Most of us may think of listening to music as a relatively laid- back exercise, and not as (excuse the pun) a “relativity” exercise. But enter into the realm of the physics of music, and all that quickly changes.

Benjamin Grow, the new conductor of the 92nd Street Y Youth Orchestra, and Fernand Brunschwig, Professor of Science Education and Physics at Empire State College and Teacher’s College, gave a lecture demonstration entitled “Mysteries of Science: The Physics of Music: A Hands-On Multimedia Exploration of the Known and Unknown” to a group of about 30 people, young and old, in a ground floor classroom at the 92nd Street Y, on Wednesday evening, May 13th. “Mysteries of Science” provided a glimpse of an intensely abstract world, where all musical sound is organized around various mathematical principles.

Mr. Grow and Professor Brunschwig introduced us to this complex universe by demonstrating how sound can be reduced to sine waves of various frequencies and amplitudes. The tuning fork was struck, and the audience watched as a simple, flat wave appeared on the computer screen. A tone played on the keyboard, however, resulted in a more dramatic, and varied sine wave, and one with a more distinct character. This lead to a discussion of overtones—those attendant notes that accompany the fundamental note-- and the idea that every musical instrument has a particular musical timbre or sound spectrum. The difference between the sound of a piano and a violin, say, depends not on the fundamental note, but on the particular intensity of the various overtones produced.

This was followed by a discussion of “Equal Temperament,” a subject that Professor Brunschwig readily admits is one of the more challenging and abstract ideas in music, an idea that “required thousands of years of effort and struggle, and it has some really devilish twists and turns.” Equal Temperament is a system of tuning whereby the step between any two adjacent notes in a scale is precisely equal, or has an identical frequency ratio, allowing a tune to move in and out of other keys, or to quote Benjamin Grow, to “visit other rooms in the mansion.”

Professor Brunschwig has long been interested in the link between physics and music, and has written and lectured extensively on the topic. But it’s a constant challenge, he remarked, to pull physicists and mathematicians into the world of sound and, conversely, to interest musicians in physics. Getting physicists to hear things, he says, is tricky. What is their response? “Give me numbers, please”! Musicians, in the meantime, when faced with numbers might say, “I can hear it. That’s enough for me.”

One of the real “mysteries” of the 92nd Street Y evening, was the way in which the two presenters, who barely knew each other but seemed like old friends, were able to create what felt like a powerful and seamless fabric between the mathematical world, on one side, and the musical world on the other. Professor Brunschwig, who has played music for most of his life, later acknowledged that, as his mathematical knowledge of sound develops, so does his appreciation for the aesthetic power and beauty of music. Here is a message from which even the most laid-back music listener might benefit.

    Subscribe via RSS