Transforming notes into vibrations

Hey! Wait a minute! Notes ARE vibrations!

If that is so, pray tell, why is there such a conceptual rift separating thought about them? Why are music students not encouraged to go into this?

I suspect it's because it takes too long: I would even say it takes a lifetime, given the present-day pressure to get things done in a hurry. It was a huge relief and release to read Viktor Zuckerkandl on the subject: Sound and Symbol, not because of his musical/psychological/philosophical insights, but because he was describing what I had heard as a child, which was not addressed in my piano training until, after quitting decisively at age 15, I returned to the instrument I so deeply loved while in my 20's, fortunate to study with Hans Neumann who, aware that the piano is a stringed instrument, said flat out that what it looks like on the page is not what it sounds like.

This is where Tonal Refraction comes from, why it is so powerful to so many people.