Sunday, February 8, 2015

Reacting to Knowledge is not Reacting to Sound

"It's an A.  Go away and don't bother me; I know how to play that note!"

"Do you really?  What if I play a bass F while you play it, and then a lower octave F: does it change the A?"

"Hmmm.  It feels different."

This acknowledgement that it feels different is the beginning of grasping that the character of sound is multi-dimensional and that no theoretical explanation of identity or function will account for the ingenuity that Beethoven employs to make you taste the difference between the A in different contexts.