This past Saturday I witnessed a concert at Miller Theatre at Columbia. The group playing that night was named FFEAR—no, not the feeling that a random member of the audience might have felt while listening to turbulent pieces named Mirage, or The Hunting of the Snark, but an acronym standing for “Forum For Electro-Acoustic Research.” The jazz quartet formed by Columbia professors Ole Mathisen and Chris Washburne proved to me that we should not be fearful when it comes to taking an interdisciplinary approach to research in the arts, or any of our studies here at Columbia.

The final set of pieces performed by FFEAR at Saturday’s concert were entitled “Scores 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6,” and were produced by visual artist Frederick Sommer. Sommer, with regards to composing the scores, admitted, “Years ago I got into making musical scores by very devious back doors, since I knew nothing about making music.” He chose to vaguely draw and outline these scores, noting how the artistic quality of the notes on the page related to the elegance of the music when “played” by musicians. The swirling patterns of the drawings, the more formal musical gestures, and even the smeared notes that seem either to trickle slowly, or else fly from one side of the musical staff to the other, all contributed equally to what was finally performed on stage by the quartet. The interpretations and arrangements made by Washburne and the other members of FFEAR had turned a composition concerned with visual appearances into one of sonic stimulation.

I will be blunt. When the band began to interpret these pieces, I was somewhat disappointed. It all seemed a bit contrived—a group wishing to be experimental for the sake of being experimental. But by the time they reached “Score 2,” I was ecstatic.

The collective had cut across boundaries to produce a new work that was engaging and charming, with little more than a novel insight into how its own world of self-expression appears to an outsider looking in. The musician’s place within the spectrum of the art world had been used to propel the visual artist to new heights, ultimately forcing the musician to explore his own domain with greater depth.

So it is with interdisciplinary inquiry in general. Whether we are looking to explore art, or the natural sciences, or the humanities, our interest can be supplemented by looking past these self-imposed boundaries, and toward frontiers of research that may appear to be only loosely related to the task at hand. Do we find it odd when a book is adapted for film, or when a biologist looks to a chemist for knowledge in preparing an experiment? We are usually hard-pressed to find any faults with this approach. Likewise, we should not be surprised when this method is taken even further, such as when a Russian literary critic employs Russian scientists’ early views on genetics to explain how artworks were propagandized throughout Lenin’s rule. It is my belief that, though admittedly strained, this is only another example of the “devious back doors” that Sommer had noticed.

However, it would be irresponsible to claim that there are no limits to the interdisciplinary approach. We cannot reasonably expect that all fields will extend into, or even come into contact with, every other. Because of this, it is wrong to suggest actions that ignore these limits, like ridding ourselves of majors (see Professor David Helfand’s piece, “Picking a Major? Just say no,” Sept. 30) or our ideas about what constitutes a subject in general. Certain subjects interact more frequently with certain fields, an idea that is plain to see, and a relationship that should be encouraged. In fact, options such as joint majors do promote this goal. It seems almost intuitive that economics and political science—or comparative literature and society, or neuroscience and behavior—should be combined into a single field of study, and the list goes on and on. It is likely understood what requirements are necessary to provide a solid background for starting in a field, and though a student should not be afraid to explore other areas to aid his own understanding, he must know that a single course in psychology does not make someone a psychologist, just like a single paleontology class does not make someone an expert on dinosaurs.

Instead, one should try to understand completely where his or her field of interest lies in relation to other fields. As Frederick Sommer so eloquently described it, “Whereness is concerned with linkages. The legato of one squirrel holds a forest together.”

Ethan A. Perets is a Columbia College first-year hoping to major in Biochemistry and Philosophy. Living on a Piece of Paper runs alternate Fridays.