This is your brain on music.

The people at TED have put together an interesting video about the effects of both musical performance & simply listening on the brain. Basically, playing an instrument is like a full-body workout for the muscles of the brain and enables people to deploy those muscles in other ways that have nothing to do with music, too. Check it out:

How Playing an Instrument Benefits Your Brain
A look at the neurological wonders behind playing a musical instrument: http://ow.ly/SDkts
Posted by TED-Ed on Saturday, September 26, 2015

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Peter Gabriel & the point of music.

Alain de Botton over at The Guardian has a written a very interesting piece considering the question, "What's the point of music?" In it, he draws from the example of one of my all-time favorite artists, Peter Gabriel.

The article contains some great thought food on the purpose music plays in our lives and highlights two of Gabriel's great songs, one of which I've posted below. It's always good to consider just why it is we give so much credence and attention to the things - like music - which are so ubiquitous in our culture. Thinking deeply about music makes music more to us than simply a background soundtrack to all of life's other activities. To really experience the beauty of music, we need to start thinking about it like this writer at The Guardian:

[A] clearer handle on the theoretical role of music may at times enhance rather than impoverish our capacity to appreciate music. Knowing what music does for us can give us a sharper sense of which of its varieties we might be in particular need of, why and when.

And, hey, you could do a lot worse than analyzing an artist the caliber of Peter Gabriel. Check it out here.

A Spectacular Interview with Chris Botti

The trumpet-based podcast The Other Side of the Bell has a great interview with the incomparable Chris Botti posted at their site. Even if you're like me and not a trumpeter (all I know about the instrument is that my brother played it for a couple of years in high school) or even if you're not a musician at all, I still would like to encourage you to listen to this podcast. Botti's got some great stories and some great insights to music, business, how it all works from a performer-to-audience perspective, and how he approaches his craft. It's a fantastic interview.

For those of you who may not know Chris Botti, he's the guy who performed the best rendition of America's National Anthem anyone has ever heard at an NFL game this past season:


Monday Night Football 11-03-14 National Anthem with Chris Botti HD from Jeff Bekeris on Vimeo.
In addition to his remarkable solo career, he's also performed alongside musical giants like Paul Simon, Sting, Michael Brecker, and Buddy Rich.

The Long Game

Yesterday morning, my usually limited Twitter excursions brought the following video essays to my attention. I share them with you in the hopes that they will encourage you just as they encouraged me.

Remember, people: when it comes to success or "making it", there are no equations. There are no formulas. There are no hard-and-fast rules aside from hard work, diligence, passion, tenacity, and a love for what you do and wanting to do it better. If you are an artist, an entrepreneur, or any other kind of big dreamer, always fight the urge to believe that the things you are chasing after should come to you quickly. 

So, without any further ado, I present to you The Long Game, by Delve:

"...because words are too small."

“Men’s tongues fork at birth. It has always been so. The bird cannot lie. The lion is a hunter, to be feared, yes, but he is true to his nature. The tree and rock are true – they are a tree and rock. Nothing more, but nothing less. But man, the only creature who can make words – uses this great gift to betray truth, to betray himself, to betray nature and God. He will point to a tree and tell you it is not a tree, stand over your dead body and say he did not kill you. Words, you see, speak for the brain, and the brain is a machine. Music” – he smiled his glorious smile raised his index finger – “music speaks for the soul because words are too small.” 

- Dennis Lehane, 'The Given Day'

Note Pad: Necessary Struggle

There is nothing worth having that is easy to acquire. 

There is no great accomplishment without resistance.

There is no victory without struggle.

These are things to which all of us pay lip service, but how many act as if they are really true?

For the artist, the key to identity, meaning, & soulfulness in art is found in the journey along difficult, challenging, soul-shaping roads. Pressure, obstacle, and obstruction are par for the course. The treasures discovered along the hard road cannot be happened upon any other way.

Too many these days expect the benefits and results accrued by successful artists without the willingness to venture down the uncomfortable and treacherous paths necessary to acquire them. Great art is more than than the stuff of technical ability and raw skill - it is the outpouring of the soul and the pursuit of beauty & truth.

The hard reality is that security & comfort tend to impede artistic growth rather than enable it. The desire to be insulated from uncertainty and protected from risk are the very things that will keep from you confidence, peace, and a sense of identity within your art. Worse, security is an illusion: struggle has a way of finding even the most protected individuals. 

The real question is not whether or not we will struggle during the pursuit of our dreams, but whether we will embrace the difficult things in light of what they will bring forth in our lives. Like the athlete in the gym or the musician in the practice room, the person who would see their dreams accomplished and their goals achieved must be willing to embrace difficulty, discomfort, and sacrifice. 


So, for everyone out there struggling today... this one's for you:

Note Pad: Legit

Legitimacy is borne only of time, influence, and God. Don't make the mistake of believing that because you are successful you are legitimate.

Milli Vanilli sold millions of records. Vincent van Gogh sold one painting.

'The Red Vineyard', the only sale of Van Gogh's life.

An encouraging word.

This is a few months old now, but somehow it recently made it into my own sphere of consciousness:

I don't know what precipitated this little editorial from David Ackert, but I certainly appreciated it when I saw it. I further appreciated this piece by Dave Carlock, in which he references Ackert's couple of paragraphs and then responds to a commenter attempting to rain a bit on the parade. I'll share this excerpted highlight with you:

The point is that musicians push through an incredible amount of uncertainty, risk and adversity to bare their souls and give something to every community that they play in, to every person who can hear them. That makes them unique, that makes them valuable to the human race, if for no other reason than their motivation isn’t only dollars.

And then, only a few days ago, this piece from Seth Godin's cool blog:

You are brave.

Such a generous soul, someone who doesn't hesitate to leap when others shrink in fear. Your work means so much to you and to the people you share it with, we can't help but be inspired at the way you make your magic.

You're a warrior in the service of joy and you never seem to stop standing up and speaking up and doing your very best work.

Sometimes, a particular audience doesn't deserve you. But that doesn't matter in the long run, because of your relentless generosity in sharing your gift.

I can't wait to see your next work, and the one after that.

Every once in awhile it's good  to feel like somebody out there gets it - not only gets it, but understands it, supports it, encourages it, & rallies around it. In the world in which we live, "music" is usually associated in people's minds with stardom, fame, wealth, and all the other Hollywood/celebrity nonsense that goes along with them. Some of us, though, while still retaining dreams of playing Red Rocks and Wembley Arena, really do love performing music for people and would love just to make a living doing it. For some of us, it's about something other than having your picture plastered all over People magazine or getting to date supermodels.

Quincy Tells It Like It Is

Legendary producer and arranger Quincy Jones recently shared some insight on the modern music industry.

"Music has gone so far down lately because everyone is going after the money," he says. "People are making songs to sell all sorts of things such as tires, clothes and alcohol. When you go after the money, God walks out of the room, trust me. I never went out after the fame and money. I was just doing what I loved and the money came. You gotta do what you love and really believe in it because that is your truth. I plan to stay like that." 

Read and consider the rest of his thoughts on the industry, hip hop, techno, and the difference between contemporary and more... ahem... classic producers like Quincy himself here. I might respectfully suggest that such words from a living legend and a more-than-five-decade veteran of the music industry should carry some weight for those of us looking both to make music our living as well as for those who just enjoy being fans and listening.

Seems to me it might be time to reconsider a few things.

Somebody at Salon.com Gets It Right

I am, simply put, not a fan of salon.com. However, this article on David Foster Wallace and his prescient views on the effects of irony on art & culture contained the following brilliant excerpt:

'To make something new, to transcend, one must have an honest relationship with what is: history, context, form, tradition, oneself. Dishonesty is the biggest obstacle to making original, great art. Dishonesty undermines a work’s internal integrity — the only standard by which a work can succeed. If the work becomes a vehicle for one’s ego, personal or political agenda, self-image, desire for fame, adulation, fortune — human as these inclinations may be — the work will be limited accordingly.'

 Like I said, brilliant.

Dave Grohl's Advice for Aspiring Musicians

Pay close attention to what Dave Grohl has to say to up-and-coming artists and bands.


No matter how an artist chooses to promote themselves or distribute their music, the live experience will always be it. It will always be the thing. I think most of us would be hard-pressed to think of a single great musical act that has endured for decades that could not deliver live. Cover videos and online distribution and, as Dave puts it here, "product placement" are fine, but they cannot and will never replace the power of awesome live performance.

If you want to make fans for life, blow them away from the stage - great performance of great songs. Everything else is tertiary.

Luther on Music

"I wish to see art, principally music, in the service of Him who gave and created them. Music is a fair and glorious gift of God. I would not for the world forego my humble share of music. Singers are never sorrowful, but are merry, and smile through their troubles in song. Music makes people kinder, gentler, more staid and reasonable. I am strongly persuaded that after theology there is no art than can be placed on a level with music. For besides theology, music is the only art capable of affording peace and joy of the heart. The devil flees before the sound of music almost as much as before the Word of God.

"A person who...does not regard music as a marvelous creation of God, must be a clodhopper indeed and does not deserve to be called a human being; he should be permitted to hear nothing but the braying of asses and the grunting of hogs."

- Martin Luther

Quotables

It's been said that talking about music is like dancing about architecture. I disagree. And so do all these people.

“Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.” - Sergei Rachmanioff

"One of the perks of being an unemployed musician is that you get to play much less bad music." - Jack Daney

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." - Aldous Huxley

“Music... will help dissolve your perplexities and purify your character and sensibilities, and in time of care and sorrow, will keep a fountain of joy alive in you.”  - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything at all. Music expresses itself." - Igor Stravinsky

"Hell is full of musical amateurs." - George Bernard Shaw

Clapton's Final Paragraph

"The music scene as I look at it today is little different from when I was growing up. The percentages are roughly the same - 95% rubbish, 5% pure. However, the systems of marketing and distribution are in the middle of a huge shift, and by the end of this decade I think it's unlikely that any of the existing record companies will still be in business. With the greatest respect to all involved, that would be no great loss. Music will always find its way to us... Music survives everything, and like God, it is always present. It needs no help, and suffers no hindrance. It has always found me, and with God's blessing and permission, it always will."

- Eric Clapton, The Autobiography

(Courtesy: askmen.com)

Branford on Music Students

 

 Time to get humble, folks.

EVH

"....it was just given to me. God just picked me to do this. And you try to keep your chops up so whatever He gives you, you can execute."

- Eddie Van Halen