Toward a State of Innate Fabrication and the Creative Subharmonic

Helmholtz put to death an emerging theory in the 19th century, that they was such a thing as undertone in music, and that this accounted for sinorous harmony heard in minor chords, which would be read as upside down . Helmholtz argued that there simple were no undertones there, there was no evidence for it as there was for overtones ab0ve the fundamental. So, he further argues, that the use of minors would always be secondary to the more harmonious, harmonic based major triad and major scale. The duel harmonic theory was laid to rest, it would appear. But, what if this evidence was not available because the undertones were manifest as a different nature than overtones, and further, what if – the existence of phenomenon such as this and other audio curioddities were part of a more deeply embedded and innate system of all creative art, and, there existed a creative harmonic system, evidenced by the absence of an undertone series and the lack of symmetry. Musicologist clutch their scraps of significance, as do physicists, and composers. People always try to bury anything that threatens to topple more than the specific subject or example at hand, and these people always see a bugaboo when common knowledge is threatened. So, an intuitive leap is stepped on at its neck, and failed to evolve beyond the state of speculation, because of the opinion of the expert.

The lack of the undertone series – can be seen as evidence of something present, if we think in terms not 19th century, but then, what? Max Reichmann continued to develop his speculation into an imaginative edifice of freedom in thought, unpublished, unread, an invisible capstone to the end of 19 century  and emergence of 20th century musicology. Yes, Reichmann was one of those who Helmholtz had been addressing himself. And, it was an effective deflation, because, Helmholtz of course was the last work on these topics in this new area, where music would be treated as a science, and only answerable to the verifiable. Reichmann was quieted we know as were the others, but the effect on him was much more personal and dramatic than the others. His contemporaries generally came frame a history background, so arguments they had made in this new field had little effect on their careers.. They  were already established at university departments where despite this single embarrassment, there was little repercussion. But, for Reichmann, it was another story. He held an assistant professorship at Leipzig University, an instructor in music theory, and as he dabbled in this field of musicology before it was defined, it seemed, it reflected on his competence as a theory instructor. He continued to work as assistant professor, and never made tenure, nor enjoy stability from year to year of additional classes that would have helped him financially, as he suffered with a growing family. He wrote handbooks and guides for conventional harmony and composition for education publishers for very little money, for his late nights and long weeks of work. He died just before he was to turn sixty years old. So it is surprising that in that shortened life, he was able, amid his struggles with family and writing for money into the morning he was able to produce in stolen moments a manuscript in the speculative and imaginative realm that exposed a fervently creative and untiring mind, if one gone a bit far off confirmable course. It was likely the cause of this shortened life, but this is speculation too. As with the many “Oneye” manifestations now emerging, it is possible his course was simply completed.

     So it is in keeping with the miraculous how this unpublished manuscript came to light. While casually glancing across a shelf on the fourth floor of the Taipei National Public Library, were English books are housed,  something caught my eye. It was a leather bound book, with tattered edges and binding that was filled with pages that had been cut to different sizes, so that it appeared the book was a binding of notes and scraps from many different notebooks and sources. I touched it, and a piece of paper flaked off, and brittle brown glue fell to the floor. I realized the appearance of this volume was not so much caused by use or study, but simply by age; its construction would hardly allow frequent reading over the obviously long years since its inception. I carefully open the back jacket. There was no library mark or imprint. Had someone just walked in and left it here? I felt an exciting sensation of destiny. I opened the front jacket – The name Max Reichmann was clearly written in hand across the first page, and dated – 1899. As I hungrily turned the pages, I found the entire book was written by hand, on all sorts of different paper that were in various conditions of preservation and decay – but on all, the ink had sustained, it was very readable, though in German. So here, I did a bad thing; I looked around me, and there was no one there – I thought, no library stamp, perhaps also no magnetic strip. I stuff the volume into the front of my pants and quickly left the library a little hunched over. When I got back to the safety of the cloister without being apprehended, I breathed a sigh of relief audible to myself. I found a German dictionary on line, and began to struggle, translating it one word at a time. The hours disappeared, then days, then weeks, then months. I was always excited to return to the project, and my growing anticipation of amazing discoveries was never disappointed. I came to realize in the process that I had discover an as yet undiscover theoretical original work of the “Oneye” variety. Yes I felt, there is destiny in this. I tried to imagine the machinations that might had brought this singular book to me, but I could not. Miraculous it was. It appeared, the Reichmann had developed a complete system around the idea that the harmonic series was pervasive in all things, far reaching and unbound by the realm of sound and observable physics. He focused expressly on the subharmonics, which Helmholtz had dismissed as simply not existing in sound and physics. Reichmann argued that evidence and manifestation of the subharmonics was not evident in the realm of physics because it did not exist there; it passed over from observable physics into the realm of metaphysics, philosophy, and art. He found he had discovered the existence of the immeasurable kernel of creation, and creative energies, that constituted his  subharmonics, and like the intangible, he took it as a truth based on faith, and the strength of his wider intellect. There were diagrams. Reichmann tried to show that physics and sound theory and music was like one side of a folded piece of infinite paper. The physics were valid up to where the paper was creased, but couldn’t cross over to the other side over the fold. One side was observable by senses and evidence of technology and tools, and cause and effect, revealing the results when a thing itself was not visible, but the method of Descartes and Bacon had no application beyond the fold. If you remember Abbot’s book Flatland, you can imagine how this possibly might be so. It had something to do with dimensionality. It had everything to do with dimensionality. But unlike Flatland, Reichmann imagined this was not just useful model to explain the nature of mathematics. Reichmann felt it was very real, and existed. He deduced that there were organisms that lived on this infinite paper, which we could partly observe on the side ruled by physics, but as we were not seeing it complete, it lacked the order and symmetry that would define an organism as a living thing. The physical aspect under observation would seem only as disconnected matters and energies, with a give and flow detectable through physics, but the flaw he saw in our observation was that we assumed, even through rigorous method, that  that it was the physics that was the entity, and in reality, the matters observed, only hypothetic. It is hard to imagine this, but there is a consistency to it, the possibility that it could be true, if it is our perspective which is false. And our science also, a blind conceit. If one perceived somehow the metaphysical beyond the fold, one could see the entire organism, and that part manifest in what was matter and energies, as a coherent whole in a complimentary and complete relationship to its parts beyond the fold. He felt these organisms could be felt through artwork that are pure in nature. The organisms had shape and a kind of substance, a kind of overall body, and living spirit as a ghost or soul. The subharmonics, if you were to take the overtones as a cue, existed as discrete points upon the body of the organism. He imagined them as something like nipple forms, which gave off a kind of flow or substance that would be released when they had reached a certain condition generated by the entire organism, in a state of ripeness. Amusing it may sound, but it was an interesting model. And consistent with an age old supposition, that art is a kind of nourishment. An opinion held in the realm of the subjective. And further, he felt the works of genius we had acknowledged up to that point, the works of De Vinci and Mozart for instance, were works that were half true and meaningless. He speculated there were others, who’s work could not possibly be accepted or even perceived at that time as having any value or substance. He had discovered the “Oneye” without naming it, and of course was with such thought as perceiving it, also belonging to this group. There were punctuations in human history of this unidentified artists who’s purpose for being born and existing for some limited time in the world was to give relief or release to these organism that existed on the two sides of the fold. And, the relationship was synergetic; the release of this nourishment invisibly fed the billions of people who unknowingly exist at all times on both sides of the fold. They have the physical aspect, and, the metaphysical, which swells and is fed by these organisms he discovered. The works we establish as genius exist perceptibly in our one sided worldly realm. That they can be seen as compete, even as they may suggest a spiritual aspect, they are empty of true spirit, because, they only represent the scattered matter of perception as their point of understanding. While faith is often explored in religious art, it is always a looking into emptiness, speculatively, and to where the art is, is not emptiness, it is another side, as real as what is perceptible in the physic. He goes on to try to describe the real works of art. Here, his mind leads him to the realm of the various “Oneye” artists. There is a transformational aspect that releases cues into our dimensionality, but only that, only cues. These cues are literally that, they are markers that point to alignments and continuities to things that are not entire present or visible in where the cues are manifest. The tearing of paper, the pointings of unique notations that make no reference to realization. These are points where cues are being supplied.  And the fact of nourishment is also not perceived. That one is born, that one moves, and moves on, is an evidence that the spirit of the metaphysical organism are the dynamism by which things – keep going. While science may try to explain the maintaining of a system of biological inputs and outputs as being self sustaining, there is no sound explanation of why… and, this why is not a piece of information, it is simply material of a different kind.

     I am inclined to stop now an proceed with this in installments, as it is hard to digest all at once, but this I have written is the beginning kernel, which I will proceed to fill out as my own understanding of what I have translated increases.