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https://soundcloud.com/user-748477645/on-the-brink-radio-319-why-i-love-music
"The case of music is very special and very interesting. Let’s consider instrumental, or non-verbal, music. Music is sound, vibrations in air, just like speech and noise. But what makes it “music?” It is sound which is ordered in specific ways. Music has definite patterns of rhythmic (temporal) variation and repetition, and definite patterns of harmonic (frequency relationship) variation and repetition. We are speaking of western music. Eastern music is basically rhythmic and not harmonic, i.e., utilizing chords. Western music is rhythmic and harmonic. Basically, music is combinations of sounds that sound good to us. It is the frequency relationships that determine whether or not we call it music: western music utilizes any types of rhythms, but a more limited number of frequency relationships, or chords. What we call chords are sounds whose frequencies relate to each other in ratios of the reciprocals of small whole numbers.
What does music communicate? Many things, basically feelings and emotions, which we all experience intensely but which we know little about. They are very important to us; in fact, they seem to be the essence of life. But why? The concept of resonance is very important. Resonance is a measure of how well two or more systems vibrate together. Two lovers are resonating well…their bodily rhythms are highly attuned to each other. Musicians playing together are causing their instruments to resonate harmoniously, producing music; if they are playing jazz, then their own bodily rhythms and feelings are being expressed by and through the music, reaching you, the listener, thereby effecting communication. Jazz is very emotional music; Bach is a superb blend of intellect and emotion."
JEFF PHILLIPS, 'MAN AND DOLPHIN', MAGICAL BLEND, 1980
"The brink is not so much an edge that we can fall off of, but the horizon of navigation, the limit of our vision or perception, beyond which we cannot see. The brink is created by cybernetic minds charting their course iin the universe. The brink implies a sense of urgency and closeness to change. Because the cosmos is creative, what is beyond the brink is unknown. When you find yourself on the brink, you need to listen to some..."
JEFF PHILLIPS, liner notes from THE WHITE ELECTRIC DOG TRANSMISSIONS cd, 1998
WAIKAROPUPU SPRINGS, TAKAKA, NEW ZEALAND
