November 2006
Polyphony bridges my life as a pianist, and my life as a student of dialogical processes of inquiry. We know how it works: in a polyphonic musical score, each line holds status as melody; nothing is subordinate “accompaniment.” At the same time, each line, as it unfolds through performance, gives meaning and character to the others moving around and sometimes through it.
As I have been writing my dissertation this month, I have been coming to know it more vividly as a polyphonic piece with 8 distinct lines of dialogue:
1. The dialogue between the project practitioners and their clients
2. The recorded face-to-face dialogue between all practitioners, in response to our research question, June 2004, Playa del Carmen, Mexico
3. "Inner dialogues” written by each practitioner in our project, shared with the project
4. The written dialogue I write to each practitioner in response to their written inner dialogue
5. The written dialogue I write in response to the Playa face-to-face dialogue
6. My daily dialogue with ‘myself’, written and dated, since the beginning of my dissertation
7. The on-going dialogue between me, Harlene and the consultants in this project
8. The dialogue between me and published textual voices as I write chapters
For me, this description evokes, not a visual picture of a paper, musical score for eight voices, but rather the live sound, the feel and the pleasure of polyvocality.
Which of these eight lines should have the superior status of "data" in this project? None of these are "mere accompaniment" to something of greater significance. It is all "data," each dialogue is "melody" in its own right.
It is the dialogue between these dialogues that surprises me most...each influences and enriches the others, shaping possibilities and constraints, often brazenly without my initiative!
A few days ago, I sat down to write an imaginary dialogue with my dissertation, creating an imagined “Other” as we say (see layer "six") in order to move on past a stuck point in my writing. What emerged from this brief fictive conversation seemed to directly influence the "eighth" layer of dialogue in the project – creating more space for my ‘own’ voice in my writing process.
Fondly remembering my past days as a pianist-who-lived-to-perform J.S. Bach - the ultimate in classical, polyphonic music - I have come to speak (privately) of Bakhtin as “the other Bach.” Although they lived centuries apart, both men should have somehow met!
Just as I used to, I am still pouring myself into polyphonic “scores;” I am still playing, still feeling my way into, and most important, still listening.
This is likely to be my last blog post of 2006, and I find myself eager to send thanks to all of you who, in some way, connect with this on-going project. Each year in the Taos-Tilburg program has brought wonderful new friends and colleagues. What meaning would any of this work have without you?
Janice
* see above photos of the cactus fruit I am about to bite into in Merida, a 'first' for me... mmmm... so, so good... thanks to Paco's and MariCarmen's mother...
As I have been writing my dissertation this month, I have been coming to know it more vividly as a polyphonic piece with 8 distinct lines of dialogue:
1. The dialogue between the project practitioners and their clients
2. The recorded face-to-face dialogue between all practitioners, in response to our research question, June 2004, Playa del Carmen, Mexico
3. "Inner dialogues” written by each practitioner in our project, shared with the project
4. The written dialogue I write to each practitioner in response to their written inner dialogue
5. The written dialogue I write in response to the Playa face-to-face dialogue
6. My daily dialogue with ‘myself’, written and dated, since the beginning of my dissertation
7. The on-going dialogue between me, Harlene and the consultants in this project
8. The dialogue between me and published textual voices as I write chapters
For me, this description evokes, not a visual picture of a paper, musical score for eight voices, but rather the live sound, the feel and the pleasure of polyvocality.
Which of these eight lines should have the superior status of "data" in this project? None of these are "mere accompaniment" to something of greater significance. It is all "data," each dialogue is "melody" in its own right.
It is the dialogue between these dialogues that surprises me most...each influences and enriches the others, shaping possibilities and constraints, often brazenly without my initiative!
A few days ago, I sat down to write an imaginary dialogue with my dissertation, creating an imagined “Other” as we say (see layer "six") in order to move on past a stuck point in my writing. What emerged from this brief fictive conversation seemed to directly influence the "eighth" layer of dialogue in the project – creating more space for my ‘own’ voice in my writing process.
Fondly remembering my past days as a pianist-who-lived-to-perform J.S. Bach - the ultimate in classical, polyphonic music - I have come to speak (privately) of Bakhtin as “the other Bach.” Although they lived centuries apart, both men should have somehow met!
Just as I used to, I am still pouring myself into polyphonic “scores;” I am still playing, still feeling my way into, and most important, still listening.
This is likely to be my last blog post of 2006, and I find myself eager to send thanks to all of you who, in some way, connect with this on-going project. Each year in the Taos-Tilburg program has brought wonderful new friends and colleagues. What meaning would any of this work have without you?
Janice
* see above photos of the cactus fruit I am about to bite into in Merida, a 'first' for me... mmmm... so, so good... thanks to Paco's and MariCarmen's mother...
posted by Janice DeFehr at 8:41 pop.
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