Haha, yes, I invented the word, norpography :)
It is true that music has a synthetic feel to it, less natural and possibly closer to the strange unworldly world of mathematics. But the older I get the more I do refer my musical experiences to the natural world. The heartbeat, the sound of the sea, noises in all their annoying glory. Gustav Mahler says it here:
"He explains the method once when, on a country walk, his companion complains of fairground noises that disturb the peace – a crackle of shooting galleries, puppet shows, a military band, an amateur choir. ‘You hear that?’ cries Mahler. ‘That’s polyphony and this is where I get it from. As a small child in the Iglau woods … a racket like this: a thousand birds singing, the howling of a storm, the slap of waves, or the crackle of a fire. Just like this – from different sides – the themes appear, different from each other in rhythm and melody."
Mathematics is indeed independent of nature, it is the language that only exist in the heads of men (almost) without any relation to the human senses (except it is impossible without the human and the human is impossible without senses). Music lends from this abstraction. It is patterns like in Islamic pictorial art. But music is also physical in a very direct way, that is at least how I feel.
An expansive topic indeed.
No doubt about it, nature can deeply influence music -- I was thinking of Debussy's "La mer, trois esquisses symphoniques pour orchestre" when writing my previous comment.
As beautiful as a chorus of birds, frogs and crickets at night, a babbling brook, or the surf of the ocean are, some music seems to connects us to a higher consciousness outside of our earthly existence.
Yes some music, even good music, "can" seem synthetic, but most of the music I love feels organic and soulful -- even when electric guitar is involved. This kind of music draws inspiration from creation, but my suspicion is that it is more cosmic creation than earthly if you know what I mean.
I think we are orbiting a similar view. Synthetic in the sense that it is man made, like math with no real natural reference. The fact that math does fit strangely with what we see in nature has an even stronger case in music, because we know it with our bodies. This is the nature I am talking about, and to me that involves all of the universe (where math also seems to be in sync.)
Yep we seem to be on the same wave length on a lot of these questions.
My intuition tells me that we (and pretty much everything) is about frequencies of some sort -- color, music, objects. Math and physical laws we aren't even aware of (yet) are in play.
Existence is a wild ride!
It is indeed!