At deLange writes:
>Let us recall the rhythms in any piece of music, for example a piano
>sonata of Beethoven. The notes in the score are positioned in bars. The
>bars indicate a linear (regular) increase in time. This is the back
>ground -- clock time. But the notes themselves have different time
>values. This the foreground -- the phenomenological time. By playing the
>score one completely forgets about clock time. It is there, but its role
>is insignificant. One's mind rather becomes filled with the rhythmic
>ideas which the composer had in mind, all woven into one gigantic,
>complex fabric.
How interesting that you happened to choose Beethoven as your example. I
believe it was Beethoven whose friend invented the metronome, which
Beethoven thought was an instrument of the devil! He hated it. He even
wrote a very funny piece of music that mocked the regularity of metronomic
time.
As At indicates, when playing music there is little awareness of clock
time. I don't think good musicians (and I play music myself, though
calling me a "good musician" might be stretching the point -- however I
just performed the Haydn trumpet concerto with an orchestra last weekend)
even think that the bar lines indicate a linear progression of time. They
appear to (which I believe is At's real point), but they are not treated
by musicians as if they did. They are merely a grouping mechanism, a
somewhat mechanical way of organizing the notes on a page so it is easier
to see their relationships with each other. But in performance, as At
says, the "line" of a thematic idea, and the "phrasing" and interpretation
of that line, create an entirely non-linear conception of time. I believe
that this fact, that music takes us out of linear time -- that it
stretches and contracts time -- is one of those hitherto "unexplainable"
joys attendant to listening to music.
--"John Gunkler" <jgunkler@sprintmail.com>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>