Silvio can we please form a duo in both words and acoustics?! Really enjoyed this piece as you took us on a tour of semi-serious views on the mystery of music, with great knowledge and humor. Your guitar teacher is absolutely right -- "cantabile" is the trickiest style to play, and one thing that particularly annoys me is that nobody, like literally nobody, reads JS Bach's preface to the Inventions, which basically says that one should play cantabile. And obviously very few people actually do that :( so glad that your guitar teacher is fighting to keep this tradition alive!
Love the conclusion too -- we can just let it be and enjoy it. For musicians though, the ultimate joy is in making and creating music, and knowing that people will be touched by the music. Oh, and I'm all for playing Shostakovich to the aliens, string quartet 8 to scare them a bit, and symphony 15 to show them that hey, homo sapiens are actually pretty fun too ;)
This is a very timely musing for me to read, because just recently I got a Spotify account, as a person who over 6 decades has just never been a music listener. I like music when I hear it, but I don't seek it out in moments of leisure. So as I'm starting to listen, I'm finding all parts of my inner world—feelings, moods, sensations— getting lit up and activated in directions and ways that I'm not used to. I realized that I actually have some discomfort with music because I lose control of my moods and emotions in its presence. Not in a bad way, but just the fact of being emotionally moved around, not of my own volition, makes me uneasy. It's not a flattering admission, but in a way, it does speak to this same mysterious power of music. I can see there is something in this for me, and it's a new area of exploration and even personal practice to allow myself to be touched by a mysterious force.
Mar 29, 2023·edited Mar 30, 2023Liked by Silvio Castelletti
As someone who first studied stringed instruments I had a breakthrough when learning piano from a teacher who mentioned I played piano like a stringed instrument. I told him surely it was as there are strings! No, he informed me, the keys and hammers make it a percussion instrument. In a moment my mind was blown, world changed forever, and I was unlocked to play the piano.
Later in life, when Learned of the Quadrivium, and discovered that the ancients believed the discipline of music was the experience and understanding of time had me considering that perhaps music touches us at our souls because it is time itself. We are finite beings with infinite souls and I believe music is what tears us in two and then bridges the gap. Music is our relationship with time.
Wonderful piece Silvio. I still have so many thoughts that you've drummed up with your words. But what a contemplation. I was just getting ready to tune my Bass for Palm Sunday service this week. I'll be meditating on these words with my rehearsals. My best to you!
Such a pleasure reading the thoughts of a (semi?-)serious music fan and player. You've managed to capture some ineffable feelings I've always had about music, and then gone deeper into it. Really enjoyed reading and re-reading this.
Hadn't listened to Kid Charlemagne until you mentioned it, and now it's rotating in my playlist. Will have to do the other homework.
Among many other thing, it made me think about the difference between listening to music live or recorded, which I'll be mulling over.
This was such a nostalgic read for me. I'm more a rhythm guitarist myself, but I felt the same way when I heard David Gilmour's solo in Comfortably Numb, Slash's solo in November Rain and Jimmy Page in Stairway to heaven. Although I don't think I can express my feelings better than Steven has above. Beautiful piece, Silvio.
Silvio can we please form a duo in both words and acoustics?! Really enjoyed this piece as you took us on a tour of semi-serious views on the mystery of music, with great knowledge and humor. Your guitar teacher is absolutely right -- "cantabile" is the trickiest style to play, and one thing that particularly annoys me is that nobody, like literally nobody, reads JS Bach's preface to the Inventions, which basically says that one should play cantabile. And obviously very few people actually do that :( so glad that your guitar teacher is fighting to keep this tradition alive!
Love the conclusion too -- we can just let it be and enjoy it. For musicians though, the ultimate joy is in making and creating music, and knowing that people will be touched by the music. Oh, and I'm all for playing Shostakovich to the aliens, string quartet 8 to scare them a bit, and symphony 15 to show them that hey, homo sapiens are actually pretty fun too ;)
This is a very timely musing for me to read, because just recently I got a Spotify account, as a person who over 6 decades has just never been a music listener. I like music when I hear it, but I don't seek it out in moments of leisure. So as I'm starting to listen, I'm finding all parts of my inner world—feelings, moods, sensations— getting lit up and activated in directions and ways that I'm not used to. I realized that I actually have some discomfort with music because I lose control of my moods and emotions in its presence. Not in a bad way, but just the fact of being emotionally moved around, not of my own volition, makes me uneasy. It's not a flattering admission, but in a way, it does speak to this same mysterious power of music. I can see there is something in this for me, and it's a new area of exploration and even personal practice to allow myself to be touched by a mysterious force.
As someone who first studied stringed instruments I had a breakthrough when learning piano from a teacher who mentioned I played piano like a stringed instrument. I told him surely it was as there are strings! No, he informed me, the keys and hammers make it a percussion instrument. In a moment my mind was blown, world changed forever, and I was unlocked to play the piano.
Later in life, when Learned of the Quadrivium, and discovered that the ancients believed the discipline of music was the experience and understanding of time had me considering that perhaps music touches us at our souls because it is time itself. We are finite beings with infinite souls and I believe music is what tears us in two and then bridges the gap. Music is our relationship with time.
Wonderful piece Silvio. I still have so many thoughts that you've drummed up with your words. But what a contemplation. I was just getting ready to tune my Bass for Palm Sunday service this week. I'll be meditating on these words with my rehearsals. My best to you!
Such a pleasure reading the thoughts of a (semi?-)serious music fan and player. You've managed to capture some ineffable feelings I've always had about music, and then gone deeper into it. Really enjoyed reading and re-reading this.
Hadn't listened to Kid Charlemagne until you mentioned it, and now it's rotating in my playlist. Will have to do the other homework.
Among many other thing, it made me think about the difference between listening to music live or recorded, which I'll be mulling over.
Thank you for writing this!
Can I curate a playlist of all your essays about music & musicians? You make me nostalgic for decades of music I only wish I was alive for
Another beautiful piece Silvio. Somehow you conjure counterfactual nostalgia with your words, reminiscing for possibilities that never happened.
This was such a nostalgic read for me. I'm more a rhythm guitarist myself, but I felt the same way when I heard David Gilmour's solo in Comfortably Numb, Slash's solo in November Rain and Jimmy Page in Stairway to heaven. Although I don't think I can express my feelings better than Steven has above. Beautiful piece, Silvio.