Composition « Eric Pazdziora

Music Geekery: Other Things Being Unequal

Not long ago on the always interesting and uber-nerdy Language Log, Mark Liberman directed readers’ attention to a recent paper supposedly studying what gives music its emotional resonance (Daniel L. Bowling et al., “Major and minor music compared to excited and subdued speech“, Journal of the Acoustical [...]

John Newton: Spirituality as Composition

From a letter to Mr. B—-, 6 November 1777:

MY DEAR SIR–You say you are more disposed to cry miserere than hallelujah. Why not both together? When the treble is praise, and heart humiliation for the bass, the melody is pleasant and the harmony good. However, if not both together, we must have them alternately; [...]