Notes on Music, Living, and Writing

Polyphony: in, for instance, a piano étude the mode of interaction of two or more threads of sound—the left-hand part & the right-hand part, each forming distinct rhythmic/melodic/harmonic entities whose interaction with each other is complex and periodic—this mode of interaction and rhythm and the distinction/merging of identities might serve as a model for thinking through many things: the rhythm of a friendship, for example, two (or more) distinct ways of living, paces of living, rhythms of living, which accompany each other, dance against each other, separate and merge.

I sense an affinity between the Sonnet and the String Quartet, something I cannot put my finger on: something to do with the constraints, and restraint, against which certain kinds of richness are able to make themselves felt with particular frisson. A vehicle for condensation. Mendelssohn's 6^th String Quartet reminds my nerves of sonnets by Mallarmé or Donne.