The article discusses the fascinating intersection of science and art in music tuning, highlighting the recent festival Darkness Sounding that showcased alternate tunings. Scientists dissect tuning into mathematical ratios, while poets connect it to metaphors of relationships and resonance. The festival featured a wide array of musical performances, including premieres and historic works by Biber. Though the concerts demonstrated the expressive power of tuning, they ultimately did not fulfill the festival's aim of creating an immersive transformative experience, leaving audiences desiring more depth in reflection and engagement with the soundscapes.
The festival Darkness Sounding explored both the mystical and physical dimensions of alternate tunings, presenting a vibrant spectrum of sound from world premieres to 17th-century works.
Wild Up's program notes emphasized tuning as foundational—comparing it to carbon and oxygen—as it shapes our musical environment and our very experience of sound.
The festival aimed to be an immersive experience, transforming sound into landscape and ritual; however, it ultimately fell short of its ambitious aspirations.
Tuning, for both scientists and poets, serves as a beautiful mathematical riddle and a metaphor for relationships, showing how musical intervals reveal truths about conflict and compromise.
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