Login
On June 22, PiL released their third video single from the forthcoming record, End of the World.
Following "Penge" and "Hawaii" (Lydon's touching "love letter" to his recently-deceased wife, Nora), "Car Chase" is a relentless hard-driving synth track that Lydon says is "about someone who cleverly breaks out of the mental institution every night, unbeknownst to his owners." — Read the rest
We are off today and tomorrow for the US Independence Day holiday. Also included, a song that hews carefully to archaic rules about prepositions at the end of sentences.
The post Off for the US Holiday — More Grammar appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
Kevin Bacon singing songs to his goats is one of my favorite things on the internet. He started the series, which he calls "Goat Songs," at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 when he was spending a lot of time at his Connecticut farm–where he cares for goats, alpacas, and other animals. — Read the rest
Here's an awesome version of My Chemical Romance's "Welcome to the Black Parade"—it's called "Pride Parade" and is performed by Sub-Radio, the same pop-punk band that treated us to "Stacy's Dad," "Mr. Darkside," and "Pop-Punk Mario." — Read the rest
On this episode of the Big Brains podcast, a scholar explains the neuroscience of how listening to and playing music builds our mind.
Music plays an important role in all of our lives. But listening to music or playing an instrument is more than just a creative outlet or hobby—it’s also scientifically good for us. Research shows that music can stimulate new connections in our brains; keeping our cognitive abilities sharp and our memories alive.
In a new book, Every Brain Needs Music: The Neuroscience of Making and Listening to Music (Columbia University Press, 2023), Larry Sherman explores why we all need music for our mental well-being—and how it can even help us later in life.
Sherman is a professor of neuroscience at Oregon Health & Science University.
Listen to the episode below:
Read the transcript to the episode. Subscribe to Big Brains on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and Spotify.
Source: University of Chicago
The post How music benefits your brain appeared first on Futurity.
“A rough sound was polished until it became a smoother sound, which was polished until it became music,” the poet Mark Strand wrote in his ode to the enchantment of music. Music is the most indescribable of the arts, and that may be what makes it the most powerful — the creative force best capable of giving voice and shape to our most ineffable experiences and most layered longings, of containing them and expanding them at once. It is our supreme language for the exhilaration of being alive.
I have come upon no finer definition of music than philosopher Susanne Langer’s, who conceived of it as a laboratory for feeling in time. Time, indeed, is not only the raw material of music — the fundamental building block of melody and rhythm — but also its supreme gift to the listener. A song is a shelter in time, a shelter in being — music meets us at particular moments of our lives, enters us and magnifies those moments, anchors them in the stream of life, so that each time we hear the song again the living self is transported to the lived moment, and yet transformed.
That is what the uncommonly insightful painter, poet, and writer John Berger (November 5, 1926–January 2, 2017) explores in his essay “Some Notes on Song,” composed in the last months of his life and included in his altogether wonderful final collection Confabulations (public library).
Berger considers how music, in bridging the universal and the deeply personal, illuminates the meaning of intimacy:
Much of what happens to us in life is nameless because our vocabulary is too poor. Most stories get told out loud because the storyteller hopes that the telling of the story can transform a nameless event into a familiar or intimate one.
We tend to associate intimacy with closeness and closeness with a certain sum of shared experiences. Yet in reality total strangers, who will never say a single word to each other, can share an intimacy — an intimacy contained in the exchange of a glance, a nod of the head, a smile, a shrug of a shoulder. A closeness that lasts for minutes or for the duration of a song that is being listened to together. An agreement about life. An agreement without clauses. A conclusion spontaneously shared between the untold stories gathered around the song.
It is the luscious corporeality of song that lends music its extraordinary powers of intimacy. In consonance with Richard Powers’s arresting observation that “the use of music is to remind us how short a time we have a body,” Berger writes:
A song, when being sung and played, acquires a body… Again and again the song takes over the body of the singer, and after a while the body of the circle of listeners who, as they listen and gesture to the song, are remembering and foreseeing.
A song, as distinct from the bodies it takes over, is unfixed in time and place. A song narrates a past experience. While it is being sung it fills the present. Stories do the same. But songs have another dimension, which is uniquely theirs. A song fills the present, while it hopes to reach a listening ear in some future somewhere. It leans forward, farther and farther. Without the persistence of this hope, songs would not exist. Songs lean forward.
[…]
A song borrows existent physical bodies in order to acquire, while it’s being sung, a body of its own.
Music is so embodied an experience because it is made of the same substance we ourselves are made of: time. With an eye to how “songs put their arms around linear time,” Berger adds:
The tempo, the beat, the loops, the repetitions of a song offer a shelter from the flow of linear time — a shelter in which future, present, and past can console, provoke, ironize, and inspire one another.
[…]
Songs are like rivers: each follows its own course, yet all flow to the sea, from which everything came.
Complement with the poetic physicist Alan Lightman on music and the universe and the fascinating science of how music casts its spell on us, then savor Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” brought to life in a Spanish flashmob of 100 musicians.
For a decade and half, I have been spending hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars each month composing The Marginalian (which bore the unbearable name Brain Pickings for its first fifteen years). It has remained free and ad-free and alive thanks to patronage from readers. I have no staff, no interns, no assistant — a thoroughly one-woman labor of love that is also my life and my livelihood. If this labor makes your own life more livable in any way, please consider lending a helping hand with a donation. Your support makes all the difference.
The Marginalian has a free weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s most inspiring reading. Here’s what to expect. Like? Sign up.
In the last of this series of posts about this year's Annual Meeting, SSP's Marketing and Communications Committee asked members of our community what the conference meant to them.
The post Ask the Community: What Did SSP 2023 Mean to You? appeared first on The Scholarly Kitchen.
Bonjo started in the '70s as a session hand percussionist, played for a few years with Creation Rebel, and became a band leader in 1980, first recording a bit as Noah House of Dread, then creating African Head Charge, which has had more than 20 releases. More at africanheadcharge.bandcamp.com.
We discuss "Microdosing" and listen to "A Bad Attitude" from A Trip to Bolgatanga (2023), "Fear of a Man God" from Voodoo of the Godsent (2011), "Orderliness, Godliness, Discipline and Dignity" from Songs of Praise (1990), and "Children of Misery" by Noah House of Dread from Heart (1980). Intro: "Stebani's Theme" from My Life in A Hole in the Ground (1981).
Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Like our Facebook page. Support us on Patreon.
Sponsors: Get 16 free meals and free shipping via HelloFresh.Com/nem16 (code nem16). Check out the Banned Camp comedy podcast.
The post NEM#197: Bonjo Iyabinghi Noah’s African Head Charge first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast.
We all know music when we hear it — or at least we think we do — but how, exactly, do we define it? “Imagine you’re in a jazz club, listening to the rhythmic honking of horns,” says the narrator of the animated TED-Ed video above. “Most people would agree that this is music. But if you were on the highway, hearing the same thing, many would call it noise.” Yet the closer we get to the boundary between music and noise, the less clear it gets. The composer John Cage, to whose work this video provides an introduction, spent his long career in those very borderlands: he “gleefully dared listeners to question the boundaries between music and noise, as well as sound and silence.”
The best-known example of this larger endeavor is “4’33”,” Cage’s 1952 “solo piano piece consisting of nothing but musical rests for four minutes and thirty-three seconds.” Though known as a “silent” composition, it actually makes its listeners focus on all the incidental sounds around them: “Could the opening and closing of a piano lid be music? What about the click of a stopwatch? The rustling, and perhaps even the complaining, of a crowd?”
A few years later, he implicitly asked similar questions about what does and does not count as music to television viewers across America by performing “Water Walk” — whose instruments included “a bathtub, ice cubes, a toy fish, a pressure cooker, a rubber duck, and several radios” — on CBS’ I’ve Got a Secret.
Many who watched that broadcast in 1960 would have asked the same question: “Is this even music?” This may have well have been the outcome for which Cage himself hoped. “Like the white canvases of his painting peers” in that same era, his work “asked the audience to question their expectations about what music was.” As he explored more and more deeply into the territory of unconventional methods of instrumentation, notation, and performance, he drifted farther and farther from the composer’s traditional task: “to organize sound in time for a specific intentional purpose.” Seven decades after “4’33”,” some still insist that John Cage’s work isn’t music — but then, some say the same about Kenny G.
Related content:
Watch John Cage Play His “Silent” 4’33” in Harvard Square, Presented by Nam June Paik (1973)
The Music of Avant-Garde Composer John Cage Now Available in a Free Online Archive
John Cage Performs “Water Walk” on US Game Show I’ve Got a Secret (1960)
An Impressive Audio Archive of John Cage Lectures & Interviews: Hear Recordings from 1963-1991
How to Get Started: John Cage’s Approach to Starting the Difficult Creative Process
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletter Books on Cities, the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.
Swans started in the early '80s with a brutal sound gradually became more subtle and textured. The band broke up in 1995 after ten albums (and three other releases under the name World of Skin), then Michael released a couple of solo albums and six alt-country releases as Angels of Light before starting a new chapter of Swans in 2010 which has now released its sixth album.
We discuss "Michael Is Done" from The Beggar (2023), "It's Coming It's Real" from Leaving Meaning (2019), and "Power for Power" from Filth (1983). You then get to hear Michael's opus "The Beggar Lovers (Three)," also from the new album. Intro: "Screen Shot" from To Be Kind (2014). Hear more at swans.bandcamp.com.
Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Like our Facebook page. Support us on Patreon.
Sponsor: Check out the Skeptoid podcast at skeptoid.com.
The post NEM#196: Michael Gira (Swans) Is Not Done first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast.Partly in response to the existential implications of AI, I have been pondering aspects of what humans are good at recently, and then how our society, institutions and infrastructure need to facilitate these. In essence, getting humans to do repetitive, formulaic work is done for, AI will do that (whether we think that’s good or not is probably not going to stop it happening). Maybe that’s ok, we were forcing people to become more uniform in their outputs and that isn’t playing to our strengths.
Humans are messy, inefficient, unpredictable and often wrong. Well, at least this human is. But most of what we really value comes from this process (which is not to underestimate the need for rigour, hard work and practice). I think this boils down to some form of ‘constrained freedom’. Absolute freedom can be overwhelming, but we often see the bets artistic and creative endeavours arising within some form of constraint – compare your favourite musical artist’s output when they were up against early limitations to when they could indulge themselves in endless studio time and guests. Or even, remember how well we used to craft tweets when we only had 140 characters? That was art.
On this aspect of creative freedom then I’ve encountered two resources recently that set me thinking. The first was a book on shedworking. It’s a middle class fantasy I know, but I love the idea of a snug, outdoor space. In the book lots of people who write, run small businesses or create art talk about the importance of this separate space, separated from the house and sometimes offline also. It becomes a space devoted to the practice they pursue there, and usually in a nice garden setting. The idea of a domain of one’s own takes some of this notion for the digital space. But I wondered what it would mean from an administrative, educational perspective? I don’t mean providing academics with funky sheds (although I am up for that), but rather cognitively, how do we facilitate this thinking, creative space that is slightly remote from the institution, and yet still within reaching distance? It’s important that the shed is not a car drive away I think, you get to it via a short commute across your garden. It still feels part of home, but is distinct. Academics used to have more private research time but this has been encroached upon by targets, administrative duties, research funding needs, etc. And it doesn’t just apply to academics, all university staff need this kind of space to freely explore aspects that will often, not result in anything productive, but will occasionally produce magic.
Which brings me on to my second resource. I recently watched I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, the film about Wilco producing their historic album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Famously they made the album, handed it over to the record company (Warners), who gave them confused looks and passed on it, releasing them from contract and giving them the album to take elsewhere. They eventually got it released by another record company (who ironically turned out to be a subsidiary of Warners, meaning the company paid for the album twice). It went on to become one of the most influential albums of the 2000s.
All that is a fun tale of sticking it to the man and artistic integrity, but what struck me most was early on in the film, the band are deconstructing and experimenting with their songs. It was this layer of experimentation that both confused the record company and helped make the album so successful. There are some straightforward beautiful songs on YHF such as Jesus, Etc, but often the song emerges from beneath distortion and fracture and then the process feels more like you the listener have helped uncover it (I Am Trying To Break Your Heart is a good example). This was intentional, and during tis process Jeff Tweedy comments that “There’s no reason not to destroy it, we made it. It’s ours to destroy and that’s liberating and exciting”.
This seems to me the essence of some form of creative freedom and the type of thing AI isn’t very good at. Like the shedworking example, it also set me thinking about what does the equivalent of “ours to destroy” look like in educational terms? Should we allow educators to have one course that they completely mess with? That is unmade from the convention? Would students love or hate this? Do we have the infrastructure that would even allow that? Think of all the quality frameworks, commercial pressure, peer review, etc and you’d have to say no, at least in the UK. But if this process of unmaking is what drives forward creativity then maybe we need to allow that kind of space.
I think I’m mashing together two subjects here that don’t really mix, but as the lyrics to Jesus, Etc puts it “you can combine anything you want”. Anyway, all together now – “I am an America aquarium drinker…”
Nick has fronted 10+ carefully arranged solo albums since 1985 in various styles from R&B to Latin to alt-country.
We discuss "Amanda and the God’s Honest Truth" from Rarified World (2021), "Buffalo Man" from Little Big Songs (2008), and "River of Love" from More Than Truth (1986). End song: "Super Human Love" from For the Baby Doll (2013). Intro: "Heartbeat Getting Stronger" from Nicholas Tremulis (1985). Follow @NickTremulis1.
Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Like our Facebook page. Support us on Patreon.
Sponsors: Get 16 free meals and free shipping via HelloFresh.Com/nem16 (code nem16). Listen to The Psychology Podcast with Scott Barry Kaufman.
The post NEM#195: Nicholas Tremulis Reads Better Books first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast.Well this most assuredly is my favorite one.
Vashti was discovered in the mid-60s by the Rolling Stones manager, recorded a seminal acoustic album in 1970, then quit music until her work was rediscovered in 2000, recording two albums and releasing an autobiography since then.
We discuss "I Want to Be Alone" (a 1965 single), "Rose Hip November" from Just Another Diamond Day (1970), "Wayward from Lookaftering (2005), and the title track from Heartleap (2014). Intro: "Train Song" (1966 single); the singles were released on Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind (2007). More at anotherday.co.uk.
Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Like our Facebook page. Support us on Patreon.
Sponsor: Listen to The Psychology Podcast with Scott Barry Kaufman.
The post NEM#194: Vashti Bunyan Is Not a Folk Singer first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast.Robin James is a philosopher who writes about popular music. She is the author of, among other books, Resilience and Melancholy (about how Rihanna’s refusal of positivity undermines the neoliberal recuperation of feminism) and The Sonic Episteme (a warning against the neoliberal resonances of the ‘ontological’ turn in sound studies — I have taken to heart her critique of tendencies in ‘theory’ that I am otherwise too easily seduced by). Her latest book, The Future of Rock and Roll, is somewhat different from the previous ones — it is largely a history of 97X WOXY, an independent radio station from Oxford, Ohio that broadcast from 1983 until 2004, and then online until 2010, and that — under the slogan “The Future of Rock and Roll” — offered a broader variety of music than nearly all other US radio stations. I have never lived in that area of the country, and never heard of the station before. But in James’ account, it was far more diverse in the sort of popular music it played than “alternative rock” or “indie rock” stations ever are. WOXY refused to just repeat a small number of songs over and over, in the ways that nearly all commercial radio stations (regardless of genre) tend to do. James gives detailed information on just what music the station played — which gratified my inner music nerd, and made me sorry I had never heard the station in its heyday. But beyond that, James writes about how the station succeeded for several decades (before ultimately ceasing due to the neoliberal economic conditions that oppress us all) because it nurtured a community of listeners, and was grounded in a philosophy that understood true independence as being enabled precisely by serving and helping to sustain such a community. Instead of the neoliberal “freedom from” (the simple absence of regulations), the station emphasized “freedom to” — the sort of creativity that can happen when people support one another. This positive sort of freedom — “the idea that true independence is possible only if you practice it with and for other people” — is generally stifled by the alienating hyperindividualism of the mainstream American idea of merely negative freedom. Things like exciting musical creation, and exploration of new aesthetic forms, do not happen in a vacuum — they require the backing of a scene, a community of people who are open to and interested in such developments. Mainstream commercial radio, despite all its changes over the decades, is not open to or supportive of such a scene or community. WOXY was a for-profit business, but its owners and staff were committed to their vision of independence and diversity (rather than just seeking to maximize profit, regardless of content). Although WOXY eventually stopped broadcasting, its community of fans continued its activities in various formats (podcasts, online discussion boards, etc.). James both gives a detailed history of the station, explicates its philosophy, and the way its community worked, in great detail, and draws lessons from all this about the possibilities for continued projects of independence in our current neoliberal world, when nearly every activity, no matter how niche or how unusual, gets recuperated and milked for profit by the 1% at the expense of all the rest of us. The Future of Rock and Roll is inspirational in the way that it gives us hope, and even provides something of a blueprint for change, in a very unpleasant and otherwise despairing time.
Initially compared as a rock singer with John Lennon in the late '70s and early '80s with The Nerves and The Plimsouls, his subsequent sixteen solo albums beginning in 1986 have embraced blues, solo acoustic guitar, and on his new album, highly percussive piano (on his new album).
We discuss "Have You Ever Been in Trouble?" from Dr. Moan (2023), "Every 24 Hours" feat. Richard Thompson from Let Us Now Praise Sleepy John (2007), "When You Find Out" by the Nerves from their self-titled EP (1976). End song: "Anything" from Torn Again (1995). For more, see petercase.com.
Hear more Nakedly Examined Music. Like our Facebook page. Support us on Patreon.
The post Nakedly Examined Music #193: Peter Case’s Songs About Now first appeared on The Partially Examined Life Philosophy Podcast.
FreshRSS 