SOUND
IF you strike a dozen single notes at random on the piano, they produce effects of which the sciences of physics and physiology between them could in theory give an exhaustive account. Regions of pressure and rarefaction (sound waves) are created in the atmosphere. These waves impinge upon the eardrums—I am summarising, I hope not too inaccurately, for the complications of the human body are beyond the com- prehension of the average human mind, Sir James Jeans' extremely lucid but inevitably complicated account—which transform the waves into electric currents which, passing through and suitably agitating the ossicles and having traversed the passages of the labyrinth, reach the cochlea, a coiled tube like a snail's shell containing a window in the shape of a sensitive oval membrane. Inside the cochlea is a fluid which the impact of the electrical current upon the oval membrane causes to ripple. The ripples agitate a layer of fibres, the basilar membrane (it is an eight-thousandth of an inch in thickness and contains 2.4,000 fibres ranging from a fifteenth to i7oth of an inch in length), and the vibrations of the basilar membrane transmit further electrical currents to a bundle of nerves which run from the cochlea into the brain. Here we lose touch. But after more complex agitations of nerves in the brain a mystery occurs, the mystery of the passage from brain to -consciousness, from body to mind, and we experience the sensation of hearing the notes. I have indicated only a small proportion of the enormous number of physical processes which precede the act of hearing, my object being merely to suggest that the physical and physiological processes which occur, plus the psychological sensation of hearing, constitute in this case a complete account of all that occurs.
Now let us suppose that the same notes are struck, but are struck in such a way that they form the statement of the theme of a -Bach fugue. The same processes occur as before ; the-physical events are the same, but now there is a something added—an aesthetic effect—for, hearing the statement, we may be thrilled to ecstasy. What is the reason for the difference ? The physical events in the two cases are, I repeat, the same ; only their order is changed. Yet in changing the order we have mode the-transition from science -to art. How and why ?
,It is to answer these questions that Sir James Jeans has written the present book ; or rather to answer the question of " hoW." The question of " why," 'is, he is prepared to agree, in the last resort unanswerable, at any rate by science, • although, apparently, he holds that science can tell us why we like some sounds better than others.
" If " (he writes) " the question is debated as to whether the music , of Join Sebastian Bach is superior to that of his son Philipp Emanuel, science can bring nothing to the discussion. The question is purely one for artists, and it is quite conceivable, although perhaps rather improhable, that they may not be able to agree as to the answer. On the other hand; if the question is whether the music of either Bach is superior to that produced by a chorus of cats singing on the roof, there will be little doubt as to the answer. The artists will all agree, and science is able to explain to a large extent why they agree."
The scientific -explanation entails a description of the physiological process of hearing, an account of the physical basis of harmony, and an analysis of sound into frequency of vibration& Being neither scientist nor musician, I have yet found the book of extraordinary interest. It contains an enor- mous amount of information that is not usually known or easily accessible. It explains why we hear music better with our eyes-shut and in a comparatively empty room, particularly a wooden room ; what is the optimum reverberation period, and what the ideal conditions for a concert. The subject, as I have already indicated, is extraordinarily complex. There are the. processes involved in the generation of sound; the processes involved in its transmission to our eardrums, these latter being rendered infinitely more complex- bir the invention of the radio and the gramophone ; finally, -there are the processes involved in the transmission of the agitations of the eardruin to the brain. During any of these processes 'distortion may occur. The ear itself is, for eitaniple, a prince of -distorters "may add entirely new musical notes to those which. are. played by the orchestra,. It may aLso7—and this is not only with people who are partially deaf—filter ,out certain other notes of high and low pitch entirely; refusing to intrismit them to-the bid& Even • if it does not do this, it invariably faveurs certain— sounds at the expense
of others, so that the various sounds are heard in proportions quite different from those in which they were played by the orchestra."
Hence, the chances of anybody hearing precisely what the composer intended him to hear—and what, by the way, did the composer intend him to hear, a thought in his (the com- poser's) mind—but one cannot after all hear a thought—or the expression, the highly distorted expression, which the composer succeeded in giving to his thought in his score, or the expression, still more highly distorted, which is given to the score on the piano ?—are very slight.
To the question " why ", with which the book is ostensibly concerned, there is apparently no answer.
" Innumerable theories," says Sir James Jeans, " are ready to tell us the origin of the annoyance we feel on hearing a discord, but none even attempts to tell us the origin of the pleasure we feel on hearing harmony ; indeed, ridiculous though it may seem, this latter remains one of the unsolved problems of music."
I do not think that it is ridiculous. We enjoy music not with our ears nor with our brains, but with our minds. The enjoyment of music, in fact, is an aesthetic pleasure. Of aesthetic pleasure science can tell us nothing. It can only describe the processes which take place in the body before its occurrence. That a human hand is dragging the tail of a horse across the entrails of a cat is, we should all agree, not an adequate way of describing a performance on the violin by Kreisler. The description of what happens in the hearer's body is in the same category of irrelevance. I know that if somebody sticks a pin in my finger, I shall feel pain ; I know, too, that I like Brie cheese better than Canadian cheddar. Can science tell me why ? It cannot. What it can do is to inform me what neural messages are despatched from the finger tips to the brain in the former case, and how the taste- buds are affected in the latter. But why upon these neural messages a sensation of pain, upon these taste-bud reactions a sensation of pleasure, should supervene, it cannot tell me.
When science does tackle aesthetics, its inadequacy is all too plain. • Sir James Jeans has an illuminating chapter sum- marising some of its attempts. It has been thought, for example, that what we call harmony is connected with the ratios of small numbers, and that the further we go from small numbers the more we pass into the realm of discord. But why do we like the sound of two tones, when the ratio of their frequencies can be expressed by small numbers ? There is no answer. Why do we like to hear C G rather than C alone ? Because, Sir James Jeans suggests, the exercise of his faculties gives pleasure to a healthy being, and, the greater the exercise of the faculty, the greater will be the pleasure. Scientists are warier than they used to be, and Sir James Jeans, being among the wariest and the wisest, would be the first to acknowledge the inadequacy of this suggestion. In fact, he does se, nowledg: it.
C. E. M. Joon.
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