The little machine of music

Abstract

Thought itself is a rhythmical flow marked by the successive mental presence of conceptual contents. On the one hand, perception, i.e, the formation of the gestalt percepts, comprises another flow the rhythm of which is given by the periods needed for the amodal formation of “what is experienced”. Both these rhythms form the basis of the rhythms which allow us to create expressions with proprioceptive rhythm connected to contents that become meanings of these expressions. Both overlapping rhythms are thus articulated in phrases that offer “packages of meaning” and that ground semiotic communication as a means to share and develop the types of “packages” which we call discourse, a development that starts with music in the broader sense and that ends in language and writing. Rhythm precedes and lays the foundation for meaning.