I attended many incredible lectures one on Toru Takemitsu and his piano pieces Rain Tree Sketch and Rain Tree Sketch II. Overall the analysis was incredibly complex, at times finding myself immersed in octatonic scales and variations of Messiaen's modes. Though the piece in places is a tribute to Messiaen, Takemitsu makes it his own by implementing Japanese aesthetic style into the structure of the piece. One of the main themes of the piece is Circular Repetition and this happened to strike a large chord with me. Right now I am pursuing a topic for possibly research (maybe for Music Sem) spawned off of an article by Susan McCleary which has been a rather debatable topic recently. I am super psyched I was able to make these connections. Also thinking about a project on Messiaen (maybe for R2R)... HRM....
Another was on Varese's first movement of Octandre. Though the presenter well rushed through and probably shouldn't have pointed that out... But regardless he had some interesting connections between the music and Non-Linear time, and the listeners interpretation of it. Though I find myself wanting to possibly contact him and ask him for a copy of the paper, I was highly engrossed by YET ANOTHER interpretation of time in the relation to music. This time it didn't focus on repetition but still it seems to be a topic that is popping up in places. Yes, music is about time but golly gee how about peoples interpretation of it. I also attended a lecture on 'Intersubjectivity and the Construction of Musical Meanings' Now, the author was not there to present it but there were all of these philosophical and musical ideas introduced and taken many different ways. The topic was complex, I might contact that author as well to read their work, and possibly write a reflection of it on here.
Quebec is another world only like 1-2 hours from my house... Mini-Europe this close... GEEEZE! Why didn't I come here before!? Oh and I am coming back for Carnival too! I cannot wait! More good food and ice skating tomorrow! Oh yeah and another blasting day of awesome music topics!!
I am tired, and have been up since 3:15 AM, running on about 3 hours of sleep from the night before. Yet, I pump out a blog entry. I am addicted to this field I swear!
Steve's Blog said...
Which Messiaen work are you thinking of exploring? "End of Time" is the most famous, but it might be interesting to explore something else. What's the Radiohead connection?
Meg said...
I have very limited listening experience to Messiaen, I have heard End of Time, Turangalila Symphony, L'ascension, Poemes Pour Mi, and Hymne Au Saint Sacrement. I really like the first 3 on that list. Its hard to say right now I need to get more recordings but the Radiohead connection is through the sound and how Johnny uses it. More later on this subject...
