Music note 1

MUSIC
note 1

Every once in a while one learns something new that is ASTOUNDING, that changes our entire way of thinking about something. This just happened to me and it has to do with high musical notes, or more specifically, with the physics of high notes. Here it is: high notes, - sung or otherwise performed - take longer to travel than bass notes. Thy do so because they oscillate more; they are shorter wave. It is true that Speed equals Wavelength times Frequency and that the speed of all electromagnetic radiation is a constant. In effect shorter wavelength and higher frequency and longer wavelength, lower frequency will even out to give the same absolute speed, but speed across a room is a different matter. Two singers in unison, one hitting a high and the other a low will not transmit sound the same distance after one second. At 100 Hertz (roughly Sol 1), the sound will have travelled 3,43meters; at 200 Hertz(an octave higher) 1,72 meters; at 400 Hertz(another octave up), 86 centimeters; at 1 600 Hertz(two octaves up), 21 centimeters.(This information comes from Richard Cross," Abécédé du Chant", Pictorus, 2007).
I have played the piano since childhood and I never knew this. I just thought sopranos were smaller women and that Pavarotti using a microphone was an aberration. That I needed a better piano. That I had overpaid for speakers. Waking up from this sleep of un-reason also holds great promise because at last I can think of making some music, and I am free to approach things in a more productive fashion.
This is the secret to all "improbable" or "disturbing" fact, it tends to be embedded in a lot of convoluted experience. After that, things make a lot more sense. It is a moment of personal growth.
That Richard Cross book contains a lot of information of interest to singers, from physics to technique, which I will try to master slowly. Singing is not a field of experience for me so it is a slow read. In France, he works with people in an American Idol type show.
Another tidbit that did strike me. Those castrati were not an aberration of earlier centuries. People with hernias ended up being castrated as a medical treatment. The Pope was actually against the hidden practice that developed to 'breed' singers in this fashion. This information might not do much for those in the medical profession but it makes me feel better about being a musician. And, seriously, it renews my faith in human society, always trying for the best.