Bob Fink -- Biographical
Sketch
Bob Fink (1935--) has
spent his life as a musicologist, composer and author of books on various
subjects. He is a graduate of Wayne State University in Detroit, and currently
lives in Saskatoon, Canada.
Fink has worked in anti-war movements all his life, and
also is an activist on issues of free speech, civil rights & liberties,
winning a number of legal cases (cited at the level of the Canadian Supreme
Court) on free speech and the right to poster city poles (now recognized as well in the
USA).
As well, Fink also worked much of his job life as a realist
artist, illustrator, journalist, political cartoonist; as a machinery designer
(auto industry); and as a columnist for several years in his city's daily and weekly newspapers.
CONTENTS: Books and works:
Neanderthal Flute 1997;
On the Origin of Music 2005;
The Origin of Music 1981;
Lysistrata and the War (Opera)
1979;
Social Activism
Additional Work
* Other
books
*
News and Journals Record
Homepage
Neanderthal Flute Essay
Fink published this essay in the Spring of 1997, showing
the notes of this oldest musical instrument known (43,000 years old) were
capable of matching part of the do, re, mi scale: See the full on-line
essay, "Neanderthal Flute": at [http://www.greenwych.ca/fl-compl.htm]
This website essay has won several [[award]]s, including as being one of
the "most educational sites on the Internet," and gets from 4,000-6,000
visits/month. The Essay was published as a book in 1998. ISBN 0912424125.
For detailed information on the controversy, see Divje Babe http://www.greenwych.ca/divje-b.htm
On the Origin of Music
''Essays & Readings'' (2003-4) ISBN 0912424141.
This most recent of Fink's writing combines in one book
the main essays and archaeological material he has written since 1950.
The final part III of the book outlines the stages in the evolution of
music, scales and harmony in some detail. http://www.greenwych.ca/stages.htm
Summary and overview of this book:
Fink's viewpoint indicates tonal scales and tonality
arise from natural overtones The theory is called the "trio theory,"
claiming that influences from the most audible overtones of the three most
nearly universal intervals (found across time & cultures, namely, a
tone's octave, 4th and 5th), when their overtones are placed within the
range of that octave, will evolve into the most widespread of scales: Pentatonic,
major & minor (depending how many of the audible overtones are so placed).
The unequal audible strengths of the overtones determine the role &
power of each note in a scale (tonic, dominant or subdominant) -- i.e.,
tonality and tonal scales. The viewpoint can be read on-line at http://www.greenwych.ca/cycl-5-2.htm
The 7-Note Solution and http://www.greenwych.ca/natbasis.htm Natural
Basis of Scales nand http://www.greenwych.ca/stages.htm Stages in
the Evolution of Melody, Harmony & Scales.
The Origin of Music
This 1970, 1981 & 1985 book (formerly ''The Universality
of Music'') was recognized as very useful by Dr. Anne Draffkorn Kilmer,
former chairperson of Assyriology at the University of California at Berkeley,
and who deciphered the oldest song known in the world (4,000 years old).
Fink's book on music's origins is one of only 3 full-length English works
on the subject (at this writing). --(3 editions) ISBN 0912424095 ISBN 0912424001
and ISBN 0912424060.
Lysistrata & the War
(An opera composed in the style of Mozart).
Fink wrote this opera as a protest to the Vietnam war.
It was published in 1979. ISBN 0912424079. It was to be performed at Wayne
State University in 1968 (from which Fink earned his degree in musicology
and the sciences (incl. anthropology).
This updated version of the play was cancelled when the
tenor was drafted into the army 4 days before the performance. The opera
director got cold feet about its anti-Vietnam war protest libretto, and
used the tenor's draft notice as an excuse to perform the opera in a small
room with a new unrehearsed tenor, but no room for a normal-sized audience.
That was unacceptable censorship to the composer who then withdrew the
opera. News story at http://www.greenwych.ca/lz-story.htm .
Social Activism
Fink has also been a lifetime leading activist in the
causes of peace and human rights, was the initial Chairman and an organizer
in the student anti-war takeover of Wayne State University in 1970 (following
news of the murders of four Kent State University students by the National
Guard); Fink collected documents from that time and wrote a history of
the Vietnam war protest: http://www.greenwych.ca/vietnam.htm. Excerpt from
''Vietnam -- A View From the Walls''. ISBN 0912424087. Fink won a number
of landmark free-speech cases (one cited in the recent 1993 Canadian Supreme
Court ruling) upholding the issue of postering rights News Clip at: http://www.greenwych.ca/poster.htm.
He was a columnist for years in his city's daily and weekly newspapers
in Saskatchewan (''Daily Star-Phoenix, The Mirror'' and others) on social
issues (poverty, ecology, minorities, discrimination and the arts).
Moved by the death of Rosa Parks in 2005, Fink wrote
an article, some of which was published in a letter to the editor of his
local daily paper.
The past events outlined in Fink's article (below) show
the tenor of the times that existed back then.
- ''Rosa
Parks and Edgar Daniel Nixon''
- By Bob Fink
-
- "Rosa Parks deserved every one of the honours given her for
defying the 1950's U.S. laws in the South which relegated Blacks to sit
only at the back of buses. There are other unsung heroes in addition to
Rosa who also deserve mention. One of them is a Black man, named E. D.
Nixon (Edgar Nixon), a worker and unionist.
- "Nixon lived in Rosa's community. Vile indignities like harassing
Blacks on the buses happened daily. After each breach of humanity occurred,
Nixon worked for years to fight against the oppression of Blacks. For years,
few people showed up in answer to his calls.
- "But Rosa's arrest was the last straw and provided Nixon with
a perfect public candidate to represent her community for his long held
desire to create a boycott of the buses and their discriminatory seating
rules. Parks had refused to obey the outrageous law. Nixon's call to local
leaders to create a boycott organization and plan now drew hundreds of
people.
- "Needing a candidate to be president of the new 'Montgomery
Improvement Association,' there was a new preacher in town who could unite
the often disputing local leaders & preachers many of whom Nixon felt
were too timid.
- "That new preacher was the Rev. Martin Luther King. [''Later
Nixon would write to King in deep disappointment with King's and others
unfair leadership behavior toward Nixon and local leaders who worked earlier,
for years, to develop resistance to the abuses. It was Nixon who catapaulted
King into the great prominance King later enjoyed too much alone, despite
Nixon's and others' skillful and necessary far-sighted perseverence, groundwork
and planning, which made the boycott and all that followed into a harbinger
of momentous success.'']
- "Official racism wasn't only in the South: The bus boycotters
needed alternate transportation, so my friends and I up in Detroit decided
to raise money for a station wagon to send to Montgomery, Alabama.
- "While collecting money in the Detroit neighborhood and ghetto,
the police arrested me, locked me up, charging me with fraud.
- "While jailing me, the cops tried to inflame racial hatreds
of the white prisoners hoping they'd harm me. The cops said to them, as
they threw me into the jail's common-room: 'Here's a nigger-lover for you
boys, and we won't hear a thing you do to him.' I was spared any harm because
(by some magic of fate) most prisoners there were Black (surprise, surprise).
- "Charges were dropped 3 days later when my friends showed up
at the courthouse with the station wagon May 1, 1956.
- "When the cops called me a 'nigger-lover,' clearly they already
knew I was not committing 'fraud' in my fund-raising. Indeed, since the
FBI & police spied on us 'lefties' regularly, they knew we were legit.
I later got 800 pages of FBI & police records just about me from the
Freedom of Information Act, and two of the documents referred to the arrest.
One mentions the arrest, but the other proved the FBI knew the Committee
we formed to get a station wagon was public, real, sincere and legal. (''Those
docs are reproduced in Fink's Vietnam book, linked above.'')
- "The real reason for my arrest and strong desire to prosecute
me despite my honest cause was the police saw their role as preserving
the separation between whites and Blacks and to prevent any common cause
to develop between the groups. Clearly my volunteerism to support the Montgomery
Bus Boycott crossed their political and racial 'line,' and so I had to
be 'punished,' if possible, but they failed.
- "At the court hearing the judge remarked to me, while nodding
toward a Black police officer at the back of the courtroom (there were
very few of them then on the force): 'Surely these people can handle their
own fund-raising?' To everyone's surprise, especially the judge, the 'uppity'
Black officer replied to the judge: 'With all due respect, every little
bit helps, your honour!' "
Additional Work:
Fink has given several piano concerts of his music in
Detroit, New York, and elsewhere. His music has been broadcast on TV and
radio and by his local University and some was re-published in a local
anthology of composers. Many of his compositions have been published on-line
by Greenwich Publishing http://www.greenwych.ca/musicmid.htm. His writings
have been used in various university courses, and he has lectured many
times on his musicologiscal ideas about the origin of music.
Other books by Fink
Continuum -- Evolution of Matter Into Humankind
[http://www.greenwych.ca/cm-ad.htm (excerpts)]. 1974
ISBN 0912424028;
Evolution of the Social Brain 1975, ISBN
0912424109 (about evidence emerging of a collective consciousness);
Alienation & Art 1976
ISBN 0912424026.
News and Journals Record
Fink has been cited in many journals, including articles
by or about him in http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/276/5310/203g
''Science'' magazine; http://www.roebuckclasses.com/101/Lectures/prehistory/humanorigin/neandertalflute.htm
''Scientific American''; ''Archaeologia Musicalis.'' Fink was invited to
write a rebuttal article in the 2002-3 proceedings of the September, 2000
music archaeology conference held in Germany: ''Archaeology of Souund.
''http://www.greenwych.ca/studies.htm.
Many news articles by or about Fink were published in:
''Globe & Mail''; ''The Times of London''; ''Ottawa Citizen'' (October
28, 2002 ''Enchanted Ear'' column). Included are some magazine cover-stories
(e.g., Alberta's Newsweekly ''Western Report,'' May 5, 1997, on the Neanderthal
flute analysis Fink wrote, etc).
He also has several citations & quotes in the recently
published Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) book of a collection
of writings titled: ''Origins of Music.'' Fink was also invited to be a
juror by Nature_(Journal) to review an article on ancient music.
As an artist his works of http://www.greenwych.ca/gthr-pic.htm
heritage buildings & sites hang in Saskatoon's City Hall, have been
on the covers of environmental and heritage magazines, and poltical cartoon
have appeared in the Daily Star-Phoenix.
Homepage
http://www.greenwych.ca/index.htm or:
www.Greenwych.ca
========================
Books can be ordered from "Greenwich," 516 Ave K South Saskatoon, Canada S7M 2E2.