Dynamic Music Theory

 

Imagine an orchestra.  The instruments of the musicians in the orchestra are pebbles, bamboo sticks, a bucket of water, strings attached to a wood, jug, glass glasses, hammer, nail, saw, grater, wind chime and birds flying in the hall.  Now you are asked to write an essay for this orchestra.  How will you write?  How can you create a notation for this orchestra that is not chorded to the 440 Hz standard even though you have spent all of our training to learn the standard music theory and make music for standard orchestras?  Your entire career and years of accumulation on the 440 Hz standard A sound does not help you write a composition for these simple instruments.  Or let's say they came to you with an offer like this.  There is a forest.  There are trees, birds, flying insects, the river in it.  You were asked to note the sounds of the forest on a rainy day and were offered $ 10 million in return.  Can you note the forest?  The number offered is quite large.  Alluring.  But how will you do it?

OK.  Today's music is like abstract painting.  Maybe a math pattern can be created at the end.  So would this pattern work in the first place?  If it worked, wouldn't all musical works be nearly identical?  So what makes the difference in abstract painting?  Is it enough to say the painter's life experience, feelings and thoughts?  What makes the painting abstract?

Could it be that what makes the painting abstract is that it is not possible to explain the subject that the painter wants to tell in terms of object origin?  Could it be that he also needed to discover undertones that had never been used before?  A similar situation is like it cannot be explained with the methods, melodies and rhythms known in modern music.  The composer describes the subject with previously unused articulations and sounds.

Some anthropomorphic and zoomorphic instruments of pre-Columbian America

Ocarina from the North Pacific and flute from the Caribbean, both 500 BC - 300 AD

Bells and rattle, both 300 BC to 300 AD


These were important musical instruments for the Pre-Columbian culture. Music is a form of communication. It is actually the origin of the language. Each language contains a musical form in itself. It has its own rhythm. However, the tuning of these instruments is different from the 440 Hz we know today. Of course, the people who produced music with these instruments did not hear the voices differently than we do. However, the methods of expression were different. From this point of view, there are different instruments and different notation methods in all main cultures of the world. In Turkish music, for example, there are 9 intermediate voices between two sounds (F and G). They call this "koma".

Since the subject is dynamic music theory, it should include all known music genres and notations, as well as abstract music or music in a style and method that has never been done before, or provide them with a vision. Otherwise, the scope of dynamic music theory would not have covered all of human music again. But what is needed is to include all the music. It should even be able to go beyond this and have the flexibility to express natural sounds.

Although the notation I mentioned resembles the notation structure of Chinese music, it is clear that it does not include contemporary abstract music and/or natural sounds.
#1 Chinese music

#2 Chinese musicology

What I meant by Dynamic Music Theory was not a purely mathematical expression of music. However, it is clear that some regulations are necessary. Music theorists have tried to adapt music entirely to series, geometry, and differential geometry. As a result, it is of course possible to explain the pattern of a work with a mathematical structure. But the formation phase from start to finish may not be mathematics. Music cannot be expressed as mathematics throughout. This is mainly because thoughts and emotions do not always move according to a math sequence. The point I try to emphasize is that all sounds are music and / or any object can be used as a musical instrument. Therefore, while the current music theory cannot cover these, it is not possible for it to lead to the music of the future and to form a vision.

While we do not advocate that the new music theory we will develop will be entirely mathematical; I argue that it must be parallel with science. Sounds are the subject of physics. In physics, all sound patterns can be expressed and calculated. Therefore, I tried to express that a musical theory can be developed parallel to physics by including semiology. I look at the subject from this point of view.

I think I've written enough explanation about why Dynamic Music Theory is necessary. No one can stand alone under the new music theory with such wide scope. (No one can handle such a comprehensive new music theory alone.)

Let's go back to the rainforest project and try to examine the sounds here. According to the music theory we have, we have 12 tones (sounds). It is not possible to score the sounds we hear in such a narrow space of theory of music. If we use the Turkish music system; There are 9 intermediate sounds between the two sounds. Unfortunately this is not enough in the system. Because there is actually an infinite number of frequencies between the two sounds. In other words, there is an infinite amount of intermediate tones between the two sounds. The number of frequencies between F and G is infinite when there is contemporary abstract music or when there are natural sounds.

The way to overcome this problem would be to use frequencies. We cannot solve this with familiar symbols that point to a very limited range of sounds. At this point, I am not saying let's use the wave equations. Of course, with a complete analysis, it is theoretically possible to calculate all sounds, frequencies, decibels and the reflected sound waves in the forest to which object they generate sound waves. However, even if we know that we can achieve a perfect result when we turn music into a complete theory of physics, we lose the practice of using it. For this reason, it should be the first step to increase the number of sounds in the two sound ranges to a level that will not lose its practicality, while reserving the power of physics in some projects when necessary. Indeed, the purpose of the discussion here is not to give a complete theory of music. On the contrary, it is to give clues about the scope of dynamic music theory and to emphasize new visions and horizons that it will open to the understanding of music. The issue of how sign language will be and how it can be adapted more easily is an area that should be discussed extensively. 

If we leave aside the issue of how those instruments with fixed and limited frequency range can develop over time and reach intermediate tones; I question how we should focus on the frequency range of natural objects or the violin reaching infinite intermediate tones between 196 Hz and 659.3 Hz. The failure of graphic notation comes from the weakness of the information transmission capacity depending on the usage pattern. It did not bring much flexibility to the notation (for example it is not possible to indicate 441.108 Hz in graphic notation which means it is impossible to show 24 semitones in graphic. If semitones reach to 72TET than again it is fully impossible to draw it in graphic notation. Graphic notation is a kind of |×| Gestalt effect on 24 or more semitones in abstract contemporary. it is impossible to indicate 440.17 Hz for example.). In terms of richness of expression, very little did go beyond classical notation. Individual ones could not provide a clear statement. It closed the wide door that it could open as a result of combining it with standard notation. What kind of benefit did it bring to notation for instance between the sounds (frequencies) C & D? I don't know what kind of symbol language should be for Dynamic Music Theory. However, it is clear that the symbol language must be compatible with the frequencies. I think that the features of sound waves other than the frequency such as decibel, pitch, wavelength, pressure, velocity, distribution area, density, aeroacoustics, bioacoustics and psychophysics qualities will be very useful in some cases.

* Personally I solve notation problem with spectogram notation. I use freq.and decibels. If needed than I add Penderecki graphic notation signs.

Links may help for traditional articulation : 

Audible frequency range of musical instruments and the human voice.

Piano key frequencies

It is clear that in order to give a vision to the music of today and the future, it is necessary to have a dynamic, plasticity, non-rigid, non-solid and compatible theory.

A brief evaluation:

While all genres of music in the classical understanding give people an unreal aesthetics, peace and joy, and accelerate the separation of people from nature and reality, contemporary abstract music criticizes and emphasizes the separation of the human being with the atonal sounds it offers, and also criticizes reverse evolution of human being into wild  conformism; High-level works produced with natural sounds emphasize the importance of the way humans return to nature and reality.

"If the letters of the alphabet were sufficient, the language of mathematics would not be born" Avni Erbey

Discussion:

For notation, we can draw a scale between 20Hz and 20KHz frequency horizontal lines, mark the partitions including decimal notation and write symbols on it. But the question is, what are the counterparts of these frequencies in instruments? Have musicians been trained for this technique? Also, how are decimal frequencies obtained by using the instrument? What is the detail articulation and its corresponding frequency range? It is a huge project to analyze all of these on instruments and to train musicians. It may not be sufficient to write the notation on the frequency scale and add accent symbols.

Link : HERTZ, CENT AND DECIBEL
Link : Equal temperament

First step of Dynamic Music Theory : Vortex Music Theory

What is the role of art?  : What is the role of art?

Notation and Musical Symbols

I have been writing concertos, chamber orchestra and for solo instruments with no musical symbols (musical traffic symbols). The strange thing is free jazz, I have become the focus of criticism even for those who make abstract music and compose using graphic notation. I think they are not aware of what they are producing with free jazz or abstract music. You will both produce this type of music and restrict the free expression you produce with medieval musical symbols! This is a pointless approach. 

The root of the problem is to perpetuate the usual without thinking about it and being aware of what it is doing. 

For example, what is wanted to be done with abstract music? Expressing a topic, emotion or thought using sounds without being dependent on free expression and notes. Standard playing techniques and articulations are not used for this. For example, playing by hitting the strings of the piano, hitting the strings with the arshet of the violin, or hitting the board with the bow. Quickly pulling the strings; Many non-standard new techniques are used, such as blowing into it.

There is another purpose of producing music with this method. That is to contribute to the free expression ability of musicians. In spite of this, while defending that musicians contribute to the development of their power of free expression and express the issue freely; On the other hand, what is it, if not absurd, to use musical symbols that express the strict medieval conception of notation?

I do not use musical symbols in my own notations and musical vocalizations, and I continue to not use musical symbols in order not to restrict the free expression skills of the musicians who are or will perform my works.

Understood or not understood by those who consider themselves the directors of the music world; I do not care. My goal is clear and understandable. Still, there is one thing that upsets me. It is because musicians who have been trained for years have difficulty understanding my purpose and demand that I add musical symbols to my compositions. I compare it to slaves, who have been given democratic freedom of expression, to protest and shout that we want a monarchy.

I guess if they had criticized painters like Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Franz Kline and Salvador Dali for not obeying similar traffic signs of classical painting; presumably they would curse critics.

The composer is not a holy person or a saint.  The works of a composer are not scriptures. It should be freely interpreted by musicians. -Avni Erbey

* I would like to leave a funny example. I like the music of Penderecki however I think he has no idea what he did about his notation. The graphic notation already explains the play he thinks. Why musical traffic symbols are there? Let the orchestra and/or maestro discuss and decide how they want to express!