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Dialogue of Cultures

ICLC/Schiller Institute Conference
“This Is Our Time”

Presidents’ Day Weekend
February 15-16, 2003

Conference Program and Audio/Video Files

Lyndon LaRouche in discussion with Cadre School participants

Panel I—Keynote (below)

In the Aftermath of January 28th—Lyndon H. LaRouche Jr.
Questions and Answers

Panel II - Program

A Celebration Of The Beautiful And The Sublime Life Of Marianna Wertz
August 14, 1948—January 15, 2003

Panel III—Keynote II

The View From ‘Old Europe’—Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Panel IVOpen Discussion

Panel V—Shattering Axioms, Fighting For Our Future!

Featuring Leaders of the International LaRouche Youth Movement

LaRouche Address to Cadre School
(below)

Related Articles

(figures not available yet)

LaRouche to Youth Cadre School
Presidents Day Conference

February 18, 2003

Classical Art: The Art of Communicating Ideas

On the question of tonight's event, I'm still resonating in my thoughts about what happened in the session at the concluding panel of the conference, as to what that suggested might be most useful as a point of transition for further work now. What I saw in the panel was the relationship between the concept we had introduced there—the concept of Pythagoras on the comma—and the implications of that, which merely touched on it, but touched on it quite competently, and then, on other matters of physical science and their relationship.

The great problem in modern educational systems and culture, at their relatively least worst—I don't say "their best," because I don't think there is any best out there; there's only a least worst—is the problem of the two cultures, the term which was used by a British scientist and writer, C.P. Snow, back during the 1950s, in a book called Two Cultures, setting that in modern education, in the English-speaking and other countries, that education had broken down into two, almost water-tight separated cultures: one, physical science, and the other, the so-called liberal arts in general, and arts in general. And of course, this is insanity; this is, in truth, a real problem. It's a problem in both. It's a problem because people who are separated from art, can not be truly competent in science, and those who are estranged from physical science, can not be truly competent in politics, art, and so forth.

A typical case is the case of Edward Teller, with whom we had a relatively brief period of collaboration back in the early 1980s, and his argument was, at that point, "Well, I'm a physicist. I don't know anything about economics." And that's terrible. That's terrible. If you don't know anything about economics, and you think you're a physicist, you're not really much of a physicist. Why? Because physics, physical science is man's mastery of the universe, in terms of the relationship of the individual mind, as an individual mind, to our capacity as mankind to master the universe, to cope with it.

Now, mastery of the universe is a social relationship, even though it flows around the principle of the individual mind, in the sense that we're dealing with the entire society, the entire planet. We're dealing with the entire national territory. There is no such thing as someone in an economy, or in an actual society, applying science all by their lonesone, like Robinson Crusoe, to a large area. That what we depend upon for our individual actions, is, we depend upon infrastructure. We depend upon the condition of the land. We depend upon the improvement and maintenance of the condition of the land. Water areas; preparing the ground for agriculture. Transportation systems; communications systems and so forth. We depend upon global effects, and therefore, if we don't know the relationship of mankind to the whole Earth, to the whole universe, implicitly, we don't know anything about physics. Because, whether physics is valid or not, depends on whether its application to the whole area of human practice is good for man, or is not. So therefore, not knowing economics means that you're not qualified as a physicist. Or there's something quirky or kinky in your physics. Which is true.

In fact, that is true, as is exemplified by the problem posed by Gauss, in his 1799 attack on Euler and Lagrange. And physics today is generally taught on the basis of defense of the fallacy of Euler and Lagrange, the fallacy attacked by, specifically by Gauss.

You encounter that also in respect to the question of the solids, the doubling of the cube, the doubling of the line, the doubling of the square, the question of the comma, and the question of the Platonic solids. All of these things involve, in Ancient Greece, prior to about the Third Century B.C., before the changes began to be introduced by Euclid and Aristotle, at least the adoption of Aristotle's view. Physics and geometry and mathematics were based on a principle of construction. Now, if you think about each of these cases, including what was presented here, on the music subject of the concluding panel, it's all based on construction. There's not abstract mathematics, in the sense of a priori mathematics.

Human Communication

But listen, start with that, and now let's look at this question of the so-called "two cultures" issues, and present-day education, and present mentality, the ability to communicate effectively as human beings, communicate to the purpose of organizing the activity of society to solve the problems of society. How well can we communicate? Let's start with this one question, the question of music, as posed by those two who presented this issue of the comma, in that session, the other day.

Now, what are you looking at here? First of all—they could have gone further, but they laid out the principle in there. What you have, is you have a characteristic of the human voice. And this characteristic, is characteristic of human voices of all particular so-called races, backgrounds, and whatnot. All the same. There are modifications which are effected by the language used, because some languages have different characteristics, musically, than others. But the ground basis for music, for singing, which is the basis of music—music, the subject of music, is singing. There is no other kind of music. There's only noise, as opposed to what chimpanzees, or excited monkeys may do. Like the Monkeys, the famous Monkeys, eh?

Now, music is based, first of all, on human singing, whether the principles, the efficient physical principles of efficiently singing. That is, actually being able to communicate, through singing, most efficiently. Now, there are principles of the human voice, which are genetically determined. Genetically determined, as specific to the human species. In general—apart from certain aberrations, which may occur here and there—but typically, the human species has one essential set of singing-voice characteristics which are most natural to the human species. This is the bel canto, the Florentine bel canto voice-training method brings forth, develops in the human being, the natural tendency for singing, most efficiently, most clearly, and with the greatest power of communication.

So therefore, you're dealing with a physical principle, rooted in the human singing voice's characteristics, especially in the case of the Florentine bel canto voice-training method, the most efficient method, the one that will let you sing the best, for the longest period of time, of your lifetime. You'll wear out less quickly. If you violate those rules, your voice will tend to wear out or be destroyed more quickly. So this is a physical principle which we discover experimentally.

Register Shifts

For example, without my going into the details of it, which we can have in discussion if you want, that we have other people here who can also get into this, and some here, I think, in the room, who might be able to demonstrate something, if we have to. That you have species of singing voices. These species of singing voices are primarily distinguished by what are called "register shifts." They're qualitative shifts in the way the singing voice efficiently sings, and there's a passage from one register to another. Generally, there are three or four such registers within the domain of the trained singing voice. By "trained," you mean someone perhaps who was trained to sing in a proper way as a child, and continued with the boys dropping out at the point of voice-changing, and then coming back in after voice-changing. So that's efficient singing, that is, children and young adults who are trained in this bel canto method of voice training, and who practice that as a discipline, not merely for singing, not merely for speaking. You shouldn't speak until you've done a bel canto voice training warm-up! The first thing you should do in the morning, after gargling and brushing your teeth, is actually do a bel canto, Florentine method of voice vocal exercise, a workout, a warm-up, so-called. Don't speak until you've done your warm-up!

Now, this has certain benefits of communication I'll refer to, which some other people are aware of. And you'll see what I'm getting at. You know, I'm that way. I'm tricky. You'll get my point later on. Now, I'm just working you over, getting you ready. Getting you warmed up and set up, shall we say? Set up for the final stroke.

So, then what you find out, is that, when you speak, on the basis of a bel canto voice training, singing voice training, and you speak on the basis of that kind of voice training, you have more power to communicate ideas than if you don't have that kind of training and practice. Why? Because you have available several things: Primarily, you have immediately available, voice registration. You can speak in different register ranges. You can do something which supplements that. You can have various methods of voice coloration, which are accessible to a trained singing voice. I don't mean an opera singer, but any trained singing voice: coloration. So therefore, when you're saying something, you can shift the coloration of your utterance by dropping to a lower register, or rising to a higher register, and thus, you can distinguish for your hearer, what your meaning is. You can speak in such a way. You can speak to the person next to you. You can also say, "You know what this guy is saying to me?" That is, you have the ability to differentiate in your speech, so you're not simply reciting text, as it was printed on the page, you're actually communicating ideas, and the communication of ideas always lies in the ironies or the ambiguities. The ambiguities are when you change your voice, or you change the coloration of your utterance, or the way you direct it. So the same word, spoken by two different people, spoken in different ways, communicates completely different ideas.

The object of doing this, in speaking, without getting to the singing yet—the object is, to create ironies, which have the effect of being paradoxes. In other words, in ignorant speech, every word has an object. Every verb has an object. Every noun, adjective has an object. So what are you doing? You are doing computer talk. You're talking to your computer. You're probably trying to make love to your computer. I understand some people try to do that. They try to make love by computer, and the results are sometimes shocking. [laughter] But there's nothing human in it!

Ironies, Paradoxes, Metaphors, Ambiguities

Now, human communication, unlike computer communication, is based on ironies, on paradoxes, on metaphors, on ambiguities. So that what you say has a double or triple meaning. Good punning, not stupid word-play punning, but really good punning, is an ambigiuity. And what you're doing, is, by posing an ambiguity, you're saying, "What I say to you is this," but you're disturbing the person you're addressing, because you're raising an ambiguity. And they say, "What do you really mean?" And you do the same thing. So what you do by posing a paradox, you force the mind of the other person to go through the process of solving the paradox. And thus, you communicate a meaning which is not located in a literal reading of the word, as a succession of object references, but a hidden meaning, which the mind of the person on the other end of the conversation is capable of recognizing.

Like, for example: How do you exactly double the cube? Now, that's a paradoxical statement, isn't it? Which involves a physical conception. There is no simple, linear, literal answer to that question, as many of you now know. There is the possibility of discovering a solution for that problem, and verifying it, but there is no simple answer to the question, how can you double the cube. Somebody says, Johnny says, "I know how to double the cube." That's idiocy. So therefore, the important part of communcation is the ability to create paradoxes in the mode of your utterance which force the mind of the hearer to go search for the meaning of your utterance beyond the literal domain of known perceptual, sense perceptual ojbects.

Now music, of course, permits you to do that. And using musical voice training as the way of speaking, enables you to do that more efficiently, as any great actor does, which is why they shouldn't get mumble training, like some of the mumblers on the stage. You don't want those guys around. They're only good for target practice, not for anything else. If you've got a loose tomato someplace, try it out on 'em.

So, in music, we are able to set up very complex types of paradoxes, by using these principles of Florentine bel canto voice training in two ways. In the first, simplest way, you are simply able to make an explicit statement and provide a paradox, by using the devices of natural register shifts, by using devices of coloration. But then, you have another thing, which is called counterpoint. And counterpoint is a key to actual human communication. You say something. Say it musically.

Now, let's take an inversion of what you've said. Let's juxtapose the inversion to what you said. Now you've got a dialogue between two voices. There are rules on this, which are essentially Bach's rules of well-tempered counterpoint composition. So that you are now engaged in a dialogue. The dialogue, in a good case of a fugue, or any similar, related type of composition, leads to a resolution, in which everything you've done, which tends to be dissonant, is resolved as being necessary to the communication of an idea, that idea being the composition as a whole, if it's done by a proper composer, and properly performed.

What is this in music? Well you see this, for example, in great performances in Classical opera. You see what happens, by following closely, any Classically composed opera, well performed. You see how dialogue works. You see it in duets, in trios, in quartets. Take for example, for reference, the famous quartet, early on in the first act of Beethoven's Fidelio. It's very interesting, in that there are specific ideas, which pertain to the germ of the unfolding of the entire opera, in that quartet. But these are also musical ideas. And it's the musical ideas that make the explicit ideas comprehensible.

Now, let's look again at this process of musicality. So therefore, words by themselves really don't solve the problem of communication. Arbitrary uses of words, in the sense of stylized uses, don't solve the problem. When you bring in the use of the bel canto voice training and its implications, you now have ways of creating irony, to do—what? To create drama. And drama, Classical drama, is the secret of all important communication, including in physical science. Classical drama impels—the purpose is to impel the mind of the hearer, as well as that of the speaker, to depart the realm of explicit sense certainty, and to enter the domain of the imagination.

The Domain of the Imagination

Now, let's take the case of, shall we say, a mathematical formula—look at it from the same standpoint. What does a mathematical formula in physics mean? In itself, it doesn't mean anything. If you study carefully the arguments by Lagrange in defense of himself against the attack by the young Gauss; you take the argument of Cauchy and so forth and so on, and you'll find that these fellows will use certain formulas, which may not be objectionable, in a certain sense, but the meaning is completely different, than the meaning of mathematical physics in the hands of a Gauss or Riemann. So the words in themselves do not mean anything. The formula by itself does not mean anything. It's the irony. In Gauss, the irony is expressed by the complex domain. An ironical domain which exists outside the domain of sense-certainty, or the assumptions of sense-certainty, which exists for the physicist in the domain of the imagination.

What is this domain of the imagination? Let's take the discovery of the principle of universal gravitation by Kepler. Where does that occur? It occurs in the domain of the imagination. Kepler does not refer to something you can see. He says the ironies, the paradoxes, of the normalization of the Mars orbit and the other orbits, shows that we have an eliptical orbit, with constantly non-uniform action. Well, can you see constantly non-uniform action? No! You can show that it's non-uniform, but you can't see it, you can't taste it, you can't smell it. Can you see gravitation? No, you can't. Is gravitation efficient? Yes. Very efficient. Thus, gravitation exists as a concept, in the domain of the imagination, not in the domain of sense-certainty. Physics exists in the domain of the imagination, not in sense-certainty. But what makes it knowledge, is the fact that you can demonstrate that you can command the universe, through willfully acting according to this knowledge which exists only within the domain of the imagination.

So therefore, the most important thing in all aspects of human activity is how to enter the domain of the imagination, and how to communicate in such a way that you and the persons with whom you're speaking, jointly depart the domain of sense-certainty to enter the domain of the imagination. How does music do that? How does bel canto voice training help you do that? It shows you how to create certain ironies, just like the irony of an eliptical orbit, or the irony of the non-uniform action, as a lawful action, which forces you to leave the domain of sense-certainty, and go into the domain of the imagination, to find out how the universe is actually run. Within the domain of the imagination. To make a discovery of any principle, or to reenact the discovery of any principle, is to enter the domain of the imagination.

Therefore, we have two problems. Problem number one: The individual, in making a discovery, must enter the domain of the imagination, and must find efficient ways to prove that whatever he thinks he's discoverd in that domain, is physically efficient in the real domain. Just as you do with construction in geometry. Does your construction lead to a solution? Your construction, the selection of the process of construction, is not random. It occurs as a deliberate action in the domain of the imagination. The result is seen, is demonstrated in the domain of sense-perceptual reality. But it's the imagination that's crucial. Therefore, the ability to think in terms of the domain of the imagination, is crucial. In order for society to function, to communicate ideas to others, in terms of the domain of the imagination, is crucial.

Now, this is the basis for the Classical principle. The Classical principle, or so-called "spiritual exercise" principle, is defined essentially by Plato in the collection of Platonic dialogues, Socratic dialogues, plus the Laws, which is not a dialogue, but has the same implication. So the question is: the domain of the imagination. How do we get speech out of the domain of monkey grimaces and utterances, into the domain of the imagination, where human cognition exists.

Now, look at the other aspect of this. What have I just said? I've said what I've said in terms of Vernadsky. The universe as we know it—and this was discussed a bit; questions were thrown in my direction on this thing today—I'm answering it now. You have three domains: You have the domain of what we call call the physical action, normally, the domain of the abiotic universe. But that does not explain the universe. There's another domain: We call it a phase-space. In other words, let's call the abiotic domain all the experiments that we can run, which correspond to the idea that the universe is abiotic. We call that the abiotic phase-space. What most people think of, reductionists think of as the physical universe. Ah! There's a second phase, as defined in various ways by, first by Pasteur, and then more specifically by Curie, his follower, and then by Vernadsky. There are processes which are generally left-wing, which are called living processes. Life is a left-wing conspiracy! [laughter] Because you have left-orientation rotation. Left-wing conspiracy. Don't tell Ashcroft. He'll kill everybody! [laughter]. Okay? So that's a phase-space.

So, this principle, as I've said, exists in the universe. It's universal. Anywhere we find life, we find left-wingers! Right-wingers are dead. At least, they're not human—because they're not living. So this domain means that there's a principle which is universal in its effect, operating in the universe, where under all appropriate conditions, this principle, like gravitation, produces the kinds of physical effects we associate only with living processes, hmm? So we call this a phase-space. Not a universe, a total universe, but a phase-space, like a sub-universe.

Then we have a third one, where the mind of man, the cognitive powers of man, intervening, change things in the universe in a way that other living processes can not possibly do. These changes are always the result of mankind's generation of a discovery of a universal physical principle. Now these principles that are discovered are usually principles which pre-existed as physical principles in the abiotic or living domain phase-space in the universe. But mankind's knowledge of these principles and application of them, willful application, changes the universe. Because now the willful mind of man is deploying these pre-existing principles in a new way. So there are irreversible changes, essentially, in the universe, produced by the mind of man. This is the third phase-space. The phase-space of cognition.

Kepler's Orbits

Now then, let's take Kepler's orbits, his orbital system, as in his second major work of the series, where he deals with the harmonic ordering of the universe. You have certain harmonic orderings, which he specifies, which are related to—Ah! Musical orderings! In the Classical sense of a musical scale. These are based on the harmonics of the two extremes of a eliptical orbit, where you take the opposite extremes, the one which is next to the Solar System, and the one at the opposite end. And these have different harmonic characteristics. The two of them together define an harmonic characteristic. So the orbits of the planets of the Solar System, in Kepler's estimation, correspond to an arrangement of a musical scale: seconds, thirds, fifths, and so forth. Now they're not quite the same as we think of a musical scale. But what does this tell us? This tells us that the universe is so organized that the different phase-spaces are interactive, or what Riemann and others call "multiply connected." So that even though the abiotic, living, and spiritual, or mental processes are distinct, as phase-spaces, they are constantly interactive. All three principles, as phase-spaces, exist in the universe at all times.

Therefore, the universe is being acted upon by the principle of life, even where life does not exist, as such. And the universe is acted upon by the same principle that we call cognition. Therefore, an abiotic universe would be considered to be totally entropic, as entropy is defined. But the universe is not entropic, because the abiotic universe does not exist alone. There are other powers in this universe acting upon it. The principle of life, which is efficient under all appropriate conditions in the universe, and in ways we don't even know yet. The idea of life on Mars: Well, if there's water on Mars, there's life. If there's certain forms of fossils on Mars, there's life. Because the presence of an atmosphere, or the presence of free water in the form of ice, indicates this was formed by living processes. That's the only way it's produced. The existence of certain fossil forms of rock on a planet indicates this was formed by living processes.

So the question is: Is this a residue of previously existing living processes, and how is this residue generated? Is it generated by the principle of life, wherever certain preconditions exist? And so forth and so on. Very interesting questions.

But then, with the question of harmonics: The harmonics of the universe are not necessarily the harmonics of one of the three phase-spaces, but rather, were probably a reflection of all three interacting. So they're not quite the same. That gives you a sense of what we have to deal with. That's what our problem is in communication. We have to develop our ability to think in these kinds of scientific terms.

Immortality and Death

Now, this involves a second problem. So far, what I've said pertains, basically, to communication among individuals, to actions and discoveries by individuals on the universe. Now let's look at immortality and death. Makes it more interesting, doesn't it? Because then, the question is: How does mankind increase mankind's power in the universe, as has been demonstrated in what we know of the history of this planet? This is only made possible by the transmission of discoveries of principle, from one individual to another, from one generation to another, from one culture to another. Therefore, we have another dimension which we must add to the ideas of these three phase-spaces and their interactions, as such.

We must also look at the special laws which we can adduce in terms of the human ability to transmit such knowledge, from one person, from one generation, from one culture, to another. Therefore, language and art, especially language and art defined in Classical terms and no other, that is, according to Classical principle, not to some civic [?] Classical form. That is, a principle of truthfulness, which is the Classical principle. Don't say anything that's not truthful. You have no right to believe something arbitrarily. You must have a truthful basis for that belief. Sincerity will not pass. Sincerity is not worth anything. Truth is worth everything. Which means that the study of the processes of communication by means of which mankind is able to communicate these kinds of ideas efficiently, from one person to another, as in a school classroom, within a society from one generation to another, and across cultures, from one culture to another. This ability to communicate is also a domain of principle.

Now, in fact, we say, well then, there is no difference between what we call physical science, insofar as it pertains to provable principles and Classical artistic activity. No difference. Both are subjects of the same thing: Classical art is the art of communicating ideas. Ideas about the universe, which we sometimes call physical science, and ideas about man's relationship to man, in terms of the development of man's power in the universe. These are the two areas. So Classical art—.

Now go back, and look at music from that standpoint. And the well-tempered system from that standpoint. From the standpoint of starting from the simple demonstrable fact, empirically demonstrable, that the human speaking-singing-voice apparatus, most efficiently developed, has certain lawful characteristics, which are universal, even though we have different types of voices, with different specific characteristics, the array of these distinct types of voices, such as soprano, mezzo, alto, so forth, baritone, tenor, bass—you must bring them together. Together! Because, if one part of the chorus is missing, part of humanity is missing. And communication is all humanity interacting, efficiently.

Therefore, the understanding of counterpoint which is generated on this basis is the basis for understanding how to compose and perform music. To understand how to compose and perform music, you should understand Classical poetry, which is a derivative of the natural musical ability of a population, hmm? And so forth and so on. So what is instrumental music? Instrumental music is a human being teaching a musical instrument to sing, to sing bel canto. Otherwise, throw the damn instrument out! Or drown the musician as a mercy killing. [laughter] So this whole area is really one thing. The structure of Classical poetry, used with this idea of musicality as its background, eh?, is the basis for ordering speech, argument.

Example: Take a case of this remarkable thing we had which was related by Bal Gangadhar Tilak, who did this in two books, about the turn of the last century, one called Orien, the first book, and the second, Artic Home of the Vedas, and his work focussed upon certain work done, particularly by German astronomers in the 19th Century, the early 19th Century, and some earlier, on the actual kinds of calendars, of astronomical calendars, which were reflected in Vedic and other writings. And the discovery that these things had an actual correspondence to what modern astronomy can verify as historical states of the sky in ancient times. So we can go back a far distance, implicitly, sometimes as far as 200,000 years, in some of these calendars, implicitly reach that far back.

So, the interesting this is, that these calendars were transmitted, in large part, as in the case of the Vedic, were transmitted to modern society by the use of chanters, who sang hymns which pertain to certain configurations in the calendar, in the astronomical calendar, as a time for a marriage, the time for this, the time for that, the time for planting, all that sort of thing. Now these things are transmitted over periods of up to 6,000 years, and with amazing fidelity in respect to actual, known astronomy.

Now, I went, back in 1983, I visited Pune, where the experts on this thing reside, the whole colony there of people who specialize in Vedic, Sanskrit, and so forth. And they reported to me that many of the chanters, to this day, who recite these Vedic or Sanskrit hymns, don't know what they're saying! They don't know the language they're chanting. But they chant this, as they checked across India, with amazing fidelity, or relative fidelity. So the transmission of these hymns, which contain this astronomical guidance, which some people will call horoscope guidance—when you should get married, when you should do this, that sort of thing, eh?—this stuff is transmitted over thousands of years, by illiterates, who don't know the language they're chanting, and the result is nonetheless, an empirically validatable record of over thousands of years.

Now, how could that be done? Could that be done is so-called modern prose? No. The Classical poetry, sung Classical poetry is an mnemonic device, under which, even people who are technically illiterate can transmit, with a certain degree of fidelity, over successive generations, very precise astronomical and other information, without a known written language. Thus, poetry, Classical poetry expresses the highest form of all communication. And because it is based on musicality, it is also the most suitable for doing two things: for communicating emotion by relative values of musicality, eh? And also, communicating ideas, because of the power of creating irony—that is, paradoxes, well defined paradoxes, which have a replicatable solution, and these are true ideas.

So that when you take what was discussed here on the closing session of the regular conference here, on this question of musicality, you realize that you're merely touching on the outskirts of a very profound and pervasive matter. The matter of communcation and of art. Communication in general is: How can you communicate ideas efficiently, ideas being products of metaphor, products of irony. And therefore, the bel canto approach to voice training, and the use of the implicit value of this, with counterpoint, as a way of communicating and generating and provoking the communication of ideas, is the most essential thing for anyone in any field, whether physical science, or anything else, or statecraft.

Wonderful Opportunties

Thus, when this was being presented, on the question of the simple issue of Pythagoras defining the comma, that's what we were touching upon. We were touching upon the beginning of the foundation of all communicable human knowledge, which is based on the principle of musicality. A system of knowledge which is based on understanding the fact that human beings are born with a certain range of pre-tuned potential singing voices. These singing voices are actually the proper form of speaking voices. People whose voices do not sing when they speak, have very great difficulty in communicating or hearing ideas.

Now take any television announcer you see on the screen today. What is their capability of communicating ideas? Well, it's none. But that's all right, because there's no intent to communicate ideas! [laughter] So that's the secret of the business. And thus, when we look at things in the way I've just summarily described them here—and I hope I've provoked some of you—I think I probably have. That is the secret of all knowledge. And it starts quite simply, from the fact that the human speaking voice, the human singing voice, has built into it, those characteristics, which by simple inversion and other such things as change in the interval, intervalic relations, up and down, generate commas. And the commas that were referred to, day before yesterday, are only the touch of it.

Now start adding in the number of modalities which exist, in addition to so-called major and minor keys. Now add into it, the principle of composition, in counterpoint, of so-called neighboring key, neighboring-key half-tone change. A key shift on a half-tone change. Or the location of such a key change by a simple countrapuntal inversion. And that's how you move, that's what is a generally competent composition. But in addition to the major/minor keys, you have also a set of about six to eight different modalities, where you can throw in a Hungarian minor, just to screw things up a little bit! There is such a thing as a Hungarian minor—that's not a coal-digger—that's a modality used by Franz List and Brahams, for example, for the so-called Hungarian Dances and things like that. So you throw these things in, and then your realize what a rich plenum of variability you have for communicating ideas through the effects of coloration, in the form not only of singing, where the great art of the Italian song, or the German Lied, is an educational program in how to speak! How to recite poetry; how to S-P-E-A-K. How to think. This is what we've touched into. And these differences, that I've referred to, differences which involves inversions, involves neighboring key-shifts, involves modalities, all tend to generate commas because the ordering of the tones, sung by the voice, are different in up and down, and so forth, directions. And this gives you all these wonderful opportunities.

So therefore, when you're looking at the question of music, looking at poetry, looking oratory, looking at painting, looking at anything that you call art, you are looking at the same medium, and the same concepts, which should be recognized as physical science.

And therefore, one of the things that you guys have to master, as an international movement: You have to come to an understanding of this area. You have to come to the power of a superior power, more sophisticated power of communication of ideas. And therefore, taking such a subject as was presented the day before yesterday, in the concluding session, on the question of the comma, and its implications as a concept of physics, is the key to opening up this whole area for your mastery of the subject. [applause]



schiller@schillerinstitute.org

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