Good point. Jazz is also music, but it can flow all over the place and change and stuff like that. However, there is usually a framework in the background, right?
I’m not sure to what extent musicians improvise based on a framework or based on what the others around them are doing. If it’s the latter, they might take the composition as a starting point and potentially go in a completely different direction. If I think about improvised comedy then I can imagine it going to all sorts of places, which may have little to do with the starting point. Either way, it seems to challenge the idea of prior composition as fundamental.
Music, like mathematics, is a universal language. By listening to music, I can tell what the artist was thinking or feeling. That only works if it's live and I'm there because live artists play to their emotions.
"He believed specific melodies could influence emotions and even physical health, and he tried experiments to restore the ability to walk."
I can personally attest to the fact that music absolutely does have the power to get you up and walking.
The other day, I was lying on the couch, feeling too tired to even lift a toe.
Then my son turned on "I'm A Banana" on TV.
Next thing I knew, I was out of that couch and sprinting for the remote's "Mute" button faster than "The Very Fast Running Man Person." (Too bad there aren't any famous superheroes with speed as their superpower that I could reference here.)
This reminds me of another (appropriate) joke: a woman goes into the doctor for hand surgery. The doctor is trying to reassure the woman, who asks, "Doc, will I be able to play the violin after my surgery?" to which the doc replies, "absolutely!"
She leaves a five star google review that day saying that this doctor can not only fix your hand, but also teach you to play violin while you're under the knife.
Something I've been contemplating for a few months, now: It occurred to me that music (or, more specifically, melody composing) is the only art form that can exist (or be created) that doesn't need a medium to display it. If I'm a painter, I can think of beautiful things all day, but unless and until it gets applied to a canvas by my paint (or whatever), that art can't be observed or evaluated, and thus, has no real value (I guess we could debate that the artist gets something out of it being in his/her head)!
Same thing applies with pottery, building, snapping Legos together, coloring, maze-making, etc. But, if I'm creating melodies in my head, I can sing what I just created, and there's no medium needed to have that art appreciated by another (short of someone else's ears). Sure, I can write down my music and/or record it in some way, but I don't need to....my art exists solely in my head, even to the point of sharing it with others using my mouth!
I like the observation, but the physics nerd in me wants to point out that sound travels through a medium, or else it doesn't exist. I think the air is the necessary medium!
🤣🤣I'll gingerly sidestep HL's register-adjacent refrigerators! How you even knew that vid existed is at least as impressive as the work that went into dummying up that lone prop to drive the gag home!! Color me impressed (on the canvas of your choice)!😉
Someone mentioned a clip from "Wayne's World" a little while ago, and I didn't remember that one, either....and, I've seen and loved both "WW" and "Spaceballs"! Good thing I don't write about the history of cinema! Was Dink-Dink the furry John Candy character?
Music has a universal appeal for all, as a way to share moods and emotions.
I've always been musically inclined, possibly because my mother listened to lots of opera before I was born. I love the complexities of classical, building layer upon layer, and have now started listening to several musicians that do the same with synthesizers. And have bought a simple one for myself, to explore that creative side.
I once saw a great ad for HMV (record store in England) that said “A good song can make you late for work. A great song can make you quit. )
I always thought that was masterful copywriting, but unrealistic. Until one day, I did exactly that.
It was a Friday morning and I was back at my boring job in a crap town outside of London, but still buzzing from the all night techno club in London I’d been at the night prior.
Horrified by my dull grey job, I put on my headphones and listened to Giles Peterson on Radio 1, recorded live from a beach in Ibiza. He opened with the track “La Ritournelle” by Sebastian Tellier, and my life just changed on the spot.
Something about the track profoundly touched me, and I decided right there and then to quit that job and town. Within weeks I’d won a great job in London, moved there and spent 8 great years making up for lost time, before consulting that track again when deciding whether to accept an offer to relocate to San Francisco. I did.
La Ritournelle is still my anthem. I have no idea why it affected me so much.
Music is something that makes your heart light and elevates your mood. It's catharsis. You just get to the feel of the music and immerse in it fully.
Personally for me, music is Ilayaraja. His songs constitute majority of the music I hear. Everytime I hear his songs, it's like a newly bloomed flower and it touches my heart and elevates my mood.
Music is one of the few things on the planet that is so abstract and can make you joyful instantaneously. The world would be a poorer place without it.
Andrew, thank you — this one resonated with me specifically.
Music is my soundtrack for life’s events.
I use a system for discovering new tracks. I create a new playlist each quarter where discoveries add up, and then I compile yearly ones. I have a song for accepting my first job offer, a song for driving my own car for the first time, a song for wedding preparations, for my walks by the ocean, and many more.
Everything is there, deeply attached. Each song has its place on my timeline of life, triggering memories and feelings. I can transport myself back up to 18 years in the past just by using a specific playlist (my first compilation is from 2006, when I started using last.fm to collect what I listen)
I wouldn’t be able to function properly without music.
Wow, that's a lot of music history! I like that idea a lot.
I have maybe 2 dozen playlists going now. To me, it's the same as making a mixtape - I can just listen to the songs I want, right now, and in the order I want (if I don't shuffle).
I've got it all here: https://www.last.fm/user/dmp0x7c5 - more than 300,000 tracked songs with dates (music-players changed many times over the years but last.fm still gathers my data)
There is a cure for that, as the Stoics would advise: just get rid of comfortable things in your life for a day. Forget you have a car, hot water, Wi-Fi, food (random order, and it doesn't have to be all at once :))
Music gives me spiritual, physical, and emotional health. John Lennon and Bob Marley's music provide me with philosophical messages. Michael Jackson comes when I want to dance. George Benson fills me with soulful feelings. Whitney Houston elevates my spirit. Lionel Ritchie and Westlife cleanse me. Great musicians, all of them.
When it gets really interesting (to me anyway) is when you start looking at how different types of sounds impact different types of people. And some respond more to rhythm, vocals, certain instruments, or specific types of lyrics. These are all programmed within us throughout our lives as our brains develop based upon various experiences and the release of hormones and such.
Great as usual. I loved the part about playing music from high school days. There’s really something to that. I recently made (another) playlist of favs from jr/sr high. Good memories and good feelings. Always bolsters my immune system. Probably not true for everyone, but for me, it works.
I feel immense nostalgia whenever I listen to the music from my youth, which is probably most days. Sometimes the song triggers a more morose feeling, and that's valuable too- I remember how I felt back then. I don't want to forget all those emotions of youth, you know?
There’s a couple of songs (maybe three) that I absolutely adore but rarely listen to. And that is because they can literally move me to tearing up and I prefer to do that in private.
Anything that powerful, it seems to me, just must be integral, hardwired even, to the human experience.
I feel this, Lee. I sometimes will go down a dark music tunnel all by myself. Someone looking in from the outside might say that's unhealthy, but I find it to be cathartic.
If you compose it, it is music. If a number of people like it, it maybe good music.
If you compose "it" - what is it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG_k5CSYKhg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ1OVhMh6bI
Classic!
Unless it is improvised…
Good point. Jazz is also music, but it can flow all over the place and change and stuff like that. However, there is usually a framework in the background, right?
I’m not sure to what extent musicians improvise based on a framework or based on what the others around them are doing. If it’s the latter, they might take the composition as a starting point and potentially go in a completely different direction. If I think about improvised comedy then I can imagine it going to all sorts of places, which may have little to do with the starting point. Either way, it seems to challenge the idea of prior composition as fundamental.
Isn't it funny how tough it is to define something we use every day?
That's improvise memory.
Music, like mathematics, is a universal language. By listening to music, I can tell what the artist was thinking or feeling. That only works if it's live and I'm there because live artists play to their emotions.
There's nothing that compares to a good live punk show.
I have no frame of reference to argue your point.
"He believed specific melodies could influence emotions and even physical health, and he tried experiments to restore the ability to walk."
I can personally attest to the fact that music absolutely does have the power to get you up and walking.
The other day, I was lying on the couch, feeling too tired to even lift a toe.
Then my son turned on "I'm A Banana" on TV.
Next thing I knew, I was out of that couch and sprinting for the remote's "Mute" button faster than "The Very Fast Running Man Person." (Too bad there aren't any famous superheroes with speed as their superpower that I could reference here.)
This reminds me of another (appropriate) joke: a woman goes into the doctor for hand surgery. The doctor is trying to reassure the woman, who asks, "Doc, will I be able to play the violin after my surgery?" to which the doc replies, "absolutely!"
She leaves a five star google review that day saying that this doctor can not only fix your hand, but also teach you to play violin while you're under the knife.
Nice! The version I heard simply has the woman say: "Wow, amazing! I never played the violin before!"
I'm pretty sure that's how I heard it, too. I was about halfway through the joke here and wanted to make a lasting contribution to humor.
You are the pioneer this world needs!
Something I've been contemplating for a few months, now: It occurred to me that music (or, more specifically, melody composing) is the only art form that can exist (or be created) that doesn't need a medium to display it. If I'm a painter, I can think of beautiful things all day, but unless and until it gets applied to a canvas by my paint (or whatever), that art can't be observed or evaluated, and thus, has no real value (I guess we could debate that the artist gets something out of it being in his/her head)!
Same thing applies with pottery, building, snapping Legos together, coloring, maze-making, etc. But, if I'm creating melodies in my head, I can sing what I just created, and there's no medium needed to have that art appreciated by another (short of someone else's ears). Sure, I can write down my music and/or record it in some way, but I don't need to....my art exists solely in my head, even to the point of sharing it with others using my mouth!
There. My 2¢. Thoughts?
I like the observation, but the physics nerd in me wants to point out that sound travels through a medium, or else it doesn't exist. I think the air is the necessary medium!
The good news is that Hobby Lobby won't charge me, then (presumably), for my medium of choice.🎶😁👍
https://youtu.be/kCX6H90RvPU
🤣🤣I'll gingerly sidestep HL's register-adjacent refrigerators! How you even knew that vid existed is at least as impressive as the work that went into dummying up that lone prop to drive the gag home!! Color me impressed (on the canvas of your choice)!😉
Brad, that clip is from Spaceballs! It's where Dink-Dink got her name. :)
Someone mentioned a clip from "Wayne's World" a little while ago, and I didn't remember that one, either....and, I've seen and loved both "WW" and "Spaceballs"! Good thing I don't write about the history of cinema! Was Dink-Dink the furry John Candy character?
Music has a universal appeal for all, as a way to share moods and emotions.
I've always been musically inclined, possibly because my mother listened to lots of opera before I was born. I love the complexities of classical, building layer upon layer, and have now started listening to several musicians that do the same with synthesizers. And have bought a simple one for myself, to explore that creative side.
My mom had a synthesizer during the 80s and I got to play with it! What a time.
I once saw a great ad for HMV (record store in England) that said “A good song can make you late for work. A great song can make you quit. )
I always thought that was masterful copywriting, but unrealistic. Until one day, I did exactly that.
It was a Friday morning and I was back at my boring job in a crap town outside of London, but still buzzing from the all night techno club in London I’d been at the night prior.
Horrified by my dull grey job, I put on my headphones and listened to Giles Peterson on Radio 1, recorded live from a beach in Ibiza. He opened with the track “La Ritournelle” by Sebastian Tellier, and my life just changed on the spot.
Something about the track profoundly touched me, and I decided right there and then to quit that job and town. Within weeks I’d won a great job in London, moved there and spent 8 great years making up for lost time, before consulting that track again when deciding whether to accept an offer to relocate to San Francisco. I did.
La Ritournelle is still my anthem. I have no idea why it affected me so much.
That's awesome. I have a few songs that hit me that way, and it's tough to articulate exactly why. That's a pretty good story, too!
It's a very important part of my life, and I hope to be able to write more about it in the future.
Music is something that makes your heart light and elevates your mood. It's catharsis. You just get to the feel of the music and immerse in it fully.
Personally for me, music is Ilayaraja. His songs constitute majority of the music I hear. Everytime I hear his songs, it's like a newly bloomed flower and it touches my heart and elevates my mood.
Music is one of the few things on the planet that is so abstract and can make you joyful instantaneously. The world would be a poorer place without it.
Long live music! ❤️
Perhaps it is also a form of language…style of communication…
Andrew, thank you — this one resonated with me specifically.
Music is my soundtrack for life’s events.
I use a system for discovering new tracks. I create a new playlist each quarter where discoveries add up, and then I compile yearly ones. I have a song for accepting my first job offer, a song for driving my own car for the first time, a song for wedding preparations, for my walks by the ocean, and many more.
Everything is there, deeply attached. Each song has its place on my timeline of life, triggering memories and feelings. I can transport myself back up to 18 years in the past just by using a specific playlist (my first compilation is from 2006, when I started using last.fm to collect what I listen)
I wouldn’t be able to function properly without music.
Great article!
Wow, that's a lot of music history! I like that idea a lot.
I have maybe 2 dozen playlists going now. To me, it's the same as making a mixtape - I can just listen to the songs I want, right now, and in the order I want (if I don't shuffle).
Music and emotion are so very close.
Indeed, Music brings memories, and emotions.
I've got it all here: https://www.last.fm/user/dmp0x7c5 - more than 300,000 tracked songs with dates (music-players changed many times over the years but last.fm still gathers my data)
Nice. Go listen to "Blood Sugar Sex Magic" next!
I did, I like the whole album!
Side note: Not too long ago, it was impossible to listen to exactly what you wanted, in just a few seconds. A lot has changed.
Yeah. People talk about how awful it is to be alive today. Do they remember the past?
There is a cure for that, as the Stoics would advise: just get rid of comfortable things in your life for a day. Forget you have a car, hot water, Wi-Fi, food (random order, and it doesn't have to be all at once :))
Music gives me spiritual, physical, and emotional health. John Lennon and Bob Marley's music provide me with philosophical messages. Michael Jackson comes when I want to dance. George Benson fills me with soulful feelings. Whitney Houston elevates my spirit. Lionel Ritchie and Westlife cleanse me. Great musicians, all of them.
YES! I love many of those artists too. Lennon's magic was really unleashed with his partnership with McCartney, I think. What a combination.
I need to listen to more of Lionel Richie's earlier stuff. It's so good, but i grew up on his later stuff and know that much better.
When it gets really interesting (to me anyway) is when you start looking at how different types of sounds impact different types of people. And some respond more to rhythm, vocals, certain instruments, or specific types of lyrics. These are all programmed within us throughout our lives as our brains develop based upon various experiences and the release of hormones and such.
Ha ha! Built an entire Substack around it❣️
How'd I do here? It wasn't easy to describe music!
Great as usual. I loved the part about playing music from high school days. There’s really something to that. I recently made (another) playlist of favs from jr/sr high. Good memories and good feelings. Always bolsters my immune system. Probably not true for everyone, but for me, it works.
I feel immense nostalgia whenever I listen to the music from my youth, which is probably most days. Sometimes the song triggers a more morose feeling, and that's valuable too- I remember how I felt back then. I don't want to forget all those emotions of youth, you know?
And, thanks for the feedback!!
There’s a couple of songs (maybe three) that I absolutely adore but rarely listen to. And that is because they can literally move me to tearing up and I prefer to do that in private.
Anything that powerful, it seems to me, just must be integral, hardwired even, to the human experience.
I feel this, Lee. I sometimes will go down a dark music tunnel all by myself. Someone looking in from the outside might say that's unhealthy, but I find it to be cathartic.
And very solitary.