My music post is a little overdue. I said last time that I would go over Shepherd's Hey by Percy Grainger, but I've decided to look at another Grainger work, Irish Tune from County Derry.
Here is a recording of Irish Tune from County Derry, as played by the University of North Texas' Wind Ensemble.
As you're listening to this piece, listen to the areas of tension at 1:28, 2:25, and in other places. The harmonic structure gathers for a second, then releases outward to provide softness and harmony. There are three distinct phases to this song. The first is a brass and low woodwind choir. This phase explores the melody and its progression. The second phase is the high woodwind choir, which is an echo of the first phase. The same melody is developed, but more emphasis is placed on higher, rather than lower notes, for a brighter feeling. The third phase is where everything comes together in one last repetition of the melody. Elaborate chord structures are built, tension is used sparingly, and harmony is reached in the end. 3:27 is the climax of the piece, when the tension is brought to its maximum, then tight harmonies are played down the scale.
This is a beautiful piece. It is not technically difficult. And by that, I mean it is just quarter, half, and whole notes. Technically, it is a very direct and easy piece. The difficulty in this piece comes from the necessary tuning and subtle intonation. This piece doesn't sound right if all of the notes are just played one by one. The performers give shape to the notes and phrases, animating the whole piece. As the performers move, the song moves with them.
Sit back, plug in some headphones, and turn this song up to 11. It's worth the listen.
-Andrew
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Blog Round Five: Hive Mind Jive - Class Today + More Paper Ideas
Today was an informative class period. Plus, we had desserts. Desserts make everything better.
Anaxagoras is an okay guy. He reminds me a lot of Kant. The aphorism that is most similar is number 20, which reads, "Owing to their [the senses'] feebleness, we are not able to determine the truth." This is just like Kant's nouminal and phenomenal world. The nouminal world is the world as it truly is. The phenomenal world is the world as it appears to us, through our perceptions. According to Kant, we cannot know the nouminal world because we continually perceive the world. By nature, we can only know the phenomenal world. Anaxagoras, like Kant, emphasizes limits on human reason. The truth which is beyond our understanding is the Nous. And while, we have a part of the Nous inside of us, we cannot truly know the nature of it. The Nous we observe can only be as we perceive it, and not as it actually is.
I wish I could talk about Anaxagoras more, but there weren't a lot of aphorisms to read, and there isn't too much to infer from what there is. The people who presented today did very well, but I felt bad that there wasn't too much in the primary source for them to use.
Switching gears now, I'm going to move over to my conference paper. Pythagoras and moral philosophy! There's a lot of books in Moody library about Pythagoras, so I'm not in want for materials. The first thing to note is the Pythagorean declaration, "All things known have number." This is the first major part of my paper; establishing if things like epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics can have number. Can they? Well, it's hard to assign a system of order to (sometimes) vague and intangible concepts. In terms of metaphysics, Pythagoreans asserted that there were patterns of numbers in the universe, and that the whole kosmos follows these patterns. For epistemology, numbers are part of our perceptions; we will be more likely to identify a pattern in the world, and its discovery can enable us to learn.
Ethics is the difficult category here. In order to link musical chords and moral philosophy, ethical criterion and their qualities must be linked with music. There must be something about the qualities of Justice, Love, or Humility that are obvious to the Fourth, Fifth, and Octave chords.
I think I've got my work cut out for me. You know, it would really suck if I were to find that I couldn't actually write about my paper. You know, no links, no source, etc. I'd laugh for a bit. But I think I'll be able to find something good and make a good paper out of it.
-Andrew
Anaxagoras is an okay guy. He reminds me a lot of Kant. The aphorism that is most similar is number 20, which reads, "Owing to their [the senses'] feebleness, we are not able to determine the truth." This is just like Kant's nouminal and phenomenal world. The nouminal world is the world as it truly is. The phenomenal world is the world as it appears to us, through our perceptions. According to Kant, we cannot know the nouminal world because we continually perceive the world. By nature, we can only know the phenomenal world. Anaxagoras, like Kant, emphasizes limits on human reason. The truth which is beyond our understanding is the Nous. And while, we have a part of the Nous inside of us, we cannot truly know the nature of it. The Nous we observe can only be as we perceive it, and not as it actually is.
I wish I could talk about Anaxagoras more, but there weren't a lot of aphorisms to read, and there isn't too much to infer from what there is. The people who presented today did very well, but I felt bad that there wasn't too much in the primary source for them to use.
Switching gears now, I'm going to move over to my conference paper. Pythagoras and moral philosophy! There's a lot of books in Moody library about Pythagoras, so I'm not in want for materials. The first thing to note is the Pythagorean declaration, "All things known have number." This is the first major part of my paper; establishing if things like epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics can have number. Can they? Well, it's hard to assign a system of order to (sometimes) vague and intangible concepts. In terms of metaphysics, Pythagoreans asserted that there were patterns of numbers in the universe, and that the whole kosmos follows these patterns. For epistemology, numbers are part of our perceptions; we will be more likely to identify a pattern in the world, and its discovery can enable us to learn.
Ethics is the difficult category here. In order to link musical chords and moral philosophy, ethical criterion and their qualities must be linked with music. There must be something about the qualities of Justice, Love, or Humility that are obvious to the Fourth, Fifth, and Octave chords.
I think I've got my work cut out for me. You know, it would really suck if I were to find that I couldn't actually write about my paper. You know, no links, no source, etc. I'd laugh for a bit. But I think I'll be able to find something good and make a good paper out of it.
-Andrew
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Blog Round Four: Dance 'til You're Sore - Empedocles Postgame + Paper Idea
So yeah. I thought my presentation went pretty well today. Maybe I'm biased, but I was happy with the presentation and the performance. I'll admit that halfway through my preparation I realized that I was working on the Metaphysics of Empedocles instead of the Epistemology, so I ended up having to modify half of my work to fit the presentation that I gave today. Luckily the metaphysics and epistemology are pretty well related, so it isn't too weird for me to talk about the metaphysics.
Final thoughts on Empedocles: Honestly, I liked him a lot. He's pretty cool. What I liked the most was his account on how we come to have knowledge. " For by earth we see earth, by water, water, by Aither, divine Aither, any by fire, destructive fire, yearning by yearning, and strife by mournful strife." Through the expression of the classic elements in our own bodies, we can come to observe and know other expression of the elements and how love and strife influence the different shapes. It's total crap and there's no way to prove it, but it's fascinating nonetheless.
Now onto greater heights! Today in class we talked about how we will be presenting conference papers at the end of the semester. I am not in want of a topic. My mind immediately went back to Pythagoras and his discussions on music. I want to see if there is a link between music and moral philosophy, using Pythagoras as a base for the concepts of music and morality. I don't know if there is even a link there, but this is too interesting of a topic and too good of an opportunity to pass up. I'll make another blog post once I've done some preliminary reading. I need to find some new sources for this because the parts about music aren't covered too well in the reader.
- Andrew
Final thoughts on Empedocles: Honestly, I liked him a lot. He's pretty cool. What I liked the most was his account on how we come to have knowledge. " For by earth we see earth, by water, water, by Aither, divine Aither, any by fire, destructive fire, yearning by yearning, and strife by mournful strife." Through the expression of the classic elements in our own bodies, we can come to observe and know other expression of the elements and how love and strife influence the different shapes. It's total crap and there's no way to prove it, but it's fascinating nonetheless.
Now onto greater heights! Today in class we talked about how we will be presenting conference papers at the end of the semester. I am not in want of a topic. My mind immediately went back to Pythagoras and his discussions on music. I want to see if there is a link between music and moral philosophy, using Pythagoras as a base for the concepts of music and morality. I don't know if there is even a link there, but this is too interesting of a topic and too good of an opportunity to pass up. I'll make another blog post once I've done some preliminary reading. I need to find some new sources for this because the parts about music aren't covered too well in the reader.
- Andrew
Monday, February 3, 2014
And Now In Place of Your Regularly Scheduled Programming...
The title of the blog says that music is a part of this thing. So yeah. I'll try and make a musical post a week to have a break from all of the deep thoughts.
This week's piece is Aurora Awakes by John Mackey (Youtube Link Here).
I'm particularly fond of this piece because I played it with the Granbury High School Wind Ensemble my senior year. It was a great experience. This is one of the few pieces where I was able to really form a connection with the music, where I as an individual ceased to exist, and I was part of the music. Pay attention to the clarinet (I played the solo during high school) and flute solos at the beginning. The piece is a musical representation of the Goddess Aurora waking up, bringing light to the world. The early woodwind solos herald the coming of dawn in a subtle manner. The tension that is brought up in the loud section helps emphasize the resolution in the measure before the tempo picks up. When the song picks up in tempo and volume, think of a great sunrise over a beautiful landscape. Everything comes to life as the sun rises. To listen to this piece, plug in some good headphones and crank the volume up to 11. Lie down and let yourself go. Become one with the music.
I hope you enjoy the music. Even after playing this in high school, I still listen to it regularly. Next week, I'll go over Shepherd's Hey by Percy Grainger.
-Andrew
This week's piece is Aurora Awakes by John Mackey (Youtube Link Here).
I'm particularly fond of this piece because I played it with the Granbury High School Wind Ensemble my senior year. It was a great experience. This is one of the few pieces where I was able to really form a connection with the music, where I as an individual ceased to exist, and I was part of the music. Pay attention to the clarinet (I played the solo during high school) and flute solos at the beginning. The piece is a musical representation of the Goddess Aurora waking up, bringing light to the world. The early woodwind solos herald the coming of dawn in a subtle manner. The tension that is brought up in the loud section helps emphasize the resolution in the measure before the tempo picks up. When the song picks up in tempo and volume, think of a great sunrise over a beautiful landscape. Everything comes to life as the sun rises. To listen to this piece, plug in some good headphones and crank the volume up to 11. Lie down and let yourself go. Become one with the music.
I hope you enjoy the music. Even after playing this in high school, I still listen to it regularly. Next week, I'll go over Shepherd's Hey by Percy Grainger.
-Andrew
Round Three: Knee of the Bee - Presentation Preparation
I'm not going to lie. I spent my free time on Thursday playing Civilization V on my computer instead of working on my presentation (Babylon for the win!). But I'm working on it now, so it's all good.
Empedocles "at-a-glance": Grade A narcissist with an ego the size of the Indian subcontinent. "I go about you, an immortal god, no longer mortal, honored among all, as it seems, wreathed with headbands and blooming garlands." To quote my fraternity brothers, his declaration is "hoish." Anyways, his philosophy seems pretty cool. My presentation will be over his epistemology so let's take a look at that.
The first relevant aphorism that I find in the reader is number 108, which reads, "A single sight [visual impression] comes from both [eyes]." While this is a short statement, a lot of Empedocles' epistemology can be derived from this aphorism. In its most basic form, this aphorism can be interpreted as, "What you see is what exists." You can only perceive what you see. This point can be taken further to mean, "If you are not perceiving something then it does not exist," but I don't think Empedocles means exactly that. It is true and obvious that if you are not seeing something, you cannot directly perceive the object (tautology! woooooo!), but the wider implication is that outside of our vision, our perception, objects might not exist. I think this is an interesting point that I will definitely look into for my presentation. A lot of the philosophers that I studied last semester in Modern European Philosophy covered this topic. There's a lot to read here.
The second area that I will focus on during my presentation is Empedocles' theory of knowledge. In aphorism 115, he says, "For by earth we see earth, by water, water, by Aither, divine Aither, and by fire, destructive fire, yearning by yearning, and strife by mournful strife." Actually, I'm getting ahead of myself here. Context: There are four main elements and two powers which control their formation and separation. The elements are Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. The two powers are Love and Strife. All things in the kosmos are formed through the elements and governed by the powers. So what Empedocles is saying in this aphorism is through the earth, air, fire, and water that is in our essence, we can come to observe the elements in the world. Empedocles says in aphorism 118, "For from these [the roots] (the classical elements) all things are joined and compounded, and by these they think and fell pleasure and pain." We have knowledge through the elements inside of us expressing their familiarity with the other forms of the elements.
So yeah. That's the initial prep. The next step is to take a look at the works of Hume, Berkely, and Reid to see if they have anything to say on the theory of knowledge.
-Andrew
Empedocles "at-a-glance": Grade A narcissist with an ego the size of the Indian subcontinent. "I go about you, an immortal god, no longer mortal, honored among all, as it seems, wreathed with headbands and blooming garlands." To quote my fraternity brothers, his declaration is "hoish." Anyways, his philosophy seems pretty cool. My presentation will be over his epistemology so let's take a look at that.
The first relevant aphorism that I find in the reader is number 108, which reads, "A single sight [visual impression] comes from both [eyes]." While this is a short statement, a lot of Empedocles' epistemology can be derived from this aphorism. In its most basic form, this aphorism can be interpreted as, "What you see is what exists." You can only perceive what you see. This point can be taken further to mean, "If you are not perceiving something then it does not exist," but I don't think Empedocles means exactly that. It is true and obvious that if you are not seeing something, you cannot directly perceive the object (tautology! woooooo!), but the wider implication is that outside of our vision, our perception, objects might not exist. I think this is an interesting point that I will definitely look into for my presentation. A lot of the philosophers that I studied last semester in Modern European Philosophy covered this topic. There's a lot to read here.
The second area that I will focus on during my presentation is Empedocles' theory of knowledge. In aphorism 115, he says, "For by earth we see earth, by water, water, by Aither, divine Aither, and by fire, destructive fire, yearning by yearning, and strife by mournful strife." Actually, I'm getting ahead of myself here. Context: There are four main elements and two powers which control their formation and separation. The elements are Earth, Air, Water, and Fire. The two powers are Love and Strife. All things in the kosmos are formed through the elements and governed by the powers. So what Empedocles is saying in this aphorism is through the earth, air, fire, and water that is in our essence, we can come to observe the elements in the world. Empedocles says in aphorism 118, "For from these [the roots] (the classical elements) all things are joined and compounded, and by these they think and fell pleasure and pain." We have knowledge through the elements inside of us expressing their familiarity with the other forms of the elements.
So yeah. That's the initial prep. The next step is to take a look at the works of Hume, Berkely, and Reid to see if they have anything to say on the theory of knowledge.
-Andrew
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