Tag: 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

It’ll be alright on the night: how musicians cope with performance stress

Jonas Kaufmann was 26 when he forgot how to sing. Kaufmann, who headlines at the Last Night of the Proms on Saturday alongside soprano Danielle de Niese and pianist Benjamin Grosvenor, is today a hugely acclaimed and in-demand tenor, described by the New York Times as one of the most versatile performers of his generation. But 20 years ago, he experienced a bout of stage fright so crippling it almost ended his career.

Kaufmann was singing in Richard Wagner’s Parsifal. With Act III approaching its climax, his voice simply deserted him. He stood paralysed, unable to utter a single sound, as the orchestra repeated his cue and the conductor gestured to him in increasing bemusement.

Kaufmann’s moment of paralysis was a common symptom of extreme performance anxiety, a physiological reaction to nerves which manifests itself as hoarseness and, at worst, losing the ability to sing altogether. He was, of course, able to overcome it after working with a vocal coach who helped him rebuild his technique so he felt completely secure in it, and thus confident on stage.

Kaufmann’s experience is more common among professional musicians than you might think. While some seem apparently immune to the pressures of a crowd, many of the greatest soloists in history.

The Guardian