The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue by Bruce Ellis Benson
This book is an important contribution to the philosophy of music. Whereas most books in this field focus on the creation and reproduction of music, Bruce Benson's concern is the phenomenology of music making as an activity. He offers the radical thesis that it is improvisation that is primary in the moment of music making. Succinct and lucid, the book brings together a wide range of musical examples from classical music, jazz, early music and other genres. It offers a rich tapestry incorporating both analytic and continental philosophy, musicology and performance-practice issues. It will be a provocative read for philosophers of art and musicologists and, because it eschews technicality, should appeal to general readers, especially those who perform.
'… a timely and I believe much-needed reorientation of attention … it will be found engaging reading by philosophers, musicians, and conceptually adventurous listeners' Gary Hagsberg, Bard College
Bruce Benson, the Harvard Square Bible guy, is a self taught student of the Bible who has experienced firsthand how Bible study heals broken hearts and broken minds. Jesus touched his heart in a soup kitchen in California when the person praying over the meal invited the participants to give their life to Christ. When Bruce returned to Providence, Rhode Island, by chance he heard a street preacher say: If I need a vitamin that's in Brazil nuts, God's gonna make sure I eat some Brazil nuts. That phrase jolted his mind and became Bruce's first aha moment. It changed Bruce's life and the way he saw God in relation to himself: God cared about what he needed. Bruce no longer felt so alone. Twenty or so years later Bruce was living in Cambridge. After a disappointing search for Christian fellowship in churches, desperation drove him out of his comfort zone. He got the idea of standing SILENTLY in Harvard Square holding up a handwritten sign that said: Take my Bible Quiz? Free! And so Bruce began to talk to people from all over the country - from all over the whole planet - about God and the Bible: men and women who came to Harvard or to MIT just down the road, considered two of the best places of higher learning in the world, and which are magnets for visitors. To his surprise, Bruce discovered daily that he could see people getting aha moments as he talked with them. He could see it in their eyes: a different look, a realization. And once a breakthrough like that happens in a person's mind, they never go back to thinking, or not thinking, about the things of God in the same way. That's why Bruce has written AHA moments from the Bible - over one hundred possible aha moments are marked by little light bulbs throughout the book. Any one of them has the ability to color a reader's world in richer colors for the rest of their life. That's the beauty of it being God's Word, not just any old man or woman's words. Bruce has done honest, independent studies into the Bible to find answers to questions asked by people on the street. Because he is freed from the pressure to conform to the groupthink of seminaries and denominations, Bruce gives answers that others might be unwilling to. His question and answer style comes from seven years in Harvard Square asking and answering questions. Bruce presents the Bible in the context of those conversations, which gives AHA moments from the Bible a fresh, urgent, real feel.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780521009324 |
| ISBN 10 | 0521009324 |
| Title | The Improvisation of Musical Dialogue |
| Author | Bruce Ellis Benson |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Year published | 2003-02-27 |
| Number of pages | 216 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |