Music Theory And Epicurean Philosophy

[Edit by Cassius: This thread was started in response to my asking about Major and Minor key, which came up in the discussion of Romanze in Moll (the Romance in Minor Key" movie. I asked:  Nate if you get a chance to glance at this thread: Can you explain to a non-musician like me what "minor key" is and how it is musically able to evoke sadness, as opposed to major key? I will look this up on Wikipedia but I would be interested in your comment.]

Yes! So, to dive into this, I'd like to talk about two, different, creative arenas.

First, we have an immediate phenomenology of music: what is music, and how do we experience music?

Second, we need to explore the cultural environment in which the appearance of structures like "major", and "minor" arise (because they are not, themselves, universal variables). Furthermore, I'll discuss "major" and "minor" specifically, to explain why those two structures (of many) are the most useful examples for non-musicians to regularly cite to acknowledge how human emotion corresponds with soundwaves.

First, what is music? Music is a storytelling art in which music-listeners accept sound as the medium through which the story is told; jumping deeper, sound is the reverberation of mechanical energy and, physically, mechanical energy is a sin wave. So, phenomenologically, music, as we experience it, is the story our minds spin when the mind anticipates patterns in the sin waves of mechanical energy (captured by the fleshy satellite dishes on either side of our cranium). Most of the time, we assume music to be an artificially-generated (i.e. intentional) composition––this is not always true, for Nature, itself, is inherently musical. The parts of our brain that register auditory impulses are simply looking for periodic (regularly patterned) sound waves. While most sounds we hear in nature are aperiodic (irregularly patterned) sound waves (which we call technically refer to as "noise"), that does not mean that natural patterns do not exist. For example, consider the "Wow! signal" [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal ]––which, in this case, deals with electromagnetic, and not mechanical waveforms, but still demonstrates the point, which is that the mind starts writing stories when it begins anticipating patterns, regardless of whether or not those patterns were intentionally-generated. To summarize, music is the story that our minds spin, according to the patterns it interprets and anticipates from sound waves.

Next, let's explore the perceived structures of music. Starting a few levels of scale above atoms, let's first acknowledge that our ears (the hosts of our internal auditorium) will only identify mechanical energy that vibrates between 20 and 20,000 Hz. That's the full sonic spectrum with which we have to paint. But we don't use that full spectrum––the full spectrum sometimes looks like 'Waves Crashing On Rocks' or 'Volcanic Explosions', a lot of musical colors (notes) that, together, just create dissatisfying messes of mutually-indistinguishable farts. Herein, the musician's job is to select a few musical colors (notes) that most adequately express the acoustic picture they are trying to audibly paint. Like the colors of the rainbow, which reduce the visible spectrum of electromagnetic radiation vibrating between 430 and 770 THz to "Roy G. Biv", we identify the audible spectrum of sound by symbolic qualia. For example, the mind of a painter does not mathematically register light at 430 THz, but it does artistically know precisely what deep red looks like. Similarly, the mind of a musician does not mathematically register sound at 440 Hz, but we know exactly how 'Middle A' sounds. The qualitaties we use to express anticipatory patterns of mechanical energy (the C note), as with light (the color Red), correspond with cultural-linguistic symbols. So when we're talking about "major" and "minor", we need to discuss it within the system we call modern, "Western" music theory, and its antecedent.

Once upon a time, Pythagoras realized that you can "double" the frequency (highness or lowness––pitch) of a plucked string by halving its length. In modern language, an example would be middle 'A'––it works out mathematically that 880 Hz is the 'A' immediately above the middle 'A' at 440 Hz––Pythagoras certainly loved numbers, which is where we derive the flexible number '12' notes per set of repeating values (12 is divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6, and that was ... I don't know ... a source of arousal for Pythagoras? He based his entire music theory off of the ratio 3:2, which deserves a thread all on its own, but that's getting off-topic) . The original Hz for each note was based off of an explicit, mathematical ratio ... without delving into the volumes of information that describes the evolution of tuning, and the history of tones in Western music, let's just conclude that, by the 18th-century, musicians were using the standard tuning that we use today, because, earlier, purely ratio-based tunings would lead to ... sounds that aren't pleasing to contemporary ears (as unusual as I'm sure contemporary music would seem to ancient ears). I'm bringing up the following because we're Epicureans, and this provides some philosophical context into the history of music: in terms of metaphysics, Pythagoras freaked out when he realized that the very aesthetically pleasing number '2' did not have a perfect square root; similarly, he rejected certain pitches that could not be defined by the ratios of pure integers. This lead to an attempt, for centuries, by philosophers to harmonize number theory, music theory, humor theory, and celestial science––so we get weird ideas like the Celestial Spheres, and the Perfect Forms of the Heavens that correspond with ratios which sound is capable of audibly expressing. That is just an example of how the ancient Greek search for 'ideal forms' can generate mathematical ideals that may not be subjectively pleasing (at least, not to many of us).

There's this brilliant episode of Star Trek: Voyager that beautifully demonstrates this: a planet of non-musical humanoids accidentally hear the ship's doctor sing an operatic piece. They are inspired by the music––utterly inspired. The inspiration echoes throughout the planet, and many of the alien beings begin attempting to emulate the operatic voice they so loved. Now, while these beings didn't sponsor the subjective art of sound we call music, they did have an advanced understanding of number theory, so they could only comfortable interface with human music through an intentional analysis of mathematics (like good old Pythagoras). Twenty minutes of plot or so later, the doctor becomes dismayed to find that he is no longer a planetary celebrity: local musicians have––according to their own tastes––surpassed the doctor's operatic baritone. The doctor is hurt, but respectfully agrees to attend a performance to which he has been invited. He sits with other crewmates, and they listen with anticipation ... and, to the surprise of their anticipatory minds, the alien opera sounds like abysmal trash. Rather than making the subjective switch that Renaissance and Modern artists made, the aliens took a queue from Pythagoras, and employed advanced differential equations to determine which notes would be sung, and in which order they would be arranged. To the crew, it sounded like a comptuer generating tones according to a string of prime numbers, which, though being intentionally-composed, periodic sound waves (i.e. music) has no ability to tell humans a story––it just comes off as a brown fart. What I want to convey with this example is that the aliens most certainly had "a specific musical structure that corresponds to the subjective expeirence of pain " as well as "a specific musical structure that corresponds to the subjective expeirence of pleasure", but they weren't the same physical structures as "major" and "minor", which technically do not even have relevance to all human populations, but only those that can interface with the music tradition since the 18th-century.

So where do "majors" and "minors" fit into all of this? Prior to the Renaissance period, we would not have described any of the ratios that determine pitch by "major" and "minor". "Major-ness" and "minor-ness" come from tri-tones, or, a chord (multiple tones played simultenously) that changes the form of a sin wave. Prior to the Renaissance period, we weren't playing with tri-tones. Monks from the Medieval period mostly sang melodies with no accompaniment, and it took hundreds of years to develop the concept of "harmony". Western music didn't become what we hear today, with multiple instruments and movements, until the late-Renaissance period. While there are truly fascinating mathematical patterns in music theory, and while we can diagram each and every note, interval, and chord by a rather elegant mathematics, our perception of "major-ness" and "minor-ness" largely originates from philosophers who attempted to equate emotional qualities from acoustic structures. Ultimately, music is rooted in language and culture, and our music is rooted in Renaissance-era refinement of Pythagorean theory (you can see how completely appropriate this topic is for Epicureans. Literally, the revival of classical materialism lead to a revision of idealistic music theory to the messy, emotional, assymetrical music we know and love, today). Plato was one of the first to attempt to metaphysically link music and the human soul (and managed to be an uncompromising authoritarian while doing so). Without getting into a discussion of ancient Greek "modes" (which deserves its own thread), Plato considered––for example––the Mixolydian mode, in which the Seikilos Epitaph was written, to be an "effeminate" mode, that "discourages men" from "action". If he were around today, Plato would have been making speeches alongside Lynne Cheney and Tipper Gore to ban hip-hop, rap, metal, hard rock, punk––you name it. A lot of philosophers spent time assigning emotional qualities to mathematical ratios. Aristotle wasn't a cultural totalitarian like Plato, but he was equally prejudiced against certain forms of music. Of the Mixolydian Mode he said that it makes me "sad and grave". Fuck him, and fuck Plato. The Seikilos Epitaph is beautiful, and I think the Memento Mori expressions are empowering. But, within the context of our own bodies, we're both right.

Now, I want to spend some time discussing my own, subjective music theory.

There is nothing inherently absolute about "majors" and "minors", anymore than there is about "fifths" or "sevenths" or "sustained seconds" or "sustained fourths", with the sole exception––by the theory I derived–– of "augmentations". An augmentation has exactly three notes between each note, all the way up, and down the musical spectrum. It is the only one that does this. Also, it sounds weird, and really gross if you just play it by itself without context. It sounds like a mess. It is also more symmetrical to modern music than any of the other sounds. Many of us suppose a "major" chord to be the "correct" sound. It's not. It's no more special than a "minor", or than a "minor second", which also sounds like a weird perversion. My point here is that––in my opinion––any mathematically perfect chords in contemporary music ... sound gross. Now, grotesque sounds have a time, and a place, and, depending on what's around them, relatively, can actually sound beautiful. But that too is highly subjective. But human life isn't about perfect ideals. Maybe the Star Trek aliens like music to be written with correspondance to Prime Numbers, but we don't. Our lives are hormonal, sweaty, happy, horny, hungry, scared, frightened, elated, and empowered. Our music reflects the diversity of our lives.

And, to get back to Cassius' original question, if I can answer this succinctly, "major" and "minor" are what they are because the expression of happiness (pleasure), and the expression of sadness (pain) represent the range of our colorful spectrum of our human experience, and have identified the sound of pleasure with brightness, light, gladness, and empowerment, while we identify that sound of pain as a shadow that darkens, weighs, and depresses. Subjectively, this language corresponds with the subjective experience of those sounds. So, we queue-in on those two chord structures.

There are a variety of others, and I'd like to share my personal, artistic analysis of each of the twelve notes' relationship to the dominant root, or tonic, which determines the key of the song, and the relative starting point.

r - This is our root, the Tonic, wherein any interval is in Perfect Unison. This is our setting, and our context.

b2 - This is our minor 2nd, a perversion that mutates and distorts.

sus2 - This is our major 2nd, a cushion that clouds, buffers, thickens, layers.

m3 - This is our minor 3rd, a shadow which darkens, saddens, weighs, and depresses.

3 - This is our major 3rd, a light that brightens, lightnes, gladdens, and empowers.

sus4 - This is a perfect 4th, a reassurance that polishes, reinforces, and encourages.

dim5 - This is our diminished fifth, an opposition that contradicts, opposes, sickens, and poisons

P5 - This is our perfect 5th, a strength that dominates, reinforces, supports, cradles, and extends.

m6 - This is our minor 6th, the augmentation that hints, twists, puzzles, and complicates.

6 - This is our 6th, an enchantment that intoxicates and romanticizes.

m7 - This is our minor 7th, a playful invitation that loosens and challenges.

M7 - This is our major 7th, a beautiful, softening that inspires memory, familiarity, yet hesitation.

r - We're back to our root, refreshed, balanced, centered, at musical equilibrium––we are home.

Plato and Aristotle both came up with their own version of this. So did Goethe. (So has your mind!)

Even looking through my old, written scribbles (which is where this comes from), I unintentionally use the word "shadow" with "minor" (when we say "minor" we are always specifically referring to the "minor 3rd"), and "light" with "major" (when we say "major" we are always specifically referring to the "major 3rd"). If each note is a character, then the Major Character and the Minor Character have the biggest personalities––so, too, do pleasure and pain. The root defines our position, and the "major" or "minor" determines our disposition. Everything else is a commentary on that disposition––in my completely subjective opinion . I herein purport that "Major" and "Minor" are––in a generalized sense––the values that we can, as a collective culture, identify as being the best reflections of pleasure, and of pain.

Again, though, at some point, we're all just aliens on different planets. That's why we all have unique musical tastes, and interpret those very slight nuances in chord structure quite differently. However, like culture, there are dominant trends that seem to direct our thought through the use of common language.

That is why "major" is "happy", and "minor" is "sad".

One final addition: there is a tremendous correspondance between sound, and evolutionary history. We're queued-in to listen to certain high pitches, because that is the sound our infants make. Cats know this, so they mimic the pitch of infants to get human attention. We have a tendency to appreciate rhythm, and low, percussive noises because––among other things––it acted as a social bonding mechanism for primate species. There are a number of evolutionary adaptations to music, and probably, the most important one is the development of speech as a way to communicate.

However, I do not believe that ancient, evolutionary history impacts our perception of "major" and "minor". I assign responsibility to Pythagoras, and the Renaissance's refinement of his ideas.

Let me add these to visually demonstrate the thesis: "Majors" and "Minors" are subjective reflections of our language and culture, and not of an inherent mathematical purity.

For example, consider all notes modeled on a circle that grows as it proceeds, like a spiral. Consider it spirals from the center. Now, consider, like a clock with 12 hours, that each tick-mark represents a different note of 12 tones.

If we diagram a "Major" chord, being the root note, a major third, and a perfect fifth, it looks like this:



If we diagram a "Minor" chord, being the root note, a minor third, and a perfect fifth, it looks like this:



BUT, if we diagram the messy, weird-sounding "Augmented" chord, we have perfect symmetry:



So, there isn't something physically pure about "Majors" and "Minors"––they just work really well with classical music, and contemporary, popular music (to our ears). Plato and Aristotle would have heard the "Major" chord to be absolute garbage (sort of how we hear an augmented chord), while they may have found the weird, augmented chord to be rather beautiful.

I can agree that the intentional, storytelling art of sound we call music does not have "by itself" any inherent "power" besides the mechanical energy of a waveform, because music requires an audience who can interface with the acoustic narrative. If––like the crew of the Voyager––we are unable to interface with a composition that seems alien, then the narrative will be lost to us; thus, the "power" of music is only apparent to the human soul which interfaces with it. To those who can interface, the "power" is in our minds' ability to remember, and to imagine (not some mystical dimension or forms).

It's exactly like spoken language: if Elli speaks to me in Greek (of which I am not fluent), then my experience of her speech is simply the experience of a human female making labial, alveolar, velar, and glottal noises from her mouth, in my direction. Her words (music) therein have no "power" (because I cannot interface with them), and are reduced to grunts (sound). Certainly, if her grunts are meant to convey "Run! There's a fire!" then her words would have enough "power" to stir my soul to pump adrenaline through my muscles so I can escape the flames (but that's my mind, not her noises).

Sound "by itself" can only stir the senses to perceive. Indeed, it "'is unthinkable [...] that sounds which merely move the irrational hearing [faculty] should contribute'" or, conversely, corrupt the virtue nested within the soul of the listener. The soul's capacity to process mechanical energy through the eardrum, and relay it as various volumes of pitches does not require the mind to identify those mechanical impulses as anything except for the experience of processing mechanical energy as sound. Agreeably, "it is impossible to imitate things by voice and sounds; it is only possible to imitate their voices and sounds", because an event is an event, not a sound. Only a sound is a sound. Only a song is a song––that's why the music that does have "power" over us is what we remember from youth: it's not music anymore, it's memory.

This observation also demonstrates how violent video games are not the cause of mass shootings, and why gangster rap is not responsible for inner city violence––only personalities who can interface with that media can cause violence. The media, itself, is without any inherent moral or ethical dimension. We don't have any 'Justice' bosons that create 'Moral Fields' in which those ethical particles can be measured. The "power" of these things begins and ends with the subject's mind. "[I]t is possible for varying impressions to be received corresponding to predispositions".

I wish Philodemus were still around to tell Marvel and DC fans to respect each others: "[T]hus both in the case of the [scales] people differ, not in respect of the irrational perception, but in respect of their opinions [...], some [...] saying that [one] is solemn and noble and straightgorward and pure, and the [other] unmanly and vulgar and mean, while others call the [one] severe and despotic, and the [other] mild and persuasive; both sides importing ideas which do not belong to either scale by nature."

The author elaborates on a few things I mentioned in the original posts, where Plato calls the Phrygian mode sober and resigned, while Aristotle thought it to be "ecstatic". He includes another anecdote that "'Plato associated our modern key of C major with sorrow, weakness and self-indulgence, while Helmholz associates it with brightness and strength, and Pauer with purity, innocence, manliness, and other virtues." For context, John Lennon's song "Imagine" was written in C major. As one of his sources wrote, "'the whole matter is one of subjective imagination [...] based in the first instance on association'".

It sounds like Musicis is to Acoustics what Astrology and Alchemy are to Astronomy and Chemistry. We can expect materialists to be critical of the musicis tradition––it attempted to equate the moral ideals implied by spoken words with the geometric ratios of acoustic instrumentation. Philodemus was correct to accuse the practitioner of this tradition of "'seeking a knowledge of the non-existent'", just as Epicureans were correct to accuse Platonists of seeking non-existent Forms, and correct to accuse religious populations of superstitiously responding to delusional fears.

Philodemus responding to Platonic and Peripatetic interpretations of modes reads to me like a physicist in the 1990s using a technical analysis of acoustics to show Biggie Smalls and Tupac how stupid the East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry was. Music, itself, is not emotional, because we are emotional. Music, itself, is not ethical, because we are the agents of ethics.