Looking Forward to 2023 The Year of Verse and Song
The Year of Aesthetics №50 2022–12–03
The year of Aesthetics is coming soon to a close. I had very loose goals for it but out of it emerged two things I want to spend more time on music, and I neglected verse almost the entire year. I have had years of books, Plays, Opera which were great successes. I thought verse and song would go together well.
Annual themes are a thing I practiced for years but CP Grey codified the rules for me and I went with the more loosie goosy rule set which bore a lot of fruit. Yet this year I have a few goals in my theme but I have strived for minimalism in the rules in the spirit of Grey. I desire flexibility and serendipity for 2023.
First the goals:
Verse: Read the Sonnets of William Shakespeare and Whitman’s Leaves of Grass. I have also given myself the right to abandon these giants if there lessers become more appealing during the year. I have two good friends to discuss these poems with, both who are my betters in this realm, I have been blessed with my teachers accidental and the ones I have searched out.
Song: Get Easy to Love ready for recital, and make an attempt at I Love Paris or I am in Love Again by Cole Porter, and look at playing Philip Glass and Hania Rani tunes, my teacher is going to arm me with Glass possibilities and I have scoured the Rani sheet music for a few trial pieces. I am considering these attempts, attempts can fail and may lead to bridges to future attempts. With music I want stretch this year, I expect some happy and frustrating results.
I am adding no more than that to the goals since on the piano it may be an Everest and with verse this is K2 and Everest there will be other accidental verse along the way and maybe some writing on verse. I can not do verse exclusively, and I will need many a shorter modern poem to compare to these giants. I have two good friends to discuss these poems with, both who are my betters in this realm, I have been blessed with my teachers accidental and the ones I have searched out.
Things I will be doing on the side for Song is listening to several Jazz records in their entirety. As well as looking at pop singers who have seemed to disappeared from my life to see what has become of them and if I have missed something they have done.
I have been thinking about music all year long and it would nice to be focused on it even more. I hope I get some fellow travelers to comment as the year goes by.
The general idea is to have one aspect of the year where you focus your thoughts on these aspects but have few goals and let the theme direct you. I am also going to be wide open to recommendations on music and verse.