Ella Mulliri is our guest blogger this month. She worked with us in the IET Library and Archives over the summer and brings her knowledge of composition and music generally to looking at the pamphlet collection of Silvanus P. Thompson. Ella is a Londoner-adopted Italian with a background in music and the arts. She studied harp, singing and music reading for most of her childhood and later picked up the guitar and keyboard. Her experience at The LSE Women’s Library ignited her love for academic libraries and archives, which has since been a constant in her professional life.

“Music resonates in so many parts of the brain that we can’t conceive of it being an isolated thing. It’s whom you were with, how old you were, and what was happening that day.”

-David Byrne

Both scientists and musicians will find the content of the pamphlet collection of Silvanus P. Thompson fascinating, and even more so if versed in both subjects. In his extensive and colourful selection Silvanus P. Thompson – a professor of physics and polymath with a visceral interest in music and the arts – investigates a dilemma that music researchers and scientists have been pondering for centuries: can music be scientifically explained, put under an analytical microscope, dissected note by note? Or is its nature so complex and abstract that any effort to rationalise it would result in analysis for analysis’ sake? Thompson’s final verdict was as follows:

“Art that is true fears nothing from analysis; it is beyond and above its reach.

And music, the most refined, the most subtle, the most spiritual of the arts, defies analysis more effectually than any. Our enquiry leaves its emotional and spiritual power untouched, unchanged.”

Despite having concluded that music cannot be scientifically explained, it wasn’t from a lack of trying. In this beautifully curated pastel-coloured collection, you will come across some of the most authoritative scientific voices of Thompson’s time, as they prove and disprove each other’s theories and try to apply mathematical and physical notions to the way music works. What shines through the collection – featuring pamphlets written in several different European languages – is Thompson’s inquisitive mind and his commitment to research a topic in all its facets and from various perspectives – thereby compiling a well-rounded and well-documented research.

Music’s connection to science and technology has shifted throughout the centuries and millenniums. From the first songs sung to please the gods – only aided by the human voice and manually crafted instruments – to the numerical analysis of musical scales and finally mechanics, electronics and synthesis. What remains somewhat unchanged however, is its effect on the audience and the musician’s creative force.

More than any other art form, music is linked to emotions through numerous channels that are highly sense-attuned: sound waves make their way into our psyche through our hearing as notes, pitch and timbre are uniquely processed depending on the listener’s experience and musical education.

La Musique et l’Acoustique, Paris 1878 – Henry Gauthier-Villars

This pamphlet is a comprehensive investigation of music and how it intertwines with external elements such as acoustics and the audience. The author, writer and music critic Henry Gauthier-Villars, is best known outside the science circle as the husband of Colette, beloved French novelist who inspired the 2018 film of the same name. He writes:

“Science, which has taught us to determine so admirably the necessary ratios of vibrations in chords, consonant or dissonant, is obliged, in the construction of the scale, to bend its exactitude to the requirements of the ear and of art; but, and I do not say this without a legitimate pride as a physicist, it is science itself which clearly teaches us the reason for this indispensable concession, which tells us the reason why we cannot accept the exact scale.”

Let’s talk about two types of acoustics: the one inside our brain and the one outside of it. Sound resonates first in the surrounding space and then in the brain, based on set conditions and circumstances. Depending on how high or low the pitch of a tone is, and the venue’s sound absorption, we feel it in different parts of our bodies, which creates an experience that is both intuitive and physical. Complex harmonies and arrangements, on the other end, satisfy our brain’s rational side.

Psychological Review, May 1900 – J. McKeen Cattell, Columbia University Pamphlet

In this pamphlet, author J. McKeen Cattell – the first professor to ever teach psychology in the United States – highlights the mathematical properties of melody and pitch, and how numerical sequences and arrangements aesthetically satisfy (or not) the human brain. He also provides examples of how more complex melodies do not follow any such rules – implying that even though mathematical notions can be applied, they can’t be turned into rules and musical dogmas.

The excerpt above shows Cattell’s use of Beethoven’s Fidelio to support his psychological review of instances in which the ear and the brain are “teased” by a succession of notes that they didn’t really ask for, and are not satisfied by. The reward (in this case tone n.2) will come, but not until the very end.

Music has the power to make us dance, weep, metabolise our experience and relate to other people’s. Like a scent, it evokes memories and lingers on for minutes, hours and sometimes a lifetime. Different people experience music and genres in completely different ways based on experience, background and personality. Some people will likely experience a given beat or melody in a completely different way from others. This is not a rule set in stone of course, but it helps us understand why some people might lean towards some genres more than others.

Harmony Teacher – C.F Zimmerman English and German

Perhaps my favourite from this collection, this mini pamphlet is a little gem, pleasing to read and particularly to look at. It features illustrations of hand-written musical scales and in-a- nuthshell kind of concepts, from the origins of notes to the evolution of the musical scale.

Zimmerman’s brand-new autoharp, the “harp that plays itself”, is also advertised in this pamphlet – which has a real promotional feel to it. It features comments from the press and testimonials from experts and musicians.

His description of the autoharp almost reads like a manifesto – or a song, if you prefer:

“No INSTRUMENT gives such unbounded pleasure.
No lNSTRUMENT is so easily mastered.
No INSTRUMENT is so instructive.
No INSTRUMENT is capable of producing such sweet harmonies, even in the hands of those not blessed with a musical education.
No INSTRUMENT is equal to it as a Self-Teacher of Music.”

The Physical Foundations of Music – Silvanus.P Thompson, 13th of June 1890 Illustrated Pamphlet, English

“Though a science, music is before all an art, and can be interpreted only by the artist. No analysis, however searching, will explain away the thrill that runs through us as we listen to some simple phrase or motif which recalls the passionate andante, the gay barcarolle, the massive triumphal march, or the wailing Miserere.”

– S.P.Thompson

Beautifully illustrated and featuring examples of fascinating experiments, this pamphlet was written by Thompson himself – an enquiry into the most innovative scientific discoveries in relation to music. Here, Thompson delves into the question of pure and harmonic/impure tones, and the extent to which the human ear can distinguish their finest fragments: this largely depends, Thompson explains, by the training of the listener’s ear and the instruments used. He particularly focuses on the work of Dr. Rudolph Coening and his experiments on the purity of tones using “his great tonometer” which included a set of standard tuning forks each adjusted by hand, ranging from 20 vibrations per second up to nearly 40,000.

Thompson’s aim in this text is to examine music from a physical standpoint, while stressing that it is ultimately an art and must be regarded as such, with its spiritual and emotional powers. His ability to reason and a sharp critical thinking made him a skillful debater, able to be as thorough in his research as he was persuasive in its presentation. His quest for truth as opposed to the urge of inventing a new theory to stroke his scientific ego, created a fertile ground for an open minded and thorough kind of investigation, with logic and sensibility at its centre.

An intriguing 2013 study by Schäfer, Fachner, and Smukalla, indicates that the act of listening to music is sufficient in temporarily changing the perception of space and time in our brain. This finding suggests that number, space, and the temporal aspect of music are intricately intertwined in our brains. It’s no wonder that music can have such a powerful impact when combined to other art forms such as filmmaking, where the perception of time can mould a scene and give it a multitude of different meanings. If you’ve ever listened to ambient music in the city during rush hour, you will have noticed how suddenly the flow of people rushing past doesn’t seem as fast and chaotic as it was before you pressed ‘play’. According to the 2013 study, this distortion in our perception happens when music distracts the brain from its natural estimation of time, making it fluctuate depending on the speed, arousal and familiarity to the track, amongst other things.

I remember one particular time in my life when I was overwhelmed by a song, and it felt as if time had significantly slowed down. I was floating in a swimming pool one night, and Placebo’s Pure Morning started playing. It’s been 8 years and I still remember the feeling of otherworldliness and peace, the perfect combination between time, space and a familiar tune.

Aside from the unique aesthetic of the pamphlets and the beautiful colour palette, what I found fascinating while exploring this collection is how most authors came to the (perhaps bittersweet) same conclusion that as much as it can be dissected and picked apart in all possible ways, music cannot be entirely explained scientifically, but only observed.

By Ella Mulliri 

References

All of these pamphlets are in the Silvanus P. Thompson pamphlet collection. Please contact us for more information.

How Music Works, David Byrne (2012)

Changes in the representation of space and time while listening to music Sec. Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology. Volume 4 – 2013 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00508