"The Mystery Of Sound Is Mysticism"

«Musical ideas or feelings are not mere sound, and yet are nothing apart from sound; they may be described in emotive language ("sad" and the like) and yet are never adequately so described. Description - a logical interpretant, dependent on collateral observation by which the feelings heard are compared with human emotions conventionally designated - lacks the specificity, complexity, and nuance of the musical ideas described. As Mendelssohn said, "It is not that music is too vague for words; it is too precise for words." That is why the proper or complete interpretant of music is emotional, not logical. But that emotional interpretant is not one’s ordinary feeling, for example, of sadness; it is the same complex of feeling as that embodied in the piece of music heard. » (Short : Peirce theory of signs 2007: 204).

Susanne Langer (1953: 147). "The first principle in musical hearing is not, as many people assume, the ability to distinguish the separate elements in a composition and recognize its devices, but to experience the primary illusion [i.e., the movement of the music through the 'virtual time' constructed by the work] , to feel the consistent movement and recognize at once the commanding form which makes this piece an inviolable whole"

In written speech we can say anything and contradict ourself and negate what has been said ... We can begin to wrote again forgetting what we just corrected ...We are free in a way we are not in musical playing expression and in oral speech ...

Nobody can lie in musical immediate playing expression because nothing can be retracted as in oral expression before writings was invented ...In music playing as in oral speech we live in time with time through timing ..."Lying" can be detected in oral speech and in music  by some asynchronization in the expressing body ...

In the written music or speech we live out of time without time ...

This is why orality as music playing implicate the whole living body...

Written music and written speech do not implicate the whole body they are social institution in a way music playing and oral speech are not  ...Writing miss the mystery of time and timing which is the body itself, the body being a rythms of interlocked spirals at all scales from the microtubules to the body arms......

@tyray

@stuartk, Thank you for giving @mahgister his props! There was no need at all to delete your post:

I often find myself in agreement with @mahgister and am not shy about expressing it. I deleted my initial post because I wanted to say more on this thread topic but upon further consideration, opted not to, simply because is so subjective.

If "person A" regards mysticism as frivolous ianity, at best and "person B" has had vivid experiences that fall within the realm of "the mystical", where is there space for dialog? I don’t see it. "person A" is liable to view "person B" as anything from overly-imaginative to deranged and there is nothing "person B" can do to change this. It’s for this reason that I thought it best not to comment further, despite the fact that this is a topic that greatly interests me. I think it best to leave it at that. 

If "person A" regards mysticism as frivolous ianity, at best and "person B" has had vivid experiences that fall within the realm of "the mystical", where is there space for dialog? I don’t see it. "person A" is liable to view "person B" as anything from overly-imaginative to deranged and there is nothing "person B" can do to change this.

Nor is it likely, in my opinion, that "person B" will toss their experience out the window simply because "person A" doesn't believe there is any reality to anything deemed mystical. 

It's probably both more productive and enjoyable for these two persons to talk about something else -- their favorite music, for example.   ;o)