December 23, 2009

Dear Diary,

I'm just counting down the hours at this point. I love Christmastime, like many of us do. Tomorrow's celebrating will begin awfully early with a morning movie, a late afternoon Christmas Eve service at church and then the family Progressive Dinner in the evening. Then I turn into an 8 year old kid who has the worst trouble falling asleep on Christmas Eve. I find I still watch the sky for a bright and shiny red nose and a trail of reindeer. After all, Dad still points him out as we drive along around Christmastime. For some reason, Dad's got the best eye for spotting Rudolph. At any rate, I promised you something last night and I shall now deliver...

See this Music & Science book talks about the amplitude of various pitches as they relate to the pipes of an organ. Actually, I'm not scientifically minded, necessarily, and I have some trouble digesting the whole picture, but what it amounts to is that two notes close in pitch placed next to each other would theoretically produce a sound double the size of what one pipe would produce. But instead, what happens is the air used to produce the sound in each pipe actually cancels the other pipe out and you get nothing, rather than double the sound. The reason is that the pitches are too near to identical. I don't really understand why that is, but I find it interesting that when you take two people who are very similar in almost every way, rather than getting a fuller more complete person, you sometimes end up with two people who are very boring and disintegrated. Do you suppose that musical notes might also thrive on the diversity that we as human beings crave? We do not look for someone exactly like ourselves, lest we become fully disinterested in the other person at end.

Anyway, it's not profound, I just found it interesting that it was mirrored in the scientifically musical realm. Perhaps it's something to ponder less tomorrow...