Notes, Intervals and Structural Functions of Music

Prayer of Perichoresis - home

Perfectible Harmony - home

Music in a very broad and simple sense is the story of 'a sonic entitiy'
moving toward a place of rest. From that perspectiive there is music coming from
the ocean as the sound of a breaking a wave resolves to the silence which preceded it.
Even in a primal type of drumming, if two drums have different pitches, one will
be felt as a place of resolution (or rest) with the other as a place distant from its
ultimate resting place or home ... while at the same time providing its own sense of peace.
As more pitches are added, the variety of potential movements, as well as
oases for rest before an ultimate return home increase exponentially.

Eventually drum technology developed so that individual drums could be pitched.
What I want to draw attention to though, is that the structural functions of a
'home', moving points and oases as departure points for a return home
preceded the refinement of any individual sonic entity into
measured intervals and individual notes.

The pitch difference of two drums could only be experienced as something musical
if it already resonated with something already known to the drum beater as well as
the audience. The vocal tract of the human animal is a highy sophisticated instrument
that is capable of producing harmonically ordered sounds when taking advantage of the
sustained column of air our upright posture enables us to produce. An "Oo", "Oh" or "Ah"
has a unique arrangement of overtones that lend the sound its distinguishable character.
The fundamental of those overtones is what we hear as their pitch. Keeping an "Oo" at the
same pitch or frequency produces a drone. We can vary the pitch either by sliding around
like an eerie ghost voice or by discreet steps as in a melody. These discreet steps are
each an oasis with a degree of impetus towards 'home' - or possibly already be home.

The earliest "drums" would have been found instruments like logs or stalactites having a
resonant quality the drummer and listeners found appealing. If a second or third drum were
brought into the mix it could could onlt have been found acceptible if the tonal relationship
amongst the drums resonanted with the tonal relationships already known, valued and desired
by the humans producing and listening to the sounds.

The relationships between the home and oases are the preexisting structure.
The perceived distance from home to any oasis is the interval between them.
Each of home or oasis is a note within the aural landscape.
The impetus and urgency of moving from one note to another
- or to remain at partial or concluding rest -
at any given time is itthe note's structural function of the moment.

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