What if Everything were Music?
Dear Readers,
It was a big week at the Cosmos Cooperative, culminating in our launch party on Friday evening. If you missed out on this evening of music, poetry, and celebration, the recording is already up on line, and the festivities start at around the 45 minute mark. The Cosmos Co-op is always open to new members, so head over to our website to learn how you can get involved.
With the musical celebration still echoing in our ears, it seems fitting that this week on Metapsychosis also saw the publication of two works of, or about, music. Ancient Greek philosophy suggested there was a “Music of the Spheres” produced by the harmonious movement of celestial bodies—a concept that is the jumping-off point for this week’s essay in Metapsychosis, “Harmonics and Unfolding” by Jonathan Cobb, which digs deeper into the idea that the shared resonances of our tangible world give rise to an underlying wholeness. How does this insight help us live, create, and connect to one another in a civilization that has been flattened by mechanistic oppression? By tracing the history of these ideas from Vedic philosophy to modern string theory, Cobb points out a way.
Lest we think that the fabric of our universe is all sedate harmony, in “Music for George Floyd” jazz composer Eric Zinman shares four short pieces whose instrumentation expresses the grief and anger of the year of 2020, when the social isolation of the pandemic was rocked by the death of two black men, the groundswell of protests, and their brutal repression by the so-called forces or law and order. It’s all there in four short tracks of piano, synthesizer and drum. Listen to be unsettled.
What the music in these two pieces have in common is the way it calls us not just to listen but to act. Metapsychosis is thrilled to create a space for creatives who are responding to our times with active, innovative art. If you like what we do, consider becoming a patron to help us do more.
So, with our hearts and ears open, let’s step into the coming week… Who knows what we might hear?
Sincerely,
Mary Thaler
Associate Editor, Metapsychosis journal
Leave a Comment