Instruments

A wonderful piece of classical music was played at a free public concert, and it had an extraordinary  impact on the people there. The music touched them very deeply, even to their souls some said. So great was its impact it was all it seemed that was talked about for a while. Some though of a more academic bent were curious while some were even secretly annoyed, envious even of its impact, they felt supplanted by what were after all only sounds' and they were determined to bring the mystery of this music down to earth, so to speak, to seize upon it, and explain it away to the enthralled public. 

They made a very polite and respectful request to the musicians could they have a closer look at their instruments - for the sake of knowledge - to which the somewhat surprised musicians agreed, and so all the instruments were gathered together - the source of the sounds after all - and they were begun to be examined, dimensions measured, tautness of strings looked at, sounds, decibels recorded and so on. 

After some time they began to dismantle the instruments to give things a closer look. Things ended up, however careful they may have intended, in a bit of a heap. “Don’t worry,” one of the academics assured an appalled musician who wandered by to see how they were getting on, “I know it might look a bit of a mess, but we know where everything is all right. We mightn’t be artists like you but we are precise. Precision you could say is our very nature!” he laughed.

So the examining of the bits and pieces went on for some more time, careful measuring or whatever, until finally it was reluctantly admitted the musicians had a right to their instruments back. However it turned out the various and many components weren’t as well labelled and separated as might have been desirable,  and though things were finally put together in some manner, this didn’t always look quite right and in some cases the results were to be honest pretty embarrassing. The musicians are coming later to collect their instruments. We’ll see how it goes.