Klarinet Archive - Posting 000534.txt from 2002/03

From: w6w@-----. Wright)
Subj: Re: [kl] Don't get me started...
Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 13:20:18 -0500

<><> Jonathan=A0N wrote:
Eugene Ormandy quotes.
http://www.rinkworks.com/said/eugeneormandy.shtml

Those are fun! I couldn't help noticing the caption on the main page:

"Human speech is directly responsible for almost every thought we have
throughout life's journey."

I wonder if this includes musical thoughts?

Michael Bryant once kindly sent me a copy of Jack Brymer's "Clarinet."
When I unwrapped it, the book fell pen to a page that another reader had
obviously consulted often:

"The music of speech is the first music a child learns, and from this
music he derives the meaning of life. Later he can apply it to the art
of music as we know it, and there is no doubt that there is a close
analogy between the two."

Brymer moves on to discuss cadence, mouth shape, articulation, and
<!ducking!> national sound character as related to language phonemes,
etc. But I've always felt that there is also a common ground between
the emotional & rational contents of language and music --- more than
just the mechanics of sound production --- even though direct
translation from a piece of music and words is not possible,
metaphorical description of music usually fails --- and even though PET
scans show that some areas of the brain that are active while we listen
to music are inactive while we process speech. (was that a run-on
sentence?)

But these things don't exclude the possibility (likelihood, imo) that
the rational and emotional contents of language and music share a common
basis. The intuition (and usage in our language) that "music says
something" is too strong to ignore.

Cheers,
Bill

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