Aesthetics for Birds

Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art for Everyone

June 5, 2018
by utahphilosoraptor
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On the Aesthetics of Playing Piano

In the penultimate measure of the first movement Clementi’s Sonatina No. 36, there is a short cascade of notes: This sonatina is often used as a teaching piece, because it’s a great introduction for the early intermediate pianist to the techniques required in more complicated piano pieces. This little cascade is a good example of why. It’s short, only eight notes long. In the numbering system every beginner learns, your thumbs are ones; your pinkies, fives. The G and A keys are right next to each other on the keyboard, and one might expect that the prescribed fingering of two adjacent notes would require two adjacent fingers. Perhaps, because the sequence continues down the keys, the four and five fingers, so that other fingers are properly positioned to reach the next notes. But that’s not what happens. The G is struck with the thumb, and the A with the fourth … Continue reading

February 27, 2018
by C. Thi Nguyen
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What’s Missing from Cookbook Reviews

Read enough cookbook reviews, and you’ll start to notice a curious gap. Cookbook reviews mostly focus on how the recipes turn out — how tasty the dishes are, or how authentic they are. Sometimes they’ll also talk about the quality of writing, or how much you learn about some region’s culinary history  or food science or the author’s childhood or whatever. But usually they leave out what it feels like to actually cook the goddamn things.

December 12, 2014
by Aesthetics for Birds
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Philosopher-artist Interview: R.A. Briggs

Philosopher and Poet R.A. Briggs interviewed by Alex King R.A. Briggs is a philosopher and a poet. She has been a Research Fellow at the Australian National University and at Griffith University since 2012. She has published widely on issues in metaphysics, epistemology, and decision theory. Her poetry has also been published many venues, but you can get a lot of it in one place in her book, Free Logic, which won the 2012 Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize for emerging poets in Queensland and was shortlisted for the 2014 Queensland Literary Award in the poetry category.