Grant Sawatzky

@grantzky.bsky.social

361 Followers 370 Following

humanities devotee; collecting books, records, and CDs; thinking about music, and thinking about thinking about music. 'free/composed' radio hour, hosted (as JCspins) monthly

an ancient bone flute found in modern day Germany. it's at least 35,000 years old.
Text: Implicit to any music-theoretical analysis is some degree of meta-level speculation as to which musical objects are considered especially relevant, salient, or "natural" to the given context. But the musical "object" is often slippery. Precise definitions of musical objects are inevitably scaffolded onto one's preconceptions about music perception and conceptualization. These assumptions are significant to our musical analyses. We, as theorists, must take a particular stance on what does or does not count as the musical object even (or especially!) where the position may be unconventional, idiosyncratic or controversial. The outgrowth from such discussions has wide ranging impact on the variety and breadth of analytic insights and intuitions as related to theoretic, hermeneutic, and cultural analyses. The SMT Philosophy Group solicits proposals for lightning talks that deal with the meta-level stakes of musical ontology to take place during our interest group session at the upcoming joint meeting of the Society for Music Theory and American Musicological Society in November. We welcome proposals that: highlight an analytic object exemplifying ontological particularity or complexity; are illustrative for ontological issues related to music theory pedagogy; or speak to distinctives of a musical ontology within a specific cultural context or repertoire, etc.
Hudson’s Bay Company flag in the version that was flown from 1707 to 1801. Great Britain Flag in upper left, on solid red field with company initials ‘HBC’ in white lettering at lower right. Updated version with the Union Jack flag in upper right was flown until 1965 when Canada’s current red and white maple leaf flag was first introduced.
flyer: green tinted star on black field. lilac badge reads free/composed episode 33: 'fusions'
Illustration from the Stuttgart Psalter for Psalm 46 verse 9
my arm, holding a copy of the LP 'Toto Bissainthe chants Haïti avec Marie-Claude Benoît et Mariann Mathéus' Arion 1977
Album Cover: 'Baroque and on the street: Arrangements for Guitar, Steel String Guitar, Cumbal, Harmonicas, Temple Blocks, Sopranino Recorder, Soprano Saxophone, Flute and Alto Flute, Mandolin, and Cello.