‘Really Mr. Dean I must get along.’
‘Five minutes that’s all I ask.’
Professor Mulholland looked at his watch tediously then decided it would be best to hear the young man out.
‘Five minutes only Mr. Dean.’ turning back into his office that Mr. Dean had been waiting outside for nearly half an hour. Once inside Laskin Dean turned to the Professor.
‘If I may Professor, I’d like the use of your computer.’
‘If you must’ Professor Mulholland sighed.
As Laskin operated the computer he started talking.
‘I got the idea for this from one of your lectures.’ there was a spark of interest from the Professor.
‘Really which one was that.’
‘It was your guest lecture at Harlow, about the effects of music upon the human brain.’
The Professor thought for a moment.
‘My god boy, that was over three years ago.’ he exclaimed.
‘Yes well it’s taken some time to perfect, sir.’ Laskin said resetting his glasses on his nose.
‘Well get on with it boy.’ Mulholland said slightly more interested.
‘Yes of course.’ Laskin said turning back to the computer. He reached for a compact disk out of his breast pocket and inserted it into the computer. Moments later music started coming out of the computers speakers. The music had a pure quality, at the start it was just a low pleasant murmur, but Mulholland could sense that at some point it would reach a crescendo. The music was extraordinarily relaxing, Mulholland sat back in pure wonder at the quality of the music. It had a sense of inhumanity about it yet was stacked with emotion. The music reached its beautiful and brilliant crescendo, as the music ended the Professor sat back in utter amazement.
‘Mr. Dean, you’re quite a musician, and pleasant though your music is, I don’t yet understand why you wish to consult me over this.’
‘I shall explain. Oh, may I smoke Professor?’
‘Of course old chap.’ Mulholland replied. Laskin grabbed a cigarette from his packet and lit it.
‘First things first though let it be known that I didn’t create that music, I had a hand in it but I didn’t create it, and may I also say that you inspired it.’
‘Really Mr. Dean, I didn’t know I had that effect on people.’
‘Professor, your lecture on the brains reaction to various sounds, and more importantly sequences of sounds, intrigued me to say the least. With further consideration I hazarded an assumption,’ said Laskin leaning forward ‘that this phenomenon must have some form of mathematical quality to it.’
‘Really?’ Mulholland said, mildly enjoying being lectured himself.
‘Well, with this established in my mind I embarked upon a little experiment, using my personal computer. I constructed a program which would produce music in response to the equation which was entered.’ Professor Mulholland was growing more and more intrigued, and as he sat there smoking his pipe he realised he had missed his appointment, but decided it didn’t matter. ‘Well,’ Laskin continued ‘it produced some quite interesting results, for instance you would be quite surprised by the melody created by E=mc2. But you have to have something that varies in this or you just achieve a flat note, for E=mc2 I varied c.’
‘Einstein would turn in his grave.’ the Professor chuckled.
‘Anyway after meddling with this for a few weeks, and not producing anything near entertaining, I realised that I wasn’t going to find this by mere trial and error, it was far too complicated. So I turned it around, I decided to set the computer to work.’ Laskin said with pride.
‘But how does the computer know what is good music and bad music?’ Mulholland queried.
‘Oh it doesn’t, the computer simply does number crunching. The program I created performs in this way: The computer gets an input of a piece of music, the notes in the piece are numbers, 0 being A, and 2 being C and so on. Most importantly to the mathematical process I would give the piece a rating from 0 to 1000.’
‘1000 being the perfect piece and 0 being positively ghastly.’ the Professor perused.
‘Exactly Professor. Obviously I didn’t rate anything at 1000, because that would set the limit for any future piece of music. Obviously my personal tastes affected the equation, but hopefully not too much.’
‘What sort of music did you use?’
‘Mainly classical. One flaw in my program was that singing could not be included. So I concentrated mostly on classical pieces where the music is based entirely on the instruments. It was painstaking work taking all the pieces, converting them into numbers and then entering them. All in all I entered 1,258 pieces of music.’
‘Must have been very satisfying, to finally get a result like that.’ Mulholland said nodding at the computer on his desk.
‘Entirely on the contrary Professor Mulholland. The first result was a slightly nauseating load of rubbish.’ Laskin reached for another cigarette ‘To be quite honest, Professor, though it pains me to say it, the first piece was easy listening.’ the Professor chuckled in response.
‘You mean to say that after three years work you were rewarded with a piece of elevator music.’ Mulholland said chuckling ‘I’m sorry Mr. Dean but you must see the humour.’
‘Oh I do, don’t worry’ said Laskin Dean smiling ‘I even laughed at the time, after a few drinks. That was last year by the way so I’d only been working for two years. The hardest work had already been done though. I’d found my theory, The General Theory of Music. With that completed it could be expanded; I needed to add one more variable to the equation. That is e.’
‘e? Please explain Mr. Dean’
‘I will. e, otherwise known as emotion. I would simply add that to the equation at some point, tweaking its position so as to attain the maximum potency.’
‘Very clever Mr. Dean, but how might I enquire do you find a value for emotion?’
‘I expect you know about current technology and the ability to detect electronic signals passing around the brain.’ a nod from the Professor ‘yes, well I simply connect that up as an input to the computer. I created a new program, in this case I would play the classical piece, that is already referenced by the computer in the previous program, and it detects e flashing around my brain and adds it to the equation. So I proceeded to listen to all 1,258 pieces of music hooked up to the computer. And thus I achieved the final equation.’
‘And you came up with that piece.’ Mulholland stated enthralled.
‘Not quite professor.’ said Laskin lighting another cigarette. ‘Not quite.’
‘So what then?’ quested Mulholland growing slightly impatient.
‘It would be best for me to give you a proper example. If you wish you can have a demonstration at my humble abode this evening.’
‘Certainly, old chap. What time?’
‘Let’s make it eight. Here’s my address.’ Laskin wrote it on a small sheet of paper ‘Great, I’ll see you then.’ and Laskin left his office with a smile.
* * *
Mulholland remembered to stop in for some tobacco on his way to Laskin’s home. It could be a long night he thought. Professor Mulholland brought his Volkswagen Beetle to a halt outside 32 Green St. and looked at the house of Mr. Laskin Dean. It was a normal looking suburban home. Mulholland got out of his car and padded up the drive of the house, no car Mulholland noticed. Looking at his watch he noticed it was exactly eight o’ clock. He tapped on the door and it swung open.
‘Greetings Professor’ Laskin said smiling ‘Do come in.’ and Professor Mulholland stepped inside. It was quite pleasant; there were expensive looking wooden floorboards with a well-placed rug in the hall. The wooden floorboards continued through to the main room adjacent to the kitchen.
‘Would you like a glass of wine Professor?’
‘Yes please, and please call me Arnold.’
‘Certainly and I can be referred to as Laskin.’
Laskin came across with two large glasses of Bordeaux.
‘Please feel free to smoke your pipe.’
‘Don’t mind if I do old chap.’ said Arnold filling his pipe.
‘After we’ve finished our drinks we can get down to business. But first I shall continue where I left off in my explanation of my work.’
‘I can’t wait, please continue’
‘Okay, where was I, oh yes. Now it’s not sufficient just to have e in to the equation, e must vary. Otherwise you just get the same easy listening as before. So we have what I refer to as a live performance. This is when the computer is getting a constant input of e directly from the brain of a person listening to the music.’
‘Ingenious, so that piece of music came straight from your brain so to speak.’ said Arnold.
‘Not from mine, my dog’s brain actually.’
A shocked look passed across Arnold’s face.
‘You mean to say that groundbreaking, beautiful, emotional, intricate piece of music came straight from your dog’s brain. I always thought that dogs were clever animals, and capable of simple emotions, but that, it’s really quite amazing.’
‘Quite. It was an astounding sequence of events though. I waited till he was calm and quite sleepy, so that he would not break the connection, and was quite happy to have the sensors placed on his head. Anyway I started the computer and he instantly cocked his head, and was entranced by the music. As the music played he lay down, his legs twitching madly, it looked like he was having a spasm. He was drooling all over the floor and after the crescendo it was quietening down a bit, the dog looked like he’d been knocked out with his eyes open.’ Arnold had a troubled look on his face ‘So I moved over to disconnect the sensors. As I pulled them free the dog suddenly leaped up out of his trance and attacked me, in fact he more than attacked me, he tried to kill me. The dog I had brought up since being puppy was trying to kill me. That was a month ago, he hasn’t been the same ever since.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘In his basket, he never leaves it. He doesn’t want to go for walks, hardly eats.’ An even more troubled look crossed the Professors face.
‘And you want to try this on humans?’
‘Of course, you don’t honestly think that humans would react in the same way do you. We, Arnold, are a much saner animal than your common canine; there is no possibility that a human would not be able to cope with perfect music. If that were so then surely the affect of Beethoven or the Beatles would have us in the same state as my poor dog. Don’t worry Professor.’ But the professor was worried.
‘Can I see it then?’ Arnold asked.
‘Of course, let’s proceed. Follow me if you will.’ said Laskin draining his glass.
Laskin got up and headed into the hall and up the stairs. Arnold followed. Once upstairs Arnold realised that Laskin really was fond of his wooden floorboards. But the most noticeable thing about Laskin Dean’s lab was the machinery. There was a computer hooked up to all kinds of cables that lead to a sound system and a set of wires with suckers on which Arnold realised must be the ‘e’ detection system.
Laskin turned to the Professor.
‘Stored on this computers hard disk is all my work, my general theory of music, my special theory of music, my vital programs, everything. It’s an old computer but it’s served me well.’ said Laskin staring lovingly at the plastic box. ‘Now for you Arnold, as the person that sparked it off, it is only right that you should be the one to have the first experience.’ Arnold had been having terribly troubling thoughts about all this for the last ten minutes, he looked at Laskin and saw the mad glint in his eyes and suddenly he was sure.
‘Yes old man,’ said Arnold ‘but if I could have one more glass of wine prior, if I may.’
‘Of course, of course.’ said Laskin and turned down the stairs to get the drink. He was filled with deep satisfaction and anticipation, but he felt it only right to let dear old Arnold have the first enjoyment. After all it was he that planted the seed in his head in the first place. He walked over and picked up Arnold’s glass and started filling it with the Bordeaux, he stared out the window a moment, what on earth is that? Then a sudden realisation filled him. The glass struck the floor the same time as his beloved computer.
* * *
‘Why?’ Laskin asked, strangely calm.
‘You were ignorant of the power that you wielded. When you told me about your dog everything became clear, those nagging thoughts at the back of my brain came to the fore, and I finally understood the danger. Firstly and most apparent is the effect the music has on the brain. It starts off nice and slow and very pleasant, but as the person gets happier and happier, your computer is forced to make the person ever happier. As a rule the music must have a good effect on the human brain. When we listened to the music created at the expense of your dog, it grew steadily until it came to that amazing crescendo; I am pretty sure Mr. Dean that your dog’s mind had blown at that point, past the point of no return as it were. Your dog Laskin will be mentally crippled for life.’ a dismayed look came upon Laskin’s face ‘That, I am afraid is the inevitable affect of your quite ingenious invention. Think Mr. Dean if either you or I got ourselves hooked up to that we would be destroyed. I think I did us both a favour.
‘Furthermore, if your invention had entered the public domain it could have been used as a terrible weapon. Think of the reverse, if you simply change everything to the negative, then a negative feeling occurs.’
‘Continue.’
‘Because of this if you are destroyed during the negative crescendo, do you understand the implications Laskin?’ Laskin nodded. ‘Laskin I wouldn’t be too downhearted though, should you decide to sell the music your dog made, it’s sure to be the biggest selling piece of music ever.’
‘Thank you Professor Arnold, but I don’t think I could sell that piece of music as a by-product of my poor Boo-Boo’s destruction.’
‘You called him Boo-Boo?! No wonder he didn’t get out of bed!’
Bio:Andrew Scott lives, unmarried, near London. His major hobbies are fencing, line-dancing and pistol shooting. Andrew is eighteen.
E-mail: thescotster18@hotmail.com
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