Kinesthetic Sensation: Meeting Place of the Mind and Body

 Issues  No Responses »
Jan 012014
 
Kinesthetic Sensation: Meeting Place of the Mind and Body

Sensation as Knowledge

When someone startles me I jump. I jump before I know I’m startled. It never works the other way around. I never think I’m startled — and then jump. The body is the first to know something happened. It owns this primary sense of the feeling of what happens. This feeling is knowledge of the body’s state and it does not need words for its knowing. read the rest

The Game of Music

 Practicalities  1 Response »
Feb 282012
 
People consider sports and music at opposite ends of the spectrum but they aren’t. The verb itself is the same. One plays football and plays basketball and plays piano and plays violin. In music, only singing and drumming have their own verbs and they are the oldest of all musical activities. Both sports and music involve endless amounts of practice. read the rest

What One Student Learned – Letters From St. Petersburg, Russia

 Issues  No Responses »
Jan 012004
 
What One Student Learned - Letters From St. Petersburg, RussiaThis installment of MusicalFossils is a series of e-mails written between Victoria (Vica) Achim, from Russia, and me. Most of them are hers. Vica is an adult amateur pianist studying in a culture where classical music is held in higher esteem than it is in the United States. Russia has (I do not know if this continues) a national system of musical education that seeks to find and develop the best and brightest young musicians as a national treasure, somewhat like athletes in the US. read the rest