Abstract
What are the modes of knowing music, and what may a map of musical experience look like? How do I dig into a piece of music, and what do I put into it from life? The “Aria” from Bach’s Goldberg Variations serves as a sonic and sensory point of departure in this aestheticallybased endeavor. I have tried to reveal layers of meaning, using anatomic dissection not merely metaphorically, but also as a way of accessing the bodily aspects of the musical experience, the actual feel of things and what I can possibly imagine. How does this encounter influence my own teaching? As with the anatomical layers, meanings have unfolded by means of genuinely listening to other voices – the voice of a composer, a musician, my students, the score – acknowledging the importance of searching outside oneself, and braided together with my own voice, forming and indeed welcoming the entanglement of ideas, a rhizome of meaning. This is based on narrative inquiry, aesthetic approaches, and lived experience. The engagement with autoethnography, nonverbal forms of representation and a/r/tographic methods, form narratives beyond the page.
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Notes
- 1.
On 25 September 2017 I was fortunate to attend the exhibit. The display of the nervous system really captured my attention.
- 2.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgTsVjDjvts shows five anatomical layers in this particular artwork. http://exhibits.library.duke.edu/exhibits/show/anatomy/anatomy/item/12181
- 3.
The “Aria” was used in a very grotesque scene in the film The Silence of the Lambs (1991), which really juxtaposes evil and perfect harmony in an unexpected manner.
- 4.
Originally følelsesmessig flerdimensjonalitet in Norwegian.
- 5.
Bodvar Drotninghaug Moe.
- 6.
Originally: “Oj. Hva skal jeg si? Privat? Emosjonelt? Analytisk? Faglig? Eller…?
Jeg sier ofte at av alle kunstarter er musikken den korteste vei til menneskets hjerter! Hva nå det måtte bety? Arien er kanskje, og jeg gjentar KANSKJE? den eneste låten(!) av Bach jeg umiddelbart opplever med sanseapparatet. Mye annet oppleves først og fremst intellektuelt. Sikkert bare meg. Jeg spiller dette korte stykket ofte selv på pianoet, og noe skjer umiddelbart. En ro? Et behov for å spille det igjen. En liten sorg for at det er så kort? Arien er et av. de stykker som får meg koblet til noe utenfor. Hva da?” (personal correspondence, sent from his iPhone, while attending his son’s soccer practice, October 13, 2017)
- 7.
In the English text version the word “indwelling” is used, which is perhaps more similar to the Norwegian translation of the word “innlevelse”, which literally means “in living”/“living into”, which is a beautiful and complex word. I interpret it as putting life into something, with passion and sincerity.
- 8.
Inspired by a story told by Vist, and misinterpreted by some opponents, where she had described the sensations of playing the piano as quite different with bare arms.
- 9.
In the Norwegian language the authors refer to this as ‘klangforestillinger i det indre øret.’
- 10.
I rarely cite the Webster dictionary, but this description reads like a short story:
Woolgathering once literally referred to the act of gathering loose tufts of wool that had gotten caught on bushes and fences as sheep passed by. Woolgatherers must have seemed to wander aimlessly, gaining little for their efforts, for in the mid-16th century “woolgathering” began to appear in figurative phrases such as “my wits (or my mind) went a-woolgathering” – in other words, “my mind went wandering aimlessly.” From there, it wasn’t long before the word woolgathering came to suggest the act of indulging in purposeless mind-wandering. (Merriam-Webster 2017)
- 11.
The famous painting by Tillberg (Tillberg 1970–1971) gives resonance to these thoughts, and I often show my students this painting, as a sad reminder of what education too often looks like, and even sounds like. This is a still life with young people, with voices seldom heard.
- 12.
I was happy to read that Armstrong uses the terms “lightweight and almost random” when he writes about reverie (Armstrong 2000, p. 72).
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Fretheim, B.S. (2020). Back to Bach. In: Smith, T.D., Hendricks, K.S. (eds) Narratives and Reflections in Music Education. Landscapes: the Arts, Aesthetics, and Education, vol 28. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28707-8_18
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