Word: instrumentality
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...knows where they keep the Bush message machine, but when it is working well, it hums more quietly than the White House air conditioning. So precise is this instrument that it carefully prunes the President's speeches, shaving away words such as back and backward in order to maintain the image of a man always moving ahead...
Darwin anticipated such doubts, and admitted in The Origin of Species that the eye at first seems to imply an intelligent designer. But then he traced a scenario for the step-by-step evolution of a mere "nerve sensitive to light" into a "living optical instrument...
Simply put, McFerrin’s musical ability is absolutely stunning. He weds prodigious theoretical background to an impossibly eclectic knowledge of genres and an almost perfect instrument to an impish personality. He weaves a sonic experience this is merely unique on recordings but unparalleled in person. When singing solo, McFerrin leaps from rumbling, nearly sub-sonic depths to breathy, almost dog-whistle highs with alarming fluidity. He doesn’t need accompaniment, because he simultaneously functions as his own bass, treble and percussion sections all in one. To that alternately yodelling and resonant presence, he adds sound effects...
...summoned legendary trumpeter Miles Davis on his composition “All Blues.” In these moments, McFerrin managed to supercede the novelty of his vocal texture and managed to shift the focus onto his mammoth musical mind. Fingering the microphone as if it were a stringed instrument, he made as much an homage to Davis’ improvisational ability as much as he did the legendary trumpeter’s trademark sound. Using sparse figures and sliding ethereal textures juxtaposed with pulsing bass growls, he seemed to push the other members of this impromptu sextet...
Ware says the results will not be released to the public because of the experimental aspect of the survey, which he calls a “rough instrument...