Refinement of the
Playing Technique
Mastery over the
Tone Production
Objectice and
Subjective Limitations in the
Conventional Performance
The Musical Field
of Mental Rigidity
Uncreative Tone
Generation
The Instrument
Rules the Musician
The System of
Independently Functioning Machines in Music
The physics of an instrument determines its ideal sound – that sound, which exerts the least physical strain on the instrument. Since an instrument is not an individual, and therefore is not a member of any association for the protection of instruments which might want to protect it from possible stresses and strains, the composer may well inspire the performer to refine his playing technique, to expand his inner freedom, to systematically expand, and also to apply, his mastery over the instrument.
This means that the so-called “instrument-specific sound” musically can only express very little meaning, and that it is only a very simple groundstate from where the musician begins to unfold the world of music.
Therefore,
the conventional fixated use of traditional musical instruments is a systematic
musical restriction: only a fraction of the possibilities of the instruments
is explored and applied, and even worse:
the performer, due to this limitation, is deprived of the personal experience
of being the mighty master over the world of tones, and consequently never
experiences the uplifting feeling of being a true musician.
If
the musician leaves the structuring of the sound to the physical structure
of an instrument alone, it will only yield a periodical, fixated spectrum
of overtones which we identify as the so-called “specific instrument-sound”
of conventional music.
Due to the periodicity of its spectrum of overtones the restricted nature
of an instrument expresses only mental rigidity (since the instrument itself
is dead, mentally rigid, and by the fixation of its sound it only induces
the listener to mental rigidity).
The
high speed of repetition of the overtone-pattern demands too much from the
listener’s analytical ability. Due to the excessive flow of information and
the permanent repetition of the spectrum of overtones, the sound assumes a
fixed character.
Such a sound is retained at the periphery of the mind like in a filter, and
does not succeed in penetrating the alert, quick and comprehensive cognizing
depths of our mind. Therefore, such an unalive sound cannot stimulate our
feelings to lively creativity.
The listener regards such a tone or sound, created purely from the physics of the instrument, as constant and fixed, and identifies it as the typical sound of the instrument.
Here, the instrument rules the musician; matter rules over mind; the seemingly dead rules over the living.
It is a fatal “realism” of our scientific-technical age to apply the advantages of independently functioning machines to a musical instrument, which was never given such authority by the composer, for his intention was to put the instrument directly and exclusively into the service of the living.
| M U S I C T H E O R Y |
| THE PHYSICS OF MUSIC |