Last night, alone - or so I thought - in a studio in Music Hall, I was reading through the Purcell Fantasias at the piano. Gradually the music grew out of focus. I grew scared, stopped playing, yet sound continued. Wasn't I alone? Stepping into the hallway I heard more clearly what seemed a distant wheezing tuba. I peeked into the concert hall and witnessed this: eight women, each armed with a double bass, were performing unison exercises under the tutelage of a ninth. My ear heard brass. Unexpected sonorities aren't always identifiable: middle-C on the piano, caught and sustained electronically after the ictus, is acoustically identical to the French horn. Pop a green grape into the mouth of an unalerted blind man: he'll think it's a soft marble or a butter ball. Does sound come to our ears, or do our ears go out to sound? Earshot is a meaningless word; our ears go out to the horrible beauties all about. Or should go out. Really we hear just our heartbeat, taste just the tongue, contemplate our navel, smell nothing but out upper lip, and feel not even our own fingertips. Perhaps they're all we have. << less