Tag: Music

Posted on

1827-2023 by Joy Stahl

Analyzing locks
Beethoven’s sequenced genome
Unfinished symphony

by Joy Stahl

The composer Ludwig van Beethoven left behind locks of his hair and written wishes that his body be examined for science. I find it fascinating that DNA could still be obtained from that hair after so much time has passed. Researchers are trying to determine the causes of his deafness, other ailments, and cause of death. Only a portion of those questions have been answered, leading to the last line of my haiku.

Further reading:

‘Genomic analyses of hair from Ludwig van Beethoven’, T.J.A. Begg et al., 2023, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2023.02.041

Author bio:

Joy Stahl teaches middle school in southwestern Kansas. Her poetry has appeared in Voices of Kansas. Check out Joy’s sciku ‘Hibernation’!

Posted on

Dance Therapy by Dr Michael J. Leach

beating heart & drums—
she dances through the grey in
a persimmon dress

by Dr Michael J. Leach

This sciku suggests the therapeutic benefits of dancing through the bright orange colour persimmon—a symbol of happiness and good health. The therapeutic benefits of dancing, such as significantly reduced anxiety following dance movement therapy, were recently reported in a meta-analysis of individual studies by Koch et al. (2019).

In early 2022, therapeutic benefits of dancing were also artistically expressed in the music video for Florence + the Machine’s single ‘Free’ (directed by Autumn de Wilde):

This music video provided the visual inspiration for my sciku while the research paper by Koch et al. (2019) provided the underlying science.

Original Research:

Koch SC, Riege RFF, Tisborn K, Biondo J, Martin L, Beelmann A. Effects of dance movement therapy and dance on health-related psychological outcomes. A meta-analysis update. Frontiers in Psychology. 2019; 10: 1806. doi: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01806

Author Bio:

Michael J. Leach (@m_jleach) is an Australian poet and academic at Monash Rural Health. His poetry collections include Chronicity (MPU, 2020) and Natural Philosophies (Recent Work Press, forthcoming).

Check out more sciku by Michael, including ‘The Burden of Bushfire Smoke‘, ‘The Core Correlate of COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance‘, ‘Drug-Induced Hip Fractures‘, ‘The Psychopharmacological Revolution‘, ‘Quality of Life at Seven Years Post-Stroke‘, ‘The Early Impacts of COVID-19 on Australian General Practice‘, A Sciku for Rayner Explainer, and ‘Australian Science Poetry‘ with science communicator Rachel Rayner. Michael also has another Covid-19-related sciku published in Pulse which is well worth checking out: ‘flu shot announcement‘.

Posted on

Apparent Horizons by Dr Lee Tsang

In mid-2021 The Sciku Project teamed up with the Literature and Science Hub at the University of Liverpool to run the ‘Research in Verse Poetry Competition’, open to staff and postgraduate research students across the university to submit poems about their research subject. The competition saw poems addressing all sorts of topics, ranging from gravity to slavery to life in the lab.

Third prize was won by Dr Lee Tsang for his poem ‘Apparent Horizons’:

Apparent Horizons

I am what I am and what I’m not.
I’m the acts and non-acts of
‘might’ and ‘forgot’.
More than that.
I am the suns I never had.

I’m the light that
moves
both outwards
and in.
I am the Green Ray,
a moment
of fusion where
Apparent Horizons play with time.

As you are to me
I’m the passing cusp of
hopes and fears
for suns untamed.

I am the Light
both extinguished
and aflame.

Background

Dr Lee Tsang is a musician of dual heritage who takes on multiple roles in crossover works. His poem was written while reflecting on complex systems in his own practice, as demonstrated in Twisting Ways (2020, 2020/2021), the latest output from a longstanding partnership with Canadian jazz-classical pianist and composer David Braid. The poem contemplates philosophical and psychological issues relating to agency, identity, and fluid performance/compositional processes in light of Korsyn’s espousal of Harold Bloom’s Anxiety of Influence for musical contexts. You can connect with Lee on Twitter here: @l_tsang

Further Reading:

Bloom, H. (1973). Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry. New York: Oxford University Press.

Korsyn, K. (1991). ‘Towards a New Poetics of Musical Influence’, Music Analysis, 10(1/2), pp. 3-72.  

Tsang, L. (2015). David Braid’s ‘Resolute Bay’ with Sinfonia UK Collective. Toronto: K52 Music. Available at: http://www.sinfonia-uk-collective.org/

Tsang, L. (2016). ‘David Braid: Flow’. In Flow: David Braid + Epoque Quartet [CD liner notes]. New York, NY: Steinway & Sons. Available at: http://www.sinfonia-uk-collective.org/flow_albumNotes.pdf

Tsang, L. (2018). David Braid: Corona Divinae Misericordiae [CD, B07KZTWBJL]. Epoque Chamber Orchestra, Patricia O’Callaghan, Elmer Iseler Singers, Sinfonia UK Collective. Toronto: K52 Music.

Tsang, L. (2020). Tsang’s musical poetry (2018-2020) for ‘Twisting Ways’ (Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra 2020). Available at: https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/3110815/   

Tsang, L. (2020/2021). ‘The Hand’, ‘Hope Shadow’ and ‘Lydian Sky’, Twisting Ways: The Music of David Braid and Philippe Côté [CD, WJOCD0005]. Winnipeg, MB: Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra.