THE SOUND OF SPACES

An investigation by composer and installation artist
JEFF TALMAN

 << Continued from yesterday 

Beyond understanding that some musical keys or specific pitches may resonate better in certain spaces, there are other concepts that issue from these spatial tunings. There is intrinsic beauty in knowing that the sounds of spaces arise organically from our human-made constructions. Binding natural occurrence with human construction has deep implications. I believe there is also a further astounding metaphysical revelation. But I must go back to the imposing marble museum lobby to explain.

This time on entering the white stone room, an emanation of sound is glowing from monitor speakers in the upper corners of the space. The natural tunings of a harmonic spectrum are subtly played out into the room where they are perfectly resonant in the space. I look around to see from where the strange, quiet sounds are coming. While scanning the room, even if briefly, I am freed from the tedium of the pre-museum tour rituals. As I look up, I also notice the marvellous chamber, which I have been through before but have never really noticed. Then I realize that I am standing in that room. I am standing in relation to that room and that sound and to all that is around me. My intuitive sense of the aural, slightly reinforced by the re-emergent native sound of a space, has led me to an awareness of my own being.

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (ca. 480-524), an ancient philosopher and the principal architect of musical thought for the middle ages, was correct in De institutione musica: there is a musica mundana, a music of the spheres, which imprints itself on us and is ever present. In its mathematical precision and organic manifestation amid human endeavor it is transparent, illuminating and beautiful. Quite unexpectedly it can lead us back to ourselves if only we listen very hard.