Category: Music

Birdsong has inspired humans for centuries: is it music?

Avian choristers have long inspired listeners from all walks of life. It seems fair to ask if birdsong is simply a hard-wired, functional, primitive sound – or could we call it “music”?

Both sexes of pied butcherbirds participate in daytime group singing. However, their solo songs are principally nocturnal and may last as long as seven hours. Each adult soloist sings partially or even completely differently from another, and solo songs transform each year.

Intriguingly, these songsters share many musical sounds and behaviours with human musicians, including approaches to repetition and variation, and shape and balance. Pied butcherbirds are not unique. We also find overlaps with our sense of musicality in the vocalisations of species like nightingales, European blackbirds, and humpback whales.

Birdsong has inspired humans for centuries: is it music?

Was Bo Diddley a Buddha? – The New York Times

When I was in my 20s, I had the good fortune to play guitar as an opening act for the blues legend B. B. King. This lucky break opened many doors for me, and I soon found myself playing with other great blues musicians — Koko Taylor, Buddy Guy and Bo Diddley, to name a few. During one stretch time, Bo hired me whenever he played in Chicago.

Before my first gig with Bo, I spent a full week of intense preparation, learning and rehearsing his songs. On the opening night, he arrived to the venue five minutes before showtime. As he walked onstage in front of 500 shouting fans, I tried to tell him all the songs I’d prepared. He just looked at me blankly through his Coke-bottle glasses, plugged into his amp and launched into a loud, rhythmic riff on his trademark rectangular guitar. He never bothered to tell me what song we were playing, what chord changes were coming, what key we were in, or anything. But, as every blues and jazz musician knows, that’s how it goes.

After the first tune, he realized that I could follow him, and he cryptically shouted, “This monkey is tied, now let’s skin it!”

Was Bo Diddley a Buddha? – The New York Times

Making Music Boosts Brain’s Language Skills

Do you have trouble hearing people talk at cocktail parties? Try practicing the piano before you leave the house.

Musicians—from karaoke singers to professional cello players—are better able to hear targeted sounds in a noisy environment, according to new research that adds to evidence that music makes the brain work better.

National Geographic

Like It Is: Bob Dylan Explains What Really Killed Rock ‘n’ Roll

Writer’s Note: This is not an indictment on any particular act, or genre of music. Music is the Word. Period. This is simply an attempt to shed light on an unnerving moment in music historicity, and the devastating effects big money can have when attempting to hijack music’s forever unfolding. Input/ feedback/ distortion is welcome.

Last year, Bob Dylan gave only one interview about his recent live album Shadows in the Night, comprised of ten pop ballads made famous by Frank Sinatra in the late 50’s and early 60’s.

Was the sole interview with Rolling Stone or Vice? No — it appeared in the February/March 2015 issue of AARP. Of all things, right? I wondered, staring at Dylan’s aged visage in aviators and a bolo tie, if he was still up to his old tricks of trolling the press with salty wit.

Medium.com