A Collection of Musings
Music of the Light
by Larry Camarota
Music theory has gotten very complex. There are many mathematical models for music, and almost all good music follows these models (intentionally or not). However, there are no similar models for visual art (such as painting). I've been thinking of some theories why:
Our hearing has a range of 20Hz-20kHz. This is a range of almost 10 octaves. Our sight, however, goes from 390THz to 750THz, which is less than a single octave. Many of the models of sound can't apply to art that we can see. Furthermore, sound is dynamic by nature, and most visual art is static.
Many of the more beautiful sounds are composed not of one basic waveform, but of a sum of many waveforms (chords and harmonies). Visual art, however, only emits basic waveforms, making any waveform but a basic sinusoidal one impossible. Imagine what music would be like if you could only play one note at a time, and you had less than an octave range (mary had a little lamb would be grand opera).
This could be why fire fascinates us so much. It is still limited by our visible range (if we could see 3 octaves lower, it would be much more fascinating), but it emits many different waveforms at once, that could, in theory, combine to form chords and/or harmonies.
Musical Glasses
by Nick Park
The holidays are over and so ends the possibility for boring after-dinner conversations with family members, immediate and extended. Yet, in 11 months when things are picking up again, how can one stay entertained once the meal is finished? In many cases, the solution lies right in front of you at the dinner table.
It is often the case that fancy holiday dinners are served with a nice beverage - wine, or for those underage, "sparkling grape juice." Obviously, since I'm including the latter drink, the fun I am talking about is not what first came to your mind when I mentioned "beverage" and "entertainment" together. The key is not in the drink itself, but rather, the object holding your drink - typically a wine goblet of sorts.
This is actually a trick most of us know from our childhood, but if you wet your finger and run it around the rim of the goblet, the glass itself starts to sing, producing an incredibly pure pitch. If you have done this before, you may have also noted that you can change the pitch by varying the amount of liquid in the goblet. The fun, for the musically inclined at least, is in tuning your glasses and trying to play a song.
The musical family that we are, after Thanksgiving we spent a bit of time tuning the wine glasses to various pitches. In the end, we were able to sound a full A-flat major chord and also play the beginning of "Also Sprach Zarathustra" - which most recall as the "2001 theme song."
Some have even taken this post-dinner pass-time to the professional level, creating "glass harps" - complete sets of physically tuned glasses (i.e., tuned glasses without holding water) - and recording numerous albums of glass harp music. In fact, Benjamin Franklin was so taken by the sound of a glass harp he heard during a performance in London that he sought to invent an instrument that would produce the same sound, but with much greater ease. To this end, he invented the "glass armonica," after the Italian word for "harmony." The glass armonica incorporates musically tuned glass bowls that are nested together and mounted on a rotating spindle, played by wetted fingers. The music of the glass armonica has even been associated with everything from curing ills to causing madness in both the player and listener.
So, the next time you are sitting bored with a wine goblet in front of you, wet your finger and run it around the rim and know that you now have something in common with Benjamin Franklin. And maybe you can get some practice in between now and Thanksgiving.