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LEARN WITH MIKE

From Michael Compitello​ 01/29/2024

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We were fortunate a few weeks ago to host my dear friend Leilehua Lanzilotti here at ASU for a program at ASU’s Humanities Institute, in which she discussed concepts of Radical Indigenous Contemporaneity, specifically related to her new opera project Lili‘u, which looks amazing.Also, I love that she has a historical context website.​

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After hearing her piece ahupuaʻa performed by the Argus quartet in Tucson and performing Leilehua’s Gray, both of which depict (now changed) landscapes in Hawaii, I was thinking about music as wayfinding. What are ways in which music can be a map? Does it require mimesis (a sound imitating a bird, for example), or does it require sonification of data about a place? Of course not—in my opinion, the best use of music as a spatial signifier is abstract. But, a piece of music can gently lead a listener through a place real, imagined, or disappeared.

Leilehua’s visit—and our requisite JStor-spiraling—reminded me of a visit I made to ASU’s Map and Geospatial Hub. Kid in candy store!

Virtual Collections

​ASU’s Map and Geospatial Hub manages and curates data such as including geo visualizations, maps, and imagery (ADOT and landscape water maps). They also manage software for wrangling GIS information, and serve as the go-to office at ASU for education and collaboration around geographical storytelling. The Hub is led by Matthew Toro, whose writing on the Grand Canyon I highlighted in a previous newsletter.

​The crown jewel of the collection for me was the Map and Geospatial Hub 3D Explorer, which gives a window into the collection in a powerful new way. The Hub team created a 3d Model of the Hub. As one might expect, this model is stunning in its accuracy. Even the maps on the wall are correct, although we had some debate about the height of the chairs.

Interested map mavens can explore the collection through a virtual manifestation of its physical space. Clicking on a drawer gives an index of the maps within, each of which can be explored.

This virtual library returned me to a mindset of browsing and physical adjacency. The map next to the map we were searching for might be just as, if not more, interesting as what we might have found otherwise. I also love that one can zoom out infinitely from this location, finding the library’s location within the earth:

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Overlays

Of particular note to me were overlays, where older maps are reconciled with contemporary GPS data. Here’s one of the Dutton Tertiary History of the Grand Cañon, which astute readers might note as the specialty of map overlord Matthew Toro, overlaid on GPS data:

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I liked playing with this plot map of Phoenix from the 1950s, seeing which arteries and landmarks remain after the city’s air-conditioning-fueled transformation.

I later spent many hours exploring ASU’s GeoData collections, which include:

• Aerial Photos Topographic Maps,
• Geologic maps: how about this index of Geologic Maps of Manchuria from 1953-1960?​
• Thematic maps: CIA Data anyone?​
• Linguistic maps, like this 1909 Linguistic Map of Mexico and Central America​

The Southwest

Toro has assembled quite a collection of maps of the American southwest, including a significant body of maps of the Grand Canyon, or Grand Cañon when used to refer to the region and not the geological feature. 1882’s Dutton Tertiary History, of which the Geospatial Hub owns a copy, is a fascinating artifact from a time in which science and art were much more closely intertwined. Dutton and Co. organized geologic and sketch maps of almost the entire canyon, framing these with beautiful landscape art depicting mostly accurate vistas from the rims. Before this point, most artwork of the canyon was from the bottom looking up, and it struck me that perhaps the Grand Canyon only became Grand when one could see it from above, which would mean that the Dutton had an outsized impact on turning the grand canyon into the GRAND Canyon.

Kanab Canon, near the junction of Kanab Creek with the Colorado. About 2,800 feet of wall is shown here, the upper portion being the Red Wall. The upper walls (Aubrey) are not disclosed. The depth of Kaneb Canon here is about 4,700 feet. Drawn by Thomas Moran. Wood-cut. Grand Canyon District, Arizona. n.d.

​Here’s a resource the hub made for the Dutton atlas…​

And here is film footage from the USGS’s 1923 Grand Canyon expedition. Love that arrow pointing to the canyon!

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Trills and Co.

I recently perused an amazing scholarly edition of Élisabeth Claude Jacquet de La Guerre’s harpsichord works. I began reading because I was interested in an ornament in one her unmeasured preludes and was hooked by the always-amazing work of the Broude trust. La Guerre was the first woman to have a work staged at the Académie Royale de Musique, and ran a successful salon series while composing and publishing her work. I admired:

• Shade-throwing biographical essay from Mary Cyr, highlighting la Guerre’s self-publishing in the 17th century as well her key role in the court of Louis XIV et al.
• High footnote to text ratio, and lengthy discussion of performance practice for ornaments
• Image of an image inside a frame
• Beautiful manuscripts, which reproduce pagination and spacing but improve readbility.
• High-high-high quality paper.

So What

The Geospatial Hub argues that “Maps are data. Data are maps.” In my opinion, maps are more than simply data. This edition and ASU’s Geospatial hub are examples at pragmatic and practical scholarship, research aimed at practitioners. At the same time, these detail-rich environments encourage us to read slowly and examine closely, key features of successful analysis and performance. Although I love maps regardless, I consider their study to be musically nutritious in that they help us hone these skills of detailed. listening/reading.

Other Miscellany

• ​I highly recommend the Geospatial Hub’s Map of the Month page, written by Map and GIS Specialist Eric Friesenhahn.​
• And, if you're interested, I'd love for you to take a look at my percussion-specific newsletter, On Learning Percussion. This week I wrote about the importance of shoes in college auditions.​

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