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How does music orient our imagination to associate certain shapes and geometries to them?


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We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwelling shape us.—Winston Churchill, 1943
Observing that ordinary people can hear passive objects and sense spatial geometry requires an explanation. As a simple illustration of how we hear an object that itself does not produce any sound, consider a flat wall located at some distance. When the sound wave from a hand clap is reflected from that distant wall, we hear the reflection as a discernible echo. The distance to the wall determines the delay for the arrival of the echo, the area of the wall determines the intensity, and the material of the wall's surface determines the frequency content. These physical facts relate only indirectly to perception. Our auditory cortex converts these physical attributes into perceptual cues, which we then use to synthesize an experience of the external world. On the one hand, we can simply hear the echo as an additional sound (sonic perception) in the same way that we hear the original hand clap (sonic event). On the other hand, we can interpret the echo as a wall (passive acoustic object). The echo is the aural means by which we become aware of the wall and its properties, such as size, location, and surface materials. The wall becomes audible, or rather, the wall has an audible manifestation even though it is not itself the original source of sound energy. When our ability to decode spatial attributes is sufficiently developed using a wide range of acoustic cues, we can readily visualize objects and spatial geometry: we can "see" with our ears.
http://www.mythicjourneys.org/newsletter...
A History Of Spatial Music; http://cec.concordia.ca/econtact/multich...
It is well known that in medieval iconography certain shapes are often associated with symbolic meaning, for example, a triangle with Trinity or an octagon, the traditional shape of a baptismal font, with eternity. Then what about the square shape, a strikingly prominent feature of the new style of notation? Is it just a practical feature of a simpler and clearer style of notation or does it possibly carry some more profound symbolic meaning obvious to medieval musicians, but not to us? In his treatise Jacques is certainly sensitive to the characteristics of various shapes. In a context not directly related to notation he claims that just as a round object is movable and unstable, a square object is stable, solid, and as if immovable.
http://www.notaquadrata.ca/textualsource...
Shape Grammars and the Generative Specification of Painting ... San Francisco: International Computer Music Association.
http://www.flexatone.net/algonet/refdate...
Geometry, music and the brain
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/brai...
ART, MATHEMATICS AND MUSIC
http://www.math.uiowa.edu/bransonmemoria...
History of Sound Healers Association
http://www.soundhealersassociation.org/s...
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=shap...
I am a bi-directional synesthete who experiences multiple forms of synesthesia. I photograph reflections on moving water and click the shutter at the moment I experience a texture or sound response. For that reason, a researcher asked for my input on his invention to convert images of one's surroundings into sound to help blind people see.
http://www.marciasmilack.com/abstracts.p...
http://www.m-a.org.uk/resources/publicat...
http://astore.amazon.com/ctksoftwareinc/...
Baby Newton is an enriching new approach to learning shapes as they are found in our world through the context of toys, nature, kinetic art and beautiful geodesic forms.
http://www.amazon.com/baby-einstein-newt...
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=shap...
http://cornelii.com/neurologos.htm...
http://www.year01.com/jhave/siat_blog/po...
Hope this helps.
Cheers!