5/27/2013
“Frozen Music” and “Liquid Architecture”
So what if I grabbed a big heat-ray gun and fired it at a
cathedral? The priest would probably be confused while watching the melting
mess move. However, would the liquid architecture turn to Gregorian chant? If I
were to sing in Canada, could I create a house out of thin air? Of course the answer is no to both questions.
However, if the answer were yes it would also somehow make sense because music
and architecture seem like they would be somehow related or interchangeable. The
reason why the two particular arts, music and architecture, are so connected is
that the same minds and hearts of humans of the same culture that made music
also made architecture. It is out of that mind and heart that both things come
in the same language and literally using the exact same terms. When a person is
thinking a certain way (which the language influences), the mind, will make a
certain kind of architecture and music. This paper will answer questions like
what are the arts, their patterns, and their relationship to the environment,
but it is all about mystery. However, more important questions will be
encountered on the two arts like the differences between the arts in the
ideals, imaginary, and the physical world. As you can imagine, these important
questions are so big they could each be the subject of a paper
Is it possible to create a machine that turns
architecture into music and music into architecture? The two arts are different
though they have a distinct relationship. The two arts have similar terms: contrast,
harmony, proportion, repetition, rhythm, etc. though architecture is something one
can obviously see and music you cannot see, but if you could see music what
would it look like (program music)? We can match picture and movies to music
and vice versa, but what if we melted the white house, what would it sound
like? Where one can find them is different also, and while we may not know
where exactly music came from, we do know that architecture was a useful art
for primitive people as were agriculture, medicine/chemistry, and the more
violent sports like Greco-roman wrestling or fighting like gladiators. These
areas were all arts useful throughout man’s history for his survival.
Architecture and music are the more similar of the two in the sense of their
patterns and their relationship to the environment.
Patterns
are in (good) music, the same as in architecture. What do I mean by patterns?
It seems to me that in music when you are listening to something, the sound
goes up and down a certain way, hitting the specific notes in a specific tone
and in specific moment and then often it repeats itself and this makes you feel in a
mood that is created by the music. In architecture, when you look at buildings
you will see that decorations, depth and style keeps repeating itself in one
building and looking at it makes you feel a certain way as the architect meant
you to. For symmetry is attractive to humans.
The
environment has influence on the musician or architect at all times, but
particularly, during the time of composing and planning. If current events are
occurring then architecture, (which is one of the useful arts) is used for the
event. For example a kind of architecture is often the place where the event occurred. At the
same time, music, a more leisurely art, or at least an art that can only be created
when there is leisure time, is bound to reflect the events surrounding it. These
events of course occurred in a place, at least a lot of the time, that can be
called architecture. Music reflects everything around it especially the world
it is trying to escape from. Even if you are trying to escape from the world,
you are still reflecting it by showing the opposite, like a mirror. However, at
one point, musical power was recognized by the church in the medieval ages and tried
to control music to insure the salvations of the people.
Imagine
a very old musician sitting in his grand
garden trying to shake off the fear of brutish British pirates and their unfair
bartering habits, though he never feared an uncertain trading economy (like
slaves and sugar) or revolt from either citizens or Native Americans. With pen
and paper he observed his surrounding courtyard’s walls and windows and all it
inhabitants.
The
musician sat in the middle of a garden, in the middle of the courtyard, in the
middle of his house, in the middle of the capital city, in the middle of an
island, in the middle of the same in the middle of the Rococo time period. The Musician
examined the hundreds of birds that stop on his red roof. The birds would stop
here and eat and drink of the garden and fountain before they continued flying
to and fro between the northern and southern continents. The Northern birds were
grey, competitive for food, mating and not much else, they were weak in manner
and body. The Sothern tropical birds seemed to be full of life in their color, ineffective
and inefficient, and yummy to eat. Some birds seemed to be singing, others; flirting,
the rest squabbling away at pure nothingness.
Furthermore, the darn birds began to
frustrate the old musician by drinking his coffee and sitting on his shoulders,
and the musician (being too old to yell) slowly waves his hand at the
featherbrains. He gives in and the hundreds of birds sit on his head,
shoulders, lap, chair, feet, and desk. Then the musician describes the natural
relationship between walls, gardens, and birds and how they relate to the laws,
economy, and “friends” in musical notes. All the things he is in the middle of
end up going to the middle of his music and living there. The musician does not
have to even know about it but it is all there. When you eat a food, you do not
always know everything that was put in the food.. When you hear a music you do
not always know all the building that are in the music, what size they are, how
close they are but they are there and you can feel them.
Is it possible to create a machine that turns
architecture into music and music into architecture? We can match pictures and
movies to music and vice versa, but what if we melted the white house, what
would it sound like, or froze the French Anthem? Maybe one day we will know.
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