ABSTRACT
Pattern is there in all art. Look, for example, at the arches of a cathedral. Repeated shapes, seen from the west door along the nave to the choir, and further into the sanctuary, take our eyes down the length of the building with their leaping and sinking rhythm. Along the way we see other patterns: high up, the clerestory, and below that, smaller arches and twirls around huge pillars; stained glass windows with their repeated arched points, and variations of biblical stories. Pattern is in the music that I’ve just turned off to draft this. It’s jazz, and the drum and bass rhythm keeps the complex pattern going as the trumpet flares, like a freed prisoner, above them. Suddenly the tenor sax mutters, preparing a solo … That trumpet, that tenor, though … neither of them is really free. Each instrument’s player has his or her patterns: little flames of melody that soar from a note and return to it. These patterns both imprison the player and set him free.
