Musical force acting at a distance
Youn Kim · 2022
One of the traits that presented a significant challenge to the scientific notion of force was “action at a distance,” that is, the question of whether objects that are separated in space can affect each other without contact. This chapter investigates the metaphoric use of force in such a sense to explain the power of music in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Several thinkers across various disciplines considered hearing as powerful as seeing and even more so. The invisibility of sound efficiently render the conceptualization of music as force. Music is a type of field force that can cause action at a distance. Such growing interest in the interactive dimension of the performing arts and the field of communication between performer and audience was also contingent on the development of technology and media. It also contributed to a reconceptualization of music from a multidimensional perspective. In the writings of Stanislaw Przybyszewski, Edmund Gurney, Gustav Fechner, and Victor Zuckerkandl, the metaphor of vibratory waves promoted the multisensorial aspect of “hearing” music beyond the ear. Rather than being restrained to a specific modality, vibration is felt throughout the whole body.