The Fabric of Music

Introduction
What began as a modest write-up of a modest piece of software has expanded beyond
 all my intentions.  The ramifications are themselves not necessarily 
substantial, but in the process of trying to understand and explain them to my 
own satisfaction over time more and more areas of music and sound perception 
have become necessary.

Music is a peculiar subject of study, not least because of its potential range 
of interest.  We may find it hard to believe that some of the Ancient Greeks 
considered it one of the four most important subjects to understand - even more 
surprising, maybe, when we consider that the other three were Astronomy, 
Arithmetic and Geometry.  Perhaps this surprise is the result of the role and 
function of music over the last few hundred years.  Music is now seen 
principally as an entertainment or a commercial tool.  For many in the west, 
its inherent abstractions are either non-existent or irrelevant, and the 
principal form utilising these abstractions is apparently debarred from them 
for reasons which are more to do with perceptions of society than ability.

However, all is not gloom.  In those areas of philosophy in which discussion of 
a subject and a subject interconnections are allowed, (as opposed to endlessly 
discussing the nature of discussion), music has been used to illustrate certain 
aspects of human perception.  Of course, in the humanities, music is seen as a 
somewhat 'different' and even 'lofty' subject when compared to the dirty 
practicalities of Literature, Language, Sociology, Politics and even Philosophy. 
 In most academic establishments, Music as a subject is seen as, while firmly 
within the humanities, a 'semi-detached' subject, whose staff and students are 
similarly semi-detached.  At the same time, while most Music Departments 
principally consist of a majority of students whose main interest is in 
performance, and where the principal staff interests tend to revolve around one 
or other area of Musicology, there will often be found, again, in a semi-detached
 position, a more or less thriving sub-department involved in particular areas 
of what is now called 'music technology'.


The peculiarities of studying music in our society are compounded in a number of 
other ways:

The Study of Music in Western Society
The Role of Music in Western Society
The Perception of Music by the Sciences
The Range of Music
When all these factors are taken into account, it can be seen that, in fact, 
Music is a highly varied and multi-facetted subject.  From the vast commercial 
area of popular musics, through the gentler, more fragile and informative Folk 
and World Musics, through the more abstract and prestigious Classical musics 
throughout the world; from popular music technology through Audio technology 
and the huge markets for Audio equipment of all standards, through more esoteric 
uses of these technologies, through the development of computer applications to 
manipulate information for all these areas; from the architectural and 
mechanical areas of acoustics to the psychological and physiological areas of 
psychoacoustics; not to forget music therapies and other areas on the 
boundaries - the uses of sound to understand areas of the natural sciences - 
bioacoustics, oceanography, radar;  through all these areas it can be easily 
seen that music is a part of a continuum stretching from the most abstract of 
artistic theories to the most basic of human expressions to the most esoteric 
of scientific methods.  In fact, I feel that the latter is not entirely true 
and for particular reasons that will be investigated later.