Music as a 2-dimensional phenomenon
| The word music describes an incredibly broad and often complex psychoacoustic phenomenon. From the simplest folk melodies to the grandest symphonies, music has the power to emotionally move us. Because its medium, the sound wave, is longitudinal in nature, music unfolds one moment at time. In a purely physical sense it is a serial phenomenon. Psychologically, however, it possesses what we perceive as depth; that is to say, we often hear music as the simultaneous propagation of a collection of individual sounds that are layered or intertwined. This 2-dimensional characteristic is echoed by the format of a musical score which is, fundamentally, a multiple list plot of pitch (note value) versus time. |
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