Devotees

Music, concerts, two loves of my life. My work is about listening to and producing speech. I thought I knew some things, had some basic ideas, but reading Music, The Brain, and Ecstacy: How Music Captures Our Imagination by Robert Jourdain astounds me with interesting, illuminating information, and incidentally shows me how very much an untrained amateur I am.

Did I know, really know, the many ways good concert venues like my beloved Jordan Hall perform their miracles? Had I really considered the way our outer ears don't just funnel sound but enrich it?  What about the organ of Corti, so  astonishingly small, intricate and crucial.  How had I missed the air reed of the flute? Was it clear to me how musical tones represent a complexification of a simplification, as simple scientific principles represented in mathematical formulae can serve build an endless variety of structures. No. And why?

Simple, I'm not an engineer, nor a musician, but information like this is what furnishes the worlds of both. These facts, and many others, are the relevant considerations of their work. This is why its so interesting to hear these people talking shop: one feels privileged to peek into their world of fascinating and significant details and unsuspected  principles. The facts are intriguing enough, but so are those who are so aware to them that they can put them to use in creative ways.

By contrast, I feel like a child who sits on the ground with a block with pegs in holes between my splayed legs, me whacking away with a wooden hammer. The designers and artists, by contrast, are faceting diamonds with precise strokes and using them to make glorious etchings.

Still, I have much more of the book to read, and for every page which I have already savored for its information, there is another yet to come. I love this subject; know how ignorant I am; and welcome being guided. To complete the loop, I should see (hear) for myself, and pass on what I learn. The interesting intricacy of the world needs to be turned inside out and its jewels put on display. We on our part, I speak to myself here, must find some kind of magic to do with what comes to light.

Listening to Nielsen's Inextinguishable symphony as I write this: Good Lord, what a world, what a journey, what a glory.