Charles Dalmas, in an impressive posting that invites comment, writes:

>Even if you read music, you cannot glean any useful information about a
>message or statement from the printed page.  You know what the music is
>conveying only if you know the piece, and have heard it before.  Without
>this contextual knowledge, it is impossible to know what the music is
>saying just by looking at the printed page.

Surely there must be musicians so highly trained and experienced that only
by looking at a sheet of music they can actually "hear" it!? Analogoulsy,
there must be poets so practiced that when reading a poem in English, they
actually "hear" it being recited.  But it is true that the conscious--the
"mind"-- works in a different mode when handling music than the mode it
employs when handling language.  Yet both language and music are enunciated
the same way, namely by sound.  The modulation of that sound is a different
matter.

Denis Fodor                     Internet:[log in to unmask]