16 Music

So, we move from language and literature to another similar communication, music. Before we begin, what is your favorite song or piece of music? Take 5 minutes and listen to it.

Here’s mine. Pharrell Williams – Happy (Official Music Video)

So, you may have learned about how to classify musical instruments in a music theory class. Typically, in western music classes we talk about wind instruments, woodwind instruments, brass instruments, stringed instruments, and percussion instruments. Can you name one of each of these?

Take a look at this film. Is this ‘sound’ or ‘music”? Is it ‘poetry’, ‘language’, or something else?

El Silboby AngelloFaccini

Let’s watch a film about a Colombian flamenco guitarist living in Seville, Spain. As you watch this film, consider the following:

The Man is the Music by Maris Curran (Length: 19 min. Place: Atlanta, GA)

The Man is the Music draws us into Atlanta-based artist and musician Lonnie Holley’s imaginative and captivating world. Prolific artist, musician and lover of Mother Earth, Holley treasures the discarded. Nurturing the neglected, he finds healing in the transformative power of art. This short documentary is not so much a portrait of the prolific artist and musician, as an experiential reflection on art as a way of life. Holley’s work is a product of the environment in which he was raised —Jim Crow Alabama—and reflects the impact of being socially discarded. Holley compulsively creates and his work is a means to deal with loss. It’s through his unique perspective and the process of creating beauty that Lonnie draws us into an imaginative and captivating world.

Create a piece of art from garbage. What lyrics might accompany your art?

Vincent Moon and Nana Vasconcelos: Hidden Music Rituals Around the World

Vincent Moon travels the world with a backpack and a camera, filming astonishing music and ritual the world rarely sees — from a powerful Sufi ritual in Chechnya to an ayahuasca journey in Peru. He hopes his films can help people see their own cultures in a new way, to make young people say: “Whoa, my grandfather is as cool as Beyoncé.” Followed by a mesmerizing performance by jazz icon Naná Vasconcelos.

A soundscape is the acoustic environment as perceived by humans, in context. The term was originally coined by Michael Southworth[1], and popularised by R. Murray Schafer.[2] There is a varied history of the use of soundscape depending on discipline, ranging from urban design to wildlife ecology to computer science.[3] An important distinction is to separate soundscape from the broader acoustic environment. The acoustic environment is the combination of all the acoustic resources, natural and artificial, within a given area as modified by the environment. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standardized these definitions in 2014.(ISO 12913-1:2014)

A soundscape is a sound or combination of sounds that forms or arises from an immersive environment. The study of soundscape is the subject of acoustic ecology or soundscape ecology. The idea of soundscape refers to both the natural acoustic environment, consisting of natural sounds, including animal vocalizations, the collective habitat expression of which is now referred to as the biophony, and, for instance, the sounds of weather and other natural elements, now referred to as the geophony; and environmental sounds created by humans, the anthropophony through a sub-set called controlled sound, such as musical composition, sound design, and language, work, and sounds of mechanical origin resulting from use of industrial technology. Crucially, the term soundscape also includes the listener’s perception of sounds heard as an environment: “how that environment is understood by those living within it”[4] and therefore mediates their relations. The disruption of these acoustic environments results in noise pollution.[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundscape

https://www.vincentmoon.com/map.php

Here are several Ted Talks from a playlist that may answer some of those questions.

Robert Gupta: Between music and medicine.

When Robert Gupta was caught between a career as a doctor and as a violinist, he realized his place was in the middle, with a bow in his hand and a sense of social justice in his heart. He tells a moving story of society’s marginalized and the power of music therapy, which can succeed where conventional medicine fails.

Tod Machover and Dan Ellsey: Inventing instruments that unlock new music

Tod Machover of MIT’s Media Lab is devoted to extending musical expression to everyone, from virtuosos to amateurs, and in the most diverse forms, from opera to video games. He and composer Dan Ellsey shed light on what’s next.

Ji-Hae Park: The violin, and my dark night of the soul

In her quest to become a world-famous violinist, Ji-Hae Park fell into a severe depression. Only music was able to lift her out again — showing her that her goal needn’t be to play lofty concert halls, but instead to bring the wonder of the instrument to as many people as possible

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Benjamin Zander: The transformative power of classical music

Benjamin Zander has two infectious passions: classical music, and helping us all realize our untapped love for it — and by extension, our untapped love for all new possibilities, new experiences, new connections.

Evelyn Glennie: How to truly listen

In this soaring demonstration, deaf percussionist Evelyn Glennie illustrates how listening to music involves much more than simply letting sound waves hit your eardrums.

Michael Tilson Thomas: Music and emotion through time.

In this epic overview, Michael Tilson Thomas traces the development of classical music through the development of written notation, the record, and the re-mix.

When we listen or perform music, how do we critique or categorize or study music?