The Origin Story
Back when I was practicing about three hours per day, I became fascinated with the spatial aspects of sound and music. I read part of Hermann Helmholtz’s famous pioneering work “On the Sensation of Tone”. Helmholtz describes the motions of sound as undulatory; smooth wave-like motions.
Helmholtz uses, as an example, movement of a stationary body of water when a rock is thrown in. The ring waves advance equally in all directions expanding to a constantly increasing circle.
Expansion of sound through the atmosphere is essentially identical, except the principal difference consists in the spherical propagation of sound in all directions in the atmosphere which fills all surrounding space, whereas the waves in water can only advance in circles on its surface.
This particular passage by Helmholtz struck me as exceedingly interesting and important.
I began to wonder whether there existed a method to boost spatial perception of sound and its spherical propagation. I decided that perhaps the disciplined use I was making of the metronome might aid in this endeavor.
I had an idea to have fishing lines run from ceiling corner to ceiling corner in my practice room so that I could place the metronome in different locations above where I was practicing.
After continued thought I hit upon a different idea.
I decided to put Velcro on the back of my metronome and to place Velcro adhesive strips at fixed points in my practice room. I described a circumference around the space in which I practiced, with each of eight Velcro adhesive strips being placed separated by roughly forty-five degrees.
Over the course of the next year, during practice sessions I would periodically move the metronome forty-five degrees to the right. I would continue periodically moving the metronome forty-five degrees until the metronome had traversed the entire circumference of eight fixed points.
I kept a detailed practice journal. I would pick up each day with the metronome on the circumference where I had left off from the prior day’s practice session. I would note in the practice journal where the metronome had been placed and moved during a practice session.
After a few months I noticed three things.
- I started noticing enhanced spatial perception and sensitivity when listening to or studying music.
- I noticed a greatly enhanced sensitivity to the spatial, directional, and distance aspects of the sounds and noises around me in everyday life. And finally,
- I noticed that the space within my head where I cognize sound and music – the place in my head where I can recall music without external music playing – the place where one ‘hums a tune’ so to speak – had somehow begun to expand and take on connotations and aspects of three-dimensional space. I would, for example, hear in my head parts of music moving and changing in spatial location, moving spatially in relationship to each other, and displaced in space in relationship with each other.
As I continued throughout the year diligently moving the metronome along the Velcro strip circumference, this inner space where the music emanates from continued to grow and take on greater spatial depth and clarity.
And here is an interesting element of what was occurring: I did not have to alter anything about my practice regimen. All I was doing was periodically moving the metronome on the pathway of a circumference that encircled where I would sit when I practiced.
From this I concluded that like the perfect time reference points for tempo and rhythm that practice with a metronome develops inside one’s head, that the disciplined periodic movement of the metronome around a circumference was developing spatial reference points in my head and therefore developing aspects of my spatial perception and cognition.
From here I dreamed up the idea of having a practice space inside a surrounding birdcage-like structure where a metronome could be periodically moved and positioned all around, above, and beneath the practicing musician.
Practicing within this type of contraption might best and most thoroughly and methodically expand upon the increased perceptions, sensitivities, and cognitions of the spatial aspects of sound and its spherical propagation.
I never constructed a metronome birdcage. But from this birdcage idea came the thinking behind using modern technology to create what is described in this patent:
A fully immersive three-dimensional virtual sphere music cognition metronome.