The past couple weeks have been fairly rough regarding school work and papers, so I have had little time to read or practice, but my skill on the mandolin piece has not waned and has stayed at about the same level that I had left it before. I hope you were able to listen to the YouTube video posted on the last blog post to get a feel for the piece. If you would like to listen to the official recording, it is on Chris Thile's album entitled Stealing Second, which can be found on the Internet in various locations.
In the most recent chapter of Walden, Thoreau discusses the visitors that he has at his home on the pond. The way he describes himself is that he is a very introverted character, and when he is questioned about his hermit lifestyle by others wondering how he can live without the company of others nearby, he replies that in comparison to the scale of the cosmos and the distances between planets, he is already very close to other humans. Where I have recently left off, Thoreau is describing a Canadian lumberjack that he had met and his perfect simplicity, debating with himself as to whether it is the result of humble and uncanny intellect or just poor wits. There is a strange beauty to this character that Thoreau's superfluous descriptions seem to dance around, but I will get back to it later as I continue on.
Good night.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Seers, Sounds, and Solitude
Spring break was a fairly relaxing time. I spent many days in Washington D.C. and the surrounding cities, but sadly left my mandolin behind. I still managed to practice a bit both the day before I left and the weekend of my return to Midland. In the solitude of my room, I nearly mastered the first page as I mindlessly played the refrain over and over, hoping the sun would peak through the eclipsing grey overcast of the day. Here is an excerpt of the song - as played by a mandolinist of YouTube - that I promised weeks ago:
I'll post a video of my progress next week when I am not as busy.
Now for Walden.
I read a fair amount of this while in the car and realized the difficulty of summarizing Thoreau's ideas. He devotes an entire chapter to the topic of reading - in particular, the reading of the classics. It is a strange coincidence that his work is now considered a classic. He claims that it is not in vain to learn and remember Latin as it may be used to read the classics.
For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave.
Thoreau asserts that to read well - to read true books in a true spirit - is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any customary exercise. The deliberate reading of books is crucial and simply speaking the language in which the book was written is not sufficient to reading/understanding it. The spoken work is compared a brutish dialect, while the written word is a reserved and select expression, too significant to be heard by the ear, which we must be born again in order to speak. To illustrate this point, Thoreau points to ancient Greece, where the common citizen was likely unable to read and study the works of the great minds and philosophers of the land, although they could speak the language.
The next chapter is devoted to the topic of sounds, in which Thoreau describes the sounds of his natural environment, from the buzzing of bees to the hooting of owls to the whisper of the wind to the wailing of the daily train that arrives in town. I would write more on the matter, but it is late and I still have much to do before tomorrow.
Until next time.
I'll post a video of my progress next week when I am not as busy.
Now for Walden.
I read a fair amount of this while in the car and realized the difficulty of summarizing Thoreau's ideas. He devotes an entire chapter to the topic of reading - in particular, the reading of the classics. It is a strange coincidence that his work is now considered a classic. He claims that it is not in vain to learn and remember Latin as it may be used to read the classics.
For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave.
Thoreau asserts that to read well - to read true books in a true spirit - is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any customary exercise. The deliberate reading of books is crucial and simply speaking the language in which the book was written is not sufficient to reading/understanding it. The spoken work is compared a brutish dialect, while the written word is a reserved and select expression, too significant to be heard by the ear, which we must be born again in order to speak. To illustrate this point, Thoreau points to ancient Greece, where the common citizen was likely unable to read and study the works of the great minds and philosophers of the land, although they could speak the language.
The next chapter is devoted to the topic of sounds, in which Thoreau describes the sounds of his natural environment, from the buzzing of bees to the hooting of owls to the whisper of the wind to the wailing of the daily train that arrives in town. I would write more on the matter, but it is late and I still have much to do before tomorrow.
Until next time.
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