“You are confined only by the walls you build yourself.” - Anonymous

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

22 September

Don’t go goofy about Technology – it has its limits. Take the metronome. Invented in the early 19th century, it consists of a spring-loaded bulbous weight at the bottom of a slender perpendicular rod with a small moveable weight attached above. When released from its ‘mooring’ the rod will click as it swings from side to side, its click rate dependent on the up-or-down positioning of that small weight.

Used to stipulate the rate at which music was to be played, it was originally hailed in some quarters as a replacement for such terms as “Allegro ma non troppo,” since that clicking could be calibrated to, say,76 beats per minute - 76 relentlessly steady beats per minute.

Very quickly, however, those Italian terms regained their rightful place of honor since a relentlessly-regular beat invariably doomed any music so played to the domain of the machine. After all, a piece marked “Allegro ma non troppo” is to be played “fast and joyfully, but not too much” The listener is anticipating that emotion will trump speed every time.

Get it? Technology has its limits.