Scientist and musician in one person. Musicians are also scientists

Former minister defense of Donetsk people's republic(DPR) Igor Strelkov (Girkin) at a debate with politician Alexei Navalny said that the militia did not shoot down a Malaysian Boeing 777 over Donbass on July 17, 2014

Igor Strelkov said that the militia did not have the means with which to shoot down the plane. “All the air defense systems that I had at my disposal included five Igla MANPADS and one Strela-10, which at the time of the Boeing crash was in Zugres and covered Zugres. Accordingly, the militia subordinate to me could not shoot down the Boeing from the word “no way,” Strelkov said.

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“I cannot and will not give any other comments on this matter. I did not participate in the investigation and am not even interested in it in principle,” Strelkov emphasized.

Later, one Twitter user asked Strelkov why he first reported that an An-26 had been shot down that day and then deleted the message. “I didn’t write anything on Twitter because I wasn’t on it. I was not in any of the social networks. I did not write this message,” he emphasized.

“I can give my word of honor, I can swear on the Bible that I did not write this message. On the other hand, I don’t care, believe me,” Strelkov said.

Relatives of the dead British passengers in July 2015 accused Strelkov of organizing the shooting of Boeing and filed a lawsuit against him. They demanded compensation from him in the amount of $500 million. A similar lawsuit was filed against him in the United States.

In response, Strelkov called it “deeply symptomatic” that British residents “valued the lives of their relatives in money.”

Igor Strelkov also answered the audience’s question about where he got the weapons and money for the battles for Slavyansk in 2014.

“I can say that I took the weapon in Crimea, and I also took some money there - very small. And as an officer... I cannot and will not answer the remaining questions,” Strelkov replied.

In November 2014, Strelkov said that his squad started the war in Donbass. “I finally pulled the trigger of war. If our detachment had not crossed the border, in the end everything would have ended, as in Kharkov, as in Odessa. There would have been several dozen killed, burned, and arrested. And that would be the end of it. And practically the flywheel of the war, which is still going on, launched our detachment,” he said then.

The debate between Navalny and Strelkov was broadcast on Navalny’s YouTube channel, the channel of Strelkov’s supporters “RoyTV”, Reuters and Dozhd. The moderator was journalist Mikhail Zygar.

In 2014, ex-FSB officer Igor Strelkov led the defense of Slavyansk and Kramatorsk during battles with the Ukrainian army. After retreating to Donetsk, he headed the Ministry of Defense of the self-proclaimed DPR and held this post in the leadership of the Donetsk militia during the crash of a Malaysian Boeing in southeastern Ukraine in the summer of 2014. In August 2014, Strelkov resigned. After leaving Donbass for Russia, he began to criticize the leadership of the DPR and LPR and the assistant to the President of Russia and curator of the Ukrainian direction Vladislav Surkov, whom the ex-commander-in-chief called the culprit of his resignation. In Moscow, Strelkov led the Novorossiya social movement, which provides humanitarian assistance to Donbass and the militias.

On July 17, 2014, a Malaysian Boeing 777 was flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. The airliner crashed in eastern Ukraine, where active hostilities were taking place at that time. The documents of the international commission of inquiry report that the plane was shot down by a Buk anti-aircraft missile system (SAM) from territory that was at that time under the control of the militias of the self-proclaimed republic. The air defense system, according to them, was delivered to Donbass from Russia, and after the crash of the airliner it was returned there. At the time of the disaster, Igor Strelkov served as Minister of Defense of the self-proclaimed DPR.

Russian experts from the Almaz-Antey air defense concern, manufacturer of the Buk air defense system, say that the launch site was the area settlement Zaroshchenskoye, which was controlled at that moment by the Ukrainian army. At the same time, the 9M38 missile used for the attack was removed from service. Russian army in 2011, but remained at the disposal of the Ukrainian armed forces.

Special Operation Boeing 2

The Donbass militias have nothing with which to shoot down planes at such an altitude; only the Ukrainian air defense has Buk complexes. But how did Igor Strelkov’s “confession” appear on the Internet that the plane was shot down by rebels? It is possible that all these are elements of a pre-planned special operation.

“The plane was shot down by Ukrainian air defense,” writer Fyodor Berezin, whom Igor Strelkov appointed as his representative, told the MK observer over the phone. — The evidence is elementary: they have the means to do this, but we don’t. Why was he shot down? Yes, to blame it on us or by mistake. They have Buk anti-aircraft missile systems and Su-27 fighters. But you cannot believe what Kyiv says. They still do not admit that they shot down a Russian Tu-154 flying from Israel, although everyone has known about this for a long time.

— There was information that you also have Buks.

- Yes, we have one launcher that is broken. But even if it were operational, installation alone is not enough to shoot down a plane. Here you need a whole range of means: four launchers and equipment for target detection and missile guidance. All this is in other cars. If you only have a machine gun magazine in your hands, you won’t be able to shoot from it, will you? We do not have this complex in complete set. We can’t shoot down a target at such a height, we just don’t have anything yet. This plane was shot down by Ukrainian armed forces.

But most of all, the idea of ​​a pre-planned provocation is suggested by the clearly coordinated campaign on the Internet, which unfolded literally in the very first minutes after it became known about the fall of the Boeing. Almost simultaneously, a screenshot of a post allegedly belonging to DPR Defense Minister Igor Strelkov appeared on many Ukrainian Internet resources, on the blogs of “Svidomo patriots” and pro-Kiev Russian bloggers. It is given below.

The post, according to its distributors, contains “ sincere confession“Igor Ivanovich that the Boeing was shot down by his militia. The injection was carried out simultaneously in Russian, Ukrainian, English and German languages. Thus, on Facebook of the famous journalist Fatima Salkazanova, who lives in Paris, a link to “Strelkov’s confession” was posted by Paul Lukowski, who writes in German.

The whole point is that Strelkov has repeatedly stated that he does not have accounts on social networks, and all blogs maintained in his name are fake. A limited circle of people know that Strelkov himself writes only on one forum and not under his own name. From there, his posts are copied by all sorts of “well-wishers,” often without the consent of the author. Having visited this resource, I was convinced that this post was not there. The last report then (19 hours, July 17) was from 16.53. The next one appeared at 2.44 am.

And soon an explanation appeared from the authors of the fake themselves. The administration of the resource, where the “summary” originally appeared, posted the following message:

07/17/14. From the Public Administration.

ATTENTION!!!

Information about the downing of the plane was taken from a forum where they communicate local residents and militias. At the time of publication, all users thought that another AN-26 of the Kyiv Nazis had been shot down and the post about the downing, duplicated by us, was already in full swing on many public pages of the anti-Maidan movement. Igor Ivanovich Strelkov did not confirm information about the destruction of the plane. We remind you that in our public message Strelkova I.I. are published with a special banner “STRELKOV REPORTS”. We collect all other messages from open sources, as well as from the diaries of militiamen and eyewitnesses of the events. STRELKOV HIMSELF WRITES ONLY ON ONE SINGLE FORUM, we only duplicate his messages here, ALWAYS accompanying them with a SPECIAL BANNER. If there is no banner, then such a message is NOT from Strelkov, but from open sources (either from militias, or from eyewitnesses, or from journalists). (Spelling and punctuation preserved.)

So the question of whether the administration of this “public” acted consciously in favor of Kyiv or whether we are dealing with the “helpful fool” phenomenon remains open. But it is a fact that the puncture of the overly zealous PR people was recouped by the enemy one hundred percent.

Russian media believed the fake news that James Hetfield from Metallica became a doctor of astrophysics. However, some world-famous musicians actually have an academic degree.

Online publications picked up the news that the leader of the cult band Metallica, James Hetfield, received a doctorate in astrophysics.

The media referred to a 7-month-old article in the Nevada County Scooper that the musician, in his old age, became interested in science and made a breakthrough in the field of “improving light refactoring and the influence of gravity on the Hubble Space Telescope.”

Even those who are far from the topic and did not notice the catch in this almost meaningless set of words doubted the honesty of the authors. In particular, the source quotes the musician in which he states that he does not have enough money to support his family, so he decided to take up extra work. Many saw this as an obvious fake, but the media one after another republished the news without even bothering to think about what was written.

However, in the world of music there are indeed people who have scientific degrees and have achieved success in other fields. Here are 5 of the most famous ones.

1. Brian May, Queen Guitarist

The author of many hits graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at the prestigious Imperial College London. Brian had almost completed his PhD thesis on infrared astronomical research and had two scientific publications in astronomy when the success of Queen forced him to interrupt his scientific career.

However, he subsequently returned to research and completed what he started, receiving a degree from the University of Hertfordshire. On April 14, 2008, the musician was appointed rector of Liverpool John Moores University and held this position until March 2013. Brian is currently continuing musical career in the group Queen and continues scientific activity in the field of theoretical physics and mathematics.

2. Bruce Dickinson, vocalist of Iron Maiden:

Dickinson's interests are truly large-scale. Bruce loves fencing. He participated in international competitions(once a member of the England Youth Olympic Team) and is also the founder of the fencing equipment company Duelist.

Bruce's greatest passion is flying Boeing 757 jets as part of his job as a co-pilot for UK charter line Astraeus.

In an interview, he said that he received a degree in English literature, graduated from a correspondence university, and over the past few years have taken courses in criminology and legal law. In addition, Bruce is a writer, film scriptwriter and radio presenter.

3. Dexter Holland, lead singer of The Offspring

Holland holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology and a Master of Science in Molecular Biology from the University of Southern California. In addition, Dexter has a pilot's license, and since April 2009 he has been a licensed instructor. The musician flew around the earth alone in ten days.

4. Kanye West

American rapper Kanye West received a Doctor of Arts degree from the Art Institute of Chicago, one of the most respected specialized educational institutions in the United States (the title of Doctor in the American education system roughly corresponds to the Russian degree of Candidate of Sciences). True, for the most part, the cap and gown turned out to be pure luck.

Kanye once studied at the University of Chicago, where he studied English and where his late mother taught, but abandoned classes due to his passion for rap music. I never received the “crust”. But I always wanted to listen to several lectures at the Art Institute, which I mentioned several times in interviews.

“When I once lectured at Oxford, I thought it would be easier if I could call myself a Doctor of Arts from the Art Institute of Chicago,” West once remarked, either jokingly or seriously. After which a member of the academic council of the Art Institute, Lisa Wainrine, actually proposed awarding the musician a doctorate. “I thought, wow, this is fantastic! This is the main figure in modern culture, and he deserves this title!” she explained. Many university students considered this award simply a farce, but the job was done.

5. Vladi, “Casta”

Vladislav Leshkevich, better known as Vladi from the rap group “Casta,” defended his dissertation on the topic “Market institutionalization of the post-crisis economy: options and tools for localizing uncertainty” in 2006 and became a candidate of economic sciences. Vladi also has a musical education - he graduated from a music school with a degree in guitar.

Invention of the monochord

Wikimedia Commons

The invention of an instrument for precisely constructing musical intervals is attributed to Pythagoras. Its operating principle was first described by Euclid a century and a half later, but until the Renaissance, the monochord remained the main tool of theorists. It consisted of a single string with a movable clamp, which moved on the lower axis, parallel to the string, along its entire length in accordance with the division scale marked on the base. The instrument often did not even have a resonator. Unlike other musical instruments of antiquity, it was never heard in temples or squares. However, it was he who was destined to play a fateful role in the history of music.

The fact is that with the help of this simple device the Pythagoreans first established mathematical foundations musical harmony. According to the Greeks, musical harmony was part of the universal harmony of the world, which is based on numbers. Using this device, mathematical relationships of musical intervals in natural scale were calculated Natural build and the theory of musical modes was developed Lad- the central concept of the doctrine of harmony, a musical scale based on a system of intervals existing in one or another system (natural, pure, tempered). Diatonic modes are based on a specific alternation of tones or semitones and have seven degrees established initially by the use of intervals natural series(see previous footnote). The range, or mode module of modern modes, is an octave interval, that is, when we reach a sound that is in a 1:2 ratio with respect to the initial sound of the mode, we reach its border. In practice, this can be verified by using, for example, only the white keys of a piano keyboard. By playing a sequence of seven sounds from any of the white keys, starting each time from the next one, we get seven types of diatonic scales, in which tones and semitones alternate in different orders. The eighth movement will return us to the original combination of tones or semitones. This system was first derived and described by Ptolemy. The sound with which we begin to play each of the seven-step sequences is considered (at least in Russian musicology) the foundation of the mode, or its fundamental tone.
The range, or modulus, may not necessarily be equal to an octave. In addition to diatonic modes, there are also chromatic (consisting of equal semitones), whole tone (consisting of equal whole tones), octotone (consisting of uniform alternation of “tone - semitone”) and others, which are the fruits of composer’s inventions or borrowings of composers from folklore practice, which had place only in the second half of the 19th - 20th centuries. The division of the octave into equal semitones (chromatic scale) underlies the functional harmony and tonality of the 18th-20th centuries, equal temperament, and also makes it possible to compose music outside of tonality (see below Dodecaphony). .

1027

The emergence of the prototype of modern linear notation

Ms. Coll. 1468. Kislak Center for Special Collections / Rare Books and Manuscripts / University of Pennsylvania

The creation of the prototype of modern linear notation and solmization (solfege) by the Italian scientist, composer and teacher Guido d'Arezzo was primarily a step towards eliminating the gap between theory and practice of that time. Linear notation was a major step forward when compared with the older, so-called non-linear notation Non-nominal notation- a type of vocal notation in which the main element of musical notation is the neuroma. Nevma can correspond to one note or a set of notes of different pitches that form a melodic phrase. The exact pitch and rhythmic meaning of the nevma (in contrast to the school five-line bar notation) is, as a rule, impossible to determine., used in Europe since the 9th century. New system The recordings were supplemented by a special mnemonic system called the Guidon hand, where the order of sounds was determined by the knuckles and fingertips. For the first time, sounds were separated from the syllables of the sung text and received universal names, taken, however, also from the initial syllables of the hymn to St. John. Music training, thus, stood on a scientific basis. It has been dramatically simplified, putting an end to the oral transmission of colossal amounts of information.

It is also necessary to clarify that Guido discovered only the principle itself: before the creation music symbols in the form to which we are accustomed, there were still six whole centuries left. And Guido had only six names of notes - the seventh was added later It was the note B, which completed the scale to the full range of the octave; in Guido's time a six-stage system was used..

1481

A printing press was used for the first time to reproduce sheet music

Museo internazionale e Biblioteca della musica di Bologna

This was done by the Italian Ottaviano Scotto, who printed the missal Missal- a liturgical book of the Roman Catholic Church containing the sequences of the Mass with accompanying texts. from wooden boards. Exactly 20 years later, in 1501, his compatriot Ottaviano Petrucci (1466-1539) first used typeface to print notes and received Venetian Republic 20-year monopoly on their
edition The name of Ottaviano Petrucci in our time was given to the largest online music library (by analogy with the Gutenberg project).. Petrucci’s first music publication was the collection “Harmonice musices odhecaton” (“One Hundred Sweet-voiced Songs”), in which secular polyphonic compositions were published outstanding composers of that time - Obrecht, Okegem, Despres, Tinctoris and others. Until the invention of recording and radio, music printing became the main and almost the only means of distributing music in Europe.

1580-90s

Invention of equal temperament

Since the time of Pythagoras (), music has used natural
formation Natural build- a system based on a number of so-called overtones. Overtones are obtained by dividing a sounding body, such as a string, into equal parts in the ratio 1:2 (an overtone is formed, sounding in the interval of an octave from the fundamental tone), 3:2 (the next overtone, sounding in the interval of a fifth from the previous overtone), etc. The result is a series that is harmonic with respect to the fundamental tone. The diatonic scale is built on the basis of these intervals. However, only those intervals that are in direct relation to the chosen fundamental tone will sound acoustically pure in this tuning. Other intervals of the diatonic scale will sound out of tune.. However, human hearing is designed in such a way that in conditions of polyphony (when some intervals are taken by singers or a singer and an instrument together) or when moving from one key to another, we will perceive some combinations as false After all, all intervals in tune will have different ratios frequencies, and the smallest - semitone, or small second - as many as three: 15:16, 128:135, 24:25.. During the reign of vocal monophonic music, all these recalculations mostly remained on paper, but with the addition of an organ to the choir, which required precise tuning, the first problems began. With the development of instrumental music during the Renaissance, falsehood became unbearable. Invented various ways correction of the “error of nature” - in particular, by varying the width of the main intervals. This width was simply averaged to a certain acceptable value. This is how the concept of temperament was born, which translated from Latin means “calm.”

What was meant was not so much calming as a reduction in the number of beats in dissonances that are unpleasant to the ear (“as if a dire wolf is howling” - a common metaphor among Renaissance musicians), but rather calming human hearing. A reference interval was chosen, most often a fifth Quint , and for different fifths (there are twelve of them in total), their relationship with the optimal number of beats was calculated, and then all other intervals were adapted to this system. Adjusters still work approximately in this sequence. However, at the end of the 17th century, several prominent scientists immediately raised the question of creating a system in which all intervals would be perceived by the ear as equal to each other, starting with the smallest - a semitone (that is, 1/12 of an octave). It is impossible to say with certainty who was the author of the formula for calculating uniform temperament, since we find it from different authors.

As is the case with other inventions designed to unify one or another music technology, equal temperament gave a powerful impetus to composers who began to use a system of equal semitones to obtain the most bold sound combinations. On the other hand, equal temperament caused legitimate objections from performing musicians, primarily string players, who rightly argued that the natural attraction of tones in a tuning with equal temperament to each other in melodies sound poorer and drier.

According to the latest data, Bach also used different systems uneven temperament. However, all designs of musical instruments starting from mid-18th century centuries, they were built taking into account uniform temperament, except for bowed strings, the design of which, in principle, cannot be adapted to this system. The latest "natural" tools symphony orchestra copper ones remained (in some places until the beginning of the twentieth century), but further improvement of their design also did not leave them a chance. Only in vocal music (everywhere in folklore and sometimes in church) has the natural structure survived.

1560s

Instruments of the violin family

Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire de Strasbourg

Contrary to recently widespread belief, the violin was not a product of spontaneous improvement and hybridization of pre-existing bowed instruments (various viols, fidel or rebec), but was a conscious invention of a fundamentally new instrument that corresponded to the most recent (by the middle of the 16th century) data from the field of physics and acoustics . Four strings tuned in fifths Quint- a musical interval with a width of five steps., made it possible to quickly and conveniently unify the position of the fingers on the fingerboard. Compared to the viol, the violin had a much more powerful and rich sound.

As is the case with similar inventions, this one had several authors at once Presumably Micheli Pellegrino, Nicolo Fontana and Andrea Amati., and the development and improvement of violin construction in the 17th century led to the appearance in the first half of the 18th century of the famous instruments of Stradivari and Guarneri. The instruments of the viol family received a powerful competing clan, the fight against which was lost just in time for the Guarneri era (second quarter of the 18th century). The entire violin family was created at once as a whole set, the initial composition of which was as follows: soprano violin, alto, tenor, bass. The range of instruments roughly corresponded to the ranges of singing voices - the absolute dominance of vocal music and the accompanying role of instruments was still a harsh reality in the 16th century. Later, the tenor dropped out of this set, but a double bass appeared, created by Michele Todini a hundred years later True, this invention was forgotten until the formation of the classical orchestra (1750s).. Unlike many other instruments, instruments of the violin family have undergone virtually no changes in design (except for the design of the bow, as well as other little things like the shape of the bridge or the replacement of gut strings with steel strings in the 20th century).

1709

Invention of the piano

The Crosby Brown Collection Musical Instruments, 1889 / Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bartolomeo Cristofori invents the piano, fundamentally changing the design of the harpsichord, known since the 15th century. In the harpsichord, when a key was pressed on a string, a special feather touched it, which made it impossible to control the strength of the sound and length. The only one expressive means harpsichordists had articulation Articulation- connected or separate production of sounds, minute changes tempo within a measure or even one beat., as well as application huge amount melodic embellishments (melismas), designed primarily to prolong or accentuate a particular sound (for example, a trill). In order to diversify the dynamics and character of the sound, other sets of strings were connected, controlled from another keyboard (as in an organ). In Cristofori's instrument, the string was struck by a hammer, the force of which depended on the force of pressing the key. Therefore, it received the name “harpsichord with a quiet and loud sound” (in Italian di piano e forte, where it comes from modern name piano). The vibrations of the string could be dampened by a muffler (damper), or they could be left sounding by pressing the pedal or releasing it. Improvements in mechanics and the resonant part began to appear already in the first decade of the new product’s existence, and by 1858 this instrument acquired its modern look. During this time, the piano became the most popular instrument, which it continues to be, although it is losing ground to the electric piano.

1722

The emergence of functional harmony

Bibliotheque Nationale de France

Initially, European professional music was monophonic and modal, that is, based on one mode or another Anyone can get a basic idea of ​​the modes used in the Middle Ages (they are also sometimes called church modes) by playing a sequence of seven sounds in a row from each of the seven white keys of the octave., with a single foundation that sounds only at the beginning and at the end of the composition. With the development of polyphonic music, independent lines of voices began to form chords, but the chord was not perceived separately from the voice lines for a long time, which is quite difficult for a modern listener to understand, accustomed to perceiving music as a sequence of chords. (It took the entire 17th century to select stable, effective, and memorable chord progressions.) Moreover, four of the six most commonly used modes simply disappeared from circulation and changed names. Now for us it is major and minor.

The French composer and theorist of the Baroque era, Jean Philippe Rameau, in his “Treatise on Harmony Reduced to Its Natural Principles” introduced a hierarchy of steps that remained in the use of modes. The first three chords from this system are the tonic Tonic- the first stage of a major or minor mode, its main foundation., subdominant Subdominant- the fourth degree of the mode relative to the tonic, one of the main stages of the mode-harmonic series, located one tone lower than the dominant. and dominant Dominant- the fifth degree of the mode relative to the tonic, one of the main stages of the musical series.- “three thieves chords”, known to any guitarist trying his hand at the back alley. (In Rameau’s gallant times, they were called the “triple proportion” system.) Rameau justifies the concept of tonality as “a system of hierarchically centralized functional relationships, where the tonic permeates the entire harmonic structure.” In addition, the chords, according to Rameau, now had to be placed in strictly designated places. Thus, a new musical syntax was established, in which stopping on the dominant meant something like a comma in complex sentence, and stopping at the tonic is a period. The localization of the realm of tonic, dominant, or other functions becomes an integral and recognizable feature of larger divisions of forms. All forms of classics without exception The main representatives are Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven. and the Romantics—from Chopin’s little prelude to Bruckner’s colossal symphony—were based on the opposition of functions closer to the tonic and more distant from it. In the 19th century, the proliferation of the principle of “triple proportion” to other degrees of the scale led to a heavier system, blurring of the boundaries of major and minor (for example, in Wagner), and the creation of extremely extended syntactic structures of colossal complexity (for example, in Brahms). The impressionist Claude Debussy began to admire individual beautiful chords, scattering them in whole clusters across all orchestra groups or piano registers, and the eccentric composer and pianist Erik Satie went even further, violating all the rules of harmony out of principle. IN last third In the 20th century, mass music under the influence of blues and folklore returned to a modal basis, and at present Rameau’s invention is actually used only in educational practice and for stylizations.

1815

Invention of the metronome

Musikinstrumenten-Museum des Staatlichen Instituts für Musikforschung – Preußischer Kulturbesitz / Oliver Schuh

German mechanic, pianist and teacher Johann Nepomuk Mälzel received a patent for his invention on December 5th. His metronome design gained particular popularity, although early XIX century, Maelzel had many competitors, as the idea of ​​a “musical chronometer” was in the air. This invention not only served educational purposes, beating out absolutely even beats or entire measures, but was also intended to record the author’s will regarding the tempo of the composition being performed. Before the invention of the metronome, the composer indicated only the character (cheerful, lively, wide), and the approximate tempo depended on the duration of the beats Thus, allegro (that is, “fun”) in three eighths was supposed to be played faster than in three quarters., but by 1815 the tempo increasingly depended on individual and even regional preferences, not to mention the acoustics of the room. Beethoven was an ardent promoter of the new invention, dedicated to Mälzel canon "Ta-ta-ta" and imitated the sound of a metronome in second movement of the Eighth Symphony. However, metronomic indications are a small part of the entire catalog of Beethoven's works, and in different sources- different metronomic numbers. Another lover of metronomic numbers was Igor Stravinsky, but his own recordings of the same works, made in different years (1925-1965), also show completely different numbers. Moreover, as the history of recording performance shows, the tempo of performance of the same symphonies by Beethoven (and even more so by Mendelssohn, Schumann and other romantics) changed every 20 years under the influence of fashion, new possibilities for the acoustics of concert halls, sound recording, and so on. But the metronome cannot be considered a useless invention: this is the best proof that Musical time, like any other, is a rather conditional and subjective category.

1877-1900

Inventions in the field of mechanical recording
(1877 - invention of the phonograph, 1898 - gramophone, 1900 - mechanical piano)

Acoustic research in the 1860s naturally culminated in the invention of a machine that made it possible not only to obtain a visual image of sound, but also to reproduce it. Today, in the era of the electronic revolution, it can be argued that both turned out to be equally important for the music of the future, but it was the ability to reproduce recorded sound, as well as to replicate it, that turned out to be equal to the effort to invent musical notation. The sheet of music has lost its monopoly on the right to be the sole carrier of musical information.

Library of Congress

The French poet and amateur inventor Charles Cros announced in 1877 the invention of the palephone, the idea of ​​which came to him while working on the creation of color animation. Kro did not patent this device, but Edison patented his own a month later with the wording “improvement of an instrument for controlling and reproducing sounds.” (Industrial samples of actually working phonographs, recording sound on cylindrical wax rollers, appeared only ten years after the appearance of an experimental model in which a needle, creating sound vibrations in a membrane attached to it, moved up and down Edison's assistant Emil Berliner turned the system 45 degrees: his needle oscillated left and right..)

American inventor Emil Berliner called his device the gramophone and launched its industrial production in Great Britain in 1898. Paradoxically, initially records and phonographs were not considered to record the process of individual musical performance - catalogs and record labels only contained the name of the work and the composition of the instruments The quality was such that this explanation may have been necessary.. Only the sound engineer and producer of the Gramophone company Fred Gaisberg thought of making recordings of outstanding singers and instrumentalists. The first recording stars were Caruso, Chaliapin, Battistini and Melba. In 1910, the total circulation of a record with a recording of Canio's arioso from Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci performed by Caruso reached a million.

Library of Congress

The gramophone turned over social function music, displacing home music playing along with the pianola, a mechanical piano that appeared in 1900. Mechanical recording excited the minds of inventors, who reasonably decided that since a record could reproduce the recorded sound, it meant that the sound of their own invention could be engraved on it. This idea appeared already in 1907 by the Russian futurist Nikolai Kulbin, but it was realized only 20 years later on the basis of optical recording. Repetitions of this idea could be found in avant-garde magazines until 1926, when the idea of ​​“painted sound” was in the air. Music for the mechanical piano, which cannot be performed on anything else, began to be created already in the 1910s: the most famous example — "Mechanical Ballet" Man Ray and George Antheil for film projection, ensemble of pianos and noise instruments, 1924.

1923

Invention of dodecaphony

Arnold Schönberg Center

After the collapse, composers began to look for ways to create a new tonal organization that could withstand the chaos of sounds. Some composers turned to the harmony of the higher overtones of the natural series (for example, Scriabin), but equal temperament prevented them from bringing these experiments to the end, and going beyond its limits at that time turned out to be premature. Many composers tried to return to modality and began to create new modes based on numerical patterns (Messiaen) or observations of in folk modes(Bartok).. Austrian composers began to build on the most important classical principles, such as the unity of the material, the possibility of its variation and its repetition - over the course of ten years, Arnold Schoenberg and his students, Anton Webern and Alban Berg, carefully developed principles for working with the most elementary parts of musical speech: motive, interval, chord. Along the way, they were forced to pay attention to the essential role of other acoustic parameters of music, previously considered simply decorative: primarily timbre and dynamics. For all their sophistication, the principles of this so-called atonal music (they themselves defined it as extratonal) were too fragile and did not allow for the creation of great contrasts (with the exception of vocal music). What was needed was some kind of total system that would replace the functional tonality, but would be more flexible and comprehensive. And such a system was found.

Used by permission of Belmont Music Publishers and the Arnold Schoenberg Center

The priority in the discovery of dodecaphony is still disputed, since several composers in the world were independently concerned with the search for such a system. different countries. But only Schoenberg managed to build a harmonious and consistent system of 12 tones, in which each subsequent tone is connected only with the previous one. This means the complete elimination of the concept of foundation and center, that is, the formation of a horizontally organized organization (like the Internet or secret societies, where each participant knows only the members of his cell) of the system. The sequence of these tones is called a series (Schoenberg wrote “series”). Within the series, not a single sound is repeated. The number 12 (in Greek “dodeka”) corresponds to the number of semitones in the octave, and therefore the sounds of the chromatic scale Chromatic scale- ascending or descending melodic movement in semitones.. A series of 12 sounds becomes the main one building material dodecaphonic music. Naturally, until all 12 sounds appear in the presentation one after another in a given sequence, none of them can be repeated, otherwise this will be the beginning of a return to the previous chaos. A series is neither a melody (although it may well acquire its form), nor a chord (although it can be taken in parts or as a whole at the same time), but rather a sound field, that is, a fundamentally new state of sound matter. None of the sounds in the series, including the initial and final ones, is a center of gravity, as in modal or tonal music. After all, all the sounds of the series are connected only with each other.

Arnold Schönberg, 3. Streichquartett für 2 Violinen, Viola und Violoncello op. thirty

Copyright 1927 by Universal Edition A.G., Wien/PH 228

www.universaledition.com

Series have several other important properties. First, their shape remains the same when reading in mirror image, when reading backwards, and also in mirror image backwards. Schoenberg borrowed this game from the authors of the Renaissance, who made full use of such transformations of the chorale melody, in the sequence of sounds of which no changes could be made, since it was sanctified by papal authority. Secondly, the number of episodes is only formally exhaustible The number of combinations of 12 sounds is expressed as 12! (factorial 12), that is, 479,001,600.. "I have provided German music priority for the next 200 years,” Schoenberg wrote about his discovery in a letter to one of his correspondents.

Arnold Schönberg Center

Schoenberg's hopes, however, were only partially justified. Directly the dodecaphonic method in pure form used by almost all composers at one time or another in their work, but rarely did this principle become dominant. Classical dodecaphony is rather dry and monotonous, bears the indelible mark of its era and style (mainly expressionism) and at present its “1923 edition” is old-fashioned.

In the Soviet Union, dodecaphony, despite the efforts of Nikolai Roslavets, who worked in the same direction in the 1910s and 20s to promote it, was banned as a technique and turned into a dirty word that denoted any music that went beyond the neoclassical canon.

This article considers only those inventions that are important for the history of the development of music, which in one way or another lie within the boundaries of the European professional written tradition using acoustic musical instruments. Therefore, the history of electroacoustic music, which is based on fundamentally new ideas about the recording of sound and the sources of its origin, will remain outside the scope of this review. At the same time, electroacoustic music is in one way or another based on the knowledge and inventions that arose in the pre-electric era.

They don't have a job. Just hobbies. Sometimes they themselves doubt which one is stronger. Employees of Moscow State University, IBCh and the Institute of Transplantology play guitars, drum and say: “We make money in science, we have fun in music. If we made money from music, we would have fun in science.”Help website:

Mochalov Konstantin Evgenievich- Researcher at the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences named after M.M. Shemyakin and Yu.A. Ovchinnikova RAS, (proteomics laboratory), candidate of technical sciences. He is engaged in the development of probe-optical techniques - a mixture of probe and optical perfocal microscopy.

Efimov Anton Evgenievich- Senior Researcher, Institute of Transplantology. He is engaged in probe techniques, developing a scanning probe microscope combined with an ultramicroton, which makes it possible to make an ultra-thin section of the material and study the surface using a three-dimensional picture with nanometer resolution.

Bobrovsky Alexey Yurievich- Associate Professor of the Department of Macromolecular Compounds of Moscow State University, senior researcher, Candidate of Chemical Sciences. He is engaged in liquid-crystalline photosensitive polymers, passive optical media, and conducts fundamental work in the field of design, synthesis, and the study of phase behavior, optical and photo-optical properties of such systems.

Now the machine is being configured to search for an optical confocal image, - Konstantin Mochalov explains what is happening in the structural optical device with the working title “ST Spectrum”. - We will receive an image of the needle on the monitor, fix it, and the sample under the needle will begin to be scanned. The main advantage of our machine is that it will solve one of the most difficult problems that arise when studying opaque samples: it will allow you to simultaneously study the surface and fluorescent properties. This is a unique characteristic; I have never seen devices with similar properties. Usually, these studies require two different instruments, two studies, which is very inconvenient.

Actually, we're here to talk about music. This is not the first time this topic has come up, drawing out more and more reasons for conversation. My interlocutors work in different institutions, mostly or to a lesser extent are connected by scientific interests, but, in addition to science, they have long been united by another hobby: music.

Kostya and I have known each other for a long time, mainly in musical matters - we haven’t played together, but we often met at concerts,” says Alexey Bobrovsky, associate professor of the department of macromolecular compounds at Moscow State University. - It was not by chance that I ended up in the proteomics laboratory now. Kostya repeatedly spoke about the unique combination of confocal microscopy with atomic force microscopy, and approached me from the point of view of cooperation - there is common topics. Now these plans have begun to come true.

They have had common themes for many years - since their student days.

The MEPhI dormitory is, like all students, guitars, songs, wine, “Garbage Wind”... - recalls Konstantin Mochalov, researcher at the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences. - Then the idea arose that we were better at playing than singing, and we smoothly moved on to purely instrumental music. There were guitarists and bassists. The main problem then, in the late 90s, was the drummers. The demand for them was crazy! Now this business has developed, there is a lot of video materials, money, opportunities - they have a place to learn. And then we ran around looking for someone to drum for us. Alexey was then playing in the group “Inside”, and we met at some concert.

According to Alexey, he took up the drums out of a kind of protest:

As a student, everyone played guitars, but in my second year, out of spite, I took sticks and started banging on a chair... For some reason I wanted to play drums. Then my friends brought me a drum kit from somewhere, and I began to choose holes between pairs and run to the dorm - during the day, when everyone was in class and I wasn’t bothering anyone, I could practice. Various musicians came to me, and in 95-96 I played simultaneously in six bands, from reggae to grindcore, perhaps the most extreme style...

Senior researcher at the Institute of Transplantology Anton Efimov, according to him, has been interested in music since school, but only as a listener:

Classic rock music: Beatles, Pink Floyd, Black Sabbath and others, punk music, alternative and so on. Then I tried to play an acoustic guitar, then a bad guitar for 200 dollars, but I didn’t learn to play professionally at all, just purely for myself and never thought about playing in a group. Then at work, at the Institute of Transplantology, we met Kostya. We sat in neighboring rooms, working on our instruments. Kostya once let me listen to his recordings and introduced him to Andrei Suchilin, a student of Robert Fripp from King Crimson. We talked about the fate of culture, went to crazy concerts, and at Andrey’s suggestion, I played in Petrozavodsk for the first time...

Crazy people, crazy ideas

Despite the serious profession, the student’s hobby did not let go, gradually developing and tightening.

I met even crazier people - the Russian-Belarusian community “Sunflowers,” says Anton. - They organized quite a lot of different musical and art projects, one of which is “Magic Single-Cell Music” (V.O.M). There are several groups under this name, they are called by numbers V.O.M-3, -4, -5. V.O.M-3 and -5 are located in Minsk, V.O.M-4 - in Moscow. The idea of ​​this project is to make music based on rock, from which all musical structure has been removed. There are no ordinary melodies, no changes in rhythm. A very smooth rhythm, very monotonous music, from which some completely different structure develops, a different space for music appears. Such a composition can last from forty minutes to at least two hours. Bass, drum, guitar make the rhythmic backbone, playing one note on all instruments, and I make sound effects, noises, smeared sound clouds.

In 1999, Konstantin Mochalov, with friends with whom he studied at MEPhI and later worked at the Moscow Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, organized the group Disen Gage. Performances in a student club, self-made recordings, and in 2004 - the debut CD “The Screw-Loose Entertainment”.

Now we are closer to the idea of ​​making low-cost music, since we have few resources,” says Konstantin. - And we strive to play drier and drier. Andrey Suchilin, the composer and musician with whom we work, is an extreme person, in his opinion, ideal format for performances - reel-to-reel tape recorder. He once offered to organize a show, invite some craftsmen to cook shawarma on stage during a concert...

In 2009, the musicians created a new project with defiant name Zen Porno.

In Disen Gage, everyone was from IBH, except for the drummer, says Konstantin. - Then everyone dispersed, someone went to the bank or somewhere else, and I was the only one left from science. Evgeny Kudryashov is a professional drummer, Fedor Amirov is a professional academic pianist and also acts as a vocalist. It's funny, but he never knows what he'll sing! He just starts to drive whatever God wants. It’s interesting that people sometimes said that “they couldn’t understand the words, but that didn’t matter.” Exactly said!

Almost meditation

The development of the “musical theme” by Alexei Bobrovsky was even more original. In the early 2000s, he worked in Germany at the University of Marburg and played in the German group Isengard, where not everything went well with the team. And then he came across the video school of the famous drummer Terry Bozzio - a man who single-handedly creates music on a drum kit.

I realized that you can play music on a “noise” instrument,” says Alexey. - I had the idea to play solo: take a lot of drums, cymbals (cymbals) and other objects from which you can extract sounds.

The Alexander von Humboldt scholarship, which Alexey received in 2002, helped the young scientist create a powerful drum kit. For several years, Alexey bought and connected individual parts. The installation, with a total cost of about 30 thousand dollars, occupies a quarter of the rehearsal space, which the musicians set up in the basement of an automobile repair plant near the Semyonovskaya metro station. The design, which has almost no analogues in the world, consists of more than twenty-five drums arranged in a semicircle, many cymbals, and twenty pedals, allowing the musician to create a rhythmic pattern with his feet, freeing his hands for melody. According to Alexey’s colleagues, when he sits down at his installation, “he has eight arms and eight legs.” However, despite the uniqueness of his instrument and his own skill, Alexey has no desire to go out in public. He needs music for himself.

“I sit there for three hours a day, I play alone, no one hears me, no one sees me, I communicate with myself, conduct a “monologue” through the drums,” says Alexey. - I play, and something changes in me, some thoughts arise... It’s something akin to meditation. I have no need to get on stage and amaze everyone. During my life I played in more than twenty bands and completely satisfied this need. Now I mainly do “composing”, coming up with material that can be played. And when will this happen - in five, ten years? For me there is no difference, I just like the process. If the music works, I’ll record something; if it doesn’t work, I won’t record it.

For me, science still comes first. I became interested in it a long time ago, and I read about liquid crystals and polymers while still at school. In high school, I synthesized polymers at home, I even wanted to “cook” some kind of liquid crystal, but I couldn’t find the necessary reagents. And when I found out that Moscow State University has a laboratory that deals with crystalline polymers, I went there. I have been working there with pleasure for eighteen years. This is my main hobby. Drumming came about much later and is a relatively new hobby.

- You call everything a hobby... Do you have a job?

For me it's the same thing. I recently became interested in amateur astronomy. I revived my old school hobby. I already have several telescopes in the Moscow region. On weekends I go there and look at the sky: planets, stars, star clusters, nebulae, galaxies... Insanely beautiful!

abyss

- How do fellow scientists react to your passion for music?

Scientific and musical parties generally lie on different planes mentally, Konstantin is sure. - It’s not that your colleagues are ratting when you constantly walk around hung with some kind of tools, but out of the corner of my ear I heard unpleasant expressions, especially among senior staff. It sounds somewhat childish. Now, if a person plays, say, paintball, this is normal, this is a completely male hobby. But the music is not that...

Among non-scientists, I have no friends left who would vehemently oppose my hobby. Such disputes can last twenty-five years. And when there are no critics left in the environment, what kind of clashes can we talk about? How can people who don’t understand me stay around? As who?

And I would say that they usually evaluate things well, with interest,” says Anton. - I just don’t advertise my passions too much, and I don’t take criticism at all.

Alexey, one might say, is lucky - his boss approves of his hobby:

He often even organizes some kind of event at three o'clock in the afternoon, and not in the morning - he knows that in the morning I practice drums.

In general, musicians have a much more crooked idea of ​​scientists than vice versa,” continues Konstantin. “Sometimes they say things like you might faint.” There is one lady who is engaged electronic music, goes to all sorts of Rastafarian parties... Frostbitten girl. And so she needed to earn extra money, so she said: “Do you have a part-time job in the laboratory?” The man is completely calm, blue eye asks “from the street” to work part-time in a laboratory! That is, he doesn’t understand so much what we’re talking about... And I want to note: there are a lot of such people. Such an abyss!

According to Anton, there is nothing to be surprised by the gap between scientists and society:

Not surprising. A musician comes out with a guitar and plays - the result is visible, everyone can understand what he is doing. Everyone imagines his activities much better than what scientists do. This gap arose a long time ago, and not only in science. First, from the mid-twentieth century, academic music went there, then everything went there except our favorite driveway rock... Scientists went there even before the atomic bomb, becoming heroes scary comics. I talked to a lot of people - musicians, psychologists, people with an esoteric bent. For them, a physicist is a crazy professor with disheveled gray hair. He carries out crazy, terrible experiments, wants to destroy the entire universe with his collider and wreaks chaos and nightmare. This is exactly the image.

Not a conveyor belt!

Do you see? This is an optical spectral image, with significantly more high resolution what we see in a regular microscope - the ST Spectrum has finished setting up, and we were distracted by studying the fluorescent image visible on the device’s monitor. Konstantin Mochalov explains what makes the image unique. - We can see in the same area of ​​the sample both its surface relief and the location, that is, the concentration, of dye molecules.

To be honest, I even forgot that my interlocutors are scientists... A reminder that they are not professional musicians, explained to me the seeming ease with which they mixed the compositions of their musical groups many times.

“Everyone has different regimes,” says Konstantin. - For example, it’s convenient for me to play in the morning, and everyone basically works at this time.

In addition, people have families, work, and their own affairs,” adds Anton.

And it’s also difficult to deal with your “hereditary diseases”: when you are in the same composition and in the same mode for a long time, you begin to feel like you are at a conveyor belt, and this is not interesting, continues Konstantin. - Changing the lineup solves two problems: you get out of the groove and can somehow update yourself, do something new and interesting, and at the same time you don’t spend a lot of time on all this. Another person came, and once again! - something has changed…

The atmosphere is refreshed, the situation changes,” Alexey agrees.

For example, this is my second year in the performance mode with different projects, different teams,” says Anton. - On average, it turns out to be one concert per month. With “Magic Single-Cell Music” last fall we had a whole marathon - we organized a five-day tour in several cities. A Japanese singer, Damo Suzuki, performed with us. In the early 70s he sang in the German group CAN, then left it, and now lives in Germany. He's nearly sixty, he sings perfectly intuitive method, in an “unknown language” - there is voice improvisation. He can sing for three hours, it’s all very driving! Sometimes it even seems that you are making out some English words... He and I found each other very well and played together in Minsk, St. Petersburg, Pskov, Moscow. It is important to find your own direction in music, to understand where and how to include your works so that people can find it and listen to it. We need marketing. For example, we noticed that our music does not go well at rock festivals, but very well at rave-electronic festivals. We played at a festival near St. Petersburg - there was electronic and psychedelic music there. People from this area showed great interest in our endeavors. Apparently, we are getting something close to those directions.

Compromise

Combining two creative activities is not difficult if both are interesting. A year ago, Alexey devoted six hours to music every day, now he spends three or four hours. Anton mainly studies at home, coming to the rehearsal facility once a week. And Konstantin plays according to his mood, sometimes for days.

For “just a hobby” you devote too much time and effort to music. Have you ever wanted to keep only one of your two hobbies?

Anton: For many, science is not a profession, although a lot of time is also spent on it... In essence, there is no difference: if they pay in music, then in science we will have fun.

Konstantin: When a person starts earning money, he instantly flies out of the realm of freedom of creativity, no matter what field he works in. When you start working in science, you have to write reports. As soon as you get involved with music, you will run into contract obligations. In fact, I would like to take music more seriously. To be honest, at some point many tried to make money from this...

Alexey: I never thought about it.

Konstantin: Maybe you turned out to be more perspicacious than all of us... Here is the situation: if you are a “star”, you become a media character, and then music will be hard work, you will play the same thing all the time. I would like to connect what I like with what I can do to earn money. But it’s basically impossible to make money from what we like: we only have about a thousand listeners in Moscow. The concept of a rock band as a stable group is now associated with a very specific thing: a profession. Because if a person can not go to work and quietly study music, he can at least somehow update the program. Worthwhile things are written when they exist free time, and now I don’t have the right to free creativity. The age is such that something else needs to be done. But in science we all have the same situation: if it didn’t fascinate us, we wouldn’t be doing it.

Anton: For example, I don’t consider myself a musician in the literal sense of the word, I don’t have music education. Everything that we arrange is, rather, a consequence of some kind of internal movement. This is not avant-garde, but some kind of musical futurism. This is a form of spiritual life.

Alexey: What would you really like? So that nothing interferes with doing what you like. I would like not to earn money, but to receive money as a gift! I also do science simply for the love of science! But there, as Kostya said, it’s the same: you have to do a lot of boring things - write projects, reports, and not conduct interesting experiments...

Music by Alexei Bobrovsky

Music by Anton Efimov