Category: Music
We’re excited that you’ve joined the conversation! At HMU, we want to continue the great authors’ conversations in a contemporary context, and this blog will help us do that. We look back to Aristotle and the early philosophers who used reason and discourse to gain wisdom and now we endeavor to do the same every day.
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March 21, 2025
Thanks to Joy Reeves, a 2025 HMU Fellow in Ideas, for today’s blog.
“Fortune befriends the bold,” Virgil first wrote in Aeneid. But in a world where boldness, the self-serving counterpart of courage, is so quick to estrange and sour relationships—is fortune’s friendship enough? Todd Field’s 2022 film Tár masterfully addresses this question in a unique, provocative portrait of a lonely musical genius.
February 14, 2025
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
If we’re going to celebrate something on this Valentine’s Day, let’s celebrate dance. Take this performance by Dai Matsuoka with Jeffrey Ziegler on the cello. Filmed in black and white with great stone structures on the stage, Matsuoka plays with shadow. He moves through space, around the pillars sometimes slowly and sometimes quickly. The viewer must ask what these actions mean.
August 2, 2024
Thanks to 2023 HMU Fellow in Ideas Chad Greene for today’s post.
“We’re on a road to nowhere”?
Why was that line – seemingly depressing on a surface level – so inspiring to me that I unexpectedly found myself on my feet in front of the TV in my living room, dancing, singing, and even crying?
During my 2023 Fellowship in Ideas at Harrison Middleton University,
June 14, 2024
Thanks to John Wiley, a 2024 HMU Fellow in Ideas, for today’s post.
“Thy word can bring a sweet relief for ev’ry pain I feel.”[1] Anne Steele desperately clung to beliefs like this throughout her life. For Steele, her pains went well beyond the lines of poetry, as this Baptist hymn writer from the eighteenth century suffered from chronic illness combined with what appeared to be volatile mental health as well.
May 3, 2024
Thanks to John M. Wiley, a 2024 Fellow in Ideas, for today’s book review.
We often hear about whether someone is “left-brained” or “right-brained” to distinguish between one’s predisposition to either logical thinking or creativity. Perhaps many (if not most) people tend to favor one side, but the case of Isaac Watts shows a man who excelled in both sides of his brain. Watts was most often known for his work as the “father of English hymnody,” showing his brilliance as a wordsmith with hymns such as “Alas!
April 5, 2024
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
It’s an unlikely pairing, but reading Moby Dick feels a lot like taking a deep dive into a Queen album. First, you’re in gospel, then punk rock, then opera, and all of this about some seemingly mundane thing, like a bicycle. Or, in the case of Moby Dick, into the world of whaling. There are entire chapters on the shape of a whale’s head,
March 8, 2024
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
If there’s one thing you know about me by now, it’s that I value discussion. This past weekend, a number of students, staff and alumni gathered in Tempe, Arizona for a rare in-person meeting. We last met just before COVID, which caused a few years hiatus. Happily, we were finally able to renew this tradition. HMU President Joe Coulson started us off with an excellent introductory discussion about the similarities between music and poetry.
September 10, 2021
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
“Fools”, said I, “You do not know/ Silence like a cancer grows/ Hear my words that I might teach you/ Take my arms that I might reach you”/ But my words, like silent raindrops fell/ And echoed/ In the wells of silence/ And the people bowed and prayed/ To the neon god they made/ And the sign flashed out its warning/ In the words that it was forming/ And the sign said,
» Read more about: Modern Day Chorus: Lord of the Rings and Ceremony »
July 17, 2020
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
I would like to go back to July 11, 1804 and tell Hamilton not to engage, that Burr is not worth it. Of course, the famous duel between Burr and Hamilton is now a piece of America’s folklore. It is a story that I heard as a child, that lodged itself into the periphery of my mind and education.
April 3, 2020
Thanks to Alissa Simon, HMU Tutor, for today’s post.
Most of us had plans that have been interrupted by COVID-19. Medical complications aside, healthy humans still have to deal with time in isolating atmospheres, which can be very difficult. In fact, humans are so social that they will sometimes avoid those restrictions, even when advised. We at Harrison Middleton University have some ideas about how to help keep boredom and isolation at bay.