Harmony studies of Alfredo Pirri

Harmony

Harmony is the branch of musical theory which studies the (simultaneous) "vertical" superimposition of sounds, their reciprocal concatenation (chords) and their function within tonality. Harmonics are frequencies which have an effect on the harmonic content of the sound and create the "colour" (timbre). These are different for each instrument and characterize the instrument's timbre.

Consonance and dissonance

In everyday language, consonance (from the Latin consonare, "to sound together ") indicates generally a group of sounds played simultaneously in such as way that the overall result is sweet and pleasant, while the term dissonance, on the other hand, indicates a grouping of sounds that have a harsh, strident effect. The two terms can also indicate not the collection of sounds but their effect itself; for example, one may speak of dissonance produced from a certain harmony. In the technical language of music theory, and of harmony in particular, the two words have very precise meanings, and in fact, one may say that the opposition between consonance and dissonance, together with the principle of tonality, represents the basis of the Western theory of harmony.

Treating Consonance (being together, in concord) and Dissonance (being separate, alone) under the same artistic category is, for me, the main task of harmony and is also an urgent requirement. Every kind of ecological reasoning derives from the impact (sometimes violent) of these two forces: whether that which is interested in analyzing the environmental consequences, or that which regards the perfection of artistic form as the place and training ground of the confrontation, and of its visible effects. In both cases it is possible to recognize the ideal of beauty in the service of the encounter between the two opposites that are combined in a harmonic and dynamic movement: one that is not so much founded on the simple cohabitation of the contrasting factors as on a perfect (and painful) fusion of polar elements. And yet, in this ideal encounter, in this aesthetic of the "community of the glass spheres", the harmony may become an authoritarian pact, conceived from outside, humiliated by the reciprocal control.

It is from the radical existence of this risk that the disruptive force of the work of art takes shape, with its store of solitude and community, separation and belonging. The spheres are dispersed, all rolling in different directions, but the attainment of order is still possible, as long as you can accept with trust the fragmentary works that they are able to offer.

If we conceive art (and of the world) as a process striving toward the attainment of a supreme end, of aesthetics as Being in the service of life, and finally of beauty and goodness lived with fullness of spirit and body, we may accept the cohabitation of fascination and horror in every "Utopian beauty." I remember a journey I made years ago to Monte Verità: Julian Beck read the anarchist manifesto (for Nam Jun Paik, who was filming it on video), in the house that used to belong to Michael Bakunin. During the reading, I "saw" ghosts of men and women moving around, dancing in the woods. Naked bodies that desired to become one with nature, which was (then) still wild: they were the bodies of the first nudists, contributing their part in giving life to Nazism, and to its "utopia" of purity founded on identity of the blood and the earth.

Art should bring together solitude and social relations, provoking friction between the two to produce energy. What should be done with this energy that has been created? Should it be applied to something and if so, how? Should it be made into a driving force or not? A solitude in which art can find its completion without any sense of blame, that can speak of a harmony that no longer starts from the general but from the particular - from the person, from the artist. I am not talking only, or so much, of the personal, physiological solitude of every living being, but of that disciplinary solitude with which one moves, into dialogue, yes, between different genres and practices, maintaining one's own character and environment, a specific universe of representation.

It is a complete opening up of the self , but one which returns to the disciplines instead of losing itself in the indistinctness of popular aesthetics. The challenge of "education" is to transmit the energy produced, because it involves giving shape to suggestions and making evident all those actions that make a shape plausible, giving it the right to exist. In this sense, the shaping of a shape is an act of (almost) civil responsibility: "almost" because even if the shape finds shelter in civilization, its destiny will not be used up by it. On the contrary, as a result of the dispersion, the waste, the surplus of images and meaning, art projects itself (in space and time) outside the preordained destiny that each era seeks to assign to it. It shows itself to us through a concise gesture, the fruit of the encounter between different disciplines and, at the same time, of the sudden breaking up of all relations. A gesture that is both adventurous (libertine, Don Juan-ish) and monogamous. We need to have (and give) the possibility to continue experimenting and at the same time to speak to a broad, ordinary public, which means not interrupting even for a moment the breaking up of the language, linked to its being for everyone.