Nathaniel Mackey's Bedouin Hornbook
A Bedouin is a nomad and a nomad a wanderer. Nathaniel Mackey seems to wander far and away in his Bedouin Hornbook, a series of fictional letters addressed to an “Angel of Dust” and signed by the ambiguous “N.” N. interprets passages of improvisation, analyzing others’ musical expression in surprising detail to the point that his unquestioning sincerity and self-assurance are almost laughable. That N. can glean meaning from music in such a direct and certain manner is problematic because his tone implies that there is only one correct interpretation of music. In addressing the issue of how music conveys meaning, Mackey seems to wander in two disparate directions. After asserting each seemingly contradictory view, first that music and speech are simply ends in themselves and second that they are means to a separate end, Mackey reconciles the question through his motivic discussion of absence and essence.
In the first passage, Mackey draws out the nuances of this problem by directing two characters to argue over the meaning of a particular musical piece. He focuses on the style rather than the content of the dispute, suggesting that its value lies in the graceful unfolding of the argument itself. In the subsequent passage, N.’s lecture on “The Creaking of the Word” uses metaphor in such a way as to highlight the explosive possibility of words and music to transmit meaning.
During the first episode, Mackey uses the same style of writing when N. repeats another character’s speech as when he reiterates another’s musical ideas, which confuses the boundary between music and speech. N. uses the same tone when retelling the verbal dispute between Lambert and Aunt Nancy as when interpreting La...
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... Bottle’s] lecture/demonstration, as far as Djamilaa was concerned, would take the form of a serenade” (206). Here the forms of music and speech converge as one, signaling a convergence of their parallel roles throughout the novel. That the speech is an “after-the-fact” version, or a re-interpretation, is evidence of Mackey’s commitment to artistic evolution.
The book ends in relative confusion: a phone rings repeatedly with no answer and Djamilaa wistfully dreams of a potentially shared blocked opera (208). Despite lacking a concrete conclusion, by raising and resolving numerous contradictions, the novel offers a complex and layered understanding of how meaning is conveyed through and in art. Mackey shows through words that music may be both a means and an end. Ultimately, Bedouin Hornbook pays homage to the wandering man and his wandering sport, improvisation.
1. Music is a strictly local expression, rich in variety since each culture expresses affective differences through art, 2. Music is a poetic process--complex, vague, and irrational--based upon borrowed traditional musical materials (melodies, rhythms, forms, etc.), 3. Music is for a religious, elitist-class performer who can understand and appreciate its mysterious nature and power, 4. Music is played softly in intimate gatherings, 5. Music making is the activity of Everyman, exacting the talents of variously trained amateurs who, with industry and practice, decorate their recreation and leisure in moments of social intercourse.
words so that the sound of the play complements its expression of emotions and ideas. This essay
Deep-seated in these practices is added universal investigative and enquiring of acquainted conflicts between philosophy and the art of speaking and/or effective writing. Most often we see the figurative and rhetorical elements of a text as purely complementary and marginal to the basic reasoning of its debate, closer exploration often exposes that metaphor and rhetoric play an important role in the readers understanding of a piece of literary art. Usually the figural and metaphorical foundations strongly back or it can destabilize the reasoning of the texts. Deconstruction however does not indicate that all works are meaningless, but rather that they are spilling over with numerous and sometimes contradictory meanings. Derrida, having his roots in philosophy brings up the question, “what is the meaning of the meaning?”
Music is an art and a wonderful gift to human race. It soothes, stimulates and makes us feel happy. It affects our moods in many different ways from lullaby to war cry for changes in the society. Music is actually distinct to different people. Above all, it has a transformational importance that is captured in its art and nature. Music draws our emotions and it has an impact of bridging different cultures across the continents. Slave songs were very vital channels through which all kind of information was conveyed both positive and negative.
Therefore, Oliver’s incorporation of imagery, setting, and mood to control the perspective of her own poem, as well as to further build the contrast she establishes through the speaker, serves a critical role in creating the lesson of the work. Oliver’s poem essentially gives the poet an ultimatum; either he can go to the “cave behind all that / jubilation” (10-11) produced by a waterfall to “drip with despair” (14) without disturbing the world with his misery, or, instead, he can mimic the thrush who sings its poetry from a “green branch” (15) on which the “passing foil of the water” (16) gently brushes its feathers. The contrast between these two images is quite pronounced, and the intention of such description is to persuade the audience by setting their mood towards the two poets to match that of the speaker. The most apparent difference between these two depictions is the gracelessness of the first versus the gracefulness of the second. Within the poem’s content, the setting has been skillfully intertwined with both imagery and mood to create an understanding of the two poets, whose surroundings characterize them. The poet stands alone in a cave “to cry aloud for [his] / mistakes” while the thrush shares its beautiful and lovely music with the world (1-2). As such, the overall function of these three elements within the poem is to portray the
Ms. Angelou's rhetorical strategy of comparison and contrast serves as effectively as her brilliant, flowing sentences sprinkled with colorful simile and imagery. Poetic phrases describing a voice "like a river diminishing to a stream, and then a trickle" or the audience's conditioned responses as "Amen's and Yes, sir's began to fall around the room like rain through a ragged umbrella" paint vivid images.
Sound Devices help convey the poet’s message by appealing to the reader’s ears and dr...
Music in Language: Creates balance, interest and endorses the flow of the story. The book is rich in rhyme and rhythm, to read as a Bush Ballard which can be link to other poetry such as the Man from Snowy River by Banjo Patterson. Each page ends with repetition giving it the strong lyrical tones. “A gallant horse, a midnight horse,”…”A daring horse, a midnight horse,”….”A mountain horse, a midnight horse,”… “A horse called Lightning
... is paralleled by a barely detectable triple movement in the “Menuett”. Contrarily, while an antecedent- consequent phraseology is clearly audible at the opening of the “ Musette”, the tonal implications of the title, discussed earlier, are addressed and modified.
The book is divided into four chapters: 1) Humanly Organized Sound, 2) Music in Society and Culture, 3) Culture and Society in Music, and 4) Soundly Organized Humanity. In chapter one, Blacking discusses the analysis of sound. He begins by describing music as humanly organized sound. His overarching theme is that “the function of tones in relation to each other cannot be explained adequately as part of a closed system” (30). In other words, music can’t be analyzed simply by one set of rules. This is because every single culture has a different system that they use to structure and compose their music. In order to adequately analyze a society’s music we have to study their “system.” We must learn what music means to them. Then, and only then, can we accurately and completely analyze what a particular type or piece of music means to a particular society and culture.
"Music is a common experience and a large part of societies. In fact, anthropologists note that all human communities at all times and in all places, have engaged in musical behaviours. Music as a mode of human activity is a cultural phenomenon constituting a fundamental social entity as humans create music and create their relationship to music. As cultural phenomeno...
“You can’t touch music—it exists only at the moment it is being apprehended—and yet it can profoundly alter how we view the world and our place in it” (“Preface” 7).1 Music is a form of art enjoyed by millions of people each day. It is an art that has continued through decades and can be seen in many different ways. That is why Ellison chooses to illustrate his novel with jazz. Jazz music in Invisible Man gives feelings that Ellison could never explain in words. In Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, the narrator’s search for his identity can be compared to the structure of a jazz composition.
Keats asserts that while music is sweet, those which go unheard are sweeter, and thus implores the piper to “pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone” (14). Because the piper o...
We often take life for granted. In the process of fulfilling our desires, we gradually destroy the essence of nature and our morals. In Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “A Musical Instrument”, the parallel between nature and humanity reflects the blindness and greed of humanity through the natural process of destruction and creation. Conveyed significantly with literary elements such as imagery, tone, alliteration and repetition, Browning brings to attention the reality of humanity’s actions and drives mankind to grasp the idea that we are inherently born sinful.
"15He accomplished this in part though large scale key strictest and associative tonality within the 'music drama'. The action of the music drama would unfold in a way that evoked the timelessness of myth, taking its shape within the kind of the spectator under the influence of the particles streaming by, endlessly associated and reassociated by the events depicted or described."