{"id":881,"date":"2008-11-08T21:47:42","date_gmt":"2008-11-09T02:47:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/?p=881"},"modified":"2008-11-08T21:47:42","modified_gmt":"2008-11-09T02:47:42","slug":"evelyn-glennie-the-amazing-variety-of-human-experiences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/11\/08\/evelyn-glennie-the-amazing-variety-of-human-experiences\/","title":{"rendered":"Evelyn Glennie: The amazing variety of human experiences"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>About a year ago my wonderful sister strongly recommended <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.evelyn.co.uk\/live\/touch_the_sound.htm\">Touch the sound: A sound journey with Evelyn Glennie<\/a><\/em>, and has gently badgered me about it ever since.  I ordered it through inter-library loan <a href=\"http:\/\/www.morris.umn.edu\/library\/\">up at the U<\/a> and it arrived!  I&#8217;m happy to report that it&#8217;s every bit as good as Misty suggested, and has been a real treat.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.evelyn.co.uk\/evelynposters\/images\/EG_004_thumb.jpg?w=840\" alt=\"Evelyn Glennie's mallets\" align='right' hspace='10' vspace='10' data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/>I first heard about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.evelyn.co.uk\/\">Glennie<\/a> several years ago from a student, and I think I filed her (without any data and without hearing any of her work) in the &#8220;Novelty Act&#8221; category in my head.  This film does a wonderful job of shattering that preconception &#8211; she is a remarkable talent with truly amazing rhythmic sense and control.  More importantly, she has a real deftness to her playing and a wonderful response in her improvisation.  I can imagine a person with good coordination learning to bang out patterns, but she has a subtlety and range that would be the envy of most musicians, and her improvisations with other musicians (e.g, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fredfrith.com\/\">Fred Frith<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ondekoza.com\/en\/ondekoza.html\">Ondekoza<\/a>) is a joy to watch and to listen to.<\/p>\n<p>Frith is a particularly apt pairing, as they both share a combination of power and gentle subtlety that make their improvisations together incredibly rich.  There&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-Sugar-Factory\/dp\/B000SO7JPC\/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&#038;s=music&#038;qid=1226196806&#038;sr=8-2\">a CD of their improvisations<\/a> on that day which has happily flown onto my wish list :-).<\/p>\n<p>My only complaint about the film is really entirely unfair.  I (and I suspect most people) would dearly love to better understand what her <em>experience<\/em> of music is, as it&#8217;s presumably quite different from that of hearing folk.  As she says in the film, however, hearing people can&#8217;t typically give any helpful account of their experience of hearing, so it&#8217;s not terribly fair to expect her to give an account either.  I happily take her point, but that doesn&#8217;t do anything to quell the rush of questions:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Why does her music sound so &#8220;familiar&#8221;? Given that her experience of it is quite different, one might expect the music that she makes to have a somewhat alien feel, which it totally doesn&#8217;t (for me).  I suspect that this is to a large degree a combination of her not going deaf until primary school (so she had significant experience of music as a hearing person) and her extensive &#8220;traditional&#8221; musical training after going deaf.<\/li>\n<li>How does she experience harmony and layering? Harmonics are, in some sense the really hard part of the game, and one might reasonably expect that her tactile experience of that layering to be quite different from my auditory experience of it, and I suspect that we could learn a lot about both hearing and tactile perception from exploring the similarities and differences here.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>All really fine stuff, and definitely recommended.<\/p>\n\n\t<div class=\"st-post-tags \">\n\tTags: <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/tag\/evelyn-glennie\/\" title=\"Evelyn Glennie\">Evelyn Glennie<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/tag\/film\/\" title=\"film\">film<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/tag\/fred-frith\/\" title=\"Fred Frith\">Fred Frith<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/tag\/improvisation\/\" title=\"improvisation\">improvisation<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/tag\/misty\/\" title=\"Misty\">Misty<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/tag\/music\/\" title=\"Music\">Music<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/tag\/ondekoza\/\" title=\"Ondekoza\">Ondekoza<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/tag\/perception\/\" title=\"perception\">perception<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/tag\/percussion\/\" title=\"percussion\">percussion<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/tag\/sound\/\" title=\"sound\">sound<\/a><br \/><\/div>\n\n\n\t<h4>Related posts<\/h4>\n\t<ul class=\"st-related-posts\">\n\t<li><a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2008\/10\/10\/what-goes-around-apparently-keeps-going-around\/\" title=\"What goes around apparently keeps going around (10 Oct 08)\">What goes around apparently keeps going around<\/a> (1)<\/li>\n\t<li><a href=\"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2010\/08\/14\/what-can-dance-tell-us-about-intellectual-property-a-lot-it-turns-out\/\" title=\"What can dance tell us about intellectual property? A lot, it turns out (14 Aug 10)\">What can dance tell us about intellectual property? A lot, it turns out<\/a> (2)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I finally got a chance to watch <em>Touch the sound: A sound journey with Evelyn Glennie<\/em>, and it was really wonderful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0},"categories":[25,10,1,2],"tags":[377,70,376,378,383,857,382,379,380,381],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p90sy-ed","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":364,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2006\/07\/31\/were-back-from-alaska\/","url_meta":{"origin":881,"position":0},"title":"We&#8217;re back from Alaska!","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"31 Jul 06","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night, after some 17 hours of travelling (or 30 hours if you count the trip from Seward to Anchorage in the morning) (or 10 days if you consider the fact that we were travelling in some form or another almost every day were were gone!), Sub-Evil Boy and I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Events&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Events","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/events\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":106,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2005\/04\/07\/mistys-back-from-the-galapagos\/","url_meta":{"origin":881,"position":1},"title":"Misty&#8217;s back from the Galapagos","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"7 Apr 05","format":false,"excerpt":"I just had a great conversation with my sister Misty, who returned last night from her two months in the Galapagos. She'd been posting updates on our family news page, including some nifty pics, and I'd even IM'ed with her once from there (ain't that crazy?). The timing was really\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;General&quot;","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":514,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/03\/13\/preparing-for-the-big-concert\/","url_meta":{"origin":881,"position":2},"title":"Preparing for the big concert","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"13 Mar 07","format":false,"excerpt":"Misty, originally uploaded by Unhindered by Talent. Sub-Evil Boy and I went over to Joe Alia's house Sunday to practice as part of preparations for the big concert Sub-Evil and I will be hosting in 3.5 weeks. I brought my camera along and took a few shots of the two\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Music&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Music","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/music\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1774,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2013\/07\/23\/how-things-change-and-how-they-stay-the-same\/","url_meta":{"origin":881,"position":3},"title":"How things change, and how they stay the same","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"23 Jul 13","format":false,"excerpt":"This blast from the past was taken in the mid-70's and features a much younger (but no less geeky) yours truly, his squirt of a sister, and our dad. Me Just turned 50 Just celebrated 24 wonderful years of marriage to a woman I couldn't have dreamed of meeting when\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Family&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Family","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/family\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Fishing with Misty & Dad","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/FamilyFishing.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/FamilyFishing.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/FamilyFishing.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/FamilyFishing.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/FamilyFishing.jpg?resize=1050%2C600 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/07\/FamilyFishing.jpg?resize=1400%2C800 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":704,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2007\/11\/18\/wonderful-little-film-about-paul-rand\/","url_meta":{"origin":881,"position":4},"title":"Wonderful little film about Paul Rand","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"18 Nov 07","format":false,"excerpt":"Paul Rand is responsible for a number of iconic pieces of graphic design (e.g., the classic IBM logo), and this is a nice short film combining examples of his work with short snippets that I assume came from interviews with him. Some great quotes include A work of art is\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Art&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1521,"url":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/2011\/08\/02\/the-incident-at-tower-37-wonderful-film-making-and-amazing-student-work\/","url_meta":{"origin":881,"position":5},"title":"&#8220;The incident at Tower 37&#8221;: Wonderful film making, and amazing student work","author":"Nic McPhee","date":"2 Aug 11","format":false,"excerpt":"\"The incident at Tower 37\" is a wonderful example of the splendid student work we saw when Tom and I visited Hampshire College last month. Great animation and storytelling, and highly recommended.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Art&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/archives\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/881\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/UnhinderedByTalent.com\/Phi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}