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Music is notes in time.
What is it about music that captures the human heart?
Definitions are important.
Music is notes in time. Without notes, or without time, there is no music. Am I wrong?
I think I am right. And I think this is why this form of art is so powerful to us. Because...
Definitions are important.
Humans are naked apes who specialize in time-binding. From our most natural to our most artificial environments, this is one constant key to our success - and sometimes our fatal weakness. We do not exist only in the here and now. We remember deeply. We dream of the future. We remember the words of generations long ago turned to dust, and we dream of generations yet to come. Because of this, we could predict, and plan, and harvest nutrition our cousins could not. We expanded into climate change, as they shrank before it.
Anyway music is all about time-binding. Notes in time. You plot time on one dimension, and then you plot something else, usually pitch, or some approximation of pitch, on another axis, and you have music. You have a platform on which to imitate every distinctly human activity.
It's NOT "the universal language." It's not a language.
But it does share some pretty basic characteristics with every language.
Real abstraction is a hallmark of language, and music doesn't quite pull that off without language to supplement it. But our ears are (as befits a species with thin skin, little strength, no claws, and a poor sense of smell) actually very sophisticated, and we can appreciate a great deal of variation musically.
Harmonic scales, diatonic scales, pentatonic scales, a set of drums that don't really have any specific root pitch (but are nonetheless quite distinct to the ear) - all of those things are notes. But if you really want to push the definition of music to the limit, you play a single note for the whole track. Good luck with that. If you want to go one step further and prove I'm REALLY wrong? Play no notes.
Yeah, John Cage got me. Or I'm calling him out (well, sort of, if he were still alive and I ran into him I wouldn't 'call him out' I'd try to buy him a drink, but whatever.)
I think he was deliberately pushing things past the edge to show us where the edge is. Notes and time. That's where the edge is.
And time? Even that can be played with. For the most part, it's a convention so that multiple musicians can play together and not fall apart. If you're playing alone, or if your group is well rehearsed/tight knit, you can speed up and slow down at will.
But here's the important part. You, as a group or a solo performer, you project notes in time. You can bend your notes and you can bend your time - and the audience experiences that as a ride along with you.
Music is not a language, but it can be used to enhance and to *comment upon* language.
That last part is where it truly becomes transformative. Where the language says 'x' and the music says 'probably not x.'
Thoughts?
Democrats wanna win?
If they are serious, they will watch and learn from the mayor of Chicago. She is very presidential, exactly what they need.
And notice how pleased the reporter is, a bit of an editorial itself, and the chamber itself applauded her performance.
80 to 90 millions dollars, for what you may ask?
Heh, get this! It's for a super PAC devoted to a grassroots(!) democratic turnout...
In propaganda, the Russians are posers!
Lyme Disease Bioweapon
Lyme disease a bioweapon gone awry? Rep. Chris Smith pushes Trump to investigate
Now Lyme advocates have a new weapon — an explosive book that alleges the epidemic spawned from an American biological warfare experiment gone awry — and Smith, a Republican whose districts stretches across parts of Monmouth, Ocean and Mercer counties, is appealing to President Donald Trump for action.
The book is “Bitten: The Secret History of Lyme Disease and Biological Weapons” by Stanford University-based science writer Kris Newby. A chronic Lyme sufferer herself, Newby documents how the U.S. military infected ticks with complex, hard-to-detect pathogens in the 1960s. The book’s linchpin is an interview with late scientist Willy Burgdorfer, who did the infecting and references an accidental release of weaponized ticks that might have ignited all of this.
The relationship between the experiments and the continued denial of chronic Lyme is something Smith would like to see explored further.
“If this (book) this is true — and the documentation is very persuasive — we were doing bio-weapons work that was grossly immoral,” Smith said in an interview with the Asbury Park Press prior to Wednesday’s town meeting. “It’s a shocking read, and I hope it adds to our push. Looking at what happened might help us come up with how we deal with it now.”
He wrote a letter to that extent to President Trump and three inspectors general — of the departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Agriculture — requesting a “serious and comprehensive investigation” into the book’s assertions.
“We owe it to the overwhelming number of patients currently suffering from Lyme disease,” Smith wrote in the letter, dated May 14. “These individuals — and the American public — deserve to know the truth.”
Although he has not received a formal response, Smith said his appeal got the attention of members of Trump’s inner circle. If Congress won’t act on his bipartisan bill (H.R. 220) to bump up funding for research — currently a measly $11 million for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and $28 million for the National Institutes of Health — he’d like to nudge Trump to enact changes via executive order.
For the very first time I went to the Trump Twitter page
Sorry, I got curious...
But damn! The guy lays it on pretty thick, doesn't he? I mean, that picture!
Pizza for Breakfast
Nutritionist says pizza is better for breakfast than most cereals
Sage nutritional advice.
Beer Archaeologists Are Reviving Ancient Ales
Beer Archaeologists Are Reviving Ancient Ales — With Some Strange Results
Boston Dogfish Beer Head Company should patent all the ancient ales.
Steam Punk Prez
Electricity is too complex. And besides, the generators aren't powered by batteries.
They're also ripping out the reactors and going back to coal and kerosene lamps. Much simpler system. Do away with electricity altogether. Your EMP weapons are useless here.
Are Men Ready To Start Wearing Leggings?
Are Men Ready To Start Wearing Leggings?
You ain't ready yet.
Congratulations! On Electing the Most Impotent Congress Ever
Like Clint Eastwood, they spent their time talking to an empty chair before calling a day... so they can make a statement on twitter. You know these people are getting paid, right? How come we give 'em so much time off?
If we could impeach for conduct unbecoming, D.C. would be a ghost town.
This dance they perform is most delicate. They tread ever so lightly. WWE meets the Ballet Association. Mutual Assured Destruction is a real threat. But, soybeans are up, the show must go on...
