Thursday, January 12, 2012

Thursday Thoughts...

Books are frozen voices, in the same way that musical scores are frozen music. The score is a way of transmitting the music to someone who can play it, releasing it into the air where it can once more be heard. And the black alphabet marks on the page represent words that were once spoken, if only in the writer’s head. They lie there inert until a reader comes along and transforms the letters into living sounds. The reader is the musician of the book: each reader may read the same text, just as each violinist plays the same piece, but each interpretation is different.

Margaret Atwood

For those experiencing winter the sense of frozen voices and frozen music is closer to home than for those of us sweltering, but the images Margaret Atwood conjures up and the beautiful way she expresses them reach me wherever I am.

The sense that a musical score and black alphabet marks are inert until we interact with them make me think about the power of engagement; the power we have to bring things into being, simply by our playing or our reading or our speaking. I am sure there are whole arms of philosophy and/or science that seek to explore the idea of whether something exists without our interacting with it - at what point does something come into being of its own and so on.  I don't need to ponder the depths and details of that; I just want to sit with her ideas of readers being musicians; and how each reading or playing produces a different interpretation.


There is something marvellous in the written word and in the written music that leaves room for interpretation, and our own personal experience to be brought to bear and change the way the music or the book is understood. For that moment. 


13 comments:

  1. i love margaret atwood. shhh, don't tell. think of the responsibility and delight we take on when we pick up that pen, thread, tool...

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  2. I love that quote!! Yes, I am often in awe of the power we are given to bring things into being! The notion of the black marks (some agreed upon set of symbols that in combination can express nearly anything is, in itself, true magic!) lying in wait for another person's interpretation to be born is amazing. I'm so often torn when a book I've read has been made into a movie....mostly they are great disappointments, but more to the point....I've read the book and I've just experienced the movie in my own private theater....powerful magic!!! Many thanks for this wonderful start to my day!

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  3. What a lovely post. I work with both types of script every day, as you know, but I love this quote. I'll be thinking about it as I start work. Thanks. About to set the scores on the stand.....

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  4. Love the feather print on the front of this book!

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  5. I think it is interesting to find out what we react to and what we don't-- reacting to words or songs or visuals.. at that gut level-- no thought processes yet.. can reveal a lot about us as artists.

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  6. Love the Atwood quote and love your book. Have you read her "Journals Of Susanna Moodie"? Some of my favourite poems.

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  7. Margaret Atwood - my, does she make me think...and feel. I like the way you tie her thoughts and yours and add the perfect image.

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  8. Hi Velma - your secret's safe here! Thinking like this does add another dimension to our work and doesn't it?

    Thanks Patti - I love how you express the written alphabet - it is truly remarkable isn't it that by combining and recombining we can do so much, say so much? A good book does play itself as a movie in your head I think; and you get to choose what the characters look like and sound like...

    Yes Annie - you were in my mind as I read and wrote. I hoe you enjoyed pondering the frozeness of each; and the melting and release...

    Thanks Letterlady - it's a lovely little feather print isn't it? The actual book is filled with full page prints!

    Hi Donna it is a bit of an ongoing search or quest isn't it to try and stop and reflect on why did I respond? What was it in particular that moved me?

    Hi Liz - no I haven't yet, but it sounds like a good one!

    Thank you Leslie - I like that Thursdays let me stop and think a bit; and I also enjoy the challenge of finding a photograph that links the two somehow. Go well.

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  9. Fiona, sometimes Thursdays make my head hurt! You have a knack of finding a quote that can't just be read and absorbed in an instant. I shall have to ponder on this one for a while but the image gives me instant gratification. What a beautiful etching.

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  10. Hi Lesley - apologies for any pain rendered! I get to read and think about them for longer than others, and some of them need a few re-reads as you say. Glad you enjoyed the image; it was a favourite of mine from a few years back.

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  11. so a work of art comes to life again and again with every new engagement. there is no such thing as audience. we all participate in creation every time we interact with a piece of art. this is magic. thank you for sharing these wonderful words!

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  12. I especially love the decorative aspect of musical scores because I never learned how to read music. When I see the notes and time signatures I have no association with the sound or rhythm they convey unless I know the piece so well I can play it along mentally, so scores always seem a bit exotic to me, like a sheet from a book in an unknown language! A bit like someone from an oral tradition knowing the story, able to recite it, but not read it...

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  13. Hello Anca Grey - thank you for stopping and commenting. It'sa wonderful thing to think about - no audience and re-interpretations all the time.

    G/TT - I agree totally - musical scores are like a foreign language and oh so beautiful.

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I appreciate your thoughts and comments; thanks for taking the time.