Critical Marxism: A Lens on Modern Society
From the “Overflow” file… One life-changing illumination from grad school was my introduction to “Critical Marxism”. Now don’t get scared. The mere mention of Marx’s name conjures dark visions of totalitarianism and lifeless culture. I know. During the Parisian communism experiment, Marx himself is alleged to have said, “One thing’s for sure; I know I am not a...
Read MoreThe Great Tone
I found this illuminating passage in a book called, The World is Sound: Music & the Landscape of Consciousness by Joachim-Ernst Berendt. Some food for thought in this new year: The Great Tone is the tone of being or, as the Indians put it, the tone of the self, of the Atma. The Great Tone is Nada Brahma, the tone from which God made the world, which continues to sound at the bottom of...
Read MoreCrystalline Music
Music creates order out of chaos – for rhythm imposes unanimity upon the divergent, melody imposes continuity upon the disjointed, and harmony imposes compatibility upon the incongruous. - Yehudi Menuhin Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the ‘nature’ of music – its deeper meanings for humans and the worlds they inhabit. Music, put as simply as possible, is coherent sound and bears...
Read MoreWhere Now Is Bohemia?
I recently dug out an interview with author/futurist William Gibson (a music fan who coined the term “cyberspace” in his 1984 novel “Neuromancer”). In it Gibson laments the quick co-opting of anything rebellious in western culture and wonders about the survival of bohemia. Since so much of music creation has sprung from bohemian enclaves throughout history, I thought it...
Read MoreKids’ Creativity in Decline? Uh-Oh.
Children are often considered the last bastion of unsullied creativity. That’s why it’s a bit daunting to learn that kids’ creativity is at risk. Some parents are coming up with ways to get their kids thinking creatively again, reports Sue Shellenbarger in the Wall Street Journal. Creativity among US kids is, in fact, a problem: “Americans’ scores on a commonly used...
Read MoreGreening Your Inner Air
As air-filtration systems go, ordinary houseplants are relatively inexpensive and can be effective, reports Gwendolyn Bounds in the Wall Street Journal (3/15/11). Researchers at the University of Technology Sydney have studied houseplants as air filters for five years. They “found that small groups of the Janet Craig and Sweet Chico plants placed in offices with high concentrations of...
Read More‘Louder’ Star Music & 2012
Many have heard of the “music of the spheres”, an ancient concept referred to by Pythagoras and other observers over the centuries. To them, the solar system consisted of ten spheres revolving in circles about a central fire, each sphere giving off a sound the way a projectile makes a sound as it swished through the air; the closer spheres gave lower tones while the farther moved faster and...
Read MoreWhat is Your Internal Absorption Rate?
A Brazilian music journalist recently put this question to me: Nowadays, it is so easy to make music and even to make movies. Are we living in a world of too much entertainment options? Do we need so much music and so many movies? Is there really a demand for that? My reply: There is a book that came out several years back about the affect of TV on society called Amusing Ourselves to Death by...
Read More‘Mind Jazz’
William Irwin Thompson is one of my favorite authors. He seems to always be up ahead, peeking around the corner of what’s to come. Not to mention, he has a wonderful way with words. Here’s a sample: We are now at another one of those historic moments when a scientific itch is just beyond the reach of scratch, and it is a particularly maddening time, especially for those who stand...
Read MoreSound – The Foundation
“This sound is the source of all manifestation… The knower of the mystery of sound knows the mystery of the whole universe.” – Sufi Hazrat Inayat Khan Cosmic Sound, Primal Vibration, the Logos, the Music...
Read More
Connect with Peter