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THREAD_OF_MELODY

                                             February 17, 2025

This is a great C.S. Pierce quote--
from his "How to Think Clearly" (1878)--
but as is typical of Pierce the language
is a little peculiar:

      "In a piece of music there are the separate notes, and there is
      the air. A single tone may be prolonged for an hour or a day,
      and it exists as perfectly in each second of that time as in the
      whole taken together; so that, as long as it is sounding, it
      might be present to a sense from which everything in the past
      was as completely absent as the future itself. But it is
      different with the air, the performance of which occupies a
      certain time, during the portions of which only portions of it
      are played. It consists in an orderliness in the succession of
      sounds which strike the ear at different times; and to perceive
      it there must be some continuity of consciousness which makes
      the events of a lapse of time present to us. We certainly only
      perceive the air by hearing the separate notes; yet we cannot be
      said to directly hear it, for we hear only what is present at
      the instant, and an orderliness of succession cannot exist in an
      instant. These two sorts of objects, what we are immediately
      conscious of and what we are mediately conscious of, are found
      in all consciousness. Some elements (the sensations) are
      completely present at every instant so long as they last, while
      others (like thought) are actions having beginning, middle, and
      end, and consist in a congruence in the succession of sensations
      which flow through the mind. They cannot be immediately present
      to us, but must cover some portion of the past or
      future. Thought is a thread of melody running through the
      succession of our sensations."

                                                 GRAIN_OF_TIME

At first glance, the distinction between
"notes" and "air" suggests a distinction
between message and medium: notes are a
kind of sound transmitted through the air.

Reading the whole quote and puzzling over
the meaning, I distantly remember a different
usage of the word "air", I've heard phases
like "a melodic air".

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_(music)

    "air (Italian: aria; also air in French) is a song-like
    vocal or instrumental composition. The term can also be
    applied to the interchangeable melodies of folk songs and
    ballads. It is a variant of the musical song form often
    referred to (in opera, cantata and oratorio) as aria."


       That straightens it out: an "air" is a component of
       a melody, perhaps what I would call an instrumental
       line, one instrument's part in a composition, where
       the overall composition might be thought of as the
       melody.

            And indeed, Pierce continues:

            "We may add that just as a piece of music may be
            written in parts, each part having its own air ..."



       As is frequently the case with Pierce: I can
       never tell if the trouble is his language is
       just a little dated and archaic, or if he's       There may be a touch of
       off on his own branch with some terminology       irony in consulting
       all his own, singing a line the rest of us        Pierce on "How to Make
       have trouble following...                         Our Ideas Clear".



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