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From: mrsmith@rice-chex.ai.mit.edu (Mr. P. H. Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: MUSIC AND AI
Message-ID: <16709@life.ai.mit.edu>
Date: 28 Jun 91 02:48:10 GMT
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As EH points out, listening is somewhat self-referential.  But let's
go farther and say it's completely self-referential; at this point
listening does not require sound (as in "external" "objective"
soundwaves).  Or, more properly music (qua listening) does not require
sound.  Sound is not a necessary condition for music.  

Eliot, I must thank you for nudging my thinking in this direction,
because you have now made it possible for me to solve a basic problem
in the theory of music (no, not "what is it?"):  What is the primary
musical element, the "thing" without which we would have no music?
What are the boundaries of music?  (I must tell y'all why I am pleased
to be able to eliminate sound as the necessary primary musical element
-- it's really quite obvious:

"SPUNKY CHEERLEADER IS DEAF-INITELY AMAZING"

Pretty cheerleader Jennifer Jenkins stays in perfect step with her
squad even though she can't hear the crowd rooting for her high school
basketball team.  
     Jennifer has been deaf since birth, and speaks only in sign
language, but that doesn't stop the 16-year-old junior from leading
cheers at Carman-Ainsworth High School near Flint, Michigan.
     'And when they do dance routines, she's right in sync with them,'
says her proud mom, Pam Jenkins.
     ...
     'If the music is loud enough to vibrate the floor, I can feel it
when I'm dancing,' the pert 5-ft.6-in. teen explains through a sign
interpreter.
     ...
     'Sometimes she'd be a tad off,' Pam says.  'But many times, she'd
end right with the music.  You just wouldn't know that she couldn't
hear.'"
	-- The Globe, May 14, 1991, p. 21.)

Now, there are many stories just like this one where deaf people enjoy
music via some kind of 'vibration.'  This vibration is arguably
not sound.  Moreover, there are musical experiences of listening that
do not even involve feeling a vibration (e.g., composing).  

Music Mediates Mind.tm clearly can encompass such kind of musical
experiences.  That's why it's so charming.  I would add that music
requires, minimally, the emergence of a self-referential (i.e.,
referring to the listening self) musical value.  This musical value
can be any of quite a variety of values - dance, religion, purity,
patriotism, abandon, peace, propriety, sound, silence, etc.

I call this point of emergence of a musical value in the mind Punction.tm.
(look it up).  An excellent word because of it's relationship to
terms such as 'punctus' (which, as a 'dot' or 'prick'
metaphorically connotes the emergence of a positive musical value in
the mind, regardless of whether the actual symbol represents a vocal
sound, a rest, a glass breaking, or a felt vibration of no sonic
quality whatever).  Thus, it is apparent that musical value emerges in the
mind - how banale!  The only important thing about Punction.tm
is that it allows musical research to include the experiences of a
Jennifer Jenkins - and that it can provide an interesting foundational
locus for Music Mediates Mind.tm.  What a strange understanding of
music can now emerge: a mental feedback system most commonly triggered
by sounds, but not always.  Punction: the emergence of a musical value
in the mind. (Note that this is not tautological.  Punction is not the
musical value per se, but the point of its emergence.)


Paul Smith
mrsmith@ai.mit.edu
[- not an ai guy.]