The phenomenon of resonance is a genuinely musical phenomenon. Naive perceptions may lead us to the conclusion that resonance is enhanced by performers with- or within cavernous spaces. After all, some experience suggests that hard or hollow substances reflect sound more directly. However, hollow-headedness only supports superficial impressions. Music knows the difference between loudness and resonance. Loudness is a characteristic of noise. Resonance, however, is a characteristic of meaningful sound. The latter is not a matter of an arbitrary aggressive return but a result of sympathetic cognition. Resonance requires clear conception and empathic recognition- not mere functional reflection. For a musician this means most certainly that resonance is a phenomenon enhanced by – and in turn enhancing – meaningful listening.
Naturally, such abstract conceptions require further clarification. Why- and how does sound actually sound? Sound requires resonance. It remains mute without resounding. What makes resounding possible? Resonance presupposes a coherence between stimulus and response. The phenomenon of resonance responds to sound because sound and resonance share a common musical logos. Sound calls towards a medium of recognition. The responding medium can provide sound with utmost reinforcement. It can and will do so where sound finds itself within an authentic medium of reflection. We speak here about sound being “true”. Expressed more emphatically: Sound sounds within a medium and resonates within a context of reflection. This medium and context allow sound to sound if sound in turn recognises the authentic characteristics of the embracing context. This implies that sound sounds because it remains truthful to the conditions of its own resonance.
Resonance and sound constitute a dialectic phenomenon. Sound and resonance, the possibility of empathic recognition, inform each other. Sound must recognise its context of resonance. Yet, the context for sound has to be transparent. It must allow sound to travel freely and authentically in its original momentum. If we deny the immanent fulfilment to sound, we inhibit resonance and in fact impede sound itself. This would be an entirely unmusical outcome and contrary to any artistic relationship with sound!
How do we determine the possibilities of resonance for any sound? How do we determine the appropriate sound for any medium of resonance? The answer to these questions seems straightforward to me: We determine sound and its possibilities of resonance through clear perceptions. Clear perceptions imply clear conceptions. Without clear conceptions our mind and our imagination become storage places of noise and confusion. There are manifold ways in which accumulated confusion betrays itself. The most obvious ones are confusing judgements and confused perceptions. Determining sound and resonance then is a form of cognitive purification, an exercise of clear thinking, of clear perception and of clear judgment. The latter – it seems- will thrive where balance prevails and where noisy reverberation as a result of hollow reflection is reduced to a minimum. Resonance of sound is certainly not helped by wobbly reverberations of noise. However, insisting on clear thinking and clear conception will bring forth clear perceptions in due course and enhance true sound.The phenomenon of resonance is a genuinely musical phenomenon. But its importance is not restricted to the playing of music.
