poetry
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Listening Is Misunderstanding
When we listen to music we hear what’s happening in the sounds— the tempo, the beat, the timbres, the chord sequence, the singing, the words sung. But we also hear what we want to hear: how the music relates to musics we’ve already heard, and to the gaps in our attention— meaning that there are… Continue reading
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A Concert
In the concert hall no one was moving their body in time to the music– not a head nod affirmation, not even a sway– only lending their attention in total stillness. Which is strange behavior because this composer’s rhythms, fours and threes and sixes and twelves, juxtaposed into poly-layered shapes, came from African sources and African contexts,… Continue reading
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On A.R. Ammons: “A Poem Is A Walk”
“Poetry is a mode of discourse that differs from logical exposition. Poetry is a verbal means to a nonverbal source. It is a motion to no-motion, to the still point of contemplation and deep realization. Its knowledges are all negative and, therefore, more positive than any knowledge. Nothing that can be said about it in… Continue reading
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Microthought: On Musical Means To Ends
There’s a man who walks the subway train each night asking for money by way of wayward singing of a song. “Fee-lings” he begins, nodding to that old standard but the riffs turn to his hunger: “I’m hun-gry” in a monotone, and then the proposed solution– “I like chi-cken” –exhaling a single harmonica tone. “I like… Continue reading
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Notes On A Talk By W.S. Merwin
When I was in graduate school at NYU, I occasionally spent time wandering the stacks of Bobst Library. With only a subject matter and a range of Dewey Decimal numbers in mind, I’d take to the shelves intuitively–looking for interesting book titles to crack open. One afternoon, while scanning a long and deserted isle of… Continue reading
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Notes On A Talk By Robert Fripp
On a whim I searched Spotify for music by Robert Fripp but found none. Instead there was a recording of him speaking to a crowd about various musical things. And it was good. “Music never goes away” he said, “It’s always available, but we are not always available to music.” And when pushed to say… Continue reading
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On The Strange Poetics Of Spam
For some reason, lately my blog inbox has been inundated with spam. (I’ve written previously about spam here.) My irritation swiftly turned to anger at the sheer automated idiocy of it. Where is all this stuff, all this fake human fakery coming from? How is it generated and who is profiting from it? And I… Continue reading
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Microthought: On Musical Process
Music. Music finds a way around us. Music, that subliminal force, finds a way around us, through our ears, into our hearts. Your Music might not be my Music, that subliminal force that finds a way around us, through our ears, into our hearts. If we traded musics, you and I, do we trade minds… Continue reading
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Observations On A Musician Playing Guitar
A tune beyond us as we are, Yet nothing changed by the blue guitar; Ourselves in the tune as if in space, Yet nothing changed, except the place Of things as they are and only the place As you play them, on the blue guitar, Placed, so, beyond the compass of change, Perceived in a… Continue reading
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Microthought: A Santoor And Tabla Duet
Tensioned melody over rhythmic cycled drum– Pandit strings motives. Continue reading
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