By Jonathan Whitcomb
I now confine this principle to music, although we could also apply it to other arts: painting, dancing, poetry, drama, etc.
Listen to the ticking of an old clock. After about ten ticks, what do you expect next? The same sound at the same interval of time relative to the first ten ticks. That’s not music, but the old clock gives us one of the two boundaries of musical sound: extreme predictability in what we hear. Let’s call this the Yin boundary of music (YIB). The foundation of this boundary is shown in what sound is heard after those ten ticks of the clock: We expect an identical tick, but no matter what sound we hear, in a musical sense it will be meaningless.
Now imagine about ten random sounds with nothing in common except that they’re sounds and they occur at random times. What do you expect next? No particular sound, although you could expect some kind of sound (not long-term silence). That’s not music, but it shows us the other boundary of musical sound: extreme unpredictability in what we hear. Call it the Yang boundary in music (YAB). After those ten random sounds, no matter what sound you hear, in a musical sense it will be meaningless.
The foundational essence of music is this: The sounds we hear do not touch either of those boundaries, although they may dance between them in a variety of ways, perhaps with one dancer swinging close to one boundary and then soon leaping towards the other, for example. In other words, from moment to moment we expect certain things and find some of our expectations gratified, yet sometimes we are delightfully surprised, at least in the finest pieces of music.
Away in a Manger
The words of this Christmas carol have been set to several pieces of music. In the above example, notice the rhythm of the melody: It’s pretty close to the Yin boundary, but melody is more than just rhythm, for the melodic direction in the second of the four lines differs greatly from that in the first line. Looking at only the melodic direction in the first two lines, it may be closer to the Yang boundary than to the Yin Boundary. Take the rhythm and melodic direction together, and you get a balance between the two boundaries.
Now look at the notes in the third line: They’re identical to those of the first line. When taken in that narrow sense alone, as two sections of music, it might be considered touching the Yin boundary: too repetitive to be musical. Yet in the reality of the whole, those two lines contain internal elements (varied rhythm and melodic directions) that never touch the Yin boundary. In addition, those two lines are part of the whole piece (four lines), making for a lovely balance between the Yin and Yang boundaries.
