Do you play a musical instrument?

And when you're making music, I'm dancing.

So, are we now exploring the physical links between expertise in culinary preparation and music reproduction?

I'd rather play in the band than dance. One makes less of a spectacle of one's self when playing, and yield far more pleasure.

Been there and done tha that ...

ATB from George

So your experiences offers you little opportunity to expose your expertise beyond saying that your are no instrumentalist or singer.

Extra-ordinary, considering the number of replies you have made on this thread.

Training sea lions clearly gives you greater knowledge of obscure literature than being a musician ...

ATB from George

Well J-E, for your sake I hope they work out...at 35 bucks that's a pretty cost effective audio tweak, but a pretty d@mn expensive cutting board!

Linked by a common purpose : survival of the species.

If you've searched, but in vain, for music's survival benefits for the individual or the group, you're overlooking Darwin's compelling arguments that music's benefits were primarily reproductive, best explained by the same sexual selection process that shaped bird song.

But I'm just parroting Geoffrey F. Miller's essay(1) reviving Darwin's suggestions that human music must be studied as a biological adaptation and that music was shaped by sexual selection to function mostly as a courtship display to attract sexual partners.

Darwin realized that music's aesthetic and emotional power, far from indicating a transcendental origin, point to a sexual-selection origin, where too much is never enough.

It's an arms race to impress minds.

(1) Evolution of Music Through Sexual Selection, in The Origins of Music (MIT Press)

Taverner believed that 'all music is prayer'. This may be the missing link for which we have been searching. If the composer, musician and listener (live or recorded) are blent in 'prayer' then that acoustic medium connects them all in a spiritual journey. 

Through prayer we seek perfection. It follows, therefore, that f[F]aithful reproduction assists the listener in his/her quest for musical truth. On these grounds there is a necessary link between musicianship and Naim ownership, as musical purity is the shared goal.

Linked by a common purpose : survival of the species.

Indeed. One can't listen to music without being fed at some point. Without food there would be no musicians, without musicians there is no point in composing music. In short the chopping board is essential to the link between musicians and musical reproduction.  

A light but rigid support is purported to have benefits for turntables. Didn't Black Diamond Racing come out with a carbon-fibre shelf for that purpose? 

I don't have a Fraim, but I do enjoy building things, especially when wood is involved. My SuperCDX sits on sheet of glass supported by ball bearings (marbles) that rest on a triangular MDF shelf that apes the Fraim support, but without the half-moon cutout. The MDF shelf sits on three brass cones, the points of which rest in the indents of brass cups.

The Epicurean board, like the sheet of glass, provides an absolutely flat surface for all four feet of the component that rests on it. Because it is made from wood fiber, albeit of very high density and impregnated with resin, I'm thinking it might just be the right compromise between glass and MDF.

If you don't play an instrument, what value your contributions to what was quite reasonable thread in the Music Room

Thank you George for mentioning this. I have two comments here. First, I don't think it is necessary to play a musical instrument to contribute to the thread, since the title question is open-ended in order to appeal to musicians and non-musicians alike. Secondly, and I am sincerely narked by this, the reason we have been moved to the Padded Cell is quite simply because of the number of irrelevant and risque comments which have been made. As such we no longer have the same high profile as we did in the Music Room and the very life of the thread has been put in jeopardy.

 I agree it was, and still can be 'quite a reasonable thread' but only if we all keep 'on topic'. The links to the main question need to be made. Perhaps we could all make a concerted effort to do that?

In the words of Mrs Moore 'Only connect' (A Passage to India).

I play some guitar...

I have four guitars and I play about a quarter of each one. Am I qualified to post here?

I was just answering the original thread question - I have 13 guitars but my math skills are not such that I can convert 1/13th into decimal to give a percentage without the aid of a calculator!

I don't think it is necessary to play a musical instrument to contribute to the thread, since the title question is open-ended in order to appeal to musicians and non-musicians alike.

For Jan and DrMark

The thread title is "Do you play a musical instrument?"  The post was actually a tongue in cheek reference to how far the thread had strayed from its original intent.

And in answering the original question (again), I made no inference that one had to play an instrument in order to contribute to the thread or have an opinion on the topic.

If you are going to read between the lines, please be sure there is something there to read!

Sorry, I couldn't see your cheek! I don't think it was so much a case of reading between the lines as simply taking your lines literally. Sense of humour has walked out on me today. I have to ask, though, do you really have 13 guitars?

I'd rather play in the band than dance. One makes less of a spectacle of one's self when playing, and yield far more pleasure.

Been there and done tha that ...

Sorry George, I forgot to answer you. My comment was motivated by and tried to condense the idea that there is a connection between the music maker and the listener which can transcend the mental and result in a physical reaction whether that be toe or finger tapping or full body convulsions. And I wonder about the spectacle too? If you're on stage don't you become the spectacle? Either way there is a visceral response. I'm not sure I can discern a difference, though, between my response to live or recorded sound. As long as the SQ is good, I can derive exquisite pleasure from either. The same is true of performing or dancing. Is it not just a case of getting fully involved / immersed in the music?

I used to compose music ; it would appear in my head. I never learnt to write it down. I started learning guitar, but playing it well is some distance off. The next best thing for me is to try to reproduce music and experience it as the composer and the musicians intended. Share their mind set and mental space. Hence the quest for the audio system and accessories that bring closer me to that goal.

But if Darwin was right and it's all about sexual selection, then my plans to build the ultimate air-bearing, high-density fibreboard support platform is nothing more than biology directing me to attract nubile females...

Which raises the question: If I build it, will they come ?

I had a book once,.....Green it was.

Snap ! I've just finished the same one.

Cloistered in a remote Northern Quebec monastery, 24 monks of the Gilbertine order, long thought to have vanished altogether, sing glorious Gregorian plainchants and exist happily with minimal contact from the outside world. For hundreds of years, they have remained hidden away, quietly recruiting new members as the need arises. Ironically, given the monks’ vow of silence, music is their focus, their outlet, and their connection to God.

Still recruiting. Loki ?

I carried you away
And no one saw you leave
I placed you in my pocket for safe keeping
A miniaturized version of you

And I will wear my halo in the sun
So no one sees me cheating
Well, I didn't mean to see
To shipwreck you with me

And now our poisoned pirate ship is broken
And shards of wood and glass turn into ocean
Rocks on top of rocks are in my view
They leave my mouth wide open

Salty water wash me
Salty water wash me

Like concrete turns you right
Steel turns me on
Metal doors will close and they will open
Don't step on factory floors you will fall down

Compartments allows you in my mind
Like boxes on a slip line
And I will wear my halo in the sun
So no one sees me cheating

Salty water wash me
Salty water wash me

***

Tunng ; Salty Water (hidden track from And Then We Saw Land)

Mine dont , I haven't got any pockets big enough for the beano annual.

Sorry Jan, I am not a big fan of fiction to be perfectly honest, I like the sciency ( particle physics and cosmology) tackling the big questions like, Why since the age of forty has my nose and ear hair gone berserk?

Regards Jim.