153 pages
The Guitar and the I Ching is inspired by the coincidence of the six lines of the hexagrams and the six strings of the guitar. There are perhaps as many ways to confront the I Ching as there are people who confront it. Theo Radic put off this confrontation for years, during which time he owned the book, but hardly opened it. With the I Ching gathering dust on his bookshelf, he went on with his daily routine, waiting for the right moment to mix the hexagrams with his life in a natural, unforced manner. The six lines of the hexagrams he identified with the six strings of the classical guitar, which he plays daily. This was over twenty-three years ago, when this book was first conceived. From the possibility of plucking all six strings to plucking none – from sound to silence – the sixty-four hexagrams can correspond to all the possible combinations of plucked strings and unplucked strings in the entire repertory for guitar existing today. After the introduction the reader is taken through all sixty-four hexagrams as short chapters of reflections on taoism, music, history, philosophy and the cosmos, with corresponding notes of the masters of classical guitar, from Luis Milan (1500-1561) to modern composers. He continues with thoughts from his previous book Crazy Devil Sweeping (revised 2017), dealing with the natural link between Art and Tao (the Way), and how the civilizations of the orient and occident naturally complement each other as seen in the yin-yang symbol. DOWNLOAD PDF |
