I'm setting up this blog to post reactions to music that I listen to and study for my music history class. As this is my first blog, I just want to experiment, but I should at least give some thoughts.
I have been listening to a lot of John Coltrane records recently. Since the first time I heard his music (A Love Supreme) I have been captured by his freedom and his quest. His playing was mathematically calculated, emotionally expressive, and spiritually transcendant. At first hearing, some of his later recordings (like Ascension, for instance) can seem too "far out", but if you try singing a melodic line, it makes more sense. Music always has to have boundaries and rules, just like games, but it is the boundaries that you choose that make the music what it is...