Death the Door, Music a Key is an invitation to join a journey that is not always easy, but might just alter the way you think about how you live your life. The journey begins in the fragile moments just before life ends, as we sit beside the deathbed and seek to understand this sacred process through the eyes of a harpist. This book of stories tells of ordinary people in the midst of extraordinary moments: people experiencing grief, loss and the anticipation of death. For the most part, however, it is the story of the author, who followed a calling to sit with the dying and share her music. It paints a picture of the work that I do as a harpist who plays intuitive music at the bedside, the restorative qualities of the harp, and the gift that it brings many. It is my hope that through telling these stories, not only will the lives of those who I have played for be honoured, but also their death. It is my hope that their story will serve as a reminder to others that this experience does not have to be frightening, though it requires acceptance, and acceptance requires courage.This acceptance of death can be rarely found, and when it is, it is unmistakable, for their peace seems to permeate everything and everyone around them.

The Lenormand comes alive in this beautifully illustrated book that honors tradition yet is also fresh, vibrant, and modern. • Whether you're a beginner or a seasoned professional, this book is guaranteed to provide something new. Perfect for those who wish to connect deeply with the cards and make them their go-to guide for answers to life’s most pressing questions. • The stunning artwork will transport the reader to magickal places, and never-before-seen card combinations will inspire one to dive even deeper into the nuances of the art. • It covers a multitude of topics and all of life’s challenging situations. • Can be used with any Lenormand deck. Included are unique and thought-provoking card combinations to guide the reader along the path of self-discovery. The Lenormand is an extremely versatile tool, and using it is as easy as laying out cards and turning to the page to find the answer.

"Essential to the composer's method of song-writing was a harmony between musical form and poetic text. Sams takes us right to the heart of that creative method and helps to explain how and why a particular part of the text matches a particular piece of music. He includes a list of the motifs employed by Brahms to help show how the mind of the composer worked when seeking apposite music for the imagery of the poem."--BOOK JACKET.

Daniel Albright investigates musical phenomena through the lens of monism, the philosophical belief that things that appear to be two are actually one. Daniel Albright was one of the preeminent scholars of musical and literary modernism, leaving behind a rich body of work before his untimely passing. In Music’s Monisms, he shows how musical and literary phenomena alike can be fruitfully investigated through the lens of monism, a philosophical conviction that does away with the binary structures we use to make sense of reality. Albright shows that despite music’s many binaries—diatonic vs. chromatic, major vs. minor, tonal vs. atonal—there is always a larger system at work that aims to reconcile tension and resolve conflict. Albright identifies a “radical monism” in the work of modernist poets such as T. S. Eliot and musical works by Wagner, Debussy, Britten, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky. Radical monism insists on the interchangeability, even the sameness, of the basic dichotomies that govern our thinking and modes of organizing the universe. Through a series of close readings of musical and literary works, Albright advances powerful philosophical arguments that not only shed light on these specific figures but also on aesthetic experience in general. Music’s Monisms is a revelatory work by one of modernist studies’ most distinguished figures.

This is the first comprehensive historical analysis of how black music and musicians have been represented in the fiction of African American writers. It also examines how music and musicians in fiction have exemplified the sensibilities of African Americans and provided paradigms for an African American literary tradition. The fictional representation of African American music by black authors is traced from the nineteenth century (William Wells Brown, Martin Delany, Pauline E. Hopkins, Paul Laurence Dunbar) through the early twentieth century and the Harlem Renaissance (James Weldon Johnson, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston) to the 1940s and 50s (Richard Wright, Ann Petry, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison) and the 1960s and the Black Arts Movement (Margaret Walker, William Melvin Kelley, Leroi Jones/Amiri Baraka, Henry Dumas). In the century between Brown and Baraka, the representation of music in black fiction went through a dramatic metamorphosis. Music occupied a representative role in African American culture from which writers drew ideas and inspiration. The music provided a way out of a limited situation by offering a viable option to the strictures of racism. Individuals who overcome these limitations then become role models in the struggle toward equality. African American musical forms-for both artist and audience-also offerd a way of looking at the world, survival, and resistance. The black musician became a ritual leader. This study delineates how black writers have captured the spirit of the music that played such a pivotal role in African American culture. (Ph.D. dissertation, State University of New York at Stony Brook, 1993; revised with new preface and index)