Intellectual and Cultural Events Journal

The lecture today given by Dr. Mason about his work on sabbatical was informative and interesting. I appreciated his making a power point presentation to accompany his lecture. It helped me pay attention and better understand what he was saying. The thing I thought was most significant about his lecture was the fact that he said talking about and defining music limits the experience. Instead, we should hear the music and attach our own meaning to it. This concept also relates to literature and the interpretation of it. If we are told what to “discover” about a piece of literature, it becomes impossible to formulate our own opinions, which are all results of different biases. I find it a fun challenge to take a new poem or short story, dissect it, and assign it a meaning. Then, as a class to share the different meanings we all found and see things from different perspectives. It is possible to do that with music, too. This is something that we as an academic community can do that others outside the community cannot. We are forced to come to our own conclusions because rarely is anything defined for us, and then share our opinions with other members of the community.

I really enjoyed Professor Mason's Provost Form. His discussion on his music and just music in general was very fascinating. His comment about music as entertainment was a very profound statement. I agree that music and literature can be entertaining but there is more too it. Musicians and writers express their feelings, thoughts, and emotions. In music, the listener understands the composer's feelings by listening to the rhythm and beat. For example, his song "Fast Break" presented a quick, energetic feeling to the listener. It is the same in literature too. Writers express these feelings through words and different elements. For example, his second piece was a poem by Stein in which words were repeated and arranged in an unusual pattern. Like songs, a poem or other pieces of literature present feelings towards the reader. Professor Mason made me look at music in a different light. I enjoyed his presentation as he explained "what is music?". He made one statement but would later clarify it in another. Professor Mason showed his passion for music and how important music is in life. Like literature, it is a way to express feelings and emotions to the rest of the world.

As I was sitting through Charles Mason's lecture, I could not understand why Professor Tatter had us come to this particular Cultural Credit. I kept thinking it would eventually begin focusing on some aspect of gender, race, or class. By the end of the program, I was utterly confused. In my head I reviewed all stories that we had read, but I could not pinpoint a single story that had anything to do with composing, or even music. It was not until our class discussion of the event that I connected to the purpose. There was not a story that it associated with, it was literature in general. Music is an art, and literature is an art as well. Both require some form on understanding and appreciation. Professor Mason says about music (that can also be said about literature), "It demonstrates a high level of craft, but it is not a craft. A craft is perfect, and art can never be perfect." This comment was very much highlighted in my mind. Because I consider myself (a dancer) as an artist, I understand exactly what he is saying. There is no way to achieve perfection in music, dancing, literature, painting, theater or any other form of art in this world. That is what makes these forms so beautiful. They are displays of human creativity and originality. They radiate emotion and energy. No two peices are alike, and that is what I love most about art.

I greatly enjoyed today the presentation of "Making Sense of My Music" by Professor Mason. I first I thought he was a little crazy, but after listining to everything he had to say, it is fair to say he had several good points. Before playing us his music, he went into detail about how he described his music; all of which I thought were great and correct after hearing it. After listining to what he thought of his music, I thought that at the most, I was in for a twenty-first impression of Beethoven. Boy was I shocked. When he played it, I looked around at the audience, most of whom were laughing and giggling at the irony. We were all stuned. I can't even in my own words beggin to describe what it sounded like. I have never heard anything like it before. The only thing I could compare the music to was that of a horor movie during the most climatic scene, but instead this went on for minutes.

I found myself, with the rest of the audience, judging his music from first glance, and I recalled what he said at the beggining of his lecture- there is difference between appreciating and understand his music. It is necessasry to define the difference the best I can. To understand he set out certian criteria to do so: the listiner have a short-term memory, be able to recoginize patterns of sound, and listen activley. Obviously, these are things that everyone in the audience can or should be able to do. But to understand his music or any other piece of art or literature the participant must have an accurate historical knowlege and trust the in the music's quality regardless of the composer. It does make sense that this will highten the understanding of the piece and the apreciating of it as well. This is what I got most out of his presentation because it can carry over from music to many other things in life.

To be honest, I wasn't that intrigued by Professor Mason's Provost Forum lecture. I enjoyed his music, even though it wasn't something I would have normally chosen to listen to. I agree with Professor Mason that to be a listener, to really listen to music you have to have the various elements he talked about such as: hearing sounds, having a good short term memory, detecting patters of sound, etc. During his presentation, however, I realized that when I listen to music I don't really do those things. I listen to music for sole enjoyment, it may have some emotional effect on me, but I don't try to "understand" or "appreciate" it. I think I may do the same in many literature pieces. I like reading for enjoyment, but those are often mindless novels that really don't cause me to take a deeper look. In our literature class, I find myself reading the assigned stories the same way I read these simple novels. Most of the stories we have read so far are completely different from anything I've read, so I purposely take a second look at the story. I pick it apart and try to find the hidden meaning or make some kind of connection to my life or experiences. However, I don't think I have a "literary eye," just like a lack a "musical ear." I can identify plot, setting, point of view, and I trust the editors (in fact I have never thought about the credentials of the editors), but I feel like I'm missing something when it comes to looking deeper into literature. Is there something you can do to learn this or does it just come naturally?

While I was not captivated by Professor Mason's music I was very interested in his definition of music and what it took to appreciate it. As a dancer I found myself agreeing with many of the things that he said about his music. One thing that he said that I think is hard for someone who does not perform in the arts to understand is that his music had the unique voice of the composer, but knowing the composer does not help one understand his music. The same ballets have been performed for years, but each dancer brings something new to the ballet. Also, all dancers, including myself, have a style unique to themselves that says something about them, however, just because you know me does not mean that you will be able to to understand the way I dance, or relate it to experiences you have had with me outside of dance. I think the same holds true with authors. The way someone writes reflects on his/her characteristics, but does not necessarily define them as people. Someone that writes very dark literature may not be a dark person at all. This is something that readers must keep in mind while reading literature, especially if they are trying to evaluate the author.

Oftentimes, when I look at a piece of art, read a work of literature, or listen to piece of music, I come away feeling unsatisfied. I usually feel like I missed something. Try as I might to interpret a work, I'm still usually left wondering what the author or writer or composer wanted to me see. Therefore, I really enjoy listening to a person explain his or her art and Professor Mason's lecture on finding the meaning behind his music was truly informative and interesting for me. I know that had I gone to one of his concerts, without having heard this lecture, I would probably have left thinking that maybe the composer was just really scared or just a little crazy, but I would have been frustrated because surely there was more to the composition than that. Consequently, the most significant part of his lecture for me was the reassurance that you do not have to be a musician to appreciate his music. I found it quite interesting that he said beginning musicians often misinterpret his music more so than nonmusicians because they are accustomed to looking for particular patterns and traditional structure that they have been taught. I think this is probably often the case for any art. I would consider myself a beginning writer compared to the authors of the pieces we read, and like a begninning musician, I know that I look for certain ways of interpretation that I have been taught. I'm accustomed to looking for certain structure and symbols and patterns in stories, and so many of the stories we read in class throw me off because they are not the standard that I am used to reading, and therefore I miss a lot. I'm glad Professor Mason made that remark because it made me realize the way I look at art - music, literature, or otherwise - is often constrained by the basic knowledge that I have. However, as long as I'm aware that my knowledge of traditional art affects the way I see it, I will be more open to appreciating other forms and patterns and syles as well.

I thought that Professor Masons music was very interesting. I would go as far as to say i enjoyed it. His music is very diffrent and appeling. He was rite, you dont need a musical ear to understand his music, because i understood it. I love his use of repetition of words and sound made his music very appealing. His music is significant with literature, because in literature there is repeation to guide a point across and that can make a story appealing. I did not understand many of the things he was saying about his music prior to hearing it, however, once i heard it, his statments made sence.

"My Music, I Care if You Listen"- Dr. Charles Mason. Weird. Interesting. Those are the two dominant feelings I had towards Dr. Mason's music. I love music. Music is an essential part of my life; I listen to it everyday whether it is a tool to help me relax, get "pumped up", or just to have the time to listen to music. Dr. Mason began his lecture by trying to give us, the audience, I feel for what we should expect when listening to his music produced during his sabbatical. "My music is not Sonic Wallpaper."- Dr. Mason. After listening to one of his pieces, Fast Break, I definitely realized why one could not be engaged into his music if it was just a noise promulgating through the room while one does other tasks. You really have to sit down and concentrate on the music with an open ear; a contemplative listening that involves you and the music and nothing else. In another class, Music In Live Performance, I am learning techniques that allow me to understand and comprehend a form of listening to music where I have to listen actively, recognize patterns of sounds, have a short term memory, and appreciate the music and nothing else. I think that this practice is the form I should have when i am reading literature. The same concepts are used when listening to music or reading literature. Besides the significance of how understanding Dr. Mason's music is directly correlated to how we should read the pieces in the Literature and Gender Anthology, I thought that Dr. Mason's music was very weird but interesting. The two pieces he shared with us, "Fast-Break" and "If I told him A Completed Portrait of Picasso", were phenomenal. At first I was skeptical because the sounds were not modern but not classical either. It was a mix. When I let my imagination take over I could feel the music and my mind began to create correlations with the music; with Fast-Break I thought of video game music like the one used in Super Mario Brothers. Overall, it was a good presentation and it broadened my musical awareness and intellect.

Professor Mason's lecture was very interesting, in that he would describe his music for what it was and then say what it was not. The music itself was rather odd and unusual to me because I have been trained to count music so that you could dance to it; however, Professor Mason's music was not that type of music. In fact he said that all you could do is listen to it, but listen actively instead of listening to hear counts or trying to think of dance movements to fit the music. I found the first piece to be more enjoyable than the second because there were no words and the emphasis was on the instruments not a man's voice. As for the lecture, I found myself being able to apply some of the descriptions to dance. Mason said that his music could sound happy or sad, but that it was not a true depiction of his or the musician's emotions. The same is true for dancers; they are cast and made to dance roles that may not fit their current mood, so they portray the emotions to the best of their abilities without really experiencing them. Also, I thought the idea about appreciating the music was rather significant and fitting to ballet as well as all other art forms. For music it is necessary to have musicality to appreciate what is heard, while for dance it is beneficial to have previous basic knowledge before seeing a performance. Otherwise the audience will begin to applaude for minuscule movements, either that or they will not know whether one form of dance is bad just because it is not as technical as ballet. I really enjoyed the lecture because I was able to make these connections, and also because I feel that other students on campus who heard the presentation will keep Mason's comments in mind if they go see any dance performances.

I thought that Professor Mason’s music was very interesting. I left the theater thinking, “I don’t know if I loved that or hated it.” He made it very clear that his music was not there to be pretty. We couldn’t just listen to it and say, “That was nice,” and move on. His music had to be actively listened to. I feel that way about our stories as well. We can’t just read these stories and automatically enjoy it or be entertained by it. We have to read each story a line at a time and try to figure out what its purpose is. Mason’s music is very similar. I guess what struck me the most is that Mason would take something as popular as Picasso’s artwork, mix it with Gertrude Stein, and make a musical piece about it. There is nothing solid, flowing, or beautiful about Picasso’s work. Yet, he seemed to be able to take Picasso and make something slightly beautiful out of it. The man’s voice was beautiful and parts of the text were beautiful. However, when you combine it all together, you get a choppy, strange piece. I could almost see a Picasso artwork sitting in front of me when I listened to his piece. Our stories are similar. Some of them are beautiful, some are strange. All of them leave an open-ended meaning meant to be discussed with others. These meanings make you examine your own life and see where the story fits in. I guess Mason’s Picasso piece helps you look at the parts of your life that don’t really seem to make sense. After looking for a long time at these parts, you kind of see a whole and begin to understand why things work out the way they do.

I thought Dr. Mason's lecture was very interesting. I thought a few things he said were very important. He said that even if someone understood him, they did not understand his music. His muic might reflect who he is, but but knwing him doesn't reflect how the music will be. He also said that his music was not pretty, but it could be beautiful; it wasn't ugly, but it could be harsh. He made that clear with his "Fast Break" piece. The piece was very different. Different than what I've ever heard. I found it to be harsh, but at the same time, beautiful in a weird way. This piece left me a little confused. When it was over I just kind of sat in my seat, not really knowing what to think. Another thing I found important was that Dr. Mason said that his music wasn't meant to be listened to in the car or while doing anything else. He said it wasn't like Britney Spears' music. It is important to realize that some music is meant to be listened to while concentrating only on the music. I'm taking a music class right now where we focus on the music and don't let anything distract us. With concert music, I don't think it is possible to listen to it while driving a car, doing the dishes, or any other routine thing. This kind of music requires complete focus and appreciation.

During the first part of Professor Mason's speech I honestly felt bored throughout it. It was not until the end of the event that I gained some insight on what he said. I really liked what he said about how to like his music you must understand many things about it first. I thought that was really helpful to me about not only literature but also the service learning that we have been doing this term. I believe that we will not get anything out of helping others in the community until we first see where it is that they come from(culture,race,income,poverty level,social class). I think that we must experience first hand what it is like to be in the neighborhoods and communities in which these people live in. I really did not understand how well off i was until i took my first trip to urban kidz and experienced first hand what poverty and hunger were in Birmingham. After realizing that, i began to think back on all the times i have complained about things when really and truely i was very fortunate for what i had when many others in the communities have nothing compared me and many of the people i interact with on campus from day to day.