How swiftly the indefatigable eagle flies! How he hovers and balances in his harmonious sky! He dives into it, loses himself in it, soars, descends again, disappears, then returns to his starting place, his eye more brilliant, his wings stronger, intolerant of rest, quivering, athirst for the infinite.

/Berlioz, on Beethoven's C-minor Piano Trio

I wish this still counted as legitimate criticism, as a legitimate response to aesthetic experience.

Unfortunately if I turned in anything to my professors that read like that, I think I'd find crusted to it their dried mucus from their scoff as they gave me an "F."

Separate, but Equal

H and I took a trip across town chasing what looked like a fire, and then once we found it, decided to continue further across town to take a look around at neighborhoods we don't often get to see. We found the community's old school elementary school first (now out of commission), and then crossed the tracks into what I've always felt to be an almost completely different community. While we were there, we took some pictures of the old school (also now out of commission) over there.

This is an area that is not unfamiliar to me--I take my bike through here regularly--and yet it is not a place that feels like home. Sure, it's the 'Merce, but this is not the community I live in. And the most upsetting factor is that it is the year 2014. Brown v. Board of Education was 60 years ago.

We're not supposed to be a segregated society anymore; I guess, at least not a state-sponsored segregated society. And, somehow, to my dumbfoundedness over the past five years, this little town of 9,100 people remains separate...and unequal.

It was really just brought home today as H and I went through the ruins of this school. It was an erie place--not really much different from the white school we visited first, and yet inside these abandoned rooms echoed the pains of segregation and societal oppression. They echo because this still exists. It was as if this school was not just a ruined memory, but a ruined nightmare that keeps coming back.

I am pained because the Gospel paints a picture of diversity. Even so, God describes diversity as all tribes, tongues, peoples, and nations. Not all colors. Even acknowledging colors as defining to race is absurd, especially in this era. We all bleed the same color; we are all born the same way; we all die the same way. How absurd it is that we used to live this way! How much more absurd that we still continue to live this way!

As I went through this monument to a time past and not really forgotten I couldn't escape the feeling that I just didn't belong. Here I felt separate and not at all equal. We ought to be groaning for the unification of our society for the sake of our joy in the Lord who sees all equal by His Son. All I heard through these broken windows was silence.

To Affect

The act of hearing music, of listening to ordered sound, is to resonate with Creation, of which the individual is a part. When the human ear perceives the various musical harmonies, it involuntarily recognizes the reality of the Creator's work. The human desire to participate in musical activity is not, therefore, so much a need for self-expression, as the humanists would have it, as it is a longing for and a reflections of a relationship with the Creator. This recognition also has affective and formative power on the human mind and body. Luther's views on music reflect Augustine's synthesis of Greek music theory with Christian dogma: music not only mirrors the order of the created universe through its own numerical order but can positively affect individuals by audibly "putting them in touch" with the greater order of Creation. The order or "music" through which God created the universe thus becomes a means of spiritual growth.

/Dietrich Bartel, Musica Poetica on Martin Luther

Studying Hindemith has proven to help me better understand what Luther seems to know (though he did not necessarily have all of the understandings of the overtones like Hindemith did). Hindemith essentially explains the reason music is created the way it is as a result of the naturally occurring overtone series, and then proceeds to develop a system of redefining how we think about tonality based off of this observation (though at its core it is simply a more scientific framework through which to understand what we already know about how music works).

My point is that we need a more whole concept of music, its effects, its affects, its nature, and its purpose. I think Hindemith took a big step forward that appears to really be a big step backward--it seems Pythagoras somehow understood this centuries ago.

At any rate, we ought not be lax about the musical education of our young. It so so much more important than we even realize. I quote Luther,

To you, my dear young man, I commend this noble, wholesome, and joyful creation, through which the feelings of your heart may at times be helped, especially when withstanding shameful lusts and bad company.

No matter what you might think about Luther, we cannot deny the powerful affect music has upon the soul. There is a reason it is ubiquitous. And yet we still don't seem to get it.

It is necessary indeed that music be taught in the schools. A teacher must be able to sing; ...We should always make it a point to habituate youth to enjoy the art of music, for it produces fine and skillful people.

Briefly On Contemporary Expression

I am not sure there could be progress in art...Many art objects of the past appear to be more contemporary than our present art. How do we explain it? The secret to its contemporaneity resides in the question: How thoroughly has the author-composer perceived, not his own present, but the totality of life, its joys, worries and mysteries? ...Art has to deal with eternal questions, not just sorting out the issues of today.

/Arvo Pärt

These are the things I have been obsessed with lately as my undergraduate career draws to a close (and it is closing so quickly!). Who had it figured out? Did anybody have it figured out? I pray incessantly for disciplined faith.

Our culture is increasingly fragmented. Detached.

And from the beginning, the design of the universe was as a whole. We have broken it up physically, spiritually, and psychologically (that phrase itself is a measure of the fragmentation of our language and psyche). I wish there was one word to describe the oneness of the human being(s).

Serialism is a product of a fragmented society (one that might have even been less fragmented than ours). My problem with 12-tone serialism Pärt finally termed for me. I knew there was something inherently ineffective with serialism when we studied it in our advanced theory course but I haven't been able to put my thumb on it until now.

I think if the human has conflict in his soul and with everything, then this system of 12-tone music is exactly good for this. But if you have no more conflict with people, with the world, with God, then it is not necessary. You have no need to have a Browning in your pocket, or a dagger.

Appreciation

It is quite possible to enjoy flowers in their colored form and delicate fragrance without knowing anything about plants theoretically. But if one sets out to understand the flowering of plants, he is committed to finding out something about the interactions of soil, air, water, and sunlight that condition the growth of plants.

/John Dewey, Art as Experience

There is a great appreciation that comes with knowing. This is why we must keep learning, seeking, thinking, growing, and creating (which is itself a kind of research). Considering the depth of something as simple as a blade of grass or the taste of an apple leads us to greater appreciation, revealing to us more humility.

But you weren't looking for a musing pedant necessarily. Sorry I haven't posted in a while. Teaching children has been fun and insightful. We're almost to the summer! Don't forget to enjoy spring.