Selling Sno-Cones at the Beach

music of the spheres

I'm listening right now to a CD called "Passage" - it's modal music, "the music of the spheres," from 138 BC to 1611 AD. I read about modal music when I was in high school - was totally into music then and dreamed of being a Baroque composer. Yeah, the Dept. of Labor lists THAT as a field with growth potential.

Modal music has different sorts of scales than the do-re-mi we are most familiar with - the half steps fall in different places depending on the mode, and each mode is thought to have a "character" appropriate for certain kinds of emotions. The modes have Greek names like Lydian and Dorian.

The music seems appropriate tonight - the heavens are crackling with lightning and there have been tornado watches all evening. This CD is by the Empire Brass Quintet, but there's a lot of drumming and wordless vocals too - both elemental and cosmic.

I don't get how people can listen to music while they read or write. I can do only one thing at a time (if that).

Two papers due tomorrow. It's probably time to give up the music and get to work.

Posted by otto0114 at May 9, 2004 07:15 PM