A Musical Heart

Jonathan L. Friedmann, Ph.D.

The human heart was an object of fascination in the ancient world. Its position in the center of the body and extending circuitry of veins and arteries made it an organ of obvious importance and wide speculation. With only a rudimentary grasp of anatomy and physiology, the ancients envisioned the heart as the generator of fundamental human qualities. It was not valued for its mechanical function, but for its supposed control over aspects of our personalities. Yet, while almost every culture developed heart imagery, the details varied drastically from place to place.

The Hebrew Bible describes the heart as the locus of intelligence, reason and diligent deliberation. It makes virtually no connection between the heart and emotions, and never associates it with romantic love. Having a heart meant possessing wisdom; lacking a heart meant stupidity. It was a storehouse of lessons and memories—“Take to heart [remember] these instructions with which I charge you this day” (Deut. 6:6)—and was distinguished from the spiritual essence of our being—“serve the Lord your God with all your heart [intellect] and soul” (Deut. 29:4). In fact, the body’s non-rational center was thought to be the kidneys, as depicted in Proverbs 23:16: “I shall rejoice with all my kidneys.”

Clearly, this biblical symbolism has little to do with the heart in Western culture. This is because our conception has roots in non-biblical sources, mainly Egypt, Greece and Rome. The racing heart is a recurring motif in the love songs of ancient Egypt, and the influential Roman physician Galen (129–c. 200 C.E.) identified the heart as the seat of emotions. These ideas permeate our society, where the heart denotes romance, compassion, enthusiasm, deep feelings and desire-based decisions.

As opposite as the biblical and Western images are, they do merge elegantly in the experience of music. Music simultaneously makes us feel and stimulates cognitive interest. When we hear a piece of music, we are first struck by its emotional effect. But this is not enough to hold our attention. Almost immediately, we begin to process the unfolding sound and ponder why it makes us feel a certain way. This is normally understood as the engagement of heart and mind. However, we can also see it as the triggering of the emotional heart and the intellectual heart.

Music is unusual in its ability to captivate both our rational and non-rational sides. It is a complete human experience. Of course, the emotional and intellectual appeal of a piece is never perfectly balanced. Music, like the people who make it, tends to emphasize one aspect over the other. Still, even the most academic work can touch us on a sentimental level, while the simplest song can activate the brain. In this sense, music is a “whole heart” phenomenon.

Visit Jonathan’s website to keep up on his latest endeavors, browse his book and article archives, and listen to sample compositions.

Sound in Wax

Jonathan L. Friedmann, Ph.D.

The earliest wax cylinder phonographs—the first commercial medium for recording and reproducing sound—were entirely mechanical. They were hand-cranked and needed no electrical power. All that was required was a lathe, a waxy surface, a sharp point for a stylus, and a resonating table. To impress sound waves onto wax, the voice or instrument was positioned closely to the large end of a horn. The vibrations moved a needle, which carved a groove on the rotating wax. According to Walter Murch, an acclaimed film editor and sound designer, everything used in these early machines was available to the ancient Greeks and Egyptians. But it took until the middle of the nineteenth century, and the genius of Thomas Edison and his team, to execute the recording process.

Why did it take so long to capture sound? Musician David Byrne has informally speculated that maybe it didn’t. Perhaps someone in antiquity invented a similar device and later abandoned it; or perhaps the device itself was simply demolished in the ruins of history. While conceivable on a technological level, this hypothesis is unlikely considering the prevailing ethos of the ancient world. The ephemerality of sound was part of its attraction: it was momentary, mysterious, transient and transcendent. As this fleetingness was highly valued, there was little or no inclination to record. Murch puts it this way: “Poetically, the beauty of music and the human voice was used as a symbol of all that’s evanescent. So the idea that you could trap it in any physical medium never occurred to [them] . . .”

This contrasts with the rush to develop written systems that enshrined language. The ancients recognized that certain things should be documented, like governmental records, priestly decrees, royal chronicles, philosophical treatises, etc. What these shared in common was a silent beginning: they were soundless thoughts committed to paper (or papyrus or parchment or tablets or wood). Writing gave concrete form to facts and concepts that, while often referencing observable phenomena, had no tangibility of their own. In contrast, sound was understood as being completely formed. It was received sensually, experienced kinesthetically, and processed emotionally. It existed in the moment it was made.

It is worth noting that Edison first thought of wax cylinder recorders as dictation machines. They were to record the owners’ ideas and messages and, ideally, preserve the great speeches of the day. This limited purpose reflected the limitations of the early devices: they were too crude and imprecise to capture the nuances of musical performance. True, music recording and playback were in Edison’s long-term plan, and they became major functions as the machines advanced. But it is feasible to consider that Edison’s initial goal of preserving dictation was—and arguably still is—a worthier and more practical goal than detaining music.

Musicians commonly lament that they are slaves to their own recordings. The version that appears on an album is the version that fans want to hear, and deviations are typically received as imperfections, inaccuracies or unwanted departures from the “authoritative” source.  Some improvising musicians even feel obliged to give their audiences note-for-note reproductions of recorded solos. This is not to negate the enormous benefits and incalculable cultural impact of musical recordings. Our understanding of music as a diverse human enterprise owes mightily to the proliferation of recorded sounds, and musical creativity thrives when there is access to other music. But something of music’s temporality is lost in recording. Imprinting sound in wax or digital audio creates the illusion of permanence.

Visit Jonathan’s website to keep up on his latest endeavors, browse his book and article archives, and listen to sample compositions.