Resonant Thoughts
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Resonant Thoughts: Robert Barry’s “The Music Of The Future”
“There is a specific temporality to social media. It is a time of perpetual manufactured crisis, in which we are constantly being prodded, reminded, and cajoled into updating, clicking our approval or disapproval, or merely checking in and registering our presence.” “But if social media constructs its own time, what kind of music would be… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: On Dominic Pettman’s “Sonic Intimacy”
“An interesting pedagogic exercise in sonic economics: identify and attend to the most prominent voices of capital. At the time of this writing, candidates might be Rupert Murdoch, Donald Trump, Christine Lagarde, Kanye West, Taylor Swift, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, and so on. Toward the other end of the spectrum: a humming child laborer in… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: On Repetition And Baking Analogies In Shunryu Suzuki’s “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind”
“We may find it not so interesting to cook the same thing over and over again every day. It is rather tedious, you may say. If you lose the spirit of repetition it will become quite difficult…Anyway, we cannot keep still: we have to do something. So if you do something, you should be very… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Arvo Pärt On Reduction
“You can drown in the sewage water of our time’s creativity. The capability to select is important, and the urge for it. The reduction to a minimum, the ability to reduce fractions–that was the strength of all great composers” (114). “Reduction certainly doesn’t mean simplification, but it is the way–at least in an ideal scenario–to… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Notes on Formalism in Dave Hickey’s “Pirates and Farmers”
“In music we start with the parts and adduce the whole” (87). “We try to isolate the critical frequencies, ask the right questions, and never gain knowledge or truth…So formalism doesn’t do answers because answers, would conclude the endless dance of inquiries that keeps the work alive” (88). “So formalism begins with an instantaneous sense… Continue reading
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On Resonant Thoughts: Sarah Bakewell’s “At The Existentialist Cafe”
“This experiential music is the one I can speak about with certainty.” – Sarah Bakewell, At The Existentialist Cafe, p. 41. “If I want to tell you about a heart-rending piece of music, phenomenology enables me to describe it as a moving piece of music, rather than as a set of string vibrations and mathematical… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: On Julian Barnes’ “The Noise of Time”
“Music–good music, great music–had a hard, irreducible purity to it. It might be bitter and despairing and pessimistic, but it could never be cynical.” “What could be put up against the noise of time? Only that music which is inside ourselves–the music of our being–which is transformed by some into real music.” -Julian Barnes, The… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: On Fredrik Sjöberg’s “The Art Of Flight”
“Although there is much in this world that is incomprehensible, you can nevertheless discover a meaning as long as you have managed to limit your field of search.” -Fredrik Sjöberg, The Art of Flight Continue reading
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On Resonant Thoughts: Geoff Dyer on Clichés
“Beware of clichés… There are clichés of response as well as expression. There are clichés of observation and of thought–even of conception. Many novels [or pieces of music, say], even quite a few adequately written ones, are clichés of form which conform to clichés of expectation.” –Geoff Dyer Continue reading
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