FROM MIND TO EAR, MUSIC IN TRANSIT

Abstract

The procedure of transferring music from mind to ear requires a double conversion from sound to symbol and back, in order for the sound to regain existence and meaning. This double conversion requires a common language with common syntax for the meaningful transmutation of the structural narrative, from one medium to the other and back. Music notation is not only incomplete in its representation of meaning, it is also largely deceiving, as readers tend to define syntactical units, motives, phrases, etc. –in a familiar albeit unrelated and irrelevant manner, based on meter, barline and note patterns– as if they were metrical units instead.