestra, he will sit at a panel with levers and buttons through which he will be able to control the interpretation he desires to make.

This conducting may be done with meticulous precision and apparently magical result through remote control, as was illustrated, even with the use of present instruments, when Stokowski sat at his panel in Washington, D. C. and controlled the performance of his orchestra in Philadelphia.

SPECIFICATIONS FOR INSTRUMENT CONSTRUCTION

The musical medium whether in art or nature has four, and only four, elements; namely, pitch, loudness, time, and timbre. These are four characteristics which may be expressed in terms of the sound wave, as frequency of waves, intensity of waves, duration of waves, and form of waves. The recognition of this fact vastly simplifies the mastery of tone production in musical instruments. Let us consider the factors which may be classified under these four heads.

Pitch. New devices for the control of pitch make possible very superior control of the pitch in pitch precision, flexibility, linearity, range, varieties of scale, and harmony. Instruments can be tuned to a higher degree of precision, retuned more quickly, and kept in tune longer by the new means of tone production. Therefore, intervals can be made more exact, the pitch can be sustained with precision, any pitch aspect can be described, desired effects can be specified, and artistic adjustments can be made for musical effect.

Any desired type of flexibility may be introduced, such as the gliding attack and release, periodic or progressive changes in a sustained tone, as in the vibrato, or rise and fall in tone required during the sounding of a single note. The glide, the portamento, and a variety of other pitch ornaments may be produced. Adjustments from any size of intervals for artistic effect, such as a quarter tone or enlarged or diminished intervals, may be produced. In short, the pitch inflection can be controlled either within a single note or a sequence of notes, and just intonation or tempered scales of various sorts may be produced. The possibility of combining individual notes in harmony is unlimited. The pitch range of the instruments can be carried to any height above the present gamut of instruments, even into the region of supersonics, which may possibly have physical effects on the feeling of well-being or ill-being of the musical organism.

Loudness. The range of loudness can be extended both in the direction of increased loudness and perfectly controlled softness. The loudness of tones throughout the entire range can be equalized. All forms of dynamic shading and fading and differential steps of loudness can be introduced for artistic effect. The dynamic linearity, as in the organ, can be sustained and the fading effect, which distinguishes the piano from the organ, can be adjusted to any degree. All present pedals as well as new pedals may be introduced.

Time. Through the precision made possible for various forms of automatic action in the instrument, all temporal aspects of tone can be enhanced by precision, controlled tapering at the beginning and end of the tone, various forms of synchronization, and the balancing of the roles of time and stress in rhythm may be achieved.

Timbre. The most significant new feature is, of course, the extension and control of richness in timbre and sonance, which constitute tone quality. The range of timbre changes may extend from a pure tone to the inclusion of even more partials than the ear can hear, possibly thirty or forty, with an infinite variety of harmonic forms of distribution between these extremes. Great innovations through inharmonic and aperiodic sounds are coming. It is now possible to maintain a uniform timbre which gives an element of dignity and stability to the tone in a sustained note. But since deviation from the regular is of far greater importance, flexibility[flexibility] of tone quality is even more desirable. This flexibility in timbre for the duration of the tone which determines tone quality, technically called sonance, may be provided for by various devices. For example, in the present "Novachord", the various forms and degrees of vibrato are at the command of the player and are based on scientific investigation leading to specification for this musical ornament. Given the mechanisms for harmonic structures and inharmonics, we need only the addition of rough noise of various kinds to make the tone realistic. The timbre available in the musical instrument will therefore run from the pure tone to the roughest noise.