Day 63

Day 63:

Dum, de dum dum dum, de dum dum duum,

Da de dum dum da, de dum dum do da dum dum da.

Daa, de dum dum do da dum dum do da da, da.

I wonder if that worked. If you read that again, hum it out loud or in your mind, I wonder what would happen. I'll do it now.

...

Was it exactly the same as you thought of it the first time, or was there a different tune? We all have different experiences and biases and musical tastes, which should mean that everybody will hum this tune slightly differently. There simply isn't enough context to guide us in any particular direction with it, so we simply use our own knowledge to create our own tune, going higher or lower, or using different rhythms when we read it. That makes perfect sense.

What is also interesting here is that, for the life of me, I can't hum it exactly the same way twice. Each time I read it, something changes, or it can be completely different. Please, have another go; here it is again, exactly the same.

Dum, de dum dum dum, de dum dum duum,

Da de dum dum da, de dum dum do da dum dum da.

Daa, de dum dum do da dum dum do da da, da.

Whether it be the pacing, or the length of each 'dum', or something else, I haven't been able to do it the same way twice. This seems odd; when comparing your own performances of the same piece, you wouldn't expect much deviation. After all, you are using the same pool of experience and knowledge and tastes each time. Yet they are different, wildly different in some cases. Why? It may be because it can feel very monotonous to read out the same thing in the same way more than once, so we subconsciously try to liven it up or change it. This makes a lot of sense, but I also theorize that it may be because the experience pool that we are drawing from as we hum or read this is changing. Each time we read it, we learn more about it, we come to anticipate how it will sound if we change certain pitches. We may have really liked how we first read it, so won't deviate from it, or not liked it, so changed it a lot.

If you are able to read it the same way each time, then you are likely in the minority. However, it may be the case that only you and me have read this, in which case, there is no minority because it would be a 50:50 :). This is one of those days where I may have written something really interesting, or complete nonsense. But this time, I have very little way of knowing until it is read by others. Then again, I never really know what I'm going to write until I'm about halfway through finishing it. Just like when humming the piece, I remember and re-use the parts that I liked, and stop using the parts that I didn't, but I do something different each time regardless.

Huh, so there was a metaphor there... Interesting.