"Aha!"
Perhaps that's it: What Kurt Andersen calls an "Aha moment." It is the rose being looked at/seen, the in-tune fifth sung/heard. Call it the transaction between stimulus and response.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Monday, February 4, 2013
String Improvisations Spring Show March 2-3
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| Women's top: "The Yellow Submarine" (closeup) |
and sale of String Improvisations in NYC featuring original one-of-a-kind knits for women plus rugs/throws/coverlets, made for the most part, of recycled fibers. Included are several new garments.
Email for more information.
The Real Thing
An unusually insightful music theorist responded to my Tonal Refraction method by suggesting I read A History of Reading by Alfredo Manguel. Wise suggestion.
It has only gradually dawned on me to what extent my work is really about reading, specifically about the elusiveness of reading notated music. Manguel, a reader and writer rather than a scientist or historian, examines reading from all kinds of points of view, including reading pictures and objects--the kind of reading most of us don't even think of as reading.
In so doing he puts his finger on the real issue, one that has baffled many generations of thinking souls in many cultures. What is real, after all? What does reality consist of? Which is more real, the letter, the word, the thing referred to, the image of the thing, etc.?
Last night, describing the pleasure I take in reading this book, a poet friend leapt to the sacraments. I was dumbfounded. What does this have to do with it?
This morning it is clear to me how it is related. That involves yet another reality: mystery. Yes, mystery is a reality. It must be, for otherwise who would presume to use a notational system for ecstatic experiences of any sort or dimension? Why would anyone bother?
Admitting the reality of mystery is no simple matter. It first entered my own thick skull in the music of Palestrina, with which I was involved on a daily basis every day of my high school years.
It has only gradually dawned on me to what extent my work is really about reading, specifically about the elusiveness of reading notated music. Manguel, a reader and writer rather than a scientist or historian, examines reading from all kinds of points of view, including reading pictures and objects--the kind of reading most of us don't even think of as reading.
In so doing he puts his finger on the real issue, one that has baffled many generations of thinking souls in many cultures. What is real, after all? What does reality consist of? Which is more real, the letter, the word, the thing referred to, the image of the thing, etc.?
Last night, describing the pleasure I take in reading this book, a poet friend leapt to the sacraments. I was dumbfounded. What does this have to do with it?
This morning it is clear to me how it is related. That involves yet another reality: mystery. Yes, mystery is a reality. It must be, for otherwise who would presume to use a notational system for ecstatic experiences of any sort or dimension? Why would anyone bother?
Admitting the reality of mystery is no simple matter. It first entered my own thick skull in the music of Palestrina, with which I was involved on a daily basis every day of my high school years.
Sunday, February 3, 2013
More on that Quarter Note
As if it were not enough that we were quarter-noted to death as music students, the current pop music scene is making sure that there is not a trace of life left in us. Four on the floor and the walls and the ceiling and the brain--all over the place.
It is harder and harder to play classical music without pointing out beats even where there are none or, even better, where the composer has deliberately obscured the beat so that the listener has to listen more carefully, wondering what might have happened to it.
It is harder and harder to play classical music without pointing out beats even where there are none or, even better, where the composer has deliberately obscured the beat so that the listener has to listen more carefully, wondering what might have happened to it.
Saturday, February 2, 2013
The Quarter Note
I have been known to malign the quarter note, even in print. In fact, back in the 80's I envisaged a formal "happening" in which people stationed all over New York, on bridges, in parks, on balconies and overlooks, each carrying an inflated balloon on which was emblazoned a single quarter note would, on a given signal, explode their balloon (i.e., their quarter note) once and for all.
We have been quarter-noted to death.
Until Haydn comes along to save the poor maligned beastie.
For there they are, the darlings, underlying Haydn minuets like you wouldn't believe but--and there's the catch--only if articulated, exaggerated, elevated to unimaginable importance.
Take any Haydn minuet; play the quarter notes emphatically, detached (not the same as staccato), all of equal importance. Caution: a quarter note slurred to another quarter note ain't no real quarter note but a half-note that slips out of joint onto a shadow pitch. Listen to the quarter notes strut their inflated egos up and down across all registers and beats, ignoring stop signs (double bars) and just generally getting in the way.
If this doesn't vitalize the minuet please send me an email and complain.
We have been quarter-noted to death.
Until Haydn comes along to save the poor maligned beastie.
For there they are, the darlings, underlying Haydn minuets like you wouldn't believe but--and there's the catch--only if articulated, exaggerated, elevated to unimaginable importance.
Take any Haydn minuet; play the quarter notes emphatically, detached (not the same as staccato), all of equal importance. Caution: a quarter note slurred to another quarter note ain't no real quarter note but a half-note that slips out of joint onto a shadow pitch. Listen to the quarter notes strut their inflated egos up and down across all registers and beats, ignoring stop signs (double bars) and just generally getting in the way.
If this doesn't vitalize the minuet please send me an email and complain.
Friday, February 1, 2013
Wikipedia, Public Radio and Me
Yes, it's about funding. If whatever it is is worthwhile, if someone who is serious is putting effort into it and if you are taking anything of value from it then it is worth supporting. Do you agree? Go to www.tonalrefraction.net to find out how.
Cognitive and Sensory Reading
That the two must go together to produce meaning is well-understood by those who study how young children read, especially how dyslexic children learn to read.
The flaw in the way most music reading is taught is that the sensory is left out in favor of the cognitive: i.e., the quickest possible identification of the symbol in alphabetic or theoretical terms. The ear, the only meaningful indicator of sensory experience, is traditionally left out. As a colleague once explained: "It takes too long."
I beg to differ.
Recommended reading on reading: Proust and the Squid by Maryanne Wolf.
The flaw in the way most music reading is taught is that the sensory is left out in favor of the cognitive: i.e., the quickest possible identification of the symbol in alphabetic or theoretical terms. The ear, the only meaningful indicator of sensory experience, is traditionally left out. As a colleague once explained: "It takes too long."
I beg to differ.
Recommended reading on reading: Proust and the Squid by Maryanne Wolf.
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