Music as Substance and Form in Grace Notes :: Grace Notes

Music as Substance and Form in forgiveness Notes   In the novel Grace Notes by Bernard MacLaverty, Catherines growth as an operative through the story provides both substance and form to the story.   Early on in Catherines life, she was taught and influenced by the people close to her. Miss Bingham was her prototypical starchy teacher. She taught Catherine things she seemed to have known beforehand Miss Bingham says its all inside her passing play and all she has to do is draw it out (99). Miss Bingham overly gave Catherine her first manuscript jotter, taking her on her way to becoming a composer. Catherines family was also a big influence. Granny Boyd taught Catherine songs they would sing in the rounds of the kitchen (145). In strain to Miss Bingham and Granny Boyd, it seems as if her father wanted to have much control over her music interest. When listening to the Lambeg drums, her father called it Sheer blinking(a) bigotry (258), yet Catherine thought it inter esting with the complex rhythms. The strongest influences on Catherine, as with most children, come at an early age, and for Catherine this all happens in her theater town.   There are also outside influences on Catherines development as an artist. Catherine first saw Huang Xiao Gang at a composition workshop at the university. Huang talked about pre-hearing and inner hearing (33), and other ways of thought process of music in very non-western methods. Catherine remembers the pre-hearing and inner hearing quite a few multiplication later, when she has ideas about music. Catherine also learns while visiting the composer Anatoli Melnichuck in Kiev. She does not in truth learn directly from Melnichuck, but learns about things when she is there. When she visits the Refectory church she hears the tolls in the bell tower, making a reverberating Tintinnabulation (124). Catherine as well hears the monks in the church sing. The singing came without warning, it was not sacred singin g - there was a lightness to it (125). The singing there at the Refectory church reminded her of Granny Boyd singing The Bell Doth Toll. The outside influences in Catherines life gave some contrast and some interesting aspects to her music.   The influences and teachings in her life all come together to spend a penny Vernicle, which is played for the BBC at the end of the novel. Her music comes in two parts, give care the bilateral symmetry of a scallop shell (273).