Re: music by numbers

[SoundFNR@aol.com]

>  Acoustical theory helped me to devise a reed 
>  instrument with a resonator for each note. The formant of each 
>resonator 
>  can still be altered by covering and uncovering the holes. Is this 
>science 
>  or music? Again, I don't mind how you call it; I'm just pleased with 
>the 
>  sounding result, quite different from any other instrument. And I am 
>  fascinated by the fact that sounds can be visualised, in waveforms by 
means 
>  of an oscilloscope, or with spectral analysis.

can you tell us more about this instrument (very interested)

<A HREF="http://www.c21-orch-instrs.demon.co.uk/"> 21st Century Orchestral 
Instruments</A>

there's a lot of stuff in the downloadable study about how
tonality might relate to harmony, and new instruments
(microtonal)


>  By the way, numbers were implicit in music long before maths were 
invented. 
>  Anthropologists have found primitive societies where the concept of 
>time 
is 
>  non-existent. But they did not find societies without music. And where 
>  music is, there is rhythm, and scales, with fixed intervals. Obviously 
>  musicians can play with scrutinous precision to the rhythms and scales 
>  whether or not they are interested in visual representation. The fact 
>is 
>  that the musical mind loves to hear repetition in well-defined portions 
>of 
>  time and pitch.

but when I hear recordings of "primitive" cultures
making music there is not really fixed intervals.
...and in some very old cultures the music
theory is lost, and a glorious out of tuneness 
between the instruments develops. 
Sometimes there's no rhythm, just a pulse.
The single repeated drum beat.
Often a second drummer is totally out of time.
...and then it sounds real good:-)

Shamanic drumming often seems intended to
create a continuous drone, with the rhythm/pulse being 
irrelevant. Especially when there's a group of drummers 
all beating different tempi. 

I'd also say that people who learn rhythms before
learning to read music have a distinct advantage 
in the rhythmic feel department. 
(the bar lines interfere with perception somehow)

andy butler