The word "wamp" is my acronym for "wary-ass-medial-positioner", to protest the "wimp" slander.

I'm challenging the prevalent nonsense that "The guy who takes the middle position on any issue is a fence-sitter or a wimp!" NO!!! The guy in the middle is the one who gets banged on by both extremes! I didn't set out to be centrist on many issues. I simply drifted there, repelled by extreme positions. (As noted below, this is resembles tuning a string between "flat" and "sharp" dissonances.)

Likely, I became a wamper in childhood because of my experiences with little girls. I had no sister, but adored little girls, whose treatment of me was either flat ("Don't you come near me, Sonny Hays!") or sharp (not wamp-whispering in my ear, but broadcasting to the neighborhood, "Come out in the grass and kiss me, Sonny!").

Later, I thought of the tuning-string image. And the tuning-string-connection leads back to one of the greatest contribution of Pythagoras.

Pythagoras discovered that subdividing a monochord (a wire stretched tautly between two fixed end-blocks) into 1, 2, 3, etc., parts generates a musical scale, where "scale" means "ordering". One segment of a 2-part subdivided string sounds a pitch which is an octave above the undivided or 1-part string. One segment of a 3-part subdivided string sounds a pitch which represents "a fifth" above pitch of the 2-part string . One segment of a 4-part subdivided string sounds a pitch which represents a "third" above the 3-part string. Etc. Gradually, a cycle of pitches is generated which approximately returns to the "beginning". This cycle is the diatonic-chromatic scale of Western music, and was the creation of Pythagoras.

I said "approximately" because an "analogic cramp" grows in this "digital wamping" by 2-positioning, 3-positioning, etc. Some pitches are slightly flat or slightly sharp from their theoretical values, causing problems of tuning. The "well-tempered scale" for harpsichords (later pianos) which took hold in the time of Johann Sebastian Bach (x-y) is a wamping distortion. (As a boy, I played the trumpet for many years, sometimes performing in a marching band. When I played with a piano, I had to distort my pitch by using my lips in an "unnatural way" in order to be consonant with the piano.) When singers perform a capella -- without any instrument -- they tend to sing in "The Pythagorean Scale".

There are many connections with wamping. One of the most important involves resonance. If you place two monochords with equal-length strings side by side, and pluck or sound one of them, the other will faintly sound. This is resonance: the wave pattern imparted to the air by the vibrated string will activate the other string which is built to the same pattern! (You observe the same effect by holding down the piano key for the octave above middle C and striking middle C. You will faintly hear the sounding of the upper octave pitch.) In general, when you input a vibration -- whether of sound or of light -- into a vibrating system, you will find an output composed to two parts: the input part and another which is the natural vibration of the receiving system. If the system's natural vibration is the same as the input vibration, then the output is a multiple of the input: "it resonates". From this we derived many daily connections, and technical ones.

One familiar experience of resonance occurs when you're pushing a little kid in a swing. If you push just as the swing comes back to a halt, the full effect of your push will add to the swinging, causing the child to swing out higher still.

A very important example involves the disaster that occurred on "The Bridge of Tay" in 17xx. Soldiers were marching in cadence across a hanging bridge. The rhythm of their steps "matched" the natural rhythm of the bridge, which began to swing so violently that it broke, hurling the soldiers to their death. This gave rise to the marching command, "Break step!", for soldiers not to march in cadence, avoiding resonance.

A modern case involves the "Galloping Gertie" Bridge over Puget Sound in Washigton State, which was torn apart by high winds -- matching the resonance of the bridge, as your push matches the swing of the child back to you -- on Nov. 7, 1940.

My wampers have earned me scorn, mean-mouthin', and "the cooler" over the years. But I realized that I must clearly articulate my thinking -- that is medially position my A -- to defend my nonwimpishness.