Music Listening, Music Therapy, Phenomenology and Neuroscience

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States and events, movements and transformations of musical sound

evoke impressions of space and sensations of time. The musical space is,

however, a virtual space. In the motion of music, nothing is removed. Any

kind of spatial quality, rising and falling, movement and growth, shapes

and patterns, is called forth by temporal changes of sound qualities. The

virtual musical space is completely integrated with musical time. The

musical space is a virtual timespace.

The notion of musical timespace is coined by the American musicologist

Charles Seeger in the introduction to his Collected Studies in Musicology.

Seeger proposes a fundamental distinction between spacetime and time-

space. Spacetime comprises the everyday concepts of space and time and

the integration of space and time in the physical continuum. The concept

of Timespace refers to the integration of temporal and spatial factors

involved in the creation and consumption of products of human ingenuity.

Seeger explains that:

A single concept of timespace is, of course, quite different from two

separate concepts of space and of time. It would seem to conform,

however, more closely to the facts of direct music experience, in

which tonal and temporal factors can be apprehended by us in an

intimate fusion or integration that is quite different from the percep-

tion of the two as separate objects of attention. A concept of music

timespace is therefore advanced here as one quite as necessary to

study as the two conventionally accepted separate concepts of space

and of time (Seeger, 1977).

In continuation of Seeger's line of thought, the investigation of the consti-

tutive dimensions and qualities of the musical timespace is the aim of the

following chapters.

The Musical Timespace

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5

Microtemporal listening dimensions:

Timbre, Harmony and Pitch

The microtemporal listening dimensions, discussed in chapters one and

three, are perceived instantly, within a fraction of a second. The basic

microtemporal listening dimensions in music are timbre and pitch.

Between the source-specific quality of timbre and the focusing quality

of pitch, harmony can arise as an emergent quality. Harmony is experienced

as a particular color quality of the sound spectrum.

Timbre, harmony and pitch are three dimensions of a multivariable

continuum of sound spectra. They are not distinctly delimited, but

joined by gradual transitions from one dimension to another. The nature of

timbre, harmony and pitch, their relations and transitions are the

themes discussed in the present chapter.

Timbre is the substance of music

Timbre is the natural resource explored and refined in music. The qualities

of timbre and timbral combinations are infinitely variable, and each single

timbre has its own particular quality. We recognize timbres in categories

such as glass and metal, stringed instruments, brass, percussion and

woodwind, male and female voices. Attentive listening provides

evidence that every violin produces its own particular sound, and that

every individual human voice possesses a timbral quality as unique as the

face of the talking person.

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