On 10 Feb 2005 at 5:22, Richard Yates wrote: > > You seem to me to be arguing that acoustics are part of the musical > > content of a work of music, where I'm saying that it is only the > > mechanism by which the content is conveyed. > > Can to define this elusive content without reference to physics?
First, define physics. In this discussion, the meaning of that word has been so broad as to include all operations within the physical world. By that definition, my task would be impossible. Not that that is actually a problem -- most logical systems cannot be completely described in terms of themselves. I believe that was what Goedel's theorem was all about (though I'm not a mathematician). In fact, the task would depend on the piece of music being described. It is only when you ask me to abstract "musical meaning" for all pieces of music that I might have to delve into non-musical materials to explain how meaning is conveyed. To actually explicate the meaning of a particular piece, though, I doubt there'd be any requirement to make reference to physics, at least not in any meaningful sense of the term "physics." Given that the deck is stacked against me in this forum by the insistence on a debased, all-inclusive definition of physics, I shall not take you up on an offer of discussing meaning in a particular piece of music. -- David W. Fenton http://www.bway.net/~dfenton David Fenton Associates http://www.bway.net/~dfassoc _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
