We experience sound in a three deminsional space. This should come as no surprise to those who pay attention to the sounds that enter our ears. This is in stark contrast with the capabilities of our eyes. When we are born, our visual-perceptions are terribly limited. Much of our ability to see in 3D-ness is learned through experience, like working with gradients, or visual flow (a exception to this is binocular reconciliation, which most are born with). Our ears, on the other hand, are remarkable for their innate ability to organize the locations of sound sources.
On Tuesday, in the New York Times , Natalie Angier wrote a cool article called When an Ear Witness Decides the Case. There are a ton of different topics covered, but here is what one of the professors interviewed had to say:
Unlike the eyes, of course, the ears are not limited to sensory stimulants in front of the face. “Because auditory signals go around objects,” said Dr. Shamma, “they’re extremely important for communicating in a cluttered environment.”
What does this have to do with music though? The article mentions music, but not on a level that is useful for someone looking to create it (the part about the differences between enjoyment of music in monkeys and humans was really cool though). Many composers have tried to use the balconies, backs and walkways of a concert hall to create the effect of the audience being in the action of the piece. Take Puccini’s La Boheme, where an army marching through the back of the hall is a way to stage the end of act two. This can be a great effect, but what about a work that strays more on the “absolute” music side (as opposed to referential or performance based)?
I know that composers like John Corigliano (Circus Maximus), and Cage scored for moments of auditory spaciality, but I can’t seem to think of a work that really uses this effect in a striking way. Maybe Cage is more “naturalistic” as his works are about loving sounds as they are, where Mr. Corigliano’s Circus Maximus is a staged effect. But if all these works are in a concert setting, they inherently are not in the “cluttered” world our ears normally reside, the work’s 3D-ness limited by the quadrilateral that most concert halls are. As weird as it would be, and how far it would go over most audiences heads, music in a cluttered space would be an interesting concept to explore. It could possibly be combined with a visual art piece and the goal would be to exploit the perceptual differences of the senses.
Also in the news: Oldest instrument, Music is definitely part of our nature and integral in the evolution of humans.
A vulture-bone flute discovered in a European cave is likely the world’s oldest recognizable musical instrument and pushes back humanity’s musical roots, a new study says. Found with fragments of mammoth-ivory flutes, the 40,000-year-old artifact also adds to evidence that music may have given the first European modern humans a strategic advantage over Neanderthals, researchers say.