Introduction: Organizing Aesthetics
Antonio Strati, Pierre Guillet deMontoux · Human Relations · 2002
I lay my ten fingers on the keyboard and imagine music. My fingers copy this mental image as I press the keys, but this copy is very inexact: a feedback emerges between idea and tactile/motor execution. This feedback loop repeats itself many times, enriched by provisional sketches: a mill wheel turns between my inner ear, my fingers and the marks on the paper. The result sounds completely different from my initial conceptions: the anatomical reality of my hands and the configuration of the piano keyboard have transformed my imaginary constructs. In addition, all the details of the resulting music must fit together coherently, the gears must mesh. The criteria are only partly determined in my imagination; to some extent they also lie in the nature of the piano – I have to feel them out with my hand. For a piece to be well-suited for the piano, tactile concepts are almost as important as acoustic ones . . . Ligeti (1996: 8–9)