Linked to the rocking dVerse Poets Pub Poetics prompt by the fabulous Stu McPherson http://dversepoets.com/2012/05/05/poetics-our-music/
Hypatia
Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better than not to think at all.-
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Denise Levertov
When words penetrate deep into us they change the chemistry of the soul, of the imagination. We have no right to do that to people if we don’t share the consequences.-
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Plato
Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history.Categories
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Postmodernism
Postmodernism is an intellectual, artistic, philosophical, and/or cultural mindset that questions institutionalism, hierarchy, power, and simple, knowable truth. Alternatively it embraces complexity, contradiction, ambiguity, fractured metaphysics, multiplicity, deconstruction, and diversity. In poetry it offers semiotic liberty.Robert Anton Wilson
Semantic noise also seems to haunt every communication system. A man may sincerely say, ‘I love fish,’ and two listeners may both hear him correctly, yet the two will neurosemantically file this in their brains under opposite categories. One will think the man loves to dine on fish, and the other will think he loves to keep fish (in an aquarium).Witold Gombrowicz
Here is the writer who with all his heart and soul, with his art, in anguish and travail offers nourishment – there is the reader who’ll have none of it, and if he wants, it’s only in passing, offhandedly, until the phone rings. Life’s trivia are your undoing. You are like a man who has challenged a dragon to a fight but will be yapped into a corner by a little dog. from Ferdydurke
I’m an Executive Director with a doctorate in education, a consultant, painter, photographer, composer, poet, and vocalist.
Gustav Flaubert
Everything one invents is true, you may be perfectly sure of that. Poetry is as precise as geometry.DuÅ¡an “Charles” Simić
Poetry is an orphan of silence. The words never quite equal the experience behind them.Monique Wittig
Language casts sheaves of reality upon the social body, stamping it and violently shaping it… Language as a whole gives everyone the same power of becoming an absolute subject through its exercise. But gender, an element of language, works upon this ontological fact to annul it as far as women are concerned and corresponds to a constant attempt to strip them of the most precious thing for a human being – subjectivity. Gender is an ontological impossibility because it tries to accomplish the division of Being. But Being is not divided. God or Man as being are One and whole. So what is this divided Being introduced into language through gender? It is an impossible Being, it is a Being that does not exist, an ontological joke, a conceptual maneuver to wrest from women what belongs to them by right: conceiving of oneself as a total subject through the exercise of language. The result of the imposition of gender, acting as a denial at the very moment when one speaks, is to deprive women of the authority of speech, and to force them to make their entrance in a crablike way, particularizing themselves and apologizing profusely. The result is to deny them any claim to the abstract, philosophical, political discourses that give shape to the social body. Gender then must be destroyed. The possibility of its destruction is given through the very exercise of language. For each time I say ‘I’ I reorganize the world from my point of view and through abstraction I lay claim to universality. This fact holds true for every locutor.
W.S. Merwin
All the things that really matter to us are impossible…Writing poetry is impossible. I don’t know how to write a poem. A poem – there has to be a part of it that is not my own will; it comes from somewhere that I don’t know. There is so much that comes out of what we don’t know and what we don’t have any control over. I think that one of the only things we can learn as we get older is a certain humility. – from Doing the Impossible
Thomas Aquinas
Because philosophy arises from awe, a philosopher is bound in his way to be a lover of myths and poetic fables. Poets and philosophers are alike in being big with wonder.
Chromapoetica 
this is basically the philosophy espoused by the Suzuki Music School, that everyone can “do” music and should!!
tenaciously as conundrum
I agree with Suzuki, I have his book. Now, however, through Neuroscience we can back up his claims with hard science :).
Anna, you have given me moment to pause, to reflect….the piece is fantastic, the music amazing, and makes me almost believe there might be hope for me yet! 😉
Thanks Tash, I’m pretty sure there’s lots of hope for you :)!
The great thing you’re sent here is the discussion between science and the emotional…or in this case, science and the ability to create music and absorb it’s emotion. On on hand it can be argued that creativity is spontaneous and evolves from an individual spirit and consciousness (something intangible), and on the other, that the creation and/or appreciation of music is purely physical, chemical….my head agrees with the science, my heart doesn’t…but what you created here was a very clever and well constructed piece that challenges with its ideas as well as soothes with its audio and visual presentation. Super clever. Loved it. Made me think (now that IS something)
Oh dear I’m sorry it gave you that impression. I was trying to show that music and language are intricately linked and that the pathways of music in our mind parallel those of emotion so that we cannot separate music from emotion. I don’t believe in the heart/mind dichotomy and was hoping that this piece portrayed the beauty of that entwining through music. That’s the problem with being in a hurry. I’ll edit it when I have more time. I agree creativity is spontaneous and I believe we are all capable of it and music. Sorry for the confusion.
Hey! Don’t edit it! Its great! Just my initial interpretation of it that’s all! Anna- you should know by now- I’m usually brilliant at missing the point! Ha ha- but the fact that your piece. Made me think so much…well…that’s the great thing about art…and you are an artist!
I think you’re brilliant so it’s likely me :). Glad it made you think just didn’t want you to believe I think our love of music is some kind of electrochemical response when I love music more than I can describe. Sheesh, this prompt’s got me all stirred up, you made me ponder and feel in ways I hadn’t. Thank you.
Anna- I’m afraid that when you play the piano like that , write like that, paint like that….you simply COULDN’T believe that….it’s probably the way I it my explanation across that wasn’t clear! It is 12:30pm- and I’m usually strictly a 10pm man ha ha 🙂
Big smiles, I know what you mean, sorry for the emotive clarification.
nice…this was a great slow down in my reading just to sit and enjoy the music and the pace you give…and i love your art in it as well…i think there is a def music to life…we are surrounded by it and i think we are wired to create…and create music…at least at its basic level…look at the soothing when we drum our fingers…a nervous response maybe but…just an example…nicely done ma’am
Thanks Brian, I am trying to figure out the balance in the multimedia pieces between too much and not enough information. I’m still new at them so its a learning process. I love your example; I sing to myself when I’m incandescently happy.
A lovely composition here, Anna. Music and emotion do go hand in hand, even more so than visual stimuli and affective responses in my experience (not sure of the neuroscientic fact of this). Although there is massive research on color and emotion as I am sure you well know. The music in this piece was flowing in a way that I almost wish the transitions between slides would have been so as well. Although, timing the abrupt change to the next slide with the percussion beat of the composition would be cool too. Hope you dont mind the feedback. I saw your comment about being new to the multimedia stuff and thought i’d share my experience. I do look forward to these pieces from you though because it is something i enjoy doing and not too many poets that i have contact with do it. So keep up the good work! 🙂
Yeah, I have a terrible program that doesn’t allow much alteration of slide times and presents the audio as a bar (no indication of beats, high points, etc.). If I continue to do them I’ll look into purchasing a better program. No, I don’t mind the feedback at all it’s very helpful :). Thanks.
I drifted off somewhere else once the music started up, you pulled me not another dimension, thanks!
Yes, it has a floating away quality :).
very cool anna…you’re def. spoiling us with your artistic videos…love that you give the words so much space here..it all flows together like a symphony of color, verse and music… awesome
Thanks Claudia, as I said to Brian I am hoping less text makes these easier to view. I especially appreciate the feedback that the three meld into a symphony :).
Bestowing chills of recognition- love that. This poem does a bunch of things. It shows the bodies reaction. it show multiple media synchronized to form a unity, an art, proving that music, visual and verse, all are alive within the other. Again, fantastic work here, loving the slides, your art is great, and when paired with verse and sound…Delicious. Thanks
Yes, alive within each other, so much so I continually have trouble separating them. Thank you for the beautiful compliment.
Can’t say anything the above didn’t already say. 🙂 I like these that you do. It’s such a treat, to sit down and enjoy this with a cup of coffee.
Thanks, I hope it’s delicious coffee :).
Again it was the music that blew me away: I kept on wishing it wouldn’t end.
I’m sure neuroscience would affirm that my nervous system is feeble and damaged: [victim of the petro-chemical industry] I can only deal with one thread at a time. The visuals are gorgeous, the words I would love to see separate, as text inside your posts, to savour them on their own. Is there a chance you could do that as well for the synapse-challenged like me?
Maybe after taking in each strand one by one, the combination would prove not too overwhelming.
Thanks Aprille, the feedback on the music is very helpful and I will take your suggestions to post the text to heart and put it up later. I just got home from church.
For the slide show plus music, try a site called KIZOA
Oh, I’ll check that out.
Music is so much a part of us. It either lifts our mood or it darkens it. I think our minds are wired to hear and to feel music in all of life. I love how you weaved music into art and philosophy too. I know most of what I write is with music in mind too. Another lovely one Anna.
Yes, entwined and enmeshed, influencing our moods and our expression. Thank you!
A rich interplay Anna.. which aspects gains dominance must I guess depend on individual disposition at the time. The music took me to Japan and some unspecified European 17th court, and that would have been enough..
I found myself wondering about the images and what might be represented there, so forget to read the words sometimes… lol…
I need to go back and do that again… Positive and harmonising…
Ooo, Japan and a 17th century court, how exciting. Ha, yes, in another piece it was the flowers that were so distracting. It’s a fine line and I don’t learn if I don’t get feedback so I always appreciate yours.
What an amazing array of talents you have, and which you kindly bring to the dVerse pub. This arrangementnof sight, sound, and thoughts embodies the prompt in a very concrete way, combining the elements to show not only how they affect us objectively but your own subjective response to the prompt. Your fusion of the arts and sciences is very ambitious and I laud your effort!
Oh, I don’t always know if inflicting my experiments on readers is kind 🙂 but in my defense I find experimentation vital to the process of artmaking in all its myriad forms. I love how you describe this as a concretion of objective and subjective responses to music. Thank you!
i like it
Thank you Ted, nice to meet you.
The music had an oriental feel for me too; I quite liked it. I don’t know science as you do, but your text here put me in mind of Bach’s music a little bit. He seems to create these lines of progression that have something in common with logic, math and one might say language too. Other kinds of music seem to rely more on the heart, the pumping of blood, the rhythm.
Thanks Mark, I love Bach, he’s a big influence in my composing (not so evident in this piece but absolutely in my choral, piano, and symphonic pieces).
everything you do is filled with music. the notes, your words, even your paintings. just lovely. this was a perfect midday meditation!
Thank you Kelly! Meditative was the idea so I’m happy it worked for you :).