ABSTRACT
In Indian music the ahata, the played note, is balanced by the arnhata, the unplayed. The played note is seen as the symbol of the unplayed, which provides its foundation and is unceasing. So the inaudible provides the shadow of the audible, the opposite and the extension of it. It also provides an ever-expanding background of possibilities, like the unfolding of Bohm’s implicating order. In outlining how the theories of psychoanalysis might be rephrased in auditory terms, Charles Rycroft chose a medium that reflects his gift for combining precision with infinite continuity. He points to a map that takes us deep into the territory of experience because the structures of observer and observed overlap. On the musical scene, a similar move was taking place in the reinstating of improvisation and the escape from the tyranny of the written score in the Western tradition. Note also the rich testament to auditory sensation of blind or partially sighted musicians like Frankie Armstrong.
