Richard Yates wrote:
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.
My part of this thread has been to respond to the post that said: "Physics is involved, but not at any conscious level, and not at any significant level".
This says that no aspect of physics is in consciousness when making music, and that physics is has no significant role in making music. I think that this may have just been sloppy writing (rather than sloppy thinking) by the original postert, but people's continuing defense of it suggests otherwise.
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.
Of course you are not. But that is a straw man argument. It is trivial to select any aspect of physics sufficiently abstract to play no part in consciousness. You probably do not think of quarks and hadrons, either. But to say that you do not think about some aspect of physics when you make music is not the same as saying that you think of no aspect of physics.
You could even try to take the same position about music theory. You could easily select some aspect of music theory that plays no part in consciousness when you make music, but wouldn't it seem odd to then claim that music theory "is involved, but not at any significant level."?
Could you please explain what aspects of physics are in my conscious thought while I'm playing the trumpet?
Physics is the science which defines and describes in precise detail the actions and interactions. I don't concede that we're discussing physics when I tell my student "While holding the trumpet so the mouthpiece is centered on your lips, you blow with sufficient pressure to get your lips to vibrate."
While with music theory, I will readily agree that I am consciously thinking about music theory all the time I am reading and playing music, since music theory is what tells me what I should do when I see those ink-splats on the page.
-- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
