At the Chicago World's Fair in 1932, United States Marines competed with Radio City Rockettes in precision marching. As the marines' heels came down, the Rockettes' toes went up. All movements were synchronized.

When literate man dances, he keeps step to the music. His marching bands have drum majors; his orchestras, conductors. Every player is synchronized to a single beat.

In West Africa, every player has his own downbeat. There may be as many as five simultaneous rhythms - the melody & four percussion parts. Three rhythms are widely common in preliterate music: melody, handclapping & tapping the feet. The individual performs all three simultaneously, though not in synchronization. The combined result is neither chaos nor conformity, but a complex pattern of interweaving rhythms, each with its own integrity.

When Walt Disney added sound to animated films, he synchronized the two exactly: French horns went RUUMP when volcanoes erupted. UPA artists couldn't afford such costly sound effects, so they experimented with existing music until they found something that "worked." The result was films with music & picture coexisting, each with its own integrity. In contrast, music in Disney films was subservient to the visual story, little more than sound effects.

Synchronizing the senses means one sense dominates all others. Under literacy, that sense is sight. Other senses are muted or used with the bias of the eye. Sight has a natural bias toward detachment, creating the detached observer, whereas sound has an opposite bias: it surrounds, involves - one steps into it.

Literate peoples experience sound as if it were visible: they listen to music. Nonliterates merge with music. Far from being detached, they become involved participants, immersing themselves totally in it.