"In contrast to that algorithmic imperative, the magical and miraculous aspects of music—so essential to its origins and purposes—were increasingly viewed as an embarrassment, superstitious babbling that shouldn’t be taken seriously and, if possible, eradicated completely."
This (and the discussion of Sun Ra) reminded me of the following passage from Bob Dylan's "Chronicles, Volume 1":
"Prior to this, things had changed and not in an abstract way. A few month earlier. something out of the ordinary had occurred, and I became aware of a certain set of dynamic principles by which my performances could be transformed. By combining certain elements of technique which ignite each other I could shift the levels of perception, time-frame structures and systems of rhythm which would give ny songs a brighter countenance, call them up from the grave -- stretch out the stiffnesss in their bodies and straighten them out. It was like parts of my psyche were being communicated by angels..."
I feel you do a disservice to Pythagoras, who very much had his own mystery cult (but also had the math to back his suppositions), in your effort to promote the Orphics. Having watched your interview with Rick Beato where you stated the thesis for this book, I acknowledge you want to discuss the marathon-like nature of ritual and "primitive" trance and devotional music. But as an academic who spent a tremendous amount of time researching Robert Graves and Idries Shah and Omar Ali Shah, I found that authors who typically delve into The Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth are going for the full Dan Brown-Robert Blyth esoteric pop lit that sells enough to become hipster tavern conversation. Rarely, among all the esotericism, is the answer given to the question you posited: "why are the mystics, musicians, and poets killed and forgotten?" The answer is "mistakenly speaking supposed truth to power." Whether BraveHeart or John the Baptist or any of the folks you've named, "hocus-pocus" is psychological, real politic- real power- is physical. Salome can in fact have John's head on a plate, no matter how powerful John's magic faith might be. The Hasmoneans win again! Christ annoys the Temple leadership and is flippant to Pilate, and gee whiz, gets nailed to a tree. Rome wins again. The Celtic Bards traveled around to patrons telling them to their faces in front of an audience the actions it had taken to put -and keep- those leaders in power. Cubano son or US rap, say what you can get away with until shot dead in the calle. There are plenty of pagans in Austin, who maintain places of worship and meeting houses, some who supposedly still practice Orphic Rites. I'm sure they will let you sit in a damp field on shrooms, listening to drone music from mediocre "musicians." But the fact that all of that trippy, heavy, meaningful sound is created for spiritual, divine-seeming reasons in no way makes the field less damp and soggy.... And the converse to the esoteric jive, is Bach or Bill Evans or Barry Harris or Jim Hall who had a sign that said "Make Musical Sense" in his guitar case. Thanks so much, Pythagoras!!
It’s significant that Pythagoras is also regarded as the first Greek to teach that the earth was a sphere. Prior to that, our world was perceived as Middle-earth, sandwiched between the heavens above and the underworld below, and there were points of access for the spirits of shamans or the souls of the dead at the horizon where all three realms met. But once the earth was folded back on itself and became a ball floating in the void, any physical connection to the otherworld was severed and the old shamanistic spirit journeys became purely abstract and metaphorical.
Uh, to say nothing of "musica ficta," a form of coded music notation that embodied certain covert changes of written notes that were understood and performed by initiates . . . and of course this questions why those musicians felt it was dangerous to simply present their music without such subterfuge.
Wow, reading about yr way of conveying the power of music is so wonderful and inspiring! Reinforces my ritual of putting on Trane's "A Love supreme" before setting off on my around-the-country or around-the-world hitchhiking stints decades back...!
I hadn’t thought about Sun Ra for decades now. Saw him perform in a jazz club in Toronto, but I went for the spectacle and had no idea of his connection to these traditions.
Pagan Romans stamped out the druids before the Christians showed up. There's no evidence the Irish bards preserved any meaningful connection to that distant past.
"The term counterculture, of course, didn’t exist back then, but I note it shares an etymology with the word cult—both linking back to the cultivation of crops with its associations of fertility rites."
Seems rather silly to cite the etymology of "culture", but only attribute the meaning to "counterculture".
My Euripides collection is in a box; could you perhaps quote the passage from Euripides about "the smoke of all writings"? Or give me a link to it= That is, if you have a copy of "Hippolytus" (I was able to figure out which play it is).
This is interesting. Makes me think of Nietzsche's the Apollonian vs the Dionysian duality turned into a historical mystery/conspiracy like in the novels of Umberto Eco.
"In contrast to that algorithmic imperative, the magical and miraculous aspects of music—so essential to its origins and purposes—were increasingly viewed as an embarrassment, superstitious babbling that shouldn’t be taken seriously and, if possible, eradicated completely."
This (and the discussion of Sun Ra) reminded me of the following passage from Bob Dylan's "Chronicles, Volume 1":
"Prior to this, things had changed and not in an abstract way. A few month earlier. something out of the ordinary had occurred, and I became aware of a certain set of dynamic principles by which my performances could be transformed. By combining certain elements of technique which ignite each other I could shift the levels of perception, time-frame structures and systems of rhythm which would give ny songs a brighter countenance, call them up from the grave -- stretch out the stiffnesss in their bodies and straighten them out. It was like parts of my psyche were being communicated by angels..."
I feel you do a disservice to Pythagoras, who very much had his own mystery cult (but also had the math to back his suppositions), in your effort to promote the Orphics. Having watched your interview with Rick Beato where you stated the thesis for this book, I acknowledge you want to discuss the marathon-like nature of ritual and "primitive" trance and devotional music. But as an academic who spent a tremendous amount of time researching Robert Graves and Idries Shah and Omar Ali Shah, I found that authors who typically delve into The Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth are going for the full Dan Brown-Robert Blyth esoteric pop lit that sells enough to become hipster tavern conversation. Rarely, among all the esotericism, is the answer given to the question you posited: "why are the mystics, musicians, and poets killed and forgotten?" The answer is "mistakenly speaking supposed truth to power." Whether BraveHeart or John the Baptist or any of the folks you've named, "hocus-pocus" is psychological, real politic- real power- is physical. Salome can in fact have John's head on a plate, no matter how powerful John's magic faith might be. The Hasmoneans win again! Christ annoys the Temple leadership and is flippant to Pilate, and gee whiz, gets nailed to a tree. Rome wins again. The Celtic Bards traveled around to patrons telling them to their faces in front of an audience the actions it had taken to put -and keep- those leaders in power. Cubano son or US rap, say what you can get away with until shot dead in the calle. There are plenty of pagans in Austin, who maintain places of worship and meeting houses, some who supposedly still practice Orphic Rites. I'm sure they will let you sit in a damp field on shrooms, listening to drone music from mediocre "musicians." But the fact that all of that trippy, heavy, meaningful sound is created for spiritual, divine-seeming reasons in no way makes the field less damp and soggy.... And the converse to the esoteric jive, is Bach or Bill Evans or Barry Harris or Jim Hall who had a sign that said "Make Musical Sense" in his guitar case. Thanks so much, Pythagoras!!
It’s significant that Pythagoras is also regarded as the first Greek to teach that the earth was a sphere. Prior to that, our world was perceived as Middle-earth, sandwiched between the heavens above and the underworld below, and there were points of access for the spirits of shamans or the souls of the dead at the horizon where all three realms met. But once the earth was folded back on itself and became a ball floating in the void, any physical connection to the otherworld was severed and the old shamanistic spirit journeys became purely abstract and metaphorical.
Broad and interesting claims. I await further chapters! (A 6-7 truncated Haiku? I’m not saying!)
Uh, to say nothing of "musica ficta," a form of coded music notation that embodied certain covert changes of written notes that were understood and performed by initiates . . . and of course this questions why those musicians felt it was dangerous to simply present their music without such subterfuge.
Wow, reading about yr way of conveying the power of music is so wonderful and inspiring! Reinforces my ritual of putting on Trane's "A Love supreme" before setting off on my around-the-country or around-the-world hitchhiking stints decades back...!
I hadn’t thought about Sun Ra for decades now. Saw him perform in a jazz club in Toronto, but I went for the spectacle and had no idea of his connection to these traditions.
Pagan Romans stamped out the druids before the Christians showed up. There's no evidence the Irish bards preserved any meaningful connection to that distant past.
"The term counterculture, of course, didn’t exist back then, but I note it shares an etymology with the word cult—both linking back to the cultivation of crops with its associations of fertility rites."
Seems rather silly to cite the etymology of "culture", but only attribute the meaning to "counterculture".
My Euripides collection is in a box; could you perhaps quote the passage from Euripides about "the smoke of all writings"? Or give me a link to it= That is, if you have a copy of "Hippolytus" (I was able to figure out which play it is).
This is interesting. Makes me think of Nietzsche's the Apollonian vs the Dionysian duality turned into a historical mystery/conspiracy like in the novels of Umberto Eco.