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"Any great work of art... revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world - the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air."
"The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away his energies and his life just to make sure that one note follows another... and leaves us with the feeling that something is right in the world."
If I understand the quote it seems to be saying something about connection or community. Maybe that music and other forms of art are a sort of 'collective unconscious'?
I've often wondered what is about music that has meaning for us. I mean, what is it about certain combinations of rhythms and pitches that says something to us?
I remember talking to a music therapist about this - she worked mainly with severely autistic children, and had great breakthroughs with some of these kids where other therapies had failed. And I think that's brilliant that music can help kids who have profound communication difficulties, in the broad sense of what we consider 'normal' communication. But actually she didn't have much more idea than I why it worked!
I have read suggestions that rhythm has a connection with heartbeat, which obviously is fundamental to life! But pitch?
But I'm on my second glass of wine right now, so errr, not sure I'm making too much sense.
well, 6 posts uninterrupted.... i feel like a big boy!
I'm always interestied in discussing that feeling you get when something really gets you. or you see something with new eyes.
the first quote realy got me.. i was at school sitting around practicing when i looked up and a patch of sun illuminated a banner with that quote on it..... picture perfect.
I noticed that most of the times i've had strong feelings or moments of epiphany/pseudo-gnosis i always am looking at something that emulates art or nature. and i always feel real, as if im awake and everything is alive.
why do i play guitar? why do i sit and practice.... why do people like it?
I don't really know. i mean, its just sounds... why should they mean anything?
I enjoy the connection with the wood, clean and crisp and even though already dead, still living and aging. I enjoy the connectedness to the environment, where the lines between me and not me are blurred by oscillation and vibration of the air...
hm.
I like fish. all kinds really. ... copper river salmon is my favorite. though i wouldn't mind doing with a bit of tuna instead. red snapper is a perennial favorite of mine as well. bit of mango, some lime, ooh thats good. maybe a chili sauce drizzled over it.
ORIGINAL: HemeolaMan I like fish. all kinds really. ... copper river salmon is my favorite. though i wouldn't mind doing with a bit of tuna instead. red snapper is a perennial favorite of mine as well. bit of mango, some lime, ooh thats good. maybe a chili sauce drizzled over it.
Hahahaha I might have known you couldn't keep up the serious philosophy for long!!
Well you know food is one of the great physical pleasures of life. I made a decision ages ago that I would only ever eat for pleasure, not out of routine or boredom. And I don't eat anything that I don't enjoy.
So tonight I've had two glasses of wine and nothing to eat because I just didn't fancy anything. The wine has gone straight to my head, you can probably tell huh? And I've got a really difficult day at work tomorrow. Oh I mean today, it's gone midnight. Hell I don't care. Where's the wine bottle?
ailsa: it was entirely relevant, the thread title is food for thought. i gave some thought, then i talked about food. first thought then food. referencing thought then food = food for thought. is my cleverness irritating? lol
val, i'm 19. when u breathe in, is the air a part of you? it mixes with your cells and blood, and then you exhale, some cells and chemicals go with it. your body heat raises the temperature of the air around you. where do you end and everything else begin?
georg: only if you call it cerveza. and make poo jokes. and talk about what foods you like. and philosophy.... and maybe about monkeys.
I can make poo jokes, I can talk about my favourite food, philosophy and monkeys. But you can not tell a bavarian to call a beer cerveza...It already hurts to call it beer instead of "Resi! No oane!"
"Any great work of art... revives and readapts time and space, and the measure of its success is the extent to which it makes you an inhabitant of that world - the extent to which it invites you in and lets you breathe its strange, special air."
"The key to the mystery of a great artist is that for reasons unknown, he will give away his energies and his life just to make sure that one note follows another... and leaves us with the feeling that something is right in the world."
Sounds like a bunch of hooey to me
_____________________________
Don't sweat the petty things and don't pet the sweaty things
I have just come in from lunch on the beach, a plate of grilled sardines, which coincidentally are related to Tuna and red Snapper (in that they are fish) and was going to write a post on the off topic section but it fits this one perfectly.
As I was devouring my humble meal admiring the attractive and also not so attractive people passing by in bathing costume, I remembered the immortal words of the English Bard Shakespeare ... "is it not strange that sheeps guts should hale souls from mens bodies?" This was in reference to a lute player in "much ado about nothing" and it reminded me of the flamenco poet Lorca and how he also wrote about the guitar "The lament of the guitar begins, it is useless to try to stop it.... it weeps for distant things....Oh guitar, heart mortally wounded by Five swords"
As I continued my lunch I thought to myself, damn poets, talking in riddles, what was Lorca on about, heart wounded by five swords.... I mean a guitar has 6 strings, the lament of the guitar needs 6 strings. As i sucked the flesh off the skeleton of my last sardine I looked down and everything became clear. I saw my own hand covered in sticky fish juice and realised my 5 fingers were the 5 swords, my personal weaponry necessary to pull the heartstrings and hale souls from mens bodies. Oh guitar.......
your body heat raises the temperature of the air around you. where do you end and everything else begin?
Well if you apply that line of thinking right on out to the microwave background radiation that permeates all of observable spacetime, then I guess you could say you "end" right at the event horizon of the nearest black hole.
Steak and lobster tail....mmmm.
Music moves people that can hear just like colors and images move people that can see. Specifically I think certain interval relationships affect you mind and memories. nostalgia is evocted by certain sounds typically for example. Listen to modal music and tap in.
This one is a cartoon from a 1969 Glasgow University Students' magazine, which showed a woman standing at the kitchen sink doing the washing up... Her little son is standing at an open kitchen door behind her, holding up a skull, saying "Mummy! Mummy!...Look what I found inside Johnny's head!
Still makes me laugh anyway....
cheers,
Ron
_____________________________
A good guitar might be a good guitar But it takes a woman to break your heart
food for thought is good, unless it's fast food... ahhh crappy jokes
I think art has been and will continue to be in a very hidden place in people head. Just take a look while you are walking in the centre of most "modern" cities. Maybe is a matter of money but everything seems out of tune. Everything, the architecture, roads, the lack of free space, you are supposed to take a brick and build something original, not a giant brick... sorry if I sound a bit negative, I just think people forget about this and are beeing taught at school that art is just another option, when in reality everything we create is just that or should at least be that. I just read an inteview about the guy that designed a school in my country which has won a lot of fame due to the construction of a new state of the art campus, it's a wonderful thing to see. I was surprised at what he said when asked about how he designed the whole thing: "I was told I should design a school and that it should be ready in about a year but I was really inspired when they told me to think ahead...and so for me I was in 2057 designing a school to be completed in 2058" Im pretty sure that most great artist were able to get into state of minds like this guy, I think that's what's all about.
Interesting quotes, particularly the first, and comments. I had to laugh at the skull joke, too.
Just for the purpose of analyzing these quotes, I'd have to say that there are a couple of factors involved, IMO, that he didn't address.
In the first quote, I think greatness also depends on the time frame, at least in flamenco. Some of the things you hear on old recordings are truly great, even though they might not be very exciting today, at least not on first impression. Which leads to the other factor that isn't found in this quote: Sometimes the listener has to make an effort in order to understand the greatness, which is practically at odds with what he said about the work of art "inviting you in."
I don't find much mystery or "reasons unkown" in the subject of the second quote. Artists like showing off, and if some of them put in the effort to do things right it must be because it feels good for them when they do it. I might summarize the entire quote by saying that a musician should be telling a story with his/her music.
About why music fascinates people, a "rhythmic architecture" or "hierarchy of accents" is very important, IMO. It's one thing to play different accents over 12 beats, and it's another to play a few hundred beats and to keep the dynamics just right and the compás tight. I'm not referring to playing metronomically but rather to the fact that everything's got a beginning, middle and end. I think that's what's most responsible for the listener being drawn into the music (and staying there). It's all about the passing of time and the absence of distractions.
Just my opinion, I hope others will offer more interesting comments.
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