Jul

29

I Am Searching for a Song, from Victor Niederhoffer

July 29, 2015 |

I am searching for a musical song that illustrates the constructal law.

The constructal law teaches us that anything that flows, which is just about everything, is 'alive' because it evolves as it flows. Life is the persistent movement, struggle, contortion, and mechanism by which animate and inanimate flow systems morph to generate better access for what flows. When the flow stops the configurations becomes a flow fossil (dry riverbeds, snowflakes, animal skeletons, abandoned technology, and the Pyramids of Egypt).

From Design in Nature

Victor writes to Rorianne Schrade:

One wonders if there are any musical pieces that illustrate this idea.

Rorianne Schrade responds:

Dear Victor,

I hope this finds you and all of your beautiful family doing well. My apologies for not getting to this sooner–you are always delving into such interesting topics. While I'm probably unqualified to comment in any depth on constructal law, I think music relates to ideas of flow in more ways than one could ever count. The first thing that pops to mind is the need to keep a single tone itself "alive" — something that in early music gave rise to all sorts of trills and embellishments for the prolongation of tones, the continuation of the melodic momentum, and the development of musical life in a composition or improvisation. Whole sets of variations could be used to illustrate this as well, the starting with a simple theme, the gradual building and elaborating all as a way of keeping the theme alive as well as creating new music. The "flow" may be interrupted with what seems like musical "death" (a "flow fossil" or "dry riverbed" as you mention– these are beautiful too, in their own ways) in the middle of a piece of music– but the flow somehow returns or survives until the end of the piece (and longer in one's mind) if I've got the right idea of what is meant here. Another illustration might be jazz improvisation on standard tunes … keeping it flowing in a single performance as well as keeping it "flowing" through the decades through variation and new interpretations… I must be oversimplifying, but thank you always for the food for though! love to you all, r.

Alston Mabry writes:

Here are some musical pieces that I find illustrate constructal flow/order/disorder.

Starting off with the more challenging stuff:

Iannis Xenakis: Metastasis

Edgard Varese: Ionisation

Richard Carrick: Dark Flow - Double Quartet

And the more accessible:

Claude Debussy: Dialogue du vent et de la mer

Stravinsky: Le sacre du printemps

John Luther Adams: Dark Waves

Oregon: Yellow Bell

Cliff Martinez: Is That What Everybody Wants

Scott Brooks:

Here are two metaphorical songs about the flow of life's progressions

"Wasted on the Way" by Crosby, Stills and Nash

"Nether Lands" by Dan Fogelberg

Both of these songs are two of my all time favorite.

I am especially fond of two sets of lyrics in Nether Lands where Fogelberg sings…

Anthem's to glory and anthems to love

And hymns filled with earthly delight

Like the songs that the darkness composes to worship the light

and

Once in a vision, I came on some woods

And stood at a fork in the road

My choices were clear, yet I froze with the fear, of not knowing which way to go

One road was simple acceptance of life

The other road offered sweet peace

When I made my decision my vision became my release

As I think about those lyrics, my mind wanders to the progression of life and how we end up where we are today. I think of many of the decisions, good, bad (and non-decisions that I wished I had had the courage to make) that I've made. I don't focus on how I would be happier or my life would have been different had I made other choices in my progression. For if I let me self start the "second guessing game", it will consume like a cancer.

Instead, I focus on what I've learned from all those decisions and how I can apply them to my progression going forward and, hopefully, improve my life, the life of my family, my clients and my friends.

I think that's what progression is all about.

Gary Rogan comments:

Couldn't think of anything totally appropriate but this may come close (and it's The Surfer's favorite band)

"Natural Science"

By Rush

When the ebbing tide retreats
Along the rocky shoreline
It leaves a trail of tidal pools
In a short-lived galaxy
Each microcosmic planet
A complete society

A simple kind mirror
To reflect upon our own
All the busy little creatures
Chasing out their destinies
Living in their pools
They soon forget about the sea…

Wheels within wheels in a spiral array
A pattern so grand and complex
Time after time we lose sight of the way
Our causes can't see their effects

A quantum leap forward
In time and in space
The universe learned to expand

The mess and the magic
Triumphant and tragic
A mechanized world out of hand

Computerized clinic
For superior cynics
Who dance to a synthetic band

In their own image
Their world is fashioned
No wonder they don't understand

Science, like nature
Must also be tamed
With a view towards its preservation
Given the same
State of integrity
It will surely serve us well

Art as expression
Not as market campaigns
Will still capture our imaginations
Given the same
State of integrity
It will surely help us along

The most endangered species
The honest man
Will still survive annihilation
Forming a world
State of integrity
Sensitive, open and strong

Wave after wave will flow with the tide
And bury the world as it does
Tide after tide will flow and recede
Leaving life to go on as it was…

Comments

4 Comments so far

Frank LINET on July 23, 2015 7:47 pm
“Moonlight Drive”

Let’s swim to the moon, uh huh
Let’s climb through the tide
Penetrate the evenin’ that the
City sleeps to hide
Let’s swim out tonight, love
It’s our turn to try
Parked beside the ocean
On our moonlight drive

Let’s swim to the moon, uh huh
Let’s climb through the tide
Surrender to the waiting worlds
That lap against our side

Nothin’ left open
And no time to decide
We’ve stepped into a river
On our moonlight drive

Let’s swim to the moon
Let’s climb through the tide
You reach your hand to hold me
But I can’t be your guide

Easy, I love you
As I watch you glide
Falling through wet forests
On our moonlight drive, baby
Moonlight drive

Come on, baby, gonna take a little ride
Down, down by the ocean side
Gonna get real close
Get real tight
Baby gonna drown tonight
Goin’ down, down, down
Lyrics Jim Morrison Music The Doors.
Andre Wallin on July 30, 2015 2:58 am
“Turn! Turn! Turn!”

To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven

A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together

To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven

A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing

To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven

A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time for love, a time for hate
A time for peace, I swear it’s not too late!
bo keely on July 30, 2015 1:48 pm
From living with the Rock ‘n Roll band the Woolies and bumping around the country in their van stenciled Pussy Galore’s Flying Circus, I learned in songwriting that any modern piece to be a hit must incorporate love or sex. Nothing in your request for a song approaches this, so write the song, form a band, call it Nature’s Best, and start a craze.
Matthew on July 30, 2015 5:52 pm
Pink Floyd comes to mind.

“TIME” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rNr2pBexMU

“MONEY” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0kcet4aPpQ

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