Swotd 16

Today's workspace was Widener Library's Loker Reading Room, probably the most...Harvard-y location on the blog so far. I think I may prefer the Cambridge public library though. Both rooms are gorgeous, but CPL is both smaller and cozier, and covered with wood rather than stone. I'll have to revisit both and think more about it...

SOTD:

A brief, page-long aside on Cartesian dualism is a welcome recapitulation of Klumpenhouwer 2006 (one of the more significant pieces of recent, philosophically-oriented Lewin reception), and hints at the larger issues at stake in one’s choice of analytical “technology.”

Swotd 15

Today's workspace is the reading room in the 'old' side of the Cambridge Public Library, which is located conveniently close to my apartment. The most beautiful space ive documented here so far, I think.

SOTD:

This complete reorientation is in one sense unwieldy, but also extremely intuitive, accurately capturing the sense that a pitch class associated with one quale can take on an entirely different character just a few measures later; the shifting qualia of modulation can make the same acoustic signal sound quite far from its previous iteration.

Swotd 14: Quiet. Too quiet...

I spent the morning at work and then at the department. It was incredibly quiet around the music building, possibly because everyone's avoiding campus due to the commencement hubbub today and tomorrow. I found myself craving coffee and decided to come home to make it, so here I am happily writing away on the couch.

Note taking is mostly over, it's time to beef up my short review from Suzie's class into a more substantive "Review Essay" that I can actually do something with. Here's a sentence of the day:

Although Rings wears the methodological and orthographic influence of David Lewin on his sleeve, it becomes apparent in the course of reading Tonality and Transformation that the third word of the title could just as easily be intentionality. 

Swotd 13: Rain

I realized as I was looking through the archives, that I seem to have skipped number 8. So, this title seems to be a lie. However, I'm not going to go back and fix all the previous entries, so unlucky 13 it is.

It's pouring rain outside, so after work I took shelter at the Andover Theological Library at Harvard Divinity School--the closest library to home, and the only one between the NW Lab building and my apartment. The building is gorgeous and gothic looking, although the library is somewhat disappointingly renovated and modern. I was hoping for something Hogwarts-y. Still, its very nice, nearly empty, and pleasantly reminds me of the Oxford Lane Public Library, where I spent many happy hours as a child. So, I have no complaints.

I've once again staked out a window seat so I can enjoy my third-favorite kind of weather (first: snow, second: thunderstorm, third: rain)

SOTD, again from notes:

Rings, perhaps referring to the methodological pluralism described earlier, apes Lewin's "Behind the Beyond" when he writes, 'Analytical representations can, however, function suggestively, acting as goads to specific acts of intentional hearing, or as a means of focusing and refining prereflective hearings. Such analyses can encourage us to direct our ears to the tonic in specific ways, via the mediation of specific theoretical categories.'

Sword returns!

Back from my week off, and plugging away at the one window seat in the Spaulding Room at Loeb Music Library. While the carrel is nice, I sometimes have a craving for natural light. Usually only when it's cloudy...

The past few days have been mostly reading, but here's a SOTD from my notes: 

"A great strength of Rings' work is his ability to draw narrative and interpretive insights out of his theory. The Gotterdammerung, Act III example (58-59) is a good one: he ties the "pivot interval" in the music, as f : i is 'audibly transformed' into Ab : Iadd6, to the physical pivot on stage, as Siegfried hears his own name."