Entertainment For Lively Minds
The podcast makes a musicological house call on Philip Ball
This started with Kate and Fraser going to a lecture given by Philip Ball. He's a science writer who has published books about a wide range of subjects from chemistry to cathedrals. His latest is "The Music Instinct: How Music Works And Why We Can't Do Without It".
Reckoning it's about time we got an education we went down to Philip's place in south London to record him talking about the historic and scientific roots of music, why certain things sound good to us and some things don't and the assumptions that underpin our judgements on whether music is acceptable or not. We learned a fair bit. Hope you will too. Usual routine. You can sign up here to make sure you get the podcast every week or your can stream it below:
sounds very interesting.
the haircut looks good too, Mr H.
Ah...
so this is the fabled 126 pod
Great
Interesting analysis, and lovely to hear some love for SAHB.
This was the first single I ever bought.
the pictures are all George Best - I can't find another version on YouTube
Podcast Button
At top of homepage leads to last week's podcast, and as now seems the norm, the play icon on this page isn't visible.
Yes, I am a tech dunce.
Brilliant interview
Loved this. I can't wait to read his book now.
(Can recommend Daniel Letivin's 'This is Your Brain On Music' for those interested in this sort of thing - obviously, I don't know yet how much the two approaches overlap, though...)
Agreed re Levitin
http://www.psych.mcgill.ca/levitin/bio.html
http://www.yourbrainonmusic.com/
If he has e.g. a new book to plug I think he'd be great for a sequel, possibly the only academic brain researcher who has been a sound engineer and can go and talk to Joni Mitchell about tunings
He has a film called My Music Brain which BA have been showing recently and which I think Sky have also shown. Has quite a lot to say about the balance between surprise and expectation which seems to be the key.
Levitin on Ball
Levitin reviewed Ball's book (positively) in last Wednesday's Nature. I'll post a short excerpt here later on.
Bright Earth
If you are at all interested in art, specifically painting, I recommend Bright Earth by Philip Ball. It's all about the development of paint and pigments, and the advances in the chemistry of paints, and how painting changed as a result. An original and science-based, different angle on art history. The author's an impressive individual.
Enjoyed the 'cast a lot.
and his book "Critical Mass".
I've started on a thread on the Aeolian mode separately, no takers so far-but I think the question that prompted it, that Kate asked, about the emotional content of music many hundreds of years ago is very interesting.
For myself I think the beautiful melancholy of something like "Have you seen but a bright lily grow" on here
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Care-Charming-Sleep-John-Potter/dp/B0000AP6HK
is probably not very different from what people at the time would have heard, what is harder for me to really get into is something like Spem in Alium, and I am really curious as to how different people would experience such music. Jonah Lehrer's book
Proust was a Neuroscientist
http://www.jonahlehrer.com/also_available
has if anything enhanced my appreciation of how much we are all unique, cognitively, it's a great complementary read to the books mentioned here.
Thanks for the suggestions.
As a former art student I have read serious discussions about what painting is but not music so much, I guess I go more for the biographical stuff and critical writings on pop. 'Revolution in the Head' is about as serious as it's got, though the technical analysis rather goes over my head at times. But this podcast might well lead me to dig a bit deeper into music.
Fascinating podcast
Great stuff. Years ago when I was in Kenya for a holiday, I heard a bird using syncopation in its call. Kind of 'duh duh duh duh duh DUH duh/duh duh duh duh duh...DUH duh'; and I thought to myself that, until then, I had always assumed jazz to be a human invention. But seemingly not. It's out there in the natural world.
Great podcast.
Will definately look out for the book. Still got to get that Pomona book too...
I see he's doing Radio 3's Private Passions now
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/playlive/bbc_radio_three/
and he likes Sonic Youth...
... top man!