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perception

The mountain before the tree

A morning thought. It’s about this picture, Le Lac d’Annecy and the apprehension of reality. (I mean apprehension in its apparent 14th C meaning of ‘grasp with the senses or mind’.)  <– and that’s in parenthesis because I cannot convey the meaning in my voice in a simply font.

With reality, I don’t mean the stuff around us, but truths, and specifically the passions that drive us – whethere that is music, that sense of being in nature, there will be something. There will be something that you relish breathing in. That’s it, even if it is not a thing. It won’t be a thing, but I won’t attempt to name it or even suggest what it could be for you. The interesting thing here is not the actual thing, but how you see it.

That’s where the picture comes in. and warning, there’s some cerebral stuff ahead, but it’s worth swimming in the concepts – you will feel refreshed, revitalised, and maybe just see a bit more clearly when you blink after coming out of the water. There’s a paragraph and then a phrase. The paragraph describes how one needs to not only view, but be emmersed, as I suggested – swim, and ‘participate’ with the stuff of our reality to take it in. Here’s the paragraph and then I’ll go on:Read More »The mountain before the tree

A little quieter

Yesterday marked the end of one of my taught classes. I had online face to face meetings with a dozen masters students, to supplement their written work. I haven’t actually had conversations with so many people on one day in – well months. After that day of meetings and typing was done, I was exhausted, and I thought.

I miss them, now, and I anticipate missing them in the weeks to come.

After teaching ends there is normally a lull. A quiet descends. ‘It’ doesn’t end  – there is an avalanche of marking, reading individual essays and providing useful comments, which consumes my time, but the seeing people ends.

In these past few months, by necessity, there has been less and less seeing of people.Read More »A little quieter

Shuffle the deck: Scales becoming tunes #MUS654

Listening, and thinking on the way music creeps under your skin to make you move… I spent this week thinking on scales and their relationships as part of – of notes to notes, and yes, the relationships of the notes to people. Context can be everything and it can change so much. The way things are ordered, presented, and the way we look at them is important for how people attribute meaning.

For each type of musician, there are different physical parameters that influence the mechanical logistics of how we paint our sounds. Let me explain… in my last post I talked about how singers don’t use ‘fingerings’ for their notes. They have intense links between the conceptual understanding of what needs to be done to achieve a certain pitch and then they make the sound. There is no looking (down the throat!) to check they have the right positioning. Yes there are physical aspects of singing that can be seen – like mouth shape and torso placement/use, but there are unseen aspects and somehow there is a strong connection between the mind and the outcome.

Likewise for other instruments the mind is very important, but there is this pesky other bit that cannot be ignored… As a cellist, I work with my hands Read More »Shuffle the deck: Scales becoming tunes #MUS654