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MUSIC AND ITS
POSSIBLE EVOLUTION.
ACTIVITY
OF COMPOSITION
Years 1955 -
1972
Upon completing his musical studies at the
"Conservatorio Cherubini" in Florence , it became clear to Paolo Bemporad that, in
order to explore the possibilities of further evolution of
musical language and harmony, new versatile, efficient, and
scientifically reliable research tools were an essential
prerequisite. The concepts of electronic technology acquired
through courses of Scuola Radio Elettra, allowed the minimal
instruments necessary for this research to be gradually built.
These consisted of an array of 14 sinusoidal
electronic oscillators, a digital frequency counter, tape
recorders, electronic amplifiers and an oscilloscope , together with traditional instruments,
such as 2 pianos (with the obvious
possibility to change their tuning), one
guitar and one violin (click here for a picture of this
instrumentation). Designing, building, testing and
mastering the aforementioned tools and instruments took many
years. Obtaining innovative results with them took even many
more years. The first outcome of this long process was a
composition named
"CONTRAPPERCEZIONI", for 14
musical oscillators, in which complex sounds -differently
opposed to each other- appeared, so that a multiplicity of
innovative harmonic relationships were produced.
"CONTRAPPERCEZIONI" was performed during the third concert of
the "3rd PARTY FESTIVAL '70", on the 1st July 1965.
Further research made it possible to
define, in terms of scientific approach and actual
experiments, specific ensembles of oscillations that on one
hand result similar to sounds produced with traditional
instruments, yet, on the other hand, are much more complex.
Consequently, such sounds can give rise to
unprecedented harmonic relationships, which are more
complex than those available to traditional harmony . Thus, as these sounds are beyond
traditional sounds, they were named metasounds, with a
neologism specifically introduced by the time. The harmony
coming from overlapping or linking more metasounds together
with traditional sounds -able to generate innovative harmonic
effects- was named
metaphonicharmony, or (later),
metaphony
.
A detailed description of Paolo Bemporad's
research and resluts, together with the definition of the
terms "metasound" and "metaphony", was given in the assay "Prospettive evolutive nella musica
d'oggi"
, published on the
Italian journal "Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana", num.
4,
July-August1969.
In 1970/1971 new possibilities were
assayed, offered by the IBM 1800 computer, available at CNUCE (Centro Nazionale Universitario di
Calcolo Elettronico) , University of Pisa
(Italy). The musical possibilities offered at this facility by
the time were only primeval as the IBM 1800, albeit a
cutting-edge technology in the 70s, could produce only a
single series of square wave sounds of any duration and pitch. Consequently,
metasounds could be obtained only as arpeggios. Nevertheless,
the composition "RICERCARE" was conceived.
In this composition arpeggios/metasounds produced by the
computer were, thanks to the editing process, overlapped with
metasounds produced by instruments already available, namely
piano, guitar and 14 oscillators
(violin was
not used).
Despite the instruments employed were
extremely different, the composition resulted aesthetically
homogeneous thanks to metaphonic harmony, which dictated all
the relationships between different sounds, regardless of the
instrument that produced them (exactly as in equal temperament
sounds produced by different instruments attain their
aesthetical homogeneity in the symphonic
orchestra).
"RICERCARE", for
computers, piano, guitar and electronic oscillators, was
broadcasted on the third radio channel by the Italian national
broadcasting company (RAI - ITALIAN RADIO &
TELEVISION
) during the third encounter of the
series "Incontro con la musica elettronica" (meeting
electronic music), on October 8th, 1971.
Finally, the first phase of research was
completed by the investigation of the evolution of
harmony in European music (since the
origins, to greek tetrachords, medieval monody, renaissance
polyphony, equal temperament, dodecaphony and metaphonic
harmony) from different standpoints: psychological,
(psychology of musical perception), scientific (acoustics) and
aesthetic/philosophic (epistemology of harmony). The resulting
work, entitled “Dialettica dell’armonia” (harmony dialectics), a 414
pages long manuscript, attracted the interest of the popular
music critic Prof. Massimo Mila, who in 1973 proposed its
publication to an important editor. This editor rejected the
manuscript, which unfortunately is still unpublished. “Index –
summary”, preface and bibliography of this manuscript have
been reproduced here
.
Years
1973-1981
The next phase started after getting
married to Olga Siracusa (1939-2004,
assistant professor of History of theatre and show business at
the University of Bologna). Olga Siracusa’s
splendid mezzo-soprano voice
contributed profoundly for many years to further developments
of metaphonic harmony as it made it possible to test the
theory on human voice and traditional singing, which obviously
represents an essential and fundamental element for any
musical language.
The research instrumentation was then
enriched by the addition of two microcomputers (one
Commodore 64 and one Commodore
128
), which were able to produce up to
three distinct tracks with sinusoidal, saw-tooth or square
wave forms. In this way it was possible to pursue the artistic
activity, getting further insights into metaphonic harmony. By
the way, the musical compositions completed have never been
performed in front of public.
Between 1973 and 1981 the
divulgation of metaphonic harmony
continued as well, with the publication of
two books:
·
“Metaphonie” (in
French), published in 1977
, which represents a simplified synthesis of the
aforementioned unpublished “harmony dialectics”, enriched with
some explicative examples of metaphonic harmony, This 134
pages-long book also contains the French version of the
aforementioned assay “Prospettive evolutive della musica
d’oggi”.
·
“Spazio e tempo in musica – e altri
saggi” (space and time in music – and more
essays), by Paolo Bemporad and Olga Siracusa, published in
1979
, which tells about
properties and fundamental aspects of musical language in
general and metaphonic harmony in particular.
After Paolo Bemporad participated as
candidate to a public selection for 14 professor positions,
Prof. Paolo Emilio Carapezza (by the time head of the Department of
history of music of the Univeristy of Palermo, Italy), as
member of the committee, had the opportunity to get acquainted
with Paolo Bemporad’s work and invited him to give a lesson
and a seminar on the "analysis and listening
of metaphonic harmony"
(March 10th/11th 1981).
Years
1981-2011
After 1981, due to the overriding
importance of family commitments, any divulgation activity of
metaphonic harmony was stopped. A moderate activity of musical
composing instead was pursued, with the composition of “11
variations on Chopin Mazurka no. 7" , in A
flat major, op. 7 no. 4, (click here to listen to variation
no. 7 for piano, violins and computers), written using
counterpoint and fragments from “Dies Irae” by Tommaso da
Celano), renewed and performed in 2010 after the two computers
from Commodore were substituted with more recent computers
(see the compositions page
for
further details).
CONCLUSIONS
Metaphony is not a magical spell,
an “abracadabra”, a short-cut to the production of music for
mass consumption. Nor is it a faint, exhausted yearning
towards a pathetic acoustic world which would result a
fascinating but unachievable one. It is, in fact, a new
harmony, which is not in contrast to the classic harmony of
European music as it emerged from its development since the
origins, to greek tetrachords, medieval monody, renaissance
polyphony, equal temperament and dodecaphony. On the contrary
metaphonic harmony is the concrete development of classical
harmony. Such development is just at its beginning yet,
inevitably, it will be sooner or later completed. To make it
short, metaphonic harmony is an opportunity offered to any
interested party –amateur or professional- which will be ready
to face difficulties, risks, efforts and costs (not only
economic) as well as satisfactions implied by its
realization.
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