Do you consciously think about grammar when you speak? Is grammar significant to communication? - Darcy
Can someone communicate effectively without having consciously learned the rules of grammar specifically (as opposed to picking up general concepts of communication)? Certainly, children do it all the time!
Whether children 'consciously' learn grammar or 'pick it up' or have it hardwired, the point is that grammar has significance in communication. It does not mean that it is everything, but it is significant. Darcy's analogy is pointing out the flaw in the position that physics has NO significance in music. (By the way, children's speech is grammar-ridden from as soon as they string enough words together to have a grammar).
I don't think anybody has said physics has no significance, just that it is not part of people's conscious thought processes while making music or playing pool.
I know I'm not thinking about frequencies, nor the complex formula needed to calculate the exact frequency I need to go to when I need to leap a tritone and an octave. I know how to play one pitch, I know how to play the next pitch and I make whatever alterations are necessary to change the pitch. And when I arrive there, if I'm out of tune a bit, I certainly don't calculate the number of cents I am out, nor the change in tension necessary for my lips to alter the pitch to be in tune, I simply get the pitch to sound in tune.
yes, physics are certainly important, but my knowledge of physics as physics isn't the least important to my playing the trumpet well, any more than knowledge of the grammar as grammar is important to children's oral communication.
-- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
