So I’ve arrived at the end of the first week of my study. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t difficult to stay on task. Sometimes there’s so much else to do (I could totally clean my room right now instead of writing this blog post…). Sometimes I find myself gripped by the ennui which Botton warned us about. It’s a struggle, but it wouldn’t really be any fun if it wasn’t. I’ll supply some thought as to how I can better focus myself to this study at the end of this blog post, but, for now, I’ll write a bit about what I’ve learned.

During the first week of my study I’ve read Part I of Helmholtz’s On the Sensations of Tone – As a Physiological Basis for the Theory of Music. I was quickly enraptured by the text, and dug into the reading, but soon found the content to be a little overwhelming. In the introduction, Helmholtz won me over by explaining the reason for his research and writing. His goal was to unite two schools of thought: “physical and physiological acoustics” and “musical science and esthetics” (Helmholtz 1). This matched descriptions of the book which also promised a comprehensive, yet easy to grasp, understanding of sound from a scientific point of view. The early material consisted of describing how sound works. It was detailed enough that I could easily follow it, and it cast new light on subjects which were already familiar to me. However, I soon lost myself in the rapid current of new information that Helmholtz began introducing. I found myself adrift, reading about descriptions of experiments which I didn’t fully comprehend and hoping to find paragraphs or sentences which could tie together the different terms and ideas that were being developed. Though I understand, and greatly admire, the extensiveness of Helmholtz’s research, I couldn’t retain or connect to some of the stuff he was throwing at me. His analysis of the human ear, for example, was something that I was initially interested in learning about, but the content was so dense that most of it went over my head.

My solution was to find supplemental sources which provided similar information in a more readily digestible form. These sources gave me a means to get my head around the depth of knowledge Helmholtz was throwing at me.

The above example helped me immensely by affording a moving visual representation of the inner workings of the ear. Though Helmholtz undoubtedly goes into more depth, the video provides information in simpler terms which I can retain more easily. I also found it helpful to perform the experiments that Helmholtz described or, if they were too complex, at least look up video demonstrations. For example, after reading about sympathetic resonance, I sung a D note into the hollow of my acoustic guitar. When I stopped singing I found that the D string was vibrating. Another source, HyperPhysics, has information on everything I wanted to learn about and more.

Part II of On the Sensations of Tone looks like it will be easier for me to connect to as it addresses topics more musical in nature. I will, however, look for other sources whenever I encounter something I don’t understand so that I can connect with and fully appreciate what Helmholtz has to teach me.

As I move forward with my study, there are a few other things I’d like to keep in mind. The first is that I should better maintain my personal journal. Writing this blog post has helped me touch down and grasp what it is I’ve been doing so far. I’ve written down my thoughts a few times, but I think it would help me more to make it a regular, perhaps daily, routine. I’ve also found that I’ve been putting my goals too high, and the result is that I’ll burn myself out before I reach my goal. Rather than set a huge list of daily goals, I’m going to try to start thinking more in terms of weeks. In this way I’ll spread out my workload so that things like the reading will be easier to get through, and I’ll have more time and energy for daily things like practicing music or writing in my journal. Lastly, I’ve realized I don’t have a full schedule for my study up (woops). I have a draft right now which I’ve been agonizing over. I plan on finishing and posting that tomorrow. My hope is that it will act as a guide I can follow for the rest of this study.

There are in our existence spots of time,

That with distinct pre-eminence retain

A renovating virtue…

That penetrates, enables us to mount,

When high, more high, and lifts us up when fallen.

-William Wordsworth

Wordsworth was a man who appreciated the beauty of nature. He sought it out as a way of restoring peace to his soul, believing that nature was a “necessary antidote to the evils of the city” (Botton, 196). During his time things were changing rapidly. With the Industrial Revolution in full swing, cities and their populations were expanding. As a result, many people, such as the Transcendentalists (Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson…), sought solace from the increasingly fast-paced lifestyle of the city by returning to nature.

Botton wrote at length about human admiration for nature. On page 144 he described his experience under oaks in the Lake District while it rained: “From under their canopy, rain could be heard falling on forty thousand leaves, creating a harmonious pitter-patter that varied in pitch according to whether the water dripped onto a large or small leaf, a high or low one, one loaded with accumulated water or not. The trees themselves were an image of ordered complexity…” Such scenes as these are what Wordsworth meant when he wrote about “spots of time.” They speak of forces which are beyond our comprehension and leave us in awe.

It’s not surprising then that those who sought nature often found an “emotional connection to a greater power” (Botton, 169). In the first chapter of his book, Nature, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote:

“I become a transparent eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part or particle of God. The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental: to be brothers, to be acquaintances, — master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance. I am the lover of uncontained and immortal beauty. In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature.”

What Emerson describes resembles a spiritual sense of the sublime, something which Botton elaborates on greatly in his sixth chapter. I bought a used copy of The Art of Travel. On page 163, the first page of the aforementioned chapter, the previous owner highlighted “I set out to the desert so as to be made to feel small,” and aside it wrote, “Trees!” I was reminded of the Evergreen woods. Having been raised on the east coast, the trees there seem alien and beautiful. Their trunks stretch high, and their limbs seem languidly twisted, coated in vibrantly green moss. As a part of my study, I plan to visit the Olympic National Park where the trees grow much bigger, and I don’t doubt that I will feel humbled by their size and age. While I’m not sure I’ll find the same spirituality that Emerson describes, I do think we are drawn to nature’s majestic indifference as it reminds us of our own temporariness.

However, while it is important for us to appreciate the beauty of nature, we must also not forget about the beauty of our own creations. Botton seems aware of this when, on page 181, he wrote about an oil refinery “whose tangle of pipes and cooling towers spoke of the complexity involved in the manufacture of a liquid that [he] was used to putting into [his] car with scant thought for its origins.” In chapter four of his book, Walden, Thoreau marvels at a train, writing “…when I hear the iron horse make the hills echo with his snort like thunder, shaking the earth with his feet, and breathing fire and smoke from his nostrils (what kind of winged horse or fiery dragon they will put into the new Mythology I don’t know), it seems as if the earth had got a race now worthy to inhabit it.” It is perhaps easier for us to take our own achievements for granted because they represent those elements of nature which we have already mastered. Our technologies are the aspects of nature which we have molded to our will.

We are at once a part of and separate from nature. While we are but small parts of it, our will is distinct. The “will” of nature, something which we tend to embody in the image of the divine, is “a defiance to man’s will” (Botton, 164). Nature may be seen in this way as a challenge which is not so different from a blank canvas. As I move forward in my study, I’ll be interested to carry Botton’s thoughts on nature and art with me, testing them against the theories other philosophers have generated over the centuries.

Work Cited:

Botton, Alain De. The Art of Travel. New York: Pantheon, 2002. Print.

Emerson, Ralph W. “Chapter I: Nature.” Nature. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2015.

Thoreau, Henry D. “Chapter 4: Sounds.” Walden. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2015.

“Journey’s are the midwives of thought.”

-Alain de Botton

The Art of Travel is an easy read. Alain de Botton’s writing style draws me in and moves quickly enough to keep me attentive. Flitting between his own travels and the travels of historical figures, Botton showcases his unique take on things which I find to be both insightful and thought provoking. The above quote, for example, is something that I find really intriguing. To a certain extent, I agree with Botton. The mind wanders without any kind of pressure when we occupy it with something like staring out a train window.

However, I disagree with what he writes on page fifty-six: “It is not necessarily at home that we best encounter our true selves. The furniture insistes that we cannot change because it does not; the domestic setting keeps us tethered to the person we are in ordinary life, who may not be who we essentially are” (56). This quote, I think, gets at what Botton is really driving at. That a person living in comfort can become numb. It’s easy to lose touch, fall into routines, and takes things for granted. I agree with Botton in recognizing the importance of fighting the lethargic grip of comfort, but I don’t agree with him after that point. He seems to blame the domestic setting for making life mundane, and favors travel as an avenue for escaping that trap. I don’t think that we are any less our “true selves” for closing ourselves off to the beauty in things we’ve come to expect. I do think we do ourselves a great disservice in not appreciating our own lives. My thoughts on this subject remind me of a screenplay I read freshman year here at TESC, My Dinner with André. In the following clip from the movie, Wallace Shawn tackles this topic of boredom with André Gregory.

Click here to view the embedded video.

André’s character is a little eccentric, but Wally’s speech has always resonated with me. I do think that traveling can be a way of waking yourself up. For example, John Luther Adams, a modern composer mentioned in an earlier reading,  fell in love with and moved to Alaska, a place which has helped inspire many of his compositions. According to him, you should “find where you belong – musically, geographically, spiritually – and ground your life there” (John Luther Adams). I do however think that traveling can be just as stifling as not. Botton himself addresses the disconnect between reality and fantasy that is often associated with vacations throughout the first chapter, and that kind of disconnect is fundamentally not dissimilar from the numbness of the mundane.

How do we combat boredom then? Botton actually goes on to provide an answer I agree with by refining the idea of travel to exploration. Using Alexander von Humboldt’s life as an example, Botton explains the importance of curiosity. “Curiosity,” he writes, “might be pictured as being made up of chains of small questions extending outwards, sometimes over huge distances, from a central hub composed of a few blunt, large questions” (116). I realized after reading this that my goal for this upcoming study was to reignite my curiosity regarding music. I think that breaking down what curiosity into questions branching from the fundamental is a thorough and efficient way of understanding it. I’m also reminded that, while I want to realize my own philosophy regarding music, art, and humanity, I must first comprehend why I want to  better understand those topics in the first place. By fueling our desire to know “we may reach that stage where we are bored by nothing” (Botton, 116).

Before I begin to unravel the layers of questions to find the roots of my curiosity, I think it’s fair to address some of the things which have recently piqued my interest. This week we’ve touched on foreign music, something which offers a world of new possibilities to me. To me, the sounds produced by foreign instruments are exotic and enticing, and the structures inherent in the songs they play are largely unknown to me. I loved immersing myself in the African rhythms of the workshop today, and am keen on learning more about the Gamelan music mentioned in the Soundscapes reading. I am, however, aware that I can’t stretch myself too thin. There’s a great deal left for me to learn about western traditional music (in fact there’s infinitely many more things I could learn about it), and I intend on keeping that as the focus of my study. I am, however, intent on setting aside some time to learn more about Japanese traditional music. Perhaps I’ll find some answers in the Yashiro Japanese garden here in Olympia, but, hopefully, I’ll find more questions.

Work Cited:

Adams, John L. “Winter Music.” Interview by Molly Sheridan. John Luther Adams. N.p., n.d. Web. <http://www.johnlutheradams.com/interview/newmusicbox.html>.

Botton, Alain De. The Art of Travel. New York: Pantheon, 2002. Print.

My Dinner with André. Screenplay by Wallace Shawn and André Gregory. Perf. Wallace Shawn and André Gregory. My Dinner with André. YouTube, n.d. Web.

Here’s the early cut of a song I recently started producing.

This next quarter is a pretty big step towards assuming more responsibility for my life. I’m taking this time to remove some of the structures I’ve relied on in order to create a lifestyle for myself that more accurately reflects what I want. I’m a little anxious, but mostly I feel excited.

Basically, I want to learn the things I aim to learn the things I want to learn, on my own time, and I want to find the motivation within myself to do that. I feel like I’ve spent the better part of my life thus far procrastinating. That’s not to say I feel regret, but I do think I’ve given myself a purpose which I’ve often left on the sidelines. I want to take this time to give that purpose the respect it deserves. I’m not content with where I am as a musician, as a songwriter, or even as a listener. I want to be better. So I’m going to work on myself. I could say that this is a turning point in my life, but I won’t. I don’t think its fair to say I’ve made that change until I’m already in the middle of it- until I’ve committed myself to my goals.

Most of my anxiety about this stems from the fact that, as it stands now, I won’t be receiving any structure or credits from college for this. While it is my goal to supply my own structures, I’m still a bit apprehensive about the prospect. I’m thinking that it’ll be good for me to journal as a way of keeping myself on track. Keeping a journal will enable me to step back and reflect on what I’m doing so that I may address any problems I’m having. This blog might actually be a good format for me to keep honest tabs on my progress, especially since I’m already laying the groundwork for it here. I think it’ll also be easier once I establish some other routines for myself such as meditating, listening, reading, etc. As far as credits are concerned, I’m entertaining the possibility of pursuing this study as an ILC. I plan on speaking with an academic advising tomorrow to see if this is actually my best course of action.

I’m quite excited to push myself, and, in that excitement, I may be biting off more than I can chew. The readings I’ve picked are exactly what I want, but they’re also pretty dense materials. While the physics and philosophy portions of this study are meant to fuel my desire to engage with music, I’m a bit worried of getting too caught up in trying to complete those texts and that my time spent with actual music might be affected. Again, I think keeping a journal will be a good way for me to take a step back and make sure I’m keeping my goals balanced.The fact that both the physics and philosophy I study will be used in my approach to music is appealing to me though, and the idea is that thinking of music in these ways will give me a deeper appreciation for it- in turn pushing me to play more.

I’m eager to get into launch this project. Hermann Helmholtz’s book, On the Sensations of Tone, just arrived in the mail today. This book was printed especially for my order, and both the book and its content appear dense. Likewise this path I’m taking appears daunting, but it’s also a path that I can proudly call my own. My real hope is that by the end of this quarter I won’t be satisfied with my accomplishments, but that I’ll be continually striving to outdo myself.