It’s clear the vasectomization is just the first step.
Just like when human loggers work an Earth forest, first they send in a lightly-equipped crew with spray paint to delicately mark which trees to cut. Then later on they send in the big trucks, log dragging machines, chainsaw crews, etc., to actually take down the trees and haul them out of the forest.
Since the OP has been clearly marked, it’s pretty obvious what happens to him next. He should be looking forward to a thorough anal probing and maybe a mind-wiping soon. Or perhaps a trip to the alien home world. The OP may want to practice playing simple 5-note chords on a cheap organ to communicate.
Melodies, tunes, notes in a row, but not, if you’re pulling a whoever the hell that guy who wasn’t Richard Dreyfuss was, chords, which are simultaneous notes.
Agreed that in the movie the later improvisations by the professional musicians “talking” to the aliens were more complex than mere chords. But the lead character’s halting attempts at “sounding out” the idea the aliens planted in his head were, arguably, him working up a chord. It sounds dissonant and unchordlike to us because it’s … alien.
There are many musical instruments that can’t sound multiple notes simultaneously. They can still achieve the musical function of chords by playing them in succession. Try telling a jazz horn player that he doesn’t use chords and he’ll probably hit you with his horn. Depending on what source you read, you may see that the name “harp” for the multi-stringed instrument is derived from what amounted to “plays chords one note at a time” in some ancient language.
Granted I didn’t use the term in its most mainstream first-entry-in-the-dictionary meaning. But it’s also not quite so simple as you say. Fighting ignorance and all that. I also didn’t think the OP would know what an arpeggio is.
But if you’re saying that any sequence of single notes is a chord, then ‘chord’ doesn’t mean anything anymore. So, logically, if the word is going to be meaningful, there must be sequences of single notes that are not chords. And, while different people could draw the line in slightly different places, I think the vast majority of people, heck say professional musicians, would say Close Encounters did not have arpeggios.
I’d imagine any aliens sophisticated enough to vasectomize someone without the subject obviously knowing would do something like precisely irradiate your nuts in such a way to kill off or cripple the s-sperm-producing cells such that you’d either not produce any sperm, or you’d produce ones guaranteed not to actually impregnate anyone.
I imagine that would be really hard to detect yourself, and probably hard for doctors to do so as well.
I agree that any random note sequence is not a chord or arpeggio; certain patterns of tones and/or durations are required. (At least in Earth music.) I also agree I probably stretched the definition of chord or arpeggio to or past the breaking point ref the iconic 5-note sequence in the movie. Certainly I did by the standards of Western music of the recent centuries. As you rightly point out.
My point to Leo that “chord” is not exactly equivalent to “some (harmonious) notes sounded simultaneously” still stands.
I wonder when the OP will return to grace us with further details of his alien experience(s)? If he starts humming odd note patterns maybe we ought to call somebody.
One could still define “chord” as “a set of notes that sound good together”, or the like, and retain the essence of the meaning. And assuming that aliens find different combinations of notes aesthetically-pleasing, then the sounds from Close Encounters could then reasonably be called “alien chords”.
With advanced enough technology aliens could change the sperm-producing cells so the sperm don’t work for impregnating humans. But they do work for impregnating aliens. Or common barnyard animals. Perhaps we should encourage the OP to experiment on as many life forms as he can and report back his results?
No, perhaps we shouldn’t. That would be baa-aa-aad.
