Sue Palmer, an artist making live and digital work with people and place, and author of inquiline, a blog on botany and art, suggests song as a metaphor for sustainability.
the extraordinary song:
often straightforward, yet infinitely complex
the diversity (how many millions have been created)
the particularity (each one individual)
a structure enabling brilliant inventiveness
often a voice and an instrument
two kinds of sounds, working
my musician friend John talks about chords as metaphors
about how two ‘discordant’ tones are shifted
through the addition of a third note, bringing resolve
songs are free, and they can make someone a living
they help people make it through the day, and night
songs have changed peoples’ minds
a song can contain a lot of information, honed,
ideas packed in language,
rhythm, rhyme
there’s craft in it, and anyone can do it
there’s multiple ways to begin, and a sense when it’s complete
verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle eight, chorus,
bridge
and key change, ‘ad lib to fade’
the pleasure of the repetition, letting the song free up, go
When I think of sustainability, I usually think of losing things, resources, capacity, and I find my materially-centred thought frustrating.
'If anything, I wanted to understand things and then be free of them. I needed to learn how to telescope things, ideas. Things were too big to see all at once, like all the books in the library - everything laying around on all the tables. You might be able to put it all into one paragraph or into one verse of a song if you could get it right', Bob Dylan, Chronicles, Volume One, 2004.
photo: by Orelie Grimaldi of John Cartwright playing C#m7
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