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Harmony & Gharmony :
Harmony has two distinct but intertwined meanings since the Late Middle English. (The Oxford Interactive Encyclopedia. (c) 1997) "
1 Combination or adaptation
of parts, elements, or related
things, so as to form a consistent
and orderly whole; agreement,
accord, congruity. LME. 2
The combination of
(simultaneous or successive)
musical notes to produce a
pleasing effect; music; tuneful
sound; gen. pleasing combination of sounds, as in poetry etc.; sweet or melodious sound. LME."
Harmony
as used in relationship to sound
is an explicit measurable
attribute. A mathematical
comparison of the frequency of two
sound will readily ascertain if
they are in harmony, without
having any need to actually hear
the sounds. Whereas 'Harmony' as
applied in the Graphic Arts is a
much more nebulous concept. In one
context two Hues maybe said to be
in harmony, but change the
context, or the relative size of
the coloured areas and those
identical same hues are now
no-longer harmonious! Graphic
Harmony is a subjective
pleasantness typical associated
with similarity of two things in
comparison. Thus applying the
logic of 'graphic harmony' to the
realm of sounds, then two notes
with one slightly out of tune
should be the most harmonious
sound possible, which they
obviously are not clearly
demonstrating the contradictory
nature of 'harmony' in the visual
versus aural traditions.
As
the most common usage of "Harmony"
is in relation to sound, then
word Harmony restricted to the
traditional sound usage has been
maintained. So to differentiate
the different quality of the
Visual/Graphic Art concept the new
word "Gharmony" was coined,
abbreviated from
"Graphic-HARMONY".
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Tone, Value, Chiaroscuro:
Reserving
of "Tone" as an attribute of sound
is not that problematic. In
the visual arts the use of the
term "Tone" to denote graduation
of light and shade has already
over the last fifty years been
supersede by the term "Value".
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Key, Tonart, Regime:
The use of the
word "Key" in both art-forms
while complementary in meanings
leads to ambiguity about what is
actual being discussed. So a
comment like "here it would be
better to switch to a Minor Key"
is that a 'Minor Value Key' or a
'Minor Scale of ….", or
both. Some circle of music
criticism already view "key" as a
problematic term in its' current
usage as it can designate the
actual tonic note of a scale (explicit key),
or the general feel about what
maybe the tonic note for some
random section of a piece of music
(implicit key). To address the tension between explicit and implicit meanings, the German word for 'implicit key' "Tonart" has been borrowed, leaving "scale" or "key" for the 'explicit key' cases.
To
remove the ambiguity between
different 'keys' in sound and
vision theory, a new term was
sought for the visual realm where
the concept of 'value key' is
less than a hundred years old, as
opposed well worn centuries that
'key' has been a part of music
theory. Prior to the current
acceptance of the term 'value key'
visual artist used to speak of the
'tonal
schema'. Thus "schema"
at first appeared to be a
promising alternate word to
"key", but "schema" refers to
the structuring of some aspect of
a whole work. For the static
painting it is quite permissible
to use 'key' or 'schema'
interchangeably. However for any
work with a temporal dimension
such as abstract film or music,
'schema' should refer to the
control of some aspect over the
whole duration of the work's
presentation, not just some
isolated instant under
consideration. What was need was a
word that implied a bunch of rules
or relationships that flexibly act
within the temporal dimension.
After a little hunting I settled
on 'Regime'.. " 2 A method or system of rule or government; a system or institution having widespread influence or prevalence. .. 4 Sci. & Engin. The set of conditions under which a system occurs or is maintained." (The Oxford Interactive Encyclopedia. (c) 1997)
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Chord & Cabala:
The concept of a 'Chord' =
"
A group of notes sounded
usually together, combined
according to some system" (The
Oxford Interactive Encyclopedia.
(c) 1997) dates back to at least the late 16 century, or more generally to notation of more than one voice in musical compositions. The loose metaphor of 'colour chords' first appear in the visual arts (from a number of different sources) between the mid nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Unlike (aural) music's comprehensive systemisation of chord types (common, minor, seventh, sixth, diminished, augmented etc. etc), the visual art's concept of a chord is altogether more haphazard. Given sound's long and rigorous usage, reserving of "Chord" as an attribute of sound was prudent.
But
it is unacceptable to simultaneous
use the same term 'chord' to grace
the hodgepodge of things visual
art's have at different times
fated as chords. For example
Maitland Grave's (in his seminal
work "The Art of Color &
Design") documents four value
intervals "A", "D", "W" & "Z",
then derives thirty achromatic
value chords. Beyond the
disciplines of Interior Design and
Commercial Art there is not much
practical application for these
colourless constructs. Progressing
to colour Grave's outlines
strategies for art
leveraging colour's remaining
attributes;- Hue & Chroma in a
quest for hundreds of 'color
chords'. Another source
'colour chords' is the mapping
of sound's pitch to colour
swatches by early 'colour music'
theorist and the inventors
of various 'colour
organs'. In such cases a
selection of musical notes from
playing a chord on a
keyboard had some rigidly
defined visual (colour)
equivalent. In addition to
these various aesthetic and
philosophical musing have also
proposed other mapping of sound
chords to devise colour chords.
Lastly academic painting has used
the 'chord' concept as a
sub-component in manoeuvres to
bring some semblance of order to
the artist's pallet.
In
search for a more adept
terminology how can we
characterize these things
historical alluded to as 'colour
chords'. Common to all the
sources, the chords are the
clustering of a small number
(between 2 & 10) discrete
colours group by some
predetermined logic, be that of
aesthetics, utility or symbology.
Thus I began my word hunt with the
emphasise on the grouping
aspect. 'Phalanx' "A number of people
banded together for a common
purpose, esp. in support of or in
opposition to some cause;.." (The
Oxford Interactive Encyclopedia.
(c) 1997) at first
looked a promising candidate until
I realized that Phalanx always
implied ".. a
compact body of people or animals
(or things) massed in order, ….."
(The Oxford Interactive
Encyclopedia. (c) 1997). But
compact was definitely one-thing
that 'colour chords' were
not. Likewise a bunch of
other words;- sutra, suit, caste,
cadre & cohort, also failed to
entirely encapsulate the concept
in an agreeable fashion. Working
with hardback versions of "The
Macquarie Thesaurus © 1984"
and the "Shorter Oxford Dictionary
© 1962" I chanced across
"cabala" the Spanish & Italian
root-word and legitimate
variation of the two derived
modern English words;-
"cabbala … 2 gen. a
(An) oral tradition. M-L17. b (An)
esoteric doctrine; (a) mystic
interpretation; occult lore.
M17." and,
"cabal …... 2 A secret intrigue, a conspiracy; petty plotting. arch. E17. 3 A secret meeting (of intriguers). arch. M17. 4 A political clique, a faction; spec. …." (The Oxford Interactive Encyclopedia. (c) 1997).
So "cabala" understood as 'a small
group gathered by accordance with
some lore' fitted well with
the concept of a 'colour chord' as
"a small number of colours
clustered by some predetermined
logic, aesthetics, utility or
symbology".
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Sentence & Period:
In an earlier pass at the
"Vizsic Semantic Fusion" I proposed using 'period' as a workable alternative word for the designation of the major structural division of the musical form, there by avoiding the potential ambiguity of using the more common word 'movement'. This
was until I read what Arnold Schoenberg had
written about the 'period'. In
Schoenberg's authoritative "Fundamentals of
Musical Composition" (Chapter 6
CONSTRUCTION OF SIMPLE THEMES, Part 2.
ANTECEDENT OF THE PERIOD) he wrote;-
"Only
a small percentage of all classical
themes can classified as
periods. Romantic composers make
still less use of them. However,
the practise of writing periods is a
convenient way to become acquainted with
many technical problems.
The
construction of the beginning determines
the construction of the
continuation. The period differs
from the sentence in postponement of the
repetition. The first not repeated
immediately, but united with more remote
(contrasting) motive-forms, to
constitute the first half of the period,
the antecedent. After this contrast
repetition cannot be longer postponed
without endangering comprehensibility.
Thus the second half, the consequent, is
constructed as a kind of repetition of
the antecedent."
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Motion, Movement & Hauptperioden:
As "Movement" in its'
primary usage is such a fundamental
characteristic of any temporal art-form, I
initially considered that it would be
silly to promote ambiguity by also
continuing to use the word 'movement'
to designate a structural division
of the symphonic form. At first
because sometimes (in English) it used in
the same sense I considered 'period' maybe a workable alternative for 'movement'.
However upon further investigation it
became apparent this would further
exacerbate English's imprecision in musical
theory as to the exact nature &
function of a 'period'. The
lack of clarity is in part probably due to
a reductive translation from German
languages which posse a number of precisely
delineated, unique designated types of
'period' in musical theory (e.g.;
nebenperioden, perioden ....). "
Hauptperioden" (roughly translating as Big-Period in English) is apparently closest to the large structural division of the musical form mostly called a 'movement'
(this is excluding a very restrictive usage
of Hauptperioden as a form tied to the
leading sung voice in Baroque
music) All that said there still
maybe more suitable words (not related to
moving of things) that could be borrowed
from other Eastern or Northern European
languages with a Classical Music
tradition ( All the countries
with French, Spanish or Latin language
heritage's use local variations of 'movement'.) .
As for the discussion of the Visual Kinetics or implied 'movement'
in Graphic compositions, 'motion' is the a
far more suitable word, due to its' greater
precision, coupled with less
ambiguity. While the
word 'motion' is often also used in
the analysis or critique of a piece of
aural music, in both cases ( graphical
& aural ) the functioning of the word
is effectively the same clarifying how some
element is to behave. An upward motion
means for something to generally move up /
towards the top of, the graphic frame of
view, or generally move up / towards the
top of a scale.
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Figure, Ground, Leitmotiv:
The
word "Figure" like the
word "Movement", has
both a broad common meaning and a
rarer more technical musical
theory meaning. (The Oxford Interactive Encyclopedia. (c) 1997).
"18 Mus. A short succession of notes which produce a single impression; a brief melodic or rhythmic motif out of which longer passages are developed. LME." To
guard against ambiguity the more
common meaning was
selected. This common meaning
underpins what 'figure' means in
the visual-arts and canonised in
the technical couplet "Figure
& Ground". "Leitmotiv"
Wagner's little musical theme
snippets associated with
particular events or characters,
as a concept is currently more
restricted than the traditional
usage of "Figure" in music theory,
but as a sub-unit of a phrase is
the only half suitable alternative
I have so-far found. "Riff"
because it is often a whole phrase
of itself, then "Ornament"
because of confusion with visual
terminology where judge to be even
less suitable than Leitmotiv.
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Texture & Phonic-texture :
"Texture" was
confined to the visual realm as
the more common usage. As the
'Texture' in music actual
describes types and mixes of
sounds, the simplest solution
was just to qualify it as being a
sound-texture thus the new
compound word "Phonic-texture".
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Volume, Amplitude, Void & Nay-void :
With the
word 'volume' we return to
where this quest for sematic
clarity commenced. Replacing the
word 'volume' with "Amplitude" as
a sound attribute is a common
substitution. But despite 'volume'
having a separate well establish
meaning in the visual domain I
felt that the common association
of volume with application were
too strong to allow the words
unimpeded use as strictly a visual
terminology. In the visual
art 'volume' is traditional
coupled with the opposite concept
of 'void'. Such that critiquing a
sculpture it is common to discuss
the interrelations of the various
'volumes' in the work by
comparison the 'voids' those
'volumes' implied and visa-versa.
In choosing a word to substitute
for 'volume' I choose to emphasise
the negative relationship of
volume to void . "Nay" being a
word of negation since Middle
English, was an easy to compound
with void to as "nay-void" to act
as a clear unambiguous unhindered
replacement of "volume" for the
visual realm.
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