Tonal Refraction
Tonal Refraction
SMPC International Conference, Seoul, Korea, 2014
Can individuals, trained and untrained, be made aware of their involuntary responses to tonal relatedness...
Would it make any difference?
Of the 72 individuals studied, 67% registered a clear response by Session III, manifested in improved coordination, e.g., reading, rhythm, and performance tension. For 30% of participants the process appeared to have no evident relevance while 3% rejected it outright.
As the study sought to validate individual experience of tone relatedness, its implications are best conveyed in the examples below. They show the relevance of the word “refraction,” used here as Marcel Proust used it, to refer to the transformation of sensory memory by layers of subconscious activity.
Perhaps the most profound implication is the two-way communication generated by visualizing the invisible. Whereas much music instruction posits the greater validity of the teacher’s ear in relation to the student’s, Tonal Refraction invites extension of the teacher’s sensibility into the student’s own terms of reference/meaning.
Whether the process did or did not have lasting effect on the participants and how such effect might be evaluated beyond what could be observed within this study would require further research.
For more, see section on Early Participants
Implications
The Process
Three elements combine to
enable meaningful engagement with a specific composition. Participants were asked to commit to three sessions.
The participant works in silence, relating to a score of their own choosing, usually one associated with difficulty of some kind.
To assure maximum freedom, I sit where I cannot see what the participant is drawing. As it is “just a game” the individual may choose how to initiate the process using the 18"x 24" piece of graph paper and dozens of colored pencils.
Many express relief at contemplating a piece of music without possibility of error, and being able to talk freely about it.
Color Sets = Scales / Chords
Finding color relationships is perhaps the most revealing step.
It took this participant twenty “agonized” (his word) minutes to pick these colors for the C Major scale.
A meticulous pianist (Masters Degree from Juilliard), he hummed audibly while playing. This process opened his ear to overtones; he no longer hums. “His playing is completely transformed.”
This participant studied piano as a child and is now studying cello. She has no favorite note on the cello, but is plagued by intonation problems.
Without hesitation, recalling G as her favorite piano scale, she dashed off this sequence of closely related colors, talking her way through as if describing Mozart’s treatment of that same scale in the Piano Sonata, K. 283—the very piece that triggered Tonal Refraction. Rejecting the suggestion that “her” scale might be in any way meaningful, she refused to continue the process, although she did stop taking belittling cello lessons.
A sophisticated woman, related to generations of prominent musicians, is deeply frustrated at her inability to attain even a moderate level of competence on either the piano or the cello, her second instrument.
These images were created with great effort but with no accompanying narrative. She could not imagine their relevance to the music she is currently playing, Brahms’s E minor Piano and Cello Sonata, Op. 38. She refused to finish the process.
Color = Favorite Tone
Color, a sensory experience analogous to tone, serves well to express involuntary responses to tone. The process often starts with a general question: "Do you have a favorite note?"
A woman who “does not” think of color when she thinks of music, chooses blue for her favorite note. “It isn’t blue enough.” She takes her time fine-tuning it.