STAR TREK
SOME time last year, American scientists sent off to some distant, unnamed star a spaceship--a trans-migrant time capsule, as it were--that contained a recorded sampling of the musics of various parts of this earth. Its stated purpose was to define us earthlings, musically as well as (through other contents of the ship) every other way, to any extraterrestrial being with the intelligence and the curiosity-to flag the ship down.
I don't want to argue here about the musical selections, or who made or authorized them, or any of those things. But it is true that this little space conceit did inspire comments (acerbic, mostly) from various sources, and one of the best, I think, came from a reader of STEREO REVIEW, who wrote to inquire how anybody could expect extraterrestrials to understand music when it was perfectly obvious from our "Letters" column that a great many of our readers had trouble doing so.
I find that an unanswerable comment, so I won't even try. But it does bring up the matter of basic musical communication, and that's a subject worth tossing around a bit. Music as an international language? Music as an inter galactic language? Well, let's pursue it.
I suppose the first thing any extraterrestrial would have to understand about the music on that tape (or any other music) is that it isn't a weapon or a language conveying factual information, but an art. That is to say, it is purposeful rather than random, but it has no function other than that of existing. Art, of course, is a sensuous thing, and we have art forms, or near-art forms, aimed at each of our five senses. Allowing that the extraterrestrial has familiarity with any art form at all, even one directed toward a sense unknown on this planet, one based on auditory experience, such as music, could not, at least as a concept, present much difficulty.
But suppose our star man knew no such thing. He would have to uncover the nature of what it was he was hearing, and he would have to do that by first convincing himself of the purposiveness of the sounds. Pure circumstantial evidence might suffice: the sounds were placed on the tape by artificial, electromagnetic means; the tape and tape player are obviously manufactured products; the whole system was patently designed to produce those sounds, almost infinitely repeatable, rather than any other sounds. That's no accidental thing.
ONCE sold on that line, he would have to be convinced that the sounds were not function al, a much more difficult proposition, for it is one that many adult humans do not grasp. But what function could they have? As weapons? Hardly, for what were they meant to attack and what to protect? As language? Much harder to deny, but how does one draw a basic vocabulary from statements so different from one another as Chinese flute song, Beethoven quartets, North Indian music, and jazz? As manipulators of mood? Still harder, but the logic inherent in at least some of the music must lead to the conjecture that some thing besides mere mood is involved. Let the extraterrestrial continue to reason and to experiment. If he finds a common function other than that of entertainment for all the musics of this world, he will have accomplished the impossible.
But "entertainment" ... what about that as a function? I for one disqualify it, principally because it is not inherent in the music but is, in the splendid phrase of jazzman Dewey Redman (or whoever titles his albums) in "the ear of the behearer." The Mozart Requiem may entertain you or it may not, but it has all its intrinsic artistic worth regardless. (Philosophers, note: I am not much of a relativist.) ASSUME now that our extraterrestrial has reached what seems to rue to be the inevitable conclusion. He has these things, these sounds, but they don't do anything apart from sounding, and there seems to be nothing he can do with them apart from listening to them.
But in the listening (and he has heard them over and over in an attempt to figure out a purpose) certain things have happened. He is, we must assume, a being with a memory, and certain of the sounds have impressed them selves on his memory so that he can re produce passages mentally without recourse to the tape. Intrinsic interest they may not have for him, but their very familiarity is a comfortable, perhaps even a pleasurable thing. Point one of nonverbal communication: creatures (human and extraterrestrial) who sing the same song can sing together.
Other things may happen. If our star man is in any way a creature of emotion, he must have noticed that certain musics, and certain passages of music, affect him differently.
Without in any way trying to match up these exotic emotional affects with human ones, we can see that he might find a certain pleasure in one or the other of them, in the transition from one to another, or simply in the differences-and therefore the relationships between them. Point two of nonverbal communication: those who react to the same differences may have some kind of basis for mutual understanding.
Finally, if the extraterrestrial has any knowledge of logic (logic is a human invention, and it need not be descriptive of the truth at all times and places), he would have to be intrigued by the logical organization of some of the music he hears. There is intellectual meat, as well as emotional, in Beethoven, in jazz, in Indian ragas, in much other music.
Point three of nonverbal communication: beings who understand the same logic can understand each other.
THE extraterrestrial has no knowledge of the historical and geographical background of the music, nor of any referential aspects a piece might have. He must accept it purely as an abstract audible art. And yet, he can draw from it many of the things we humans draw from it, even if his relationship to it is similar to our relationship with the songs of the great whales. Therefore, it doesn't really matter what music was sent out on that spaceship, so long as there was sufficient variety in it to rep resent the riches of music as we know it in this world. And we need not worry how "advanced" the extraterrestrial is. From our own experience with "primitive" art, we know that the relative organizational simplicity of the society that made it in no way abrogates its artistic qualities. Of course, for any of the foregoing to be true, the extraterrestrial must have ears, or all is lost. But that is the risk we take. God knows there are human beings without them, which may explain some of what sometimes goes on in the "Letters" column.
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Source: Stereo Review (USA magazine)