Comments on: The Relativity and Integration of Spacetime and Music http://www.garypowell.com/blogs/topics/the-realtivity-and-integration-of-spacetime-and-music/ Music Composition, Creativity, Reason and Accountability Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:58:40 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: emmakatetsai http://www.garypowell.com/blogs/topics/the-realtivity-and-integration-of-spacetime-and-music/comment-page-1/#comment-34 emmakatetsai Thu, 28 Jul 2005 22:34:05 +0000 http://www.garypowell.com/blogs/?p=37#comment-34 Taken from a USA Today article about time travel, of course taken somewhat out of context, comparing a song that never ends to a time machine... The time machine Ori proposes isn't quite like the phone booth in <i>Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure</i> or <i>Back to the Future's</i> DeLorean. Ori's solution forms a closed, timelike curve. It's a bit like a song that never ends. Think of each musical note as a point in space. As you sing the notes, you move forward in time. You can travel around the curve — sing the song — but when you get to the end, you are also at the beginning. Just found it interesting. Taken from a USA Today article about time travel, of course taken somewhat out of context, comparing a song that never ends to a time machine…

The time machine Ori proposes isn’t quite like the phone booth in Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure or Back to the Future’s DeLorean. Ori’s solution forms a closed, timelike curve. It’s a bit like a song that never ends. Think of each musical note as a point in space. As you sing the notes, you move forward in time. You can travel around the curve — sing the song — but when you get to the end, you are also at the beginning.

Just found it interesting.

]]> By: Gary Powell http://www.garypowell.com/blogs/topics/the-realtivity-and-integration-of-spacetime-and-music/comment-page-1/#comment-32 Gary Powell Tue, 26 Jul 2005 21:16:27 +0000 http://www.garypowell.com/blogs/?p=37#comment-32 Emma, as to your second question about tonal memory being enhanced when connected within the framework of a movie, for instance. It's not unlike blogging or websites with many links in and out of that frame of reference. More pathways are opened to more memory locations within the brain making is a much more stable memory. Maybe we could call it a "hyper-memory"....just click it and a full website of memories can be attached to a very small stimulus. <a href="http://www.educationthroughmusic.com/brainarticles.htm" target=_"blank" rel="nofollow">The Richard's Group of Education and Research</a> has collected some excellent articles on this topic. Thanks again. --- GP Emma, as to your second question about tonal memory being enhanced when connected within the framework of a movie, for instance. It’s not unlike blogging or websites with many links in and out of that frame of reference. More pathways are opened to more memory locations within the brain making is a much more stable memory. Maybe we could call it a “hyper-memory”….just click it and a full website of memories can be attached to a very small stimulus. The Richard’s Group of Education and Research has collected some excellent articles on this topic. Thanks again. — GP

]]> By: Gary Powell http://www.garypowell.com/blogs/topics/the-realtivity-and-integration-of-spacetime-and-music/comment-page-1/#comment-30 Gary Powell Tue, 26 Jul 2005 21:06:15 +0000 http://www.garypowell.com/blogs/?p=37#comment-30 Emma, in Western music we read from left to right, therefore our brains are mapped to relate forward motion or music heard over a period of time in a left to right perspective. This creates a direct relationship between reading and hearing. Chinese language creates the same perspective and no doubt a Chinese audience would think of the music "traveling" through time for right to left. It's an interesting question. Let's see if we can find out if this is true or not. This linear explanation of music over time is only part of the story here. Our brains, conducted by a composer of some wit and depth, will live in the past, the present and the future all at the same time. Composers employ tools for foreshadowing harmonic progressions, melodic elements, not to mention texture, voicings and pitching two balls to the batter at once.....maybe even a dozen balls or more flying past your very intelligent mind at one time. Your brain knows where the balls came from and even may have predicted to you that they were coming. Popular music, for all it's excitement, will never stilmulate the brain this way. There are certainly elements in pop music that excite our hips, but hardly enough to keep our minds occupied for more than a couple of plays. Orgainized music, therefore, has the ability to exist "before", "now", and "after", all at the same time. It's simply, in the hands of a brilliant strategist, amazing. Thanks for you post and question. ---GP Emma, in Western music we read from left to right, therefore our brains are mapped to relate forward motion or music heard over a period of time in a left to right perspective. This creates a direct relationship between reading and hearing. Chinese language creates the same perspective and no doubt a Chinese audience would think of the music “traveling” through time for right to left. It’s an interesting question. Let’s see if we can find out if this is true or not.

This linear explanation of music over time is only part of the story here. Our brains, conducted by a composer of some wit and depth, will live in the past, the present and the future all at the same time. Composers employ tools for foreshadowing harmonic progressions, melodic elements, not to mention texture, voicings and pitching two balls to the batter at once…..maybe even a dozen balls or more flying past your very intelligent mind at one time. Your brain knows where the balls came from and even may have predicted to you that they were coming. Popular music, for all it’s excitement, will never stilmulate the brain this way. There are certainly elements in pop music that excite our hips, but hardly enough to keep our minds occupied for more than a couple of plays.

Orgainized music, therefore, has the ability to exist “before”, “now”, and “after”, all at the same time. It’s simply, in the hands of a brilliant strategist, amazing. Thanks for you post and question. —GP

]]> By: emmakatetsai http://www.garypowell.com/blogs/topics/the-realtivity-and-integration-of-spacetime-and-music/comment-page-1/#comment-29 emmakatetsai Tue, 26 Jul 2005 19:27:50 +0000 http://www.garypowell.com/blogs/?p=37#comment-29 One more thing. I have noticed my brain remembers songs in movies quite well. I'll hear a song on the radio and remember what scene in what movie I first heard it, but this is usually when the song is very fitting to the scene. However, it's surprising because sometimes it's a movie that I only saw once four years prior to hearing it in another venue. One more thing. I have noticed my brain remembers songs in movies quite well. I’ll hear a song on the radio and remember what scene in what movie I first heard it, but this is usually when the song is very fitting to the scene. However, it’s surprising because sometimes it’s a movie that I only saw once four years prior to hearing it in another venue.

]]> By: emmakatetsai http://www.garypowell.com/blogs/topics/the-realtivity-and-integration-of-spacetime-and-music/comment-page-1/#comment-28 emmakatetsai Tue, 26 Jul 2005 19:26:31 +0000 http://www.garypowell.com/blogs/?p=37#comment-28 I love the analogies. Very expressive and insightful. But I don't get the listening and whistling left to right. The Chinese read right to left. Does that mean they listen right to left too? Or perhaps as you're listening to a song, you're envisioning the words in your head and they scroll left to right if you read left to right? I love the analogies. Very expressive and insightful.

But I don’t get the listening and whistling left to right. The Chinese read right to left. Does that mean they listen right to left too? Or perhaps as you’re listening to a song, you’re envisioning the words in your head and they scroll left to right if you read left to right?

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