Arbitrariness, the Stereotypes of Consciousness, and Imagination

Abstract

Musical composition demands the expression, through signs of actions, of melodic and rhythmic models that are derived from the “realm of sounds,” which is conceived as “disorder” – or, to put it better, as a “potential aggregation of all possible orders.” The world of music is unique in its own way: it is a world of sounds that are separated out from a mass of noises. —Paul Valéry [not cited in the original.–Ed.]