So I'm watching the Disney channel this morning (I know... trust me, I know) and I catch this "music video" for a guy by the name of Dan Zanes. Its just a little throwaway number in between two shows, but its got a great vibe and wouldn't you know it... I notice that my feet are tapping and I'm kind of couch-grooving to this Disney music video. You know: couch-grooving. Don't play. We've all done it.
Sigh.
So I grab the laptop and consult with the almighty Google oracle to find out what the scoop is on this guy. Turns out he's a prolific kids & family musician with kind of a cool DIY vibe. He even apologizes for not having time to play all the birthday party requests, but offers this piece of advice:
I don't have the time, but I have a better idea for you. call your friends that play instruments and ask them if they will put a birthday band together for the occasion. three or four songs can go a long way and it's very inspiring for people to see friends gather together to make music. don' let the professionals have all the fun.
So that's pretty cool.
CLICK HERE for his video page. "Catch a Train" is the one I saw this morning. There are some other gems in there, but I won't spoil it for you, though "Down in the Valley" has a nice featured guest.
But anyways, I've been thinking a lot about music and how we as a species have this innate, silent beacon inside of us that radiates outward looking for sounds and rhythms and music. I've been trying to get more in touch with finding out WHY I am craving a particular artist at a particular time. Or to figure out how unexpected music that I encounter spins the dials of my emotional kaleidoscope.
For example, the past 3 days or so, I've been craving sad, slow, lamenting acoustic stuff. And I still haven't really figured out why I had such a pointed and specific need for that certain mode of music.
I guess a lot of this has been born out of our last Brickwall Film Competition. The assignment we gave to all of our teams (and to ourselves) was to make a music video for local bands here, and I noticed that Jim and I's brainstorming sessions were unusually creative and vivid. And since we finished that video (CLICK HERE to watch it if you'd like, its at a MySpace page so I hope it works) I've found my brain twisting back to music and video and the complex relationship we have cultivated between the two.
I have a lot of friends who are musically inclined, some of which are in functioning bands, some who are solo, and some who are just waiting for the right opportunity to present itself. I myself, not so much. I have other talents in other areas; I think would be a proper outlook on my musical situation. So which ever end of the spectrum you are on, please take just a moment and let me know about your music, and what inspires you or grabs you or that you secretly turn up in the car when it comes on the radio and no one else is riding with you.
And more importantly that WHAT you are listening to, but WHY were you called to listen to it in the first place?
And how does your mind process the music as it streams? Visually? Colors? Memories?
And then? (No and then!) And then? (No and then!)
22 April 2008
Parenthood
Labels: children's music, music video
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6 comments:
I have a book for you:
"This is Your Brain on Music" by Daniel Levitin.
Music is hardwired into us I think, and is one of the few things that gets our entire brain involved in processing the incoming stimuli. It satisfies our logical rational side with its use of structure: scales, modes, and chords for the tonality side of music; tempo, rhythm, and time signatures for the mathematical division of sound and silence. It also satisfies the creative side of our brain with its infinite variation and "mental imagery" (side note, I've always found it fascinating that although music is all about sound, it's so interconnected with spacial intelligence).
Music also satisfies that primal, reptilian brain with its ability to both inspire emotions and reflect our emotional states. This is the "blues effect." Some people don't understand that the blues is not about feeling bad, it's about feeling GOOD. You listen to the blues, and you feel better, it's an emotional outlet, much the same as listening to aggressive music can be a healthy outlet, a way of venting, anger and such.
For the artist, it's much the same. Composing music is a way of expressing emotions. It's a form of communication, and a very sophisticated medium of communication at that. Watch two jazz musicians who have never met, and never played together, sit down and have a musical conversation. They have a shared vocabulary, the 12 notes in Western music, and can have a spontaneously shared conversation. I feel sorry for people who never get to experience that, it's a very intimate shared experience between people that really can't be expressed in words at all.
The fact that you've been craving a particular type of music for three days probably means your brain is looking for a means of expressing something. Maybe it's some unconscious emotional state that just can't be expressed in words, or maybe it's just looking for validation in the expression of someone else's shared feelings. Either way, music verifies our sanity and unconscious emotional perceptions of the world around us by providing a mirror for us to see our inner feelings reflected in the thoughts and expressions of the other human beings in our world. It tells us it's ok to be sad, blissful, angry, frustrated etc. and that there are other people out there feeling the same things, even when we don't have a label for that feeling, and even when we aren't consciously aware of what we're feeling.
And then...
And why aren't you writing a music blog, again? :)
because I wouldn't have time to respond to all your wonderful thought-provoking blogs if I was busy writing my own silly...
Rereading your blog, I noticed a very cool point I missed the first time around. Dan Zanes said "don't let the professionals have all the fun." Dan Levitin makes the same point in the intro to "This is Your Brain on Music." He points out to the reader that we don't just leave basketball to the NBA and feel silly or self-conscious about a pick up game of 2 on 2, we don't leave all the cooking to Julia Childs and Emeril and such expert chefs, and we don't feel inadequate about blogging our thoughts, despite the fact that we aren't Kurt Vonneguts and Ernest Hemmingways. Why is it that we feel like we should leave music to the "experts"? Everyone can pick up an instrument and have fun, and we're all born with an amzing instrument built right in, the human voice. Pick up a guitar or a tambourine or a set of bagpipes (well, maybe not bagpipes) and enjoy some music firsthand! Don't be afraid to suck at it, embrace your suckiness :) and just plain enjoy your natural human ability to create something that is in harmony (literally) with the entire universe: music.
Jay,
I love to idiotically discuss music ... as I speak, eh, write, I'm tuning into to former Columbians, White Rabbits; I just finished the new Tokyo Police Club album; and, I can't wait to tackle the new Elbow album (with the opening lines from a Zep-esque song that says, 'Monday is for drinking to the seldom seen kid ... I've been working on a cocktail that's called Grounds for Divorce.'). But, alas, I am a perennial listener with no instrumental skill to speak of.
I won't devolve into such matters here (that's what the bar is for, eh?), but if you're looking to tune into some sad, acousitc tunes ... look now further than either Red House Painters or Sun Kil Moon (same lyricist/singer) ... as a Brit mag called it one time, 'bed-wetting music for those who no longer strap on diapers'.
Kyle
Kyle: Thanks for taking the time to comment!!!
Graham: re: Rereading...
As Groucho Marx is quoted as saying (amongst so many other quotes)... Someone once asked him if he could play the piano, to which he responded, "I don't know. I've never tried."
Robert Fulghum (of All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten fame) used that quote in a chapter discussing the fact that if you ask a roomful of preschoolers who can play the piano, they will all raise their hands and say enthusiastically, "Yes!". If you ask a roomful of college students the same thing, one or two hands will shoot up, invariably from kids who took years of lessons.
I think that says a lot about the buttoning up of society and how we only tread along familiar paths. One of my favorite encouragements (in the vein of your exhortation to pick up an instrument) is to just talk to strangers. Just say hello, and see where it goes. Especially when you are traveling. There is no better way to experience a different geographic region than to (politely) engage strangers in conversation. FWIW. IMO. And such.
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