Molecular Systematic Music: A Graphic Reveal
MSM Molecule Graphic: Polaris
Investigative Precepts:
“The Poet Tennyson was seeking truth. That is what the scientist is seeking. That is what the artist is seeking: his writings, his weavings, his music, his pictures are just the expression of his soul in his search for truth.”
- George Washington Carver
“We no longer believe that there is a norm of human life to which we must all strive to conform. We regard the perfection of the whole as depending on the unique perfection of each single individual.”
-Rudolf Steiner
The music we are trying to play is no more abstract than most modern paintings... it’s just music in which we have tried to get together and play and use our emotion and intelligence as far as we could carry it.
-Ornette Coleman
“Science to refer to all activities of which the purpose is to come to a better understanding of the natural.”
- P.B Medawar
What is MSM?
Molecular Systematic Music describes a twofold approach to music, braiding together the fundamentals of music theory with the ideas of molecular biology in the context of DNA. While I’m a musician, not a molecular biologist, the ideas expressed deploy the vocabulary of molecular biology as useful metaphors. I am not a molecular biologist but an artist exploring new possibilities and relationships across disciplines. As Leonard Bernstein once observed: in his lecture The Unanswered Question: “The best way to know a thing is in the context of another.”
What is DNA?
DNA, as defined by the National Human Genome Research Institute: “Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a molecule that contains the biological instructions that make each species unique. DNA, along with the instructions it contains, is passed from adult organisms to their offspring during reproduction.”
Artist Redefinition of DNA in the Context
of the MSM Molecule Graphic - Polaris
Using the Polaris graphic an artist can reshape or reimagine an approach to the standard definition of DNA. They can birth, build, and shape their own molecule resulting in an artistic (genetic) code based on the 4 basics of music (major, minor, augmented, and diminished).
The upper half of the molecule (basic) interlocks with the lower half of the molecule (base) containing a specific intervalic formula leading to hybrid structures based on innate or conceptual abilities reflecting individual preferences. To put it another way, the process allows the musician to map their intuition. An artist’s relationship to their molecule reveals instructions shaping a path leading to the truest version of who they are. It is important to note that an interval is the distance between two notes. The interaction of two or more intertwined notes makes pairings producing different characters of sounds. Similarly, the intertwining of certain chemicals within the double helix produces strands containing different information. The layperson attending a wedding may or may not notice that the first two notes that sound when a bride comes down the aisle point to an audial recognition of a specific intervalic structure creating a familiar, immediately recognizable sound. The musical DNA of the song spoke and was instantly recognized as “Here Comes the Bride.” An audience responds without understanding the musical structure or makeup of the composition. The 1st two notes speak to a specific intervalic structure that sparks a recognition similar to that of a mom observing her child: “Oh, she has her father’s eyes.” The mother’s simple statement embodies the complex facts of heredity.
What is the Nucleus?
According to the Cambridge Dictionary Online: “A nucleus is the central part of a cell that controls its growth; the central part of something; people or things that form the nucleus of something and the most important part of it.”
A Redefinition of the Nucleus in the Context of the Polaris Graphic
Every element of the Polaris graphic is coded, inspired by the African American quilting tradition, as well as by the lukasa, a dynamic “memory board” used by the Congo’s Luba people for recording cultural history. The Polaris graphic serves the musician as a kind of equivalent to Matteo Ricci’s memory palace. Today, heirlooms passed down from generation to generation, with the family patriarch or matriarch retelling histories associated with the heirloom, might be read as commonplace mnemonic equivalents of the lukasa.
In the Polaris graphic, the nucleus lies at the center of the design. As with an actual nucleus containing DNA instructions for cell growth, everything else in the graphic grows out of it. However, it is the artist who assigns value to every element of their “molecule.” The center represents a point of departure and arrival, the central locus of interaction between other points and the variables. The nucleus might also be understood as a visual reminder of the core of one’s artistic beliefs. The center holds all notes, basics, intervals, and the unlimited configurations of the molecule itself.
MSM Nomenclature:
General MSM Graphic Notation Identification of Polaris
BB| Basic, Base: The upper half of the molecule (basic), The lower half of the molecule (base)
|BMBE|: Basic Musical Bonding Elements: Major, Minor, Augmented, Diminished ...(MMAD )
|CBN|-Compositional Birth Name: Molecule as Polaris
|DLM|-Day of Labor Memory: “A line is a dot that went for a walk” - Paul Klee
|DOC|-Date of Conception: 2011
|MM|-Molecular Measurements: 11 dots, 6 lines, 2 overlapping narrow half-spheres, & 1 mini half-oval serving as an interaction map between the top and lower half of the molecule
|OI|-Other Influences: Gilbert N. Lewis, Valence & The Structure of Atoms & Molecules, originally published in 1923 by The Chemical Catalog Company Inc. Press of J.J Little & Ives Co. “Lewis Structures” describe a two dimensional model of a molecule in which covalent bonds are represented by straight lines & unbounded valence electrons as dots
|OOI|-Origin of Influence: The sublime coded patchwork of the African American quilting tradition
This selection of the music was created as a direct result of using the MSM Polaris Graphic
The musicians playing the composition:
James Brandon Lewis - Tenor Saxophone
Aruan Ortiz- Piano
Brad Jones - Bass
Chad Taylor - Drums
The New album Molecular comes out Oct 16 2020 - via Intakt records
James Brandon Lewis is a critically- acclaimed composer, saxophonist, and writer. He has received accolades from NPR, ASCAP Foundation,Macdowell, and The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. He has been described as “ a saxophonist who embodies and transcends tradition” by The New York Times, and a promising young talent having listened to the elders by Jazz Legend Sonny Rollins. The saxophonist has balanced a deep, gospel -informed spirituality with Free-Jazz- abandon and hard-hitting funk-meets-hip-hop underpinning - Rolling Stone Magazine. He has released several critically-acclaimed albums, most recently highly touted 2021's Jesup Wagon and tours internationally leading several ensembles, and is a member and co-founder of American Book Award winning Ensemble Heroes Are Gang Leaders. James was recently voted Rising Star Tenor Saxophonist by Downbeat magazine's 2020s International Critics poll and most recently named top Tenor Saxophonist for 2021 by Jazz Times Magazine. Lewis attended Howard University, received his M.F.A from California Institute of the Arts and was recently named the Inaugural recipient of the Phd Fellowship in Creativity by the University of the Arts in collaboration with The Balvenie, drummer and Academy Award-Winning Director Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson.