The Unalive,
Undynamic Sound

Strong Basic Tone,
Weak Overtones

Limits of the
Conventional Instrument Characteristics

Beyond the Subtle,
Artistic, Musical
Performance

In the conventional use of an instrument the basic tone is considerably louder than the overtones connected to and built upon it. Therefore our faculty of discrimination neglects the spectrum of overtones in favour of the basic tone, and we never clearly experience the pattern of the overtones – the true world of the musical sound-space.

It is like standing in front of a loud ship’s siren, next to which quiet music is played from the radio: one no longer hears the music but only a slight colouration in the sound of the siren.

In the conventional way of playing an instrument this mixture of siren and radio is what we call the sound of the instrument, and the respective timbre of the instrument then results from the respective radio programme.

Such an instrument technique is as far from the true mastery of an instrument as this siren-radio mixture is from a subtle, artistic musical event.

Moreover, the listener does not perceive the individual overtones separate in space and therefore misses the experience of space from the very beginning.

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