Tunisia

I read a lot and still find it difficult to fathom what is going on in other parts of the world. This story of what has happened in Tunisia as many flee Qaddafi, is that rare bit of sanity which also seems hard to fathom.

mmmmm....

A few people in the news after their passing struck a chord with the Contrarian. Max Mathews was considered the father of computer music. In 1957 he wrote a program for a computer to play a 17-second composition, proving that sound could be digitally stored and retrieved. Have we traveled a bit since then, or have we? Commenting recently, Mr. Mathews discussed the vagrancies of music, "What we have to learn is what the human brain and ear think is beautiful. What do we love about music? What about the acoustic sounds, rythms and harmony do we love? When we find that out it will be easy to make music with a computer." And therein lies the rub, what our brains and ears hear are by no means constant.

In another passing, Arthur Lessac, the famous Hollywood voice coach and educator discussing language once said, "if only one knows what to listen for. With their sustained, purring timbre, the consonants "m" and "n" are stringed instruments. Luxuriant "w" and "zh" are woodwinds, raucous "r" a trombone. "L" is a mellow saxophone; "ch" a clash of cymbals; and the small explosions "p", "b" and "t" are percussion." A wonderful explanation of the music in words.

I bring these wonderful morsels of thought because in my profession some consider architecture to be frozen music. And its difficult to understand what our eyes view as beautiful without knowing what to listen for.