Mimi raised several points, including this one:

> It seems I am always in the middle of one of these sticky pieces.

Musical fragments often come to fill my blank mental moments -- and I've
got plenty, never mind (har) the Cartesian implication that I am not,
bar when I'm thinking.  Even a door-bell pattern can set off some 'sticky'
piece.

I noticed recently that the way I whack the used coffee grounds several
times on the side of the garbage bin takes me away to the opening drum
solo of Martinu's "Quartet for Clarinet, French Horn, Cello and Side
Drum." Hours later, I'll find myself humming a later percussive moment
from the Quartet.

Such moments are generally echoes something I enjoy, like this Quartet,
so my guess is that it's been resonating all along at some sub-audible
level.  Other bits I enjoy less, so much that their persistence hurts.
To be rid of them, I just find the recording and play it through -- or,
in the case of a jingle from an ad, just singing it aloud seems to do
the trick.

My local supermarket has a new slice-by-slice, do-it-yourself bread-cutting
machine that sounds just like Herrmann's music for the shower scene in
'Psycho'.  The pitch, the volume, even the pacing between screeches:
it's all there, to my ear.  Next time Mimi's in Ottawa maybe she'll come
by and test if trained ears feel the same chill.

Bert Bailey

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