Chemistry and Music
There are many parallels between chemistry and music; there are also many parallels between the teaching of chemistry and the teaching of music. There are many emminent chemists who are also competent non-professional musicians. To mention two who happen to be biochemists Martin Kamen, the co-discover of 14Cis a violist; Waldo Cohn, originator of the ion exchange separation of nucleic acids is a cellist (I tend to think of him as a biocellist). Alexander Borodin was a professional chemist and an amateur musician. He is remembered today mostly for his musical accomplishments. There are probably as many reasons for chemists participating in music as there are chemo-musicians, but we can find the following common ground for chemistry and music. For one thing both disciplines require a high degree of precision. When the conductor or teacher, or the score calls for an A, a G is not close enough, and no part credit will be given. Even a somewhat out of tune A will not be accepted; the ear is a remarkably sensitive instrument.' Both disciplines require a great deal of practice and often repetition of exercises previously practiced endlessly by generations of unwilling pupils. Yet short cuts for this type of training are not available. Both disciplines rcqnire a good degree of manual dexterity.% And in both cases within the rather narrow limits imposed by the written score, or by the rules of the game, a good deal of artistry can be practiced by the performer, chemist or musician. One unusual aspect of music which appeals to the mathematically minded is the large number of coordinates represented by a musical score. The pitch, intensity, and length of the note are three obvious ones. The style, whether the note is staccato or legato, tthe tone color, i.e., which instrument is to play the note, rhythm and accent, i.e., where the beat is, tempo or speed sometimes exactly specified by a metronome marking plus a host of other written directions8 such as "Sostenuto esprespivo": all this is specified in the (two dimensional) score. This makes phase space or momentum space almost simple by comparison. There is also a good deal of theory behind music, and anybody who would compose or play any but the most rudimentary instruments would do well to master some of it. Now the purpose of this somewhat wool-gathering introduction is to center on a current problem, the chemistry and/or physics for non-science majors course. From what I have observed to date about 'Most people, even those who advertise themselven as "tone deaf" can detect tenths of a. percent wow in a tape recorder. Theoreticians, conductors, and composer are excepted. Wften penrilled in by bemused performers.
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opinion these courses, they are generally rather poor and fall into the following categories: (1)watered down beginning chemistry; (2) propaganda courses, designed to impress the customer with the beneficence and "essential goodness" of chemistry; (3) snow jobs designed to overawe the student and give him the idea that scientists are smarter and somehow better than other people; and (4) attempts a t relevance by tieing chemical problems to current (usually ecological) issues. These first three types seem to be an extension of a poor public relations policy practiced by scientific societies and their supporters. Now this is almost funny when compared with what our colleagues in the music game do. They have been teaching music to non-music majors for years, and not simply by juggling course numbers. The courses are called music appreciation. Perhaps we should be giving courses in chemical appreciation? Consider what the non-music major learns in his music course. He learns to recognize patterns and to appreciate forms and styles. He listens to performances of great music. He gets to a point where he can tell a good performance from a bad one, a mediocre composer from a first class one. He knows something about harmony, counterpoint, and orchestration. Often he learns the relationship between the music of a period and the socio-political climate in which it was written and generally he gets to like music. There are certain correlates-things which he does not do and is not encouraged or expected to do either. He never sees a fingering chart. He does not study acoustics-indeed often he has only a vagne idea, if any, of how an instrument works. He is not forced to learn to play an instrument against his will, indeed he is not usually encouraged to do so. He does not even learn to read music. The purpose of the course is not to promote bad amateurs, but to create intelligent and discriminating listeners. Would that we chemists could say the same! It is obvious that there are two differences between chemistry and music which limit the applicability of this approach. In the first place music is very popular and appealing whereas chemistry is not. There are some scientists, notably V. F. Weisskopf who have voiced the opinion that science should be supported and encouraged simply for its own sake, as an aesthetic or intellectual exercise. Few of us (scientists) have cared to point out that on this basis, scientific endeavor competes poorly for public support or interest not only with music, painting and other art forms, but also as an intellectual exercise with chess or bridge or even with ice hockey which a t least has the added advantage of keeping one physically fit. The Journal of Physical Chemistry just doesn't make good reading. Even
Scientific American, which is a t l a s t acceptable for literary style and clarity doesn't compete well with, for example, The New Yorker. Many records sell millions of copies. How many reprint requests did you get lately? In the second place science and chemistry is a very pressing gut issue, whereas music is not. You can walk out on a bad concert, or turn off your radio, but you cannot walk out on your own body chemistry, or the air you breathe or the water you drink. You can get along without music but chemistry is with you always, like it or not. My students are very concerned with the present state of the environment and its continual degradation. They have shown that (usually) they are able to read articles concerning environmental chemistry and environmental problems in general very intelligently using only a very rudimentary knowledge of chemistry. For example, one of my students did a term paper on mercury, a rather specialized subject. Perhaps her overall knowledge of chemistry suffered, but then again, some students prefer Chopin to Bach. Now once these two differences between music and chemistry are understood, one can get on with the subject a t hand. To outline a course in "Chemical Appreciation" I believe i t is necessary first to make clear the purpose of most chemistry is not fun and games but problem solving. This difference in the disciplines (music and chemistry) cannot be glossed over. Some of the great classics of chemistry are then immediately evident. The periodic table, quantum theory, the laws of thermodynamics, the concept of equilibrium, radioactivity, chemical binding. There is plenty of material to present, the question seems to be mostly whether you wish to present it in the original orchestration using ancient instruments or in a more modern arrangement. This is largely a matter of personal taste: myself I think i t is only fair to point out that many of the primitive instruments were handled with great virtuosity. The important point is to remember not to spend much time on the minor composers chemical or musical,
or even the minor works of the great ones. The salient point however is to keep the student's eye on appreciation rather than detailed fine structure; to teach him just enough about chemistry, as opposed to chemistry itself so that he can appreciate the important concepts and fundamentals. One such form of appreciation, I would think, is the ability to recognize a perpetual motion machine. I t would not be amiss to close with some remarks about modern music and parallel trends in modern science. Modern music has become so diversified and complex that there is a deplorable trend to define as music anything which is done by groups of musicians with musical (and sometimes non-musical) instruments, more or leas in concert. This fails to differentiate music and noise. There are elements of music; rhythm, melody, harmony, counterpoint, form, timbre. Some may be accentuated more than others, and all have been modernized but without any of these elements and without some balance between them, the result is not music but noise. This problem is not so pressing for science, I believe, although some of the plans I've seen for environmental perpetual motion machines might lead one to believe otherwise. Science in general and chemistry in particular is, I believe, just emerging from an unparallelled period of Tin-PanAlley ism, when trivia in unbelievable abundance was turned out. without regard to quality or relevance (as long as it could get financial support). What one might hope we are moving toward is a truly modern period where the rhythms, melodies and certainly the instrumentation is difficult and complex, where nevertheless small scale elegance (a sort of "chamber chemistry") still can exist. Whatever the results, it would be desirable if a larger segment of the public could appreciate it.
Harold W. Kohn Dickinson College Carlisle, Pennsylvania 17013
Volume 49, Number I
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November 1972
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