RossWhite.com » Music http://rosswhite.com You may be looking for another Ross White, but this is the one you've found. Tue, 17 Apr 2012 14:05:49 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 The Art of Syntax http://rosswhite.com/2009/09/12/art_of_syntax/ http://rosswhite.com/2009/09/12/art_of_syntax/#comments Sat, 12 Sep 2009 18:10:53 +0000 Ross http://rosswhite.com/?p=2027 I began Ellen Bryant Voigt’s The Art of Syntax last night, and though I haven’t yet attempted to apply what I have learned to my readings of poems, I’ve actually found that her translation of some of Robert Jourdain’s thoughts on music (in Music, The Brain, and Ecstasy) had a deep, profound effect on the way I was listening to music this morning.  As someone who has never had any real musical talent, I have always been deeply envious of musical craftsmen and people who have an intimate and seemingly natural (or unrehearsed, though I know that is not the case) gift for the language of music.  Seeing musical terms translated into the terms I understand– or rather, the terms I am only beginning to understand– finally gave me enough context to map the way my brain works with language to the way I am able to hear music.

Obviously, I have more work to do, much more work to do.  I’ve got to finish the book, and I’ve got a lot more listening to do– both to the music collection with which I have a new tool to work, and to a million and a half poems.  But it was an exciting morning, because I was hearing new things in familiar songs, or rather, recontextualizing things I’ve already heard many times before.

Next up today: Beatles Rock Band (and how participation also changes the way one hears the familiar) and my first read of student poems.

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