Folks:
Just a thought, to further jog discussion (and don't forget to add "comments" to each others' posts as well):
Is it possible that Carson is telling us something both literal and metaphorical, about both the musical world he will be describing and about his means for making the descriptions, about both music and the prosaic (and perhaps sublime) details that surround the music?
One wouldn't think that an author could (or should) spend a whole chapter talking about eggs and their preparation. But, one wouldn't think that an author (or should) necessarily spend a whole chapter talking about the various names of a single tune.
What does this tell us about Carson's goals, and focus? Is he, perhaps, "telling" us indirectly that we as readers may need to change our own expectations of someone writing about music? From what expectations; to what other expectations? What might an unusually close attention to such "mundane" details unexpectedly reveal?
In other words: how are egg recipes, and versions of tunes, and individual people, somehow metaphorically alike? Why are they important to our understanding?
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1 comment:
Carson's perspective and writings on music is particularly unique and I think this is what all the business is about the egg recipes and such. Most "academic" study and treatments of music often seeks to systematize and catagorize to create general theories. For example, no actual piece of music is written in a textbook Sonata Allegro form, the form is a generic, conceptual idea created from the vast number of individual, unique compositions that share in formal compositional similarities. Carson's perspective and I think his expectations for his readers is to treat the music he discusses uniquely and personally as it is.
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