This morning I found a book by Don Conreaux, gongmaster, with excerpts from writings of Dane Rudhyar- Theosophist, philosopher, astrologer, musician. It is fascinating and wonderful little book, clarifying some concepts about sound and music as well as putting into words some stuff I "knew" but had no words for.
"When a sound is produced oscillations in the air occur. These airwaves are not sound, only the result of the passage of sonal energy (an etheric flow) through the air, just as thunder is not the lightning but the result of it. Sonal energy is in a way like an invisible lightning passing through any substance and shaking rhythmically the molecules thereof into so-called sound waves. But while certain substances like air are easily shaken into sound waves, when sonal energy passes through a big mass of metal, sound waves proper exist no longer, at least not in the same way as in the atmosphere.
It is a paradox that sound travels more quickly through a solid bar of iron miles long than through plastic air and modern acousticians have no logical explanation for it. They will not be able to do so until they recognize that sound is an etheric flow which passes through the molecules."
"When a sound is produced oscillations in the air occur. These airwaves are not sound, only the result of the passage of sonal energy (an etheric flow) through the air, just as thunder is not the lightning but the result of it. Sonal energy is in a way like an invisible lightning passing through any substance and shaking rhythmically the molecules thereof into so-called sound waves. But while certain substances like air are easily shaken into sound waves, when sonal energy passes through a big mass of metal, sound waves proper exist no longer, at least not in the same way as in the atmosphere.
It is a paradox that sound travels more quickly through a solid bar of iron miles long than through plastic air and modern acousticians have no logical explanation for it. They will not be able to do so until they recognize that sound is an etheric flow which passes through the molecules."