Musicians can usefully pay attention when others are talking about time. Here, via a Blogging Heads conversation*, is an elegant essay by physicist Julian Barbour on nothing less than The Nature of Time. The two basic problems of time for physicists — the definition of duration and simultaneity of events at spatial separation — are also very much problems for musicians, complicated (of course) by questions of perception, cognition, memory, and cultural or personal habits. Barbour views about time (especially in his book The End of Time) are controversial among physicists, but his notion that time is an illusion is perhaps a useful metaphor for the sleight-of-ear aspect of the work musicians do: extraordinary musical moments as unique configurations of space.
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* Still waiting for a new music Blogging Heads episode... I'd give an eyetooth to watch Lisa Hirsch go up against A.C. Douglas...
3 comments:
Nooooo, do I have to??
It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it.
Aaaaaaiii!
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