Victor Zuckerkandl: Motion (Part 2 of 4)
The second section of Zuckerkandl’s Sound and Symbol is devoted to the paradoxical concept of musical motion. Motional description of music is quite natural. But what is it exactly that moves in music? In the external world, motion refers to the act or process of a physical body or thing moving from one place to another. How can something move in music which has no physical bodies or things? This is the problem taken up—a problem that is eventually turned around ingeniously by VZ by showing that it is exactly because music is not attached to things or bodies that musical motion is the purest instance of motion.
One might answer the above question of what moves in musical motion by saying that, at least in terms of melody, it is the tones that move. VZ points out an inconsistency between this idea and reality. In reality the successive tones that comprise a melody are of course, completely stationary. “It is the exact opposite of motion.” (83) And when an attempt is made to generate a smooth connection between tones (say, an ascent from scale degree 1 to scale degree 5), “the result is the familiar screeching glissade of the siren, in which melody and music are destroyed.” (83) The idea of melodic motion is indeed problematic.
In passing, VZ discusses our use of spatial terminology when describing music, particularly in terms of height. We say that one tone is higher than another, but nothing is really higher at all. After making a few brief suggestions as to why we do this, he says that the use of these terms are entirely metaphorical. Furthermore, the issue is said to be entirely irrelevant to our understanding of musical motion. VZ brings this point out in his discussion of triadic harmony, for harmonic motion demonstrates more clearly than melodic motion the irrelevance of height metaphors since what we hear in a chord transcends its constituent tones to a greater degree. The question of whether a V-I cadence is an ascent or descent becomes pointless. “Thus, to a certain extent, harmonic motion represents the most extreme and purest case of musical motion.” (114)
In what initially appears to be an irrelevant excursion, VZ describes the famous paradoxes of Zeno. His aim is to rescue musical motion by showing that our conception of physical motion, motion as we experience it in the real world, is itself highly problematic. If the proverbial tortoise is given a head start, then the hare will never reach his opponent since he will forever be cutting the distance in half. The paradoxes can be rendered in various ways, but the underlying point stressed by VZ is the incongruity between the motional and the spatial or material. “[Zeno’s error came by] equating the ‘between’ of motion with interspace. They assumed that the process of motion could be entirely comprehended in spatial data… The contradictions and paradoxes… merely show that motion cannot be entirely comprehended in spatial-local data.” (128) VZ’s first tactic is therefore not to bolster the shaky foundation of musical motion but to attack that of physical motion, indicating that the dismissal of musical motion on the simple grounds that it fails to link up with our concept of physical motion is no longer valid.
Turning then to the psychological perception of motion more specifically, VZ draws on the work and studies of Max Wertheimer. Wetheimer noted that an accurate idea of motion is largely divorced from things and places. The distinction is made through the precise use of prepositions: “If seeing motion is not a seeing of things in places, if the process that we see as motion is able to free itself from connection with things and places, appears as a progression neither in places nor through places, but over them, as a pure passing over, this means that motion is such.” (135) Motion is something purely dynamic, detached from everything static—“change detached from a thing that changes.” (136)
Now to the crux of the matter. When we listen to music, we do hear motion in the tones. When we use motional terms to describe music, we are not using metaphors (contrary to the spatial metaphors we use). It is true that on a “lower level” we hear stationary tones that comprise a melody. But on an “upper level,” we hear the musical motion that resides between the tones—the musical motion that transcends the tones. And since we are constantly listening between the tones, which are themselves not stationary but dynamic—since our hearing “does not remain with the tone, but reaches through it and beyond it” (137)—and since music does not involve things or places, motion itself is manifest “in absolute purity and immediacy” through music. Musical motion is the core of all motion, and “every experience of motion is, finally, a musical experience.” (138) We can see motion and touch motion but only through the mediation of physical things in physical space. But in relation to these senses, our hearing faculty “gets at the essence; [it] pierces to the core of the phenomenon.” (146) Music therefore provides an invaluable source of access into our world. “We see the rind, or, under special conditions, through the rind, but we hear the core of this world.” (147)
One might answer the above question of what moves in musical motion by saying that, at least in terms of melody, it is the tones that move. VZ points out an inconsistency between this idea and reality. In reality the successive tones that comprise a melody are of course, completely stationary. “It is the exact opposite of motion.” (83) And when an attempt is made to generate a smooth connection between tones (say, an ascent from scale degree 1 to scale degree 5), “the result is the familiar screeching glissade of the siren, in which melody and music are destroyed.” (83) The idea of melodic motion is indeed problematic.
In passing, VZ discusses our use of spatial terminology when describing music, particularly in terms of height. We say that one tone is higher than another, but nothing is really higher at all. After making a few brief suggestions as to why we do this, he says that the use of these terms are entirely metaphorical. Furthermore, the issue is said to be entirely irrelevant to our understanding of musical motion. VZ brings this point out in his discussion of triadic harmony, for harmonic motion demonstrates more clearly than melodic motion the irrelevance of height metaphors since what we hear in a chord transcends its constituent tones to a greater degree. The question of whether a V-I cadence is an ascent or descent becomes pointless. “Thus, to a certain extent, harmonic motion represents the most extreme and purest case of musical motion.” (114)
In what initially appears to be an irrelevant excursion, VZ describes the famous paradoxes of Zeno. His aim is to rescue musical motion by showing that our conception of physical motion, motion as we experience it in the real world, is itself highly problematic. If the proverbial tortoise is given a head start, then the hare will never reach his opponent since he will forever be cutting the distance in half. The paradoxes can be rendered in various ways, but the underlying point stressed by VZ is the incongruity between the motional and the spatial or material. “[Zeno’s error came by] equating the ‘between’ of motion with interspace. They assumed that the process of motion could be entirely comprehended in spatial data… The contradictions and paradoxes… merely show that motion cannot be entirely comprehended in spatial-local data.” (128) VZ’s first tactic is therefore not to bolster the shaky foundation of musical motion but to attack that of physical motion, indicating that the dismissal of musical motion on the simple grounds that it fails to link up with our concept of physical motion is no longer valid.
Turning then to the psychological perception of motion more specifically, VZ draws on the work and studies of Max Wertheimer. Wetheimer noted that an accurate idea of motion is largely divorced from things and places. The distinction is made through the precise use of prepositions: “If seeing motion is not a seeing of things in places, if the process that we see as motion is able to free itself from connection with things and places, appears as a progression neither in places nor through places, but over them, as a pure passing over, this means that motion is such.” (135) Motion is something purely dynamic, detached from everything static—“change detached from a thing that changes.” (136)
Now to the crux of the matter. When we listen to music, we do hear motion in the tones. When we use motional terms to describe music, we are not using metaphors (contrary to the spatial metaphors we use). It is true that on a “lower level” we hear stationary tones that comprise a melody. But on an “upper level,” we hear the musical motion that resides between the tones—the musical motion that transcends the tones. And since we are constantly listening between the tones, which are themselves not stationary but dynamic—since our hearing “does not remain with the tone, but reaches through it and beyond it” (137)—and since music does not involve things or places, motion itself is manifest “in absolute purity and immediacy” through music. Musical motion is the core of all motion, and “every experience of motion is, finally, a musical experience.” (138) We can see motion and touch motion but only through the mediation of physical things in physical space. But in relation to these senses, our hearing faculty “gets at the essence; [it] pierces to the core of the phenomenon.” (146) Music therefore provides an invaluable source of access into our world. “We see the rind, or, under special conditions, through the rind, but we hear the core of this world.” (147)
posted by Luke Dahn at 8:02 PM
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