Resonant Thoughts
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Resonant Thoughts: J.A. Baker’s “The Peregrine” (1967)
“The hardest thing of all to see is what is really there.” “What is, is now, must have the quivering intensity of an arrow thudding into a tree. Yesterday is dim and monochrome. A week ago you were not born. Persist, endure, follow, watch.” “The peregrine sees and remembers patterns we do not know exist:… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Jaron Lanier’s “What My Musical Instruments Have Taught Me” (2023)
“Some of my favorite moments in musical life come when I can’t yet play an instrument. It’s in the fleeting period of playing without skill that you can hear sounds beyond imagination.” “In Western countries, the social institutions that kept classical music alive—conservatories, instrument builders, teachers, contests—were being sustained by an influx of stunning musicians… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Chad Engelland’s “Phenomenology” (2020)
“Phenomenology recognizes an inner kinship between experience and language; the exhibited phenomena achieve a kind of completion when they are articulated. The challenge is to find a way of speaking that takes its bearings from the phenomena themselves and in this way lets them be exhibited and remembered as they are.” “Phenomenological books are trail… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: wt Robina’s “Technical Manifesto For The Deviant Sound Engineer” (2021)
“Sound is a complex, immaterial phenomenon. It is not what it seems. […] “Sound is the impression of a thing (an object) which happens to exist independently from it; it’s free from the presence of the object that is perceived as its cause. Sound is a by-product of almost any action, though it is neither… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: James Hibbard’s “The Art Of Cycling” (2023)
“Things rarely teach you what you imagine they will but that’s not to say that their lessons are without value. There is no seeing around or over or through. Things merely are.” (193) “The story of modern life is the slow but relentless spread of the all-devouring logic of capitalism. At first, only things were… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Adam Gopnik’s “The Real Work: The Mystery Of Mastery” (2023)
“At the core of the mystery is a lesson we can too easily miss. It has to do with the way one time talks to another. We talk about things we prize, art above all, as ‘timeless.’ It’s the most familiar generalization we make: it’s a timeless picture, a timeless melody, or even a timeless… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Graham Massey On Composing On the Mute Buttons
“The way we used to compose was sort of like filling a 24-track tape full of loops, basically. Some of them will be 8-bar loops, some of them will be 2-bar loops, some of them will be 6-bar loops. So they’d all spiral ‘round each other while you composed on the Mute buttons. And one… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Christopher Alexander on Dynamic Structures
“Things that are good have a certain kind of structure. You can’t get that structure except dynamically. Period. In nature you’ve got continuous very-small-feedback-loop adaptation going on, which is why things get to be harmonious. That’s why they have the qualities that we value. If it wasn’t for the time dimension, its wouldn’t happen.” Christopher… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Arvo Pärt On Bell Sound
“If a single bell is struck, and we contemplate the nature of its sound– the Klang at impact, the spread of sound after this initial gesture, and then the lingering cloud of resonance–what we hear takes us to the heart of tintinnabuli. A finely wrought bell makes one of the most mysterious and creative sounds;… Continue reading
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Resonant Thoughts: Hua Hsu’s “Stay True: A Memoir” (2022)
“Music no longer modeled a better world.” “She was asking, what is history? Do you see yourself in it? Where did you find your models for being in the world? How did you learn about love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice? She was looking for turning points. Maybe a feeling,… Continue reading
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