58 Comments

Excellent, thought-provoking article...thanks for bringing up this topic. Along these lines, I believe any person, musician or not, would benefit by following the advice of Wendell Berry: "Every day, do something that does not compute."

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I have always believed that musicians can strike the harmony chords that are recognized by the universe.

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Ted, your thinking and writing are a gift. Thank you.

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Hey Mr Gioa and all of you Thanks for those words. I’m an old french guy loving music and trying to understand thought and still searching , I don’t realy know what. As you probably see Î’m learning English , but even undersanding à low % of your words I totaly agree with you and even I love them. They sound to me like jazz chorus , no need to know the musical grammar. That sounds fresh and truth and ...

It’s the first time in my life I wright a post and It’s strange to me. I don’t know why, but I need to thank you all . As you give me the need and a great desire to improve my English I’ll do my veary best to rich higher % of understanding .

Thank you

Marc

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Music is the anti-algorithm. Thank you for that. But now that I think about it, I'd say, algorithms are the anti-music.

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Excellent article Ted.

'Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is THE BEST.' - Frank Zappa

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Love your work. Thank you.

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The anti algorithm! ✊🏼

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Ted—

I’m all in on philosophy (“love of wisdom”). The opposite is well put by Yeats in The Second Coming: “And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? Unfortunately, the beast seems to be at our doors.

I love your concept of participating in “more cooperative and communal ways of sharing music.” That is the essence of art, n’est-ce pas? I am of the slant that combining art with politics is like mixing nitrate and glycerine. Stop! Or as John Lennon put it, “Let it be.”

You quote Heidegger: “In the song, the world's inner space concedes space within itself. This reminds me of “worlds without end,” of the infinite distances between tones, beats, and stars. Without that, we’ve got no swing rhythm.

Rilke has a related verse: "Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them."

All the best!

Peter G

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Not a day goes by where I don't think of Heidegger's, "Every man is born as many men and dies as a single one." Music reaches into this essence and reminds us of the possible.

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Thank you, Ted. I think that you've beautifully conveyed an ultimate truth that, if taken into enough hearts and minds, could help to heal us all. Wow, just a fantastic article.

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Great! Thank You for your wonderful thoughts!

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Very good, thank you for this. The ribald Monty Python song about philosophers being huge drinkers of alcohol was how I learnt about Heidegger, whom they described as "a boozy begger". Thanks to that song, though, from age 7 I knew about Heidegger, Kant, Wittgenstein, Socrates, John Stuart Mill, who "of his own free will on half a pint of shandy got particularly ill". Comedy is still a great way to get the beginings of an education.

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"Martin Heidegger was a boozy beggar, I drink therefore I am" :-)

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Playing music with others can certainly feel like an escape to a better place with like minded people

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Thanks Ted. I appreciate the philosophical angle. And St. Thomas Aquinas and Jacques Maritain are still out there in another rabbit hole.

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An inspiring, elegant and exalted essay!

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