The Scale of Music

Occasionally I go through my old music manuscripts--a huge banker's box full of stuff written in a ten year period from the late 80s. The last perusal involved organizing all the song lead sheets, resulting in a stack of approximately 100-200 pages.

I was thinking at the time how much space a decade's worth of paintings would require? For an artist that makes big canvases, it is an exponentially larger requirement for the storage of unsold paintings.

What I like about music manuscript is that it doesn't take up as much space and can be stored in boxes or binders and can be scanned to reduce the volume. It scales well.

In nature, organisms scale to their environment: The size of an elephant is for a reason; the size of a
mouse is for a reason. Everything probably has a set-point or threshold at which something no longer can increase or decrease.

Sometimes music needs a special volumetric context, as in the Queen's funeral at Westminster Abbey, an "epigenetic" effect where the scale of the space matches the enormity of the emotion. But the music itself is inert in notation and takes up no space until the music melts within it.

It's interesting to compare different disciplines as to the amount of space they require and what kinds of spaces are required so that the work is consummated. Art is completed by the space in which it is exhibited, more than the space in which it was created. Small studios constrain dimensions, but not the overall effect of a small painting in a large space for special occasions which scales up perfectly well.

5/2/2021  

***

Universals:

classification of behavioral propensities
classification of space
coalitions
collective identities
music related in part to religious activity
music, vocal
rituals
special speech for special occasions