De la armonía musical a la social | Carlos Pesina | TEDxYouth@Guadalajara
For as long as I can remember, I've loved music. I've always been interested in knowing why, how we can express feelings through sound. I've also always wondered if what I feel with a song can be felt by another person, or how differently they feel it. Well, naturally, I started studying piano, guitar, and keyboard as a child. Well, actually, I never really learned it because, well, once, in that search to find out how music works, I discovered that each sound is a variation in air pressure. For example, here we see that a note like the one on the left is generating a variation in air pressure, and with a higher note, there's a faster variation; the air changes faster. Each note has its specific frequency. One day I found out that the frequency of [unclear] is 440 hertz. I asked my piano teacher why it was 841, 441, or 439, and he said, "I don't know." Well, I've been disappointed with music lessons because for me, it was only about learning to play, but it wasn't providing me with that knowledge of how music works. And well, I don't know, somehow I ended up making electronic music. Well, some time later I found out that the fact that two sounds Whether two sounds sound harmonious to us, whether we like them or dislike them, actually has a very simple mathematical explanation. Here, for example, we see the note 21 an octave higher, and an octave higher, and an octave higher still. We can see the different frequencies. If we combine these two sounds, we can see how every two cycles of the higher note coincide with one cycle of the lower note. If we divide the frequency of one by the other, we get a simple half. We can hear it; it sounds consonant and pleasant. It's actually so similar, so pleasant, that we call both notes the same thing: " do." And it's present in every culture in the world. This interval exists. If we compare, for example, C and F sharp, what these two frequencies generate, and combine them, we see that there's no simple pattern in the sum of the two frequencies, and also in their relationship, that is, their division. It gives us a number that can't be expressed rationally in a simple way. If we listen to it, we can notice that it tends to sound dissonant and unpleasant. And well, from here I became interested in mathematics, because I realized that mathematicians also sometimes talk about the search. Beauty lies solely in finding equations that are logical and rational, and there is beauty in that aspect. Mathematicians also speak of a creative process very similar to that of artists, in which one part of the mind is bringing two ideas together—a brainstorming of ideas— and another part is testing them, checking if they are logical, if they work together. Living, the mathematician, said that the pleasure music provides comes from counting, but from unconscious counting. Music is nothing more than unconscious arithmetic; we are not aware of the actions we like because of this simple proportion. But if the mathematics of music have a common origin in questions, then what is the purpose of music, which we know mathematics has many applications for? I once heard a neurologist say that music is merely an evolutionary parasite that appeared in evolution as an attempt to create a language, but he didn't go any further. But it seems to me that music has a very evident social function. We have, for example, a marching band in which the rhythm is synchronizing all the marchers, or a concert in which the music is synchronizing everyone's feelings after a journey. I went to Europe and met many musicians from different parts of the world. I became curious to make music that reflected me. At that time, I was making music with Game Boys, music with old video games, and I thought, well, how could I incorporate that era, that which identifies me, into the music I was making? It's precisely that kind of music that appeals to me the most, the one that combines two ideas that seem impossible, that seem impossible to put together. And well, after returning from that trip, I started making 8-bit versions—that's what we call that music—of Cri-Cri songs or Mexican music. This is a version of "Adelita," the song of the revolution. Yes, well, thank you. Then I started another project in collaboration with friends in which we sought to mix electronic music with Mexican music like Son Jarocho. We called it Los Amparito, Los Amparito because it was both a tribute to Amparo Ochoa, the traditional Mexican singer, and also because of the famous sandwiches they sell in downtown Guadalajara. I like combining these two ideas, and well, it was quite a challenge to make electronic music that is Mexican. We can listen to a fragment later, and I think I became obsessed with the very different ideas. My next project was called Micro Papitas. It was a mix of acid, a type of 90s electronic music, with sounds by Pérez Prado, with that science fiction sound you know from 50s movies. And the name, well, clearly an allusion to the word "microchips" in English, which is microprocessors, and also potato chips. We could play a fragment, and I... but well, not all music that mixes two ideas is funny or pleasant. There have been cases where it can be very offensive. For example, in the 60s, the musician Serge Gainsbourg did a reggae version of the French national anthem. That was very offensive to many people, but it can also be a way of... it can be a social need to find music that defines our identity. Another famous case of this, this mix of two ideas, for example, Chicano music in the 50s, in which Mexicans living in the US no longer identified completely with Mexico nor with the US, and they created this mix between jazz and Mexican music, or rather, Latin music like mambo. What I find interesting is thinking about what it is. What makes me identify with a piece of music is what those components of the musical language are that make me say, "That music is me, I belong to that." Among my latest projects, I'm working with a friend from the US. We have a collaborative music project, working remotely. We make the music online, sending each other files. He lives in San Francisco, he's about my age, and we realized we have very similar tastes. It's actually difficult to find music we like. We think, " What music should we make together? Should we make American rock music, or Mexican music? We'd both be doing something false, wouldn't we?" So we decided to do a project where we try to bring together the music of both countries, also inspired by Chicano music. We've mixed rock with mambo, or surf with son jarocho, but it's also kind of... it's also funny. We call ourselves Francisco and Madero, because "with" and also alluding to how that idea of identity is somewhat false, because when I'm sober, I identify with a piece of music, but only with what the music we listen to says about us. I think it's not as subjective as people think. Maybe music classes are just... How to learn to play music? But I believe there is a language that can be understood, and just as there is a mathematical explanation that underpins harmony, I believe that only by understanding the musical language in a rational way can we also use it as a tool to generate harmony in society.