Dylan as Listener: Review of The Philosophy of Modern Song
It’s technically a book, of course, but you need to listen to it as much as read it. It’s organised as notes to 66 selected songs — the selection and ordering lying at the...
Category: music
The Piano’s Role
If a movie doesn’t ever let you forget that it’s a movie, but keeps making you wonder how anyone could decide to cast, costume, and direct a scene as he has, you are probably...
Arcana: Musicians on Music
There are ten of these books — same title, volumes I – X — published at irregular intervals between 2000 and last year. I don’t own them all (about half are in my nearby...
Still Learning to Listen, Facing North
I’m listening to my new CD called Facing North. The names on the cover are Meredith Monk and Robert Een, Meredith Monk being the more famous of the two, but both musicians and dancers....
Learning to Listen
I’ve set myself a long, slow project: learning to listen to music. There’s a low rumble of piano lessons in the distant background (from age 6), lessons focussed on the solo literature and good music, which is to...
More listening
I’ve been carrying on with my music project. It’s been full of surprises — what I’d call a success, in other words. I think I am learning to listen. What began as a systematic, linear move...