songs for judith
Music done right captures a resonance between math and language.
Harmony/rhythm is basically a space/time language that is mathematical (an octave is a unit of space, a measure is a unit of time, and it’s all about how you carve and layer within those units). Lyrics are obviously the linguistic half of it. In the most basic songs, a nice poem is la
... See moreSaudade is a Portuguese word that can be roughly defined as a feeling of melancholy, nostalgia or yearning for something that is beloved but not present. There's no perfect translation, but one of the closest English expressions of the word I've ever seen is Billie Eilish's Tiny Desk performance.
You'd think the Los Angeles-born singer invented the ... See more
You'd think the Los Angeles-born singer invented the ... See more
Billie Eilish: Tiny Desk Concert
(To experience the rest of this essay in full effect, I recommend playing this in the background.)
Michael Dean • Thank you for the roses
Such patterns, formal and harmonic, relate their components to one another in time. The ear can sense the harmonies to come based on the relative intensities of those that came before, or when thematic material will return by the buildup of a cadence at the end of a development section or variation. It is through this higher sense of rhythm, then, ... See more
Maria Popova • We Are Made of Music, We Are Made of Time: Violinist Natalie Hodges on the Poetic Science of Sound and Feeling
