In my teaching, I have a habit of having people draw their account of a piece. Since I call virtually everything into question, a natural thought arises: what’s that drawing all about? Drawing asks for an embodiment of a visual sort, which helps a person put the thoughts they may have about a piece into… Continue reading Drawing musical energy
Tag: contemplation
Grateful for Being Noticed
This spring I was awarded a grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council to support my workshop, Just Listening. It matters deeply to be noticed, recognized for what one does. I’ve been working on a new venture for several years now, always returning to the idea that I am bringing an experience of value to others.… Continue reading Grateful for Being Noticed
Music and Community
One of the most important books to have influenced my thinking about music and music-making is Christopher Small’s book, Music, Society, Education. Among the many things it helped clarify for me, one thing that probably drew me into his thinking was that he used Grateful Dead concerts to demonstrate the growth of community in shared… Continue reading Music and Community
Melody as relationship
One of the most simple, yet striking realizations to come from the SEA theory is the fact that melody is a relationship. It’s so often talked of as all about the pitches, what they convey, and that’s not wrong. Many point to the value of rhythm – Ornette Coleman’s saying that rhythm is like oxygen… Continue reading Melody as relationship
Roots
I recently wrote about meta-composing, a path combining many threads of my experience as a musical thinker, composer, and teacher. Funny how things settle into our minds. That seemed, and is, a major realization, a turning point in my compositional career and life. After I posted that, a college classmate and fellow Governor’s School of North Carolina… Continue reading Roots
Musical Energy: Dynamics
One of the most important means of altering the energy of music is by means of dynamics. Officially known as loudness, or sound pressure level, this acoustical fact can be measured accurately and expressed in decibels (dB): perception of loudness is a fundamental aspect of our hearing. Accomplished at the very first stage of the… Continue reading Musical Energy: Dynamics
Musical Energy: Harmony
By now, I’ve written in the blog rather often about the Sound-Energy Aggregate, or SEA theory. The basic premise is that many musical factors, or parameters, are involved in creating the acoustical information that our brains process. The theory holds that any musical factor can create energy that changes over time, and that all musical… Continue reading Musical Energy: Harmony
The question of energy
The question of energy in music is vexing: easy to say, hard to define. One way of looking at energy is to bring forward traditional concepts from physics and everyday life. In physics, there are a number of categories of energy, some of which directly relate to music, some of which create interesting parallels to… Continue reading The question of energy
“How’s it going?”
How’s it going? It’s a simple question that needs a more complicated answer than “fine”. The more I live in this world, the more I realize that my life is full of opposites, and that both “fine” and “not so well” are credible answers to that familiar question on a given day. And I’m coming… Continue reading “How’s it going?”
Socrates and me
I just read a really great article by Paul Woodruff, “How I learned to heal my soul, with help from love and Socrates”, which describes Socrates’ thoughts on healing the soul. It makes me realize that Socrates has had a long-term effect on my soul, my thinking. His teaching method, the Socratic method, is well… Continue reading Socrates and me