Klarinet Archive - Posting 000138.txt from 2004/08

From: Joseph Wakeling <joseph.wakeling@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Different worlds....
Date: Fri, 6 Aug 2004 11:22:10 -0400

Ormondtoby Montoya wrote:

>I wouldn't go *that* far, Joe. Physics has plenty of examples ---
>including quanta & relativity & superstrings and astronomy --- where
>important and brilliant discoveries were made precisely because certain
>numbers 'didn't add up'.
>
>

A very good point, but I don't think it really conflicts with what I'm
saying. Quantification is very good (sometimes vital) for telling you
that you're wrong and is therefore an extremely important learning
device. But the generation of new material that goes beyond what has
been quantified---that's another thing entirely. Quantification can
tell you "you need to look harder" or "this particular idea doesn't
work" but actually finding the missing pieces of the puzzle doesn't come
that way.

Likewise, quantification can tell me I'm biting too hard on the reed in
a particular passage of music, or that I'm rushing a set of notes, or
that I'm too loud at one point, or that I play an extra note where I
shouldn't. But all this is just cutting away things that don't work.
Finding the things that *do* work usually requires something extra,
beyond "quantification", in my experience.

Perhaps I *could* quantify those things, if I worked hard enough, but I
doubt it---and it would take me a thousand times longer.

-- Joe

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