David Whitwell [2017] Written in honor of the retirement of Dr. Ronald Johnson from the University of Northern Iowa On the final day of my 2017 conducting tour of Italy I took advantage of a rare non-professional day to visit…
How the Right-Hemisphere understands Harmony Somewhere in the dim distant reaches of my memory I recall being told of the modes in music that minor was sad and major was happy. But what key is nostalgia, which is often a…
“Time” is not of our World Whosoever danceth not, knoweth not the way of life. Jesus Christ [1]Found in a Gnostic Hymn of the second century, quoted in Curt Sachs, World History of the Dance (New York: Norton, 1937), 3.…
When the hall is heard filled by the emotions created by the music, whose emotions are they?” First of all, some important facts about the emotions as pertains to conducting: 1. The basic emotions and their expression are the same…
Music is not an Art Object A number of early philosophers debated what is meant by “Art.” Do we mean by Art what the artist has in his mind, or is it the actual manual activity of the artist or…
How to Write a Love Letter For reasons reviewed in the first little essay in this series, here you are—the real you, trapped in the right-hemisphere of the brain which is mute, with respect to language, [1]The right-hemisphere contains vocabulary…
Why the Students don’t listen to you in Rehearsal In a recent paper, “Why Music Education is no longer about Music,” I reviewed for the reader the basic characteristics of our bicameral brain. [1]Since the initial research which won the…