Showing posts with label pseudo-Zen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pseudo-Zen. Show all posts

Visualising music - 1

Remember I had once written how gravitational disturbances were mapped to auditory frequencies (here) ?

When I was writing about that, the thought that how i visualised music had bugged me a lot. I could never recall if there's any reason to like some instrument combinations and not the others. So, I tried to come up with a cogent visualisation system where I could say, for sure, if there was a characteristic to the kind of music that pleases me. Here's a brief account of what I believe is my theory of how I see music..

A. To me each voice starts out at a spatial location and has a particular color. The voice can be human  or an instance of an instrument e.g. two pianos. The problem with human voice is that it's hard to distinguish the notes that they are singing without proper musical training.  So let's consider just instruments.

B. We now have blobs at different spatial locations. Each blob can be sectioned along the circumference into the 12 standard notes. (My perception of the notes is a bit woozy so we can safely say i don't see clear sections of the circle).

C. The blob explodes at the section corresponding to the note when it is played. The rate of explosion is proportional to the pitch of the note i.e. a note at a higher octave spreads faster than the corresponding note at a lower one.

Based on these ideas,

1. I like music where there is a strong correlation in the actions at the locations of different blobs. This is why I like Jugalbandis in Classical Indian music. Although, I couldn't detect the occurence of uncorrelation on my own since i couldn't exactly locate the swara, I like the parts where one player challenges the other by mimicking him or playing the same tune either slowly or at a faster pace.

2. I like music that evolves and reaches a crescendo (sorta like one blob splashing color all over the map). A most vivid example for this is that beautiful piano piece which occurs in the beginning of the song Yeh haseen wadiyan from Roja.

Maybe, I haven't clearly looked into all the aspects of this or haven't taxed myself with a lot of examples so that there are exceptions that could invalidate this hypothesis... Anyway this is my perspective? What's yours?

This, That and the Other

On the eve of HH Thay Nhat Hanh’s impending visit to India...
Any resemblance to any sentient being is not so co-incidental. Remember 42?

This

"What should I do?", asked the disciple.
The Guru (Ateevonmeelithanethra) asked of him, "Do you think you ought to do something?"
"Do you think I ought to do something?" he asked humbly.
"I suppose you think that I ought to think that you ought to think about doing something", said the Sage.
"Oh, Master I now realise that you think I ought to have done something some time ago. I'm so sorry."
"Time is an illusion"
"But you still think that I ought to have thought that you would have thought that I must have thought of doing something? Now that I haven't done so do you think that I ought to do something or ought I think that as I ought to have thought that you would have thought that I must have thought of doing something and as I didn't do so, should I still think of the whole thing?"
"No!!"
"No, I should. Or Yes, I shouldn't. What is it?"
"Yes" said he and walked away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tat ? Or That ?

"Which is the path?" asked the student.
"Every way is a path", said the learned one.
"Surely every way can't be a path!" thought the disciple.
"Have you taken all the paths?" he asked.
"But still every path can't be the correct path", the student argued.
"If it was so, it might be", said the Sage.
"If it were so, it would be", said the Disciple.
"But as it isn't it ain't."
"That's Logic?", "Is that the wisdom I should wish to seek?"
"That's Carrol" he said and closed his eyes.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Other

"O wisest of the wise!What is the means of attaining Nirvana?", the disciple humbly asked.
He opened his eyes, for as many moments as it took Kungfu Panda to find a steamed Momu in the perfume bazaars of Arabia, and said, "Try Blogging!!".

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The above piece does not reflect my true emotions that I really appreciate and love Zen, the automobile