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Subject: Re: Gregory Whitehead: Out of the Dark: notes on the nobodies of radio art
From: dia <diana@dial.isys.hu>
Date: Sun, 27 Jul 1997 00:05:14 METDST

* * * * *


I am just reading Whitehead's book "Wireless Imagination" and was looking for
Schillinger's manifesto "The Electrification of Music" when I found this.


I was looking for Schillinger's manifesto "The Electrification of Music" when I
found this:


NIKOLA TESLA AND JOSEPH SCHILLINGER THE MUSIC OF
NT: THE MAN WHO INVENTED THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Bruno Degazio, Toronto, Canada


The music of NT: The Man Who Invented the Twentieth Century was composed using
modernised versions
of algorithmic techniques developed by a little-remembered early twentieth
century Russian-American
music theorist, Joseph Schillinger, and is related in a particular and peculiar
way to Tesla's most important
ideas. Fundamental to these techniques are a geometrical world view dating back
to Pythagoras and the
use of phase relationships as creators of energy (physical in the case of
Tesla's generators, aesthetic in the
case of Schillinger's interference patterns). His techniques have been brought
up to date by their
amalgamation with recursive and chaotic processes ("fractals") in the music of
NT, notably in the Overture
and the "phase music" used to herald the approaching storm.

In some cases, as in the Fantasy on The Electric Motor, the overall rhythmic
structure is controlled by the
phase relationships employed in Tesla's original polyphase motor, and developed
according to
Schillinger's ideas of phase and pattern. In other pieces the connection is more
allusive, as in the
sequence entitled The Power of Resonance - Number is the Basis of the Universe.
Tesla's position in the
long line of geometrical idealists beginning with Pythagoras is demonstrated
through the use of the same
harmonic relationships described by Pythagoras (and consistently employed as one
of the underpinnings
of Western theories of music for the last 2600 years). This heritage of
geometrical idealism is brought up to
date through the use of compositional techniques derived from chaos theory and
fractal geometry.

Tesla's obsession with automata and robots is finding its modern fulfilment in
these intelligent,
computer-based processes. Unknown to most people, however, is the fact that many
of these processes
were anticipated by Joseph Schillinger, one of the strangest and most
interesting musical figures the
twentieth century has produced.

Schillinger and Tesla were remarkably similar in many ways: both were
obsessively concerned with a
cataloguing and rationalisation of human experience, culminating in an almost
pathological reduction to
mechanisms of behaviour; both were immensely influential and acquired (or
attempted to promote) a
Promethean view of themselves while alive (Tesla's promise of free power and
information through the
magnifying transmitter as his gift to mankind, Schillinger's "scientification"
of music as the salvation of art) ;
both saw technology as a positive creative force working for the good of mankind
and eagerly anticipated
its future development; both were enthusiastic immigrants to America (Tesla from
Yugoslavia, Schillinger
from Russia) and embraced the life of the New World wholeheartedly; both were
individual to the point of
eccentricity in their personal habits; both suffered a bizarre (in view of their
previous influence) and almost
total eclipse after death. They died within a few years of one another, both in
New York City where they had
spent the greatest part of their creative lives.

SCHILLINGER'S SYSTEM

Through the 1920's and '30's Schillinger developed a mammoth "System" of musical
composition
allegedly based for the first time in history on 'scientific' principles. The
System consists of twelve books,
each covering some fundamental aspect of musical composition, such as
counterpoint, harmony or
rhythmic structures. The success of the System in at least some respects has
been very well established in
the long line of popular music and film composers who have employed it with
great distinction, including
George Gershwin, Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Oscar Levant, Carmine Coppola and
many others too
numerous to mention. Indeed, so pervasive have been some aspects of
Schillinger's System that they
constitute a sort of hidden and unacknowledged undercurrent throughout North
American music (especially
popular music) from the 1930's to the present. Unfortunately, the System as it
exists today is more a
collection of lists and summaries than a clear explanation of the procedures
involved.

Phase and the Principle of Interference

Like Tesla's most important and influential ideas, the basis of Schillinger's
system is geometrical,
especially resting on the concept of phase relationships. Almost every aspect of
the System is derived in
some fashion from the phase relationships ("resultants of interference" in his
terminology) of simple
periodic motions. He found ways to project these resultants into the obvious
areas of rhythm and structural
proportion and also into the much less obvious ones of pitch structures (scales
and chords), counterpoint,
harmonic progression, orchestration and even into the emotional and semantic
aspects of musical
composition. In the final years of his life he extended the system into
non-musical domains to produce
images and designs based on the same principles, some of which surround the text
of this essay. He also
extended the system into the domain of the other temporal arts, including drama
and motion pictures,
developing a theory of new 'kinetic' art forms based on the the union of diverse
media such as music and
drama. This was of course an obvious extension of Wagnerian Gesamtkunstwerke;
Schillinger's originality
lay in his obsessive cataloguing, "on scientific principles" of every
conceivable permutation of relationships
between art forms. He documented these methods in the book he considered his
masterpiece, "The
Mathematical Basis of the Arts" .

The basic idea underlying much of Schillinger's System was to employ the
rhythmic patterns produced as a
result of the interference of simple regular patterns, such as that familiar to
many musicians as "three
against four":

(figure 1 - 4:3 interference pattern)

Several interesting aspects of these resultants are only implied in
Schillinger's discussion. First their length
is always equal to the product of the elements involved. Thus, for the example
above, the total length of the
resultant, expressed with an eighth-note beat, would be 3 times 4 or twelve
eighth notes. Similarly, the
length of the resultant of seven against eight would be 56. A less obvious
characteristic is that these
rhythms are always symmetrical; they are, in Olivier Messiaen's terms, non-
retrogradable, and thus posess
what Messiaen calls "the charm of impossibilities".

In many ways Schillinger's System of composition was a sort of computer music
before the computer. He
presaged many developments of algorithmic composition that were not taken up in
full until many years
later, such as:

• graphic notation systems • the techniques of projection onto musical
parameters • use of strict rulebound
methods • notion of self-similarity • music as imitative of natural dynamics
While some of these ideas had a
history prior to Schillinger, such as the notion of music as imitative of
natural dynamics and the use of the
Fibonacci series, few had ever been systematically elaborated to the degree
presented in his System.

In addition to these simple techniques we owe to Schillinger the notion of
projection in a more general
sense - the solution of the problem of making an abstraction perceptually valid.
This he does over and over
again in virtually every volume of the System. For example, he discusses ways in
which each of the
following mathematical abstractions may be made concrete in melody, harmony,
rhythm and structure:

1. Natural harmonic series. 2. Arithmetical progressions. 3. Geometrical
progressions. 4. Involution series.
5. Various logarithmic series. 6. Progressive additive series. (Fibonacci
series) 7. Prime number series. 8.
Arithmetical mean. 9. Geometrical mean.

(Theory of Melody, Ch.8 - Use of Organic Forms of Melody, p.352)

Music as Natural Dynamic

Schillinger's System contains frequent references to music as natural dynamic.
His use of the Fibonacci
series (which he calls the 'growth' series in reference to its use in describing
growth patterns of plants,
seashells, etc.) is just one of many examples scattered throughout the System.
This is clearly related to the
recent developments in fractal geometry, particularly the studies of chaotic
(strange) attractors and
non-linear dynamics as models of natural phenomena. Schillinger even at one
point compares the
multi-levelled character of music to one of the archtypal fractal structures -
the self-similar coastline:

"The shoreline of North America, for example, may be measured in astronomical,
or in topographical, or in
microscopic values. The difference between melody from a physical or musical
standpoint is a quantitative
difference." (Schillinger, p.229)

Compare a story related by Benoit Mandelbrot, the founder of fractal geometry:

"After a 'sensible' guess (of the length of the East coast of the United States)
had been made...he
would...point out that this figure increased enormously if you measured the
perimeter of every bay and inlet,
then that of every projection and curve of these, then the distance separating
each small particle of
coastline matter, each molecule, atom, etc. Obviously, the coastline is as long
as you want to make it."

(Mandelbrot, The Fractal Geometry of Nature, p.28)

In another chapter Schillinger is quite explicit about the relation of musical
to natural forms:

"Thus we see that the forms of organic growth associated with life, well-being,
self-preservation and
evolution appeal to us as a form of beauty when expressed through an art
medium." (p.352)

And he bases the whole of his complex Theory of Melody on relationships to
natural forms:

"The important stages in evolving a theory of melody: 1. Study of the general
properties of melody with
respect to its convertibility and other forms of geometric projection.

2. Comparative study of the patterns appearing in natural configurations
(crystal, vegetable and mineral
forms).

3. Study of the properties of curves and of statistical records specifically
(technology of events).

4. Recording and analysis of (human) reflex patterns (respiratory, muscular,
nervous, etc.).

5. Study of the trajectorial curves evolving linear design in the visual arts."

Theory of Melody, p.228

The Psychological Dial

Perhaps one of the strangest and yet possibly the most practical portions (as
attested to by three
generations of film composers) of Schillinger's System involves his notion of
the 'Psychological Dial'.

(figure 5- the psychological dial)

This dial represents an attempt to circumscribe the entire gamut of human
emotional response to a
stimulus, typically musical. With the use of this dial and an elaborate system
of "connotational symbols", a
composer is be able to assemble a continuity of emotional responses as the basis
for his work. These might
follow some preconceived plan such as a narrative outline, as in traditional
programme music; or they
might be arranged according to more abstract patterns such as those produced as
a result of interference;
or, unknown to Schillinger, a fractal process of a suitable sort could be
employed to guide the composer
through the maze of possibilities. The Psychological Dial as a sort of "feeling
field" is clearly related to
Tesla's emotional repression, which became manifest in his need to distance
himself from other persons by
viewing them and himself as machines.

Schillinger's System of Musical Composition was a unique, perhaps misguided,
attempt to discover the
atomic structure of music, the smallest indivisible element, the simple ground
from which all complexity
emerges. In this respect it has interesting parallells to other currents of
thought in the mathematical and
physical sciences of the time, such as the quantum theory of atomic structure,
Einstein's attempt to unite all
physical laws into a 'Unified Field Theory', Bertrand Russells's and Alfred
Whitehead's bid to relate the
whole of mathematical thought to a handful of elementary postulates in the
Principia Mathematica. It also
bears a striking similarity to Tesla's reduction of human activity to
mechanistic laws that were obeyed
unwittingly by human beings "as surely as molecules obey the gas laws". Although
he may have failed to
convincingly relate all aspects of musical thought and perception to a handful
of fundamental principles,
Joseph Schillinger nevertheless provided, and continues to provide a fresh
outlook and an invigorating
force to a potentially moribund musical culture. Like Tesla, his influence on
the course of events in this
century has been deep and universal but strangely unacknowledged.

(portions of this essay have been previously published as "The Schillinger
System of Composition and
Contemporary Computer Music")

BIBLIOGRAPHY


Cooper, G. and Meyer, L., The Rhythmic Structure of Music,
Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1960

Degazio, B. Musical Aspects of Fractal Geometry,
Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference 1986, The Hague.

Dodge, C., Musical Fractals, Byte, June 1986

Hiller, L.A. and Isaacson, L., Experimental Music, McGraw-Hill, 1959

Mandelbrot, B., The Fractal Geometry of Nature, New York, Freeman and Company,
1982.

Messiaen, Olivier Technique de mon Langage Musical
(The Technique of My Musical Language), Alphonse Leduc, Paris

Schillinger, Joseph The Schillinger System of Musical Composition,
Da Capo, New York, 1978
Recommended 'Books'
Overture to the Schillinger System by Henry Cowell
Introduction by Arnold Shaw and Lyle Dowling
Book I - Theory of Rhythm
Book III - Variations of Music by Means of Geometrical
Projection
Book VIII - Instrumental Forms
Book IX - General Theory of Harmony (strata harmony)
Book XI - Theory of Composition esp. Part Three - Semantic
Composition
and Ch. 18 - Composition of Sonic Symbols

Schillinger, Joseph The Mathematical Basis of the Arts Da Capo, New York