Missing demo track found

// December 10th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Fun, Music

It requires an open mind, but if you are a music afficionado like me, this will likely become your official Christmas song year after year.

Christmas Demo Track

Sunny side up

// August 1st, 2008 // No Comments » // Daily Life, Mind, Random

This shot from my back deck reminds me of my brain most days. A random fog rolls in. After a time, the sun tends to break through the haze. Things are clearer. Thankfully this doesn’t happen every day.

Music is like this. Certain songs on first listen don’t get inside. A few more listens and it catches on. Reading certain texts like scripture or the Declaration of Independence has a similar effect. Upon a second or third reading, even years later in some cases, causes certain nuggets of truth to appear as if out of nowhere.

I suppose even relationships can take on this mystical quality. One day I realize something really special about my wife that wasn’t there before (from my vantage point). Little by little, the fog lifts.

I’ve realized I have to recognize it as the fog that it is, and the mostly temporary nature of it, before I can see the truth.

The expense of time

// July 30th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Daily Life, History, People, Travel

I visited a small city in Russia a few years ago. It’s really not that small. Formerly Stalingrad, now Volgograd, it’s a city where history lives just down the street from my good friend Vitaly (and a million or so others). I met Vitaly on a trip there with a all-volunteer orchestra from the US. Vitaly and I hit it off quickly. He knew English well enough and had a neat sense of humor. He is a taxi van driver and the pastor of a small church there. He gets paid by doing the former so that he can help others doing the latter.

So we’ve been keeping in touch via email regularly. I got to visit him again last year when I visited Moscow, Tomsk (Siberia), and Volgograd performing with a big band jazz group. This is one of those friendships that just picked up again as if I had only gone down the street for some groceries. He tells me his English is good but he always confuses kitchen and chicken in translation.

I sent him an email asking if he’s experienced the same kind of thing I had where weeks go by and the time in between vanished as if stolen by a thief. He responded well.

You said interesting thing about time. It is true. It is difficult to understand that every minute or hour which God gave us costs “very expensive”, and we shall to spend it very very wise. I pray to God about that regular. Life is short, pray hard.

Such truth from halfway around the world.  I look forward to visiting him again next year as our family plans a trip around the world with stops in Moscow, Volgograd, and then Taipei.  And don’t you forget to visit the  online destination called Watercooler Wednesday each week at Ethos.

Music in my head

// February 27th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Mind, Music

My first Watercooler Wednesday entry is about a book that takes a fascinating look into the ways in which our brain interprets and remembers music. The subtitle is “The Science of a Human Obsession.” Daniel Levitin was a former musician/producer who later studied the physiology of the human mind. Why is it that certain songs immediately bring us back to a place in our past as vivid as if it were yesterday? What is it about some songs that grab our attention while others appear flat? From the book:

Music communicates to us emotionally through systematic violations of expectations. These violations can occur in any domain — the domain of pitch, timbre, contour, rhythm, tempo, and so on — but occur they must. Music is organized sound, but the organization has to involve some element of the unexpected or it is emotionally flat and robotic.

This book isn’t for everybody, because at times it can be a little dry. And don’t read it to be a better listener of music. It is not designed for that. But if you are fascinated with the how things work (like the brain, for example), you’ll really be amazed at what that small mass of substance in our head grapples with each time you listen to your iPod. The author includes many different songs and styles from his year of working in the business. As he writes he’ll include a song title to make a point about a bass line or a type of phrasing. If nothing else, it will bring back some memories of your own.

Enjoy.