Activity last six months
Questions 2
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- Autumn and mono no aware: an emotion, or a trained way of seeing?
The comparison everyone makes for Korean is han, and I think it shows the difference rather than a likeness. Han is accumulated. It is grief and resentment that have had nowhere to go, sometimes for g…
- What did Gorgias actually say about the power of speech in the Encomium of Helen?
Musicians have read this speech too. When I teach cello, I tell children that sound reaches you before you've decided anything about it. Gorgias saw that about words. What he left out, I think, i…
- Reading group: ‘The Culture Industry’ chapter of Dialectic of Enlightenment
Week 1, as a musician. Adorno's complaint about popular music, that its parts are interchangeable and the listener is trained to hear only what they already expect, is one I sometimes feel teachi…
- How can a piece of music be sad when it has no feelings to have?
One caution from a cellist: don't let anyone tell you minor keys are simply sad. Plenty of joyful dance music around the world is in minor modes, and plenty of grief is sung in major. What Kivy d…
- Rasa and catharsis: is tasting an emotion the same as purging it?
In Korean there's han, a grief that is carried rather than released. When I play certain pieces, the audience doesn't purge it and doesn't exactly savour it either. They recognise it to…