Musica Universalis – Music of the Spheres

Originating in greek philosophy, the “music of the spheres” (or musica universalis) comes is a belief that the movements of celestial bodies like the Sun, Moon, and planets create a form of harmony or music—though not one we can hear with our ears. This concept was expanded on by 16th-century astronomer Johannes Kepler, who thought the “music” of the planets spoke to the soul. Even Aristotle weighed in, suggesting that celestial motion might produce sounds we’re so used to hearing that we don’t notice them, like a smith ignoring the clanging of their tools.

“Some thinkers suppose that the motion of bodies of that size must produce a noise, since on our earth the motion of bodies far inferior in size and in speed of movement has that effect. Also, when the sun and the moon, they say, and all the stars, so great in number and in size, are moving with so rapid a motion, how should they not produce a sound immensely great? Starting from this argument and from the observation that their speeds, as measured by their distances, are in the same ratios as musical concordances, they assert that the sound given forth by the circular movement of the stars is a harmony. Since, however, it appears unaccountable that we should not hear this music, they explain this by saying that the sound is in our ears from the very moment of birth and is thus indistinguishable from its contrary silence, since sound and silence are discriminated by mutual contrast. What happens to men, then, is just what happens to coppersmiths, who are so accustomed to the noise of the smithy that it makes no difference to them.”

(Artistotle)

Gustav Holst

(1874-1934) was a famous English composer, best known for his epic orchestral suite The Planets, written between 1914 and 1917.

The Planets

This seven-movement orchestral suite is a musical depiction of astrological character traits associated with the planets of the Solar System (excluding Earth and Pluto – which hadn’t been discovered at the time). Each movement is a standalone tone poem, characterized by Holst’s intricate orchestration, thematic variety, and dramatic contrasts.

• Mars, the Bringer of War.
• Venus, the Bringer of Peace.
• Mercury, the Winged Messenger.
• Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity.
• Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age.
• Uranus, the Magician.
• Neptune, the Mystic.

There’s also a much older idea of the relationship between the planets and music – The Music of the Spheres

Organised Sound

In using the term ‘sound’ instead of music, we’re following the lead of composer Edgard Varese, who called his own music “organized sound.” This side-steps all the conventional requirements of music: to follow certain rhythms, meters, scales, structures and instrumentation. Varese explained: “Indeed, to stubbornly conditioned ears, anything new in music has always been called noise. But after all what is music but organized noises?” (Varese & Wen-Chung, 1966, p. 18 in Berkowitz, 2024)

Adam Eric Berkowitz (2024) “Artificial Intelligence and Musicking: A Philosophical Inquiry.” In Music Perception Volume 41, Issue 5. University of California Press. June 2024

https://online.ucpress.edu/mp/article/41/5/393/200671/Artificial-Intelligence-and-Musicking

Spatialised Sound

We’ll be exploring the affective potential of spatialised sound. Unlike visual phenomena, that we can only see when infront of our eyes, we’re immersed in sound – we can hear behind, above, beside and below us. We can feel sound in our bodies – sound is vibration. And sound moves through 3D dimensional space over time – up/down, left/right, forward/backward. You can even hear when something tips, rolls or spins. To achieve these kinds of effects with media, you need to send sounds in varying volumes to multiple speakers – or you need to record sound spatially to begin with, by using an ambisonic microphone for example.