… Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. (Luke 19:1)

The study of music, as well as of any phenomenon related to it and the musical exegesis is an example, finds its natural metaphor in the biblical text known as the "Conversion of Zacchaeus". Also the reverse interpretation - considering the biblical text as a metaphor of music - can be realistic.
The search for truth (embodied by Christ - I am the way, and the truth, and the life - John 14:6), so of the real knowledge, precedes the truth but, as paradox, is the truth itself.
Concerning this the words of B. Pascal, ... "Who is looking for God already found Him", appear extremely adequate.
The act of research of the truth, and it also applies for musical discipline, is never a simple path and needs sacrifices and an act of indispensable humility.
If you think to have all the opportune knowledge, and I am referring to scholastic indoctrinations which give notions and not stimulations, in the moment in which you choose to analyse a musical repertoire, as the one of launeddas, it is unavoidable to incur the mistake of wanting to upset your own beliefs and the scholastic assumptions in the analytic process, thus actually deforming and bending the result of the analysis according to your own view.
Sometimes it is indispensable to go through alternative paths, like Zacchaeus the publican, and climbing on a tree can certainly represent a non-scholastic way, but surely the only one for finding those truths that are dimmed by the crowd, which is not other than the symbol of our presumption that we know before we have searched.

Andrea Corona