Hearing is believing.

The other night I went to hear Chase Coleman play on the CCC campus. The piano recital was a prelude to some modern dance. The dancers were good, but still severely upstaged by Mr. Coleman's fingers. It was not so much that his fingers moved quickly and with agility (although they certainly did) but that they were visual representation of the music in the same way dance (ideally) is. Indeed I believe even without sound one could have felt the music simply by watching Mr. Coleman's fingers. Or even that the sound was the audio accompaniment to the music his fingers were displaying visually. So was the music in the vibrating strings of the piano? Mr. Coleman's fingers? The dancers’ bodies? Or rather something more ethereal? Some pure content beyond the grasp of our form addicted minds, to which our instruments of flesh and mettle are conduits, giving eminence to that which is truly transcendent? A machine can “hear” sounds but only a soul can, whether by ear or eye, know music.

Chucking it up

On Charles Darwin’s bicentennial I suppose we could do yet anther critique of “his theory”, analyze its originality (or lack there of) its merits, its open questions and its qualifications to even be classified as a true scientific theory at all. Or we could examine what sort of implications it might have on philosophical or theological matters (as far as I can tell, basically none). But instead I think I will look at what impact Darwin and/or his theory have had on humanity.
Hum….not much there either.
One could I suppose say Darwin had a hand in the cultural decadence of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But Thomas Huxley did not invent hedonism anymore than Queen Victoria invented prudery. If people wish to become slave of their lowest animal impulses, they do not need a scientific theory to justify doing so…and indeed evolution through natural selection does not.

Countdown 2012

"Well then by tomorrow we might all be dead, but than how is that different from any other day?" - Morpheus, The Matrix Reloaded

We are still a relatively long way from 12/21 2012, plenty of time at least for the History Channel to get a lot more mileage out of its Nostradamus shows. Its already got quite a bit out of the several it already has circulating. Of course when I say "several" I mean several different titles, Nostradamus revealed, Prophesies of Nostradamus, the Lost Book of Nostradamus, and of course Nostradamus 2012. However, all these "different" shows feature pretty much the same material. The same quatrains, the same crackpots, the same hand ringing "These prophesies are so accurate can we possibly escape the fate they predict?" Oddly enough though, one of the shows did feature a prophet (or rather prophetess) whose predictions were remarkably accurate, Mother Shipton. Her prophases not only seem to be rather accurate but (unlike Nostradamus') are specific enough to not be dismissed as probably just some drug induced 16th century ravings that happen to meet up with historical events now and then. Naturally enough I suppose accurate prophecies of future events brings up the question of freewill and determinism (at least if someone does not like the prophecies). But Mother Shipton's are interesting in that they do not involve asteroids or autocratic rulers but sometimes the actions of the general public...

"And now a word in uncouth rhyme Of what shall be in future time, For in the wondrous far off days, The women shall adopt a craze To dress like men and trousers wear And cut off their lovely locks of hair. They'll ride astride with brazen brow As witches on a broomstick now
Then love shall die and marriage cease, And nations wane as births decrease. The wives shall fondle cats and dogs And men live much the same as hogs."

This seems fairly precise and quite plane. Yet it required millions to cooperate of their free will in order for it to come true?
Perhaps the true seer is more akin to the scientist than the mystic. Observing events and making predictions based on patterns.
But whether it is an asteroid or social decadence one prediction seems pretty safe. It is not a lack of free will that will be mans undoing, it will be his lack of using it properly.

Enemies of Reason

There is a DVD out called The Enemies of Reason. It has Dick Dawkins ugly old mug splashed across the cover. This is probably appropriate as I believe he is the biggest enemy of reason I know of.

The Grand Unified Theory of Music

Hay! Took a bit of a hiatus this semester to concentrate on music and other things, but here is a sample of some of the stuff I have been working on.

Perfect Tempos

When I set out on this research project my goal was no less then to understand the twelve tone tonic system and the mysterious force within it. Though I have admittedly fallen short of this goal, I believe the research and contemplation has still deepened my understanding of music, and perhaps may be the beginnings of ultimately achieving my goal.
"The two most basic elements of music are sound and time." So said W. Ronald Clemmons in his book Sounds in Time, and I doubt there is much serious disagreement on this fact. We could think of music as a mathematical abstraction on a parchment or “score”, but still what this would be representing is the mathematics of sound in time. Time is of course fundamental to sound it self. It is what unites our musical spectrum as well as forming the distinctions within it.
The distinction of two different tones is fundamentally a distinction in time. It is a distinction of the rhythmic pulse of sound within the tone; a faster pulse gives us a higher frequency or pitch, where as a slower pulse gives lower frequency. The same principle of course is at play in the extreme bass of our musical spectrum, where the rhythmic pulse is slowed to the point that it is no longer called tone but beat. However it is essentially the same phenomena we encounter in the treble region, beat and tone are just different was of looking at the pulse of music.
We often think of beats as having divisions and subdivisions, but any frequency bearing tone played within an underlying rhythmic structure can be seen as a pulse within a pulse.
Although it is easy to think of these elements of music, in a purely analytical fashion, as belonging to a single united spectrum of time and sound, they usually seem quite distinct in music as we actually encounter it. This is because composers generally avoid the dialectical area of the spectrum where the distinction becomes “muddy” (though vibrato can, on occasion, create a sort of flirting between the regions, if not actual meeting). Still there is a single interval that runs throughout the spectrum, let us call it the tonic interval. It manifests the most fundamental mathematical relationship that the human mind can grasp, that of doubling or Halfling (depending on which direction you are going.) We see this principle in the tonal area as the octave. We see it in the rhythm section in the basic form of the notes, whole, half, quarter etc. The adjustment of this interval is made in the tonal section by use the twelve “keys” within the interval (Major, minor or modal dose not really concern us here, as these refer only to how the tonic interval is internally divided.) It is made in the rhythm section by use of the more flexible* concept tempo.
This brings us to the main focus of this paper, the alignment of these two principles, key and tempo. Clearly these two principles can be aligned but for demonstration purposes let us take A4 at 440 Hz. The next tonic down would be 220Hz and the next 110Hz and the next 55Hz and the next 27.5Hz and the next 13.75 Hz (we are now getting below level of human hearing) and the next 6.88Hz and the next 3.44Hz or approximately 206 cycles per minuet. We have passed from the realm of tone through the “muddy” region and have come at long last to the domain of rhythm (that is if you are slightly demented). However, I would prefer to work with 103 or even 52, but this just underscores an important point. We are not talking about there being a perfect tempo for each key but rather there being perfect tempos for each key. It is now important to state that when we say “perfect” we are not meaning to imply that they are the only or even the best tempo for that key, merely that they are the tempos that align perfectly with the tonic interval and thus cause the least pan spectral dissonance. Music though is not meant to be perfectly consonant; indeed if it were perfectly consonant it would not be music.
So how do perfect tempos and pan spectral consonance affect the aesthetic and therapeutic aspects music? I am afraid this is a matter deserving its own paper, a paper I have not yet done enough research to write but hopefully soon I will have.
In the mean time here is a table of perfect tempos for the western twelve tone tonic system.


A = 206, 103, 52
A# = 219, 109, 55
B = 116, 58, 29
C = 123, 61, 31 (tonic)
C# = 130, 65, 32
D = 138, 69, 34
D# = 146, 73, 36
E = 155, 77, 39
F = 164, 82, 41
F# = 173, 87, 44
G = 184, 92, 46 (dominate)
G# = 195, 97, 49


* I am not including microtones in this assessment; theoretically the interval is fully flexible throughout the full spectrum.

A vote for McCain is a vote for Hillary!

As far as I know Obama has not yet officially made this his campaign slogan, but perhaps it is so obvious he does not need to. Earlier this year many of the GOP faithful flocked to the poles to vote for the candidate they thought would have the best chance at beating Hilary - John McCain (I guess because of his supposed popularity with independents). But the Dems foiled this cunning plan by deciding that an intellectually challenged nobody with a terrorist sounding name would make a better candidate than Hillary (well I can't argue with them there). So now the best chance for Hillary to become president is for McCain to get elected.

The Hidden Tariff

What is the real albatross around the US economy's neck?
It is not free trade, per se, or the lack of tariffs on foreign goods, but rather it is more the internal tariff on domestic goods and services.
It is employment tax. The annoying little tax that increases the cost of labor in the US by 10% - 15%.
Asking the American worker to compete in a vastly overstocked global labor market is one thing, asking him to do it at a 15% handicap is too much to ask any one.
So what do the politicians propose doing about it? Well it generally ranges from the outright insanity of raising the tax, to the bizarre enigma of pointless semantic shuffling.
The fact is the tax does not need to be manipulated, massaged or reduced, it simply needs to be eliminated.
Now one could debate whether or not the government should be in the dole business at all, but presuming the program should exist, it makes much more sense to fund it by spreading the cost equally between foreign and domestic goods, with a graduated consumption tax.
This would not only give the American manufacturer an equal shot at his own market, but also be more competitive abroad, not to mention allowing solvency as we move from a production to consumption weighted economy.It is not free trade, per se, or the lack of tariffs on foreign goods, but rather it is more the internal tariff on domestic goods and services. It is employment tax. The annoying little tax that increases the cost of labor in the US by 10% - 15%.