I Hear Music In the Air
Illustration of the “cosmic lyre”, from the first volume of Robert Fludd’s Utriusque Cosmi, Maioris scilicet et Minoris, 1617.
Notice the phrase, “in the air.” This is a way of saying that music transports us differently than watching and reading, because even though it’s invisible, sound moves through space at a certain speed, then causes eardrums to vibrate, and in doing so it reorganizes the hierarchy of the larger sensorium, subordinating the eye to the ear by mobilizing the rest of the body, forcing the mind to catch up, or just leaving it behind. Under the spell of music, time doesn’t stand still, it dilates, unfolds, expands; for when memory’s archive becomes the body, chronology stops making sense. To paraphrase Jacques Attali, music makes the simultaneity of different times—or different stages of history—audible, sometimes so effectively that you can dance to it.
— James Livingston, “Sinners in the Hands of a Complete Unknown,” Liberties
