Reading response 5

Principle 5.17 in Artful Design is about embodiment, and feeling as one with an instrument. I was also intrigued by the visuals earlier in the chapter of what an interface "thinks of a human as" -- for example that a mouse thinks of a human as a hand and eyes, and a piano thinks of a human as two hands, a foot, eyes, and discerning ears. I think the almost complementary relationship of these two concepts is interesting -- feeling as one with an instrument can be thought of as having the instrument being an extension of the human playing it, while the ideas about what an interface "thinks of a human as" can be thought of as having the human being an extension of the instrument. In this way, we can think of human and instrument as two bodies in a symbiotic relationship. The relationship is asymmetric, because each party (human versus instrument) brings a capability the other does not, for example that a piano can produce chords comprised of notes at a fixed, consistent pitch, but that a human has fingers which are necessary in order to get the piano to produce noise, and that a human has eyes to read sheet music or a brain to compose melodies which the piano could not instantiate on its own. As someone who used to play instruments (piano and flute), I feel like I only ever thought of the half of the relationship in which the instrument extends my capacity, and not the other way around, which maybe is a bit self-centered of me. Thinking of myself as an extension of my instrument and not vice versa is an interesting change in mindset, and begs new questions -- instead of thinking of how I can best use my instrument for my needs, how can I act in a way which best serves my instrument? How can I be as good an extension of my instrument as possible? Ideally, human and instrument are like good friends, prolific collaborators. Music is produced from this relationship between human and instrument, and the quality and characteristics of this music may reflect the quality and characteristics of this relationship -- I think this is kind of a beautiful thought. I think we can think of musicality, then, as having a relationship between human and instrument which reflects mutual understanding and mutual love.