From: Ronald Wong (ronwong@inreach.com)
Date: Thu Feb 24 2000 - 22:34:28 PST
Date: Thu, 24 Feb 2000 22:34:28 -0800 (PST) Message-Id: <l03102802b4d9cdecc318@[209.209.19.93]> From: Ronald Wong <ronwong@inreach.com> Subject: Nova on sound
A while ago, Sally said:
>>About 10 years ago, I used a Nova video on sound in my physics class. It
>>talked about reproducing the tone of a Stratavarian violin, using
>>computers to simulate the human voice etc. I'd like to use it again, but
>>can't locate it.
I suspect Heidi Black is right.
>The video you want is called "What is Music", ...
It was produced in 1989 and should be in the Exploratorium's collection of
Nova videos.
For those of you who have covered sound, harmonics, and that property of
sound called "quality" in your class, the first part of this film is a real
winner.
As it moves from the physics of sound and music, to musical instruments, to
the musician, and on to the listener in its attempt to answer the question,
"What is Music?", things become even more interesting.
The part that most of my students have commented on occurs 3/4th of the way
through the video. At this point, the video is focusing on the listener and
a relatively new discovery that was made at the time the video was put
together.
Hearing is apparently like seeing. A lot of the data coming from our ears
is being processed unconsciously by the brain and what we consciously
"hear" is what comes out after all the processing is done.
Just as what we "see" may have little to do with what our eyes see, what we
hear is not necessarily what our ears are responding to. It's one of the
things that is studied in psychoacoutics, a field of study mentioned by Al
Sefl.
This is initially demonstrated by a scientist. She sends two different
melodies to a listener through his headphones at the same time - one
headphone playing the first melody and the other playing the second. What
the listener hears is something quite different from either of the two
melodies.
To make the point a little more dramatically, Nova considers Tchaikovsky's
6th Symphony.
The string section is divided into two sections sitting on opposite sides
of the orchestra - an arrangement that was customary in Tchaikovsky's time.
First, Nova has the left hand section play the music written for them by
the composer and then the right hand section takes its turn playing its
corresponding score. The two melodies do not sound at all familiar.
Then the musicians play their parts together. It is at this point that one
hears the moving, haunting melody that is so strongly associated with this
symphony (the Pathetique).
What is interesting is that this melodic line cannot be found in the score
and, not surprisingly, no instrument in the orchestra plays what we "hear".
So the issue of the observer suddenly comes into play (shades of quantum
mechanics) as well as the question of whether we all "hear" the same
melody. The most interesting question is how Tchaikovsky, sitting at his
piano, could have conceived how, by composing the score for the two
sections the way he did, he could arrive at this memorable line. It doesn't
exist in any concrete way as far as the score is concerned (maybe that is
part of the reason it is so hauntingly melancholy), so how did he do it?
Another thing the students found interesting - for a different reason - was
the answer the participants in the video gave at the end of the film when
they were asked "What is Music?".
It's a good video on many levels. If nothing else, you'll learn how to make
an exceptional violin - maybe not a Strad. or Guarn., but still exceptional.
Enjoy - ron
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Oct 19 2000 - 11:10:38 PDT