Music as part of life

http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2018/11/22/lucia-micarelli-violinist-actress  

B minor indeed

Keyed.  Bminor.  is that a '64 bug?

Quantity or Quality?

https://playitdailyukulele.com/uke-practice-quality-quantity-answer-inside/

“In their book Art and Fear David Bayles and Ted Orland tell the story of a ceramics teacher who announced on the opening day of class that he was dividing the students into two groups. Half were told that they would be graded on quantity. On the final day of the term, the teacher said he would come to class with some scales and weigh the pots they had made. They would get an ‘A’ for 50 lbs of pots, a ‘B’ for 40 lbs, and so on. The other half would be graded on quality. They just had to bring along their one, perfect pot. 

The results were emphatic: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group graded for quantity. As Bayles and Orland put it: ‘It seems that while the ‘quantity’ group was busily churning out piles of work—and learning from their mistakes—the ‘quality’ group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.”

As possibly counterintuitive as this observation is, it does line up with the idea of "fail early and often", try something.  Try another thing. At some time you will hit on a NICE thing, which you can keep.  But if you just think about it, and never do, it's all theory.

If you have not already subscribed to Danno Sullivan's newsletter you should.  See https://playitdailyukulele.com/uke-practice-quality-quantity-answer-inside/

Feast of the East 20180616

Cleveland St at Mass Ave


All around Capitol Theater https://www.capitolsq.com/feast-of-the-east/

I'm Yours

wonderful:

Chords too hard? You're not the only one who thinks so!

https://theperiodicalukulele.wordpress.com/2018/05/18/new-ukulele-movement-reshapes-chord-structures/

Make up something!

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/29/health/brain-on-jazz-improvisation-improv/index.html

Not limited to Jazz or music improvisation - make up anything you want (why not pick a topic you enjoy?).  Make up new words to familiar songs (for the occasion).  Improv comedy -- don't be afraid of it.

from the article:

Fingers graze a keyboard, poised to play. A trumpet rises to the lips. Drumsticks perch in the air, ready to fall. The improv begins, and this combo of jazz musicians instantly creates a piece of music that has never been heard before.

As each instrument hijacks the melody, the song is reinvented in ways even the musician doesn't understand.

Revered jazz trumpeter Miles Davis put it this way: "I'll play it first and tell you what it is later."

For neuroscientist Dr. Charles Limb, jazz is pure creativity in action.

"When you hear great jazz, like John Coltrane or Miles Davis, it has this jaw-dropping quality to it, and what's been described as 'a sound of surprise' takes place," Limb said. "And you think to yourself, 'Wow, that's not just phenomenal music, that's phenomenal neurobiology.' "

Could jazz improvisation be a key to understanding how the brain invents? Could that creativity be studied? An accomplished jazz musician himself, Limb was the perfect scientist to tackle the project.