Reverberations

There is in souls a sympathy with sounds;

And as the mind is pitch’d the ear is pleased

With melting airs, or martial, brisk, or grave:

Some chord in unison with what we hear

Is touch’d within us, and the heart replies.

William Cowper

from "The Task: Book VI, Winter Walk at Noon"

*****
It is a music weekend for me, so my attention is drawn for the moment.

Intellectually and emotionally, I find sympathetic chords in the reception of music and perfume.  Overlays in language and expression when it comes to describing construction and reception.

All fascinating.

Tied in to that is a thought that was most recently expressed in comments to Denyse's second post on Gender and Perfume over at Grain de Musc.  The commenter observed how many language-stimulated/facile people were attracted to perfume...or at least, could be observed enjoying and discussing it over the blogs.  I agree, you can see plenty of literate folks who love language chiming in to the conversation.

But that is somewhat a factor of the medium, no?  We are not, after all, exchanging abstract videos or short musical compositions to express how we feel about the topic.  A thing which would be, I think rather cool.  But is time consuming, and would require devoting a lot more time on one "perfume" or aspect of perfume than quickly landing on and moving from topic to topic, creation to creation.

I'd love to hear/see it, though.

They say language is cumbersome, and is dying.  And yet it remains a useful medium.

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I must go make my contribution within an orchestra voicing the expressions of Brahms and Dvorak.  The collection of us playing as one organism, laying out an overarching idea and subplots over a single thread in time, in various tonal expressions at any given moment of the performance.  Ideas and mood expressed through music as language.

***
I recently helped judge a round of a film competition, where we evaluated how "successful" were cinematic expressions of a set length and goal (narrative fiction).  So many choices the filmmaker has, in what is presented on the screen, from what view, for how long, with what type of performance, in what photographic style, with what sonic mix, etcetera etcetera etcetera.  Ideas and mood and story expressed through cinema as language.

**
There is a blog (Inspire!) devoted to representations of perfume in visual art.  No playing out over time in the way that the procession of words, or linkage of tones, or motion of pictures does.  But an expression in a language nonetheless.

*
And then there are all the similarities we find in other human activities, like cooking, which only sometimes get thought of as "expression."  And yet, sometimes I wonder...


Hope you are enjoying your weekend.  See you after the curtain.