Music of the Mind

This week I was watching a CNN documentary about the Waco standoff and how they used different sounds as a form of psychological torture--these included the sound of phone off the hook and the constant playing of "Jingle Bell Rock" (!? I can think of A LOT of other more annoying songs--"Must Be Santa" immediately comes to mind). Of course, this is nothing new, music has been used as a force to bring down about change (the 60s), flush out those in a standoff (Manuel Noriega), and control a populace (the Taliban's ban on anything remotely fun). As a form of expression, it can be free, beautiful, liberating or controlled and oppressed...but not really....we can always hum a tune in our heads or create songs the world will never hear in the privacy of our mind--no special training or tools needed (seems the Taliban never did find a way around that). It is a form of expression open to all.

Maybe only a few get heard by many, but all can be heard by some.

This week's video is a tribute to Elisabeth Sladen aka Sarah Jane Smith. This week's season premiere of Dr. Who was bittersweet--Sleep Well, Our Sarah Jane http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67yfZHpuWqg

I wonder, wonder, wonder

Greetings from Snowy Illinois. It has been a challenging week personally but today I will ponder the professional. Discussions about music, and why we listen to what we listen to are all very interesting but I can say that in the five years I have worked at the reference desk of my public library they have never come into play nor have I ever been asked for music advisory. Everyone seems to know what they like...now the question that I ponder is "Will they be able to get it?"

The rise of iTunes and eBooks have made the majority believers in portable technology. This is all well and good when you can download "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" for free from your library. But now Harper Collins has decided to put a limit (26) on the number of times a book can be downloaded under a license agreement. Over 26, you need to buy a new one. Ah, its all fun until someone figures out how to get you hooked---and then you get owned.

I wonder if the same thing will happen to music. Will there no longer be original hard copies available to the general public. Will all music become digital? No doubt the poor and technologically non savvy will suffer. I doubt this will happen soon. The typewriter was replaced by the keyboard, the record by the CD, and soon the CD by the online version. 50 years from now, will libraries have anything to check out to patrons?

This week's video---suggested by my post title---Gloria Estefan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXZoBvygp4U

Kathy

PS Enjoy the season premiere (mere hours after the Brits watch it) of Dr. Who on Saturday. Thank you, BBCAmerica!

The Soundtrack of Our Lives

Music is a part of our everyday existence, from singing in the shower, rocking out with the radio on the way to work, as part of worship in church, or at the gym on the treadmill working out to a pace set by the tunes on your iPod. Thanks to technological advances music is more portable, more personalized. It can also be found in places where once it was taboo. In libraries patrons listen to music on their computers making no more noise that someone reading. Thanks to the Internet and sites such as youtube.com its no longer simply auditory, there is a visual component- be it a band's official video or a song being used to highlight clips from a person's favorite movie or television show. Also artist sites have concert footage as well as special webcasts.

Music is also in a person's memory. A local radio station (and no doubt others across the country) advertises that it plays "the soundtrack of our lives." Sometimes music is so tightly intertwined with an event one cannot be mentioned with the other. Case in point, my sister and I and our childhood trips to Vermont.

We lived in Schenectady, New York as children in the early 70s, just a short ride from the Vermont border. Every Fall my parents would pile us in the car and say we were going to "look at the leaves" (actually that was code for "let's make a liquor run before the holidays since Vermont doesn't have a tax on the stuff.") There are certain things I will always remember about those trips and decades later I was curious if my sister had the same memories. So, I asked my her what she remembered about the Vermont trips.

Her reply was identical to mine. "It always rained, Mom and Dad always bought booze...and every time we went "Brandy" played on the radio!"

Looking Glass is no mere one hit wonder for the Ponton girls!

Music and memory are personal. What might bother one, may have no effect on another. A friend going through a divorce let his wife keep all the CDs as he said he would never be able to listen to them without thinking of her and how it all went wrong. I still love the song "More Than This" even though it was the first song my ex-husband and I danced to at our wedding. Its all personal, based on style, taste, mood and memory. There is really no defining it or quantifying it. It is.

So now, in honor of my Dad who passed away on April 16, 1994...this week's video--- "Brandy" by Looking Glass http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-dleViv2nc

Corrina, Corrina...or I don't get it

"Somebody once wrote that writing about jazz is like dancing about architecture." Manny, Corrina, Corrina

To be honest this week's entry will be short. The reason for this is that the links found at http://www.visualcomplexity.com/vc/index.cfm?domain=Music were pretty to look at and mildly interesting but didn't provoke much reaction besides that. Actually, they reminded me of a comment a friend made after seeing Blue Oyster Cult in the late 70s---"Their light show was so good, you didn't even need to be stoned to enjoy it!" Sorry, but all these clouds and maps and manipulations are creative and fun but that's about it. Maybe being 49 I just don't get it. Seeing music mapped out or presented in a visualized artistic form does nothing to increase my knowledge or enjoyment of it. I never like the swirling colors that Media Player provided as a backdrop to the songs I was playing on the computer.

So while I commend all those how put in the hard work, I saw nothing that will have me make a return visit.

In honor of the scientific types (who no doubt possess minds far more creative than mine) who created these websites, some music from one of the first mainstream technogeeks. Mr. Thomas Dolby http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkj4p3rI17s