Twitter, jazz and moving music forward into the stone age
So the other night my friend Jesse played at the Shorty Awards with his Tin Pan Blues Band. Because it was an awards ceremony dedicated to the best of Twitter, they were projecting people’s tweets...
View ArticleIs technological progress good or bad? Yes.
Technology keeps getting better. Do our lives get better as a result? In certain specific ways, maybe yes, but in general, I would say, not really. How is that possible? I think there are two big...
View ArticleClap your hands, stomp your feet
The most-sampled album in history is probably James Brown’s compilation In The Jungle Groove. It includes the original “Funky Drummer Parts One And Two” along with a sampling-friendly remix. It also...
View ArticleWhy is music so important in our lives?
Music has substantial evolutionary survival value. There’s a theory, which I find totally convincing, that music is the evolutionary precursor to language, the bridge between the cries and gestures of...
View ArticleFlute of Forgotten Dreams
I’m a huge stone age dork, so Werner Herzog’s 3D documentary about cave paintings was catnip for me. Here’s the trailer: There are some more clips on the IMDB page. Herzog was inspired by this Judith...
View ArticleHow has the representation of the human body changed in modern and...
Big question! First, a little philosophical throat-clearing: I don’t believe that modern/contemporary art is as radical a break with the past as it likes to think. I had an art professor in college...
View ArticleWhy do people love music so much?
We’re attracted to music for the same reason we’re attracted to fire: it’s been a critical survival tool for us for hundreds of thousands of years. Music cognition is one of the first high-level brain...
View ArticleJohn Dewey on music education as experience
If I’m going to understand progressive philosophies of education, then I need to understand John Dewey. So here we go. Dewey is a progressive hero. He was a supporter of women’s suffrage, a founding...
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