4.24- Tuning Slide: The Never-Ending Gift

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Music is an outburst of the soul.
Frederick Delius

It is a week of gifts. No matter how we celebrate Christmas (or don’t) the season reminds us in both crass commercialism and in profoundly soulful ways that it is a blessing to give as well as receive. As a musician I have found that music is a two-way street. I most certainly enjoy playing music for an audience or a dance. It is my gift to them and watching people enjoy music is incredibly satisfying. But just putting it that way also indicates that when playing for others I get something back as well.

But just playing and listening to music, exploring it, figuring it out, letting it flow around and within me is in and of itself a gift to me. Perhaps more than that- a way of having my life enriched so that I can share it. If music were only about what it did for me, I would not have as rich an experience of music. The wonders of music are never ending. On any given week I come across numerous articles, studies, and personal reflections talking about how music can make a difference in life and in the world.

So for this Christmas Eve Day edition of the Tuning Slide I did some digging into the wonders of music from a number of different and quite diverse sources. What is it that music can do. Here from the magazine/website Business Insider are nine ways that music makes our lives better:

Music Can Help You Relax
Angry Music Improves Your Performance
Music Reduces Pain
Music Can Give You A Better Workout
Music Can Help You Find Love
Music Can Save A Life
Music Can Improve Your Work — Sometimes
Use Music To Make You Smarter
Music Can Make You A Better Person

Most importantly: Music makes us feel good, and in the end, that's worth a lot. (Link)

Lifehack.org came up with "7 Proven Ways Music Makes Your Life Better":

1. Listening To Music Reduces Stress
2. Listening To Music Improves Endurance
3. It Can Make You Healthier
4. Singing With A Group Of People Makes You Happier
5. Learning To Play An Instrument As A Kid Makes You More Successful Later
6. It Makes You Smarter
7. It Improves Your Memory
(Link)

I can attest to these powers of music. Take the time to check these two articles out and I will expect that you will agree.

If music be the food of love, play on.
William Shakespeare

In November the Space Weather news and web site informed us that the universe- or at least our near neighborhood produced music:

On Nov. 18th, however, something quite different happened. Solar wind hit Earth and produced ... a pure, almost-musical sine wave!… Rob Stammes recorded the event from the Polarlightcenter, a magnetic observatory in the Lofoten Islands of Norway. "A very stable ~15 second magnetic oscillation commenced and persisted for several hours," he says. "The magnetic field was swinging back and forth by 0.06 degrees, peak to peak, with the regularity of a metronome. … This was a very rare episode indeed." (Link)

The music of the spheres is not just a metaphor!

As one who works in addiction treatment I found this next piece more than a little interesting. It is from Recovery Unplugged, an addiction treatment program that bases its work on music. They are applying some of what the earlier links mentioned. On their website that talk about:

Why music works:
✓ Music is a core utility in the brain. Our brain responds to and process music in the womb. Music leads to language and all forms of communication.
✓ Our bodies and it’s rhythm. Every notice you’re walking to the beat of the music that you’re listening to?
✓ Music taps into our emotions. Have you ever listened to music and just felt happy? Or felt sad? See what I mean?
✓ Music enhances learning. Do you remember how you learned your ABCs? Through a song!
✓ Music taps into our memories. Have you ever been driving, heard a song on the radio, then immediately been taken to a certain place, a specific time in your life, or a particular person?
✓ Music is a social experience. Music experiences are shared with a group, whether playing in band or going to a concert. (Link)

To which I can only add, “Amen!”

At the Website BetterHumans.coach.me, Niklas Göke reviews some of the changes in the way people listen to music and the repercussions. He suggests several ways to become more intentional in his article "How to Make Music a Useful Part of Your Life Again". He suggests:

✓ Conscious Listening- This is awareness building. Take the time to just listen to music. Sometimes I find that difficult. I am using music to do so many things, just listening doesn’t always just happen.
✓ Web App: Listen on Repeat- This is a technique to put a You Tube video on repeat so you can perhaps dig more deeply into it. I know there are other ways to do this, but this will remind me that I should look into those, too. (Link)

And finally, take the time to go to The Ascent and read this article that sums up a lot of what this post is all about. Why Is Music So Powerful?

In the end, music is a gift that is multi-dimensional, both practical and just plain fun. Without it I life would have so little going for it. It is how we and the universe can communicate and stay tuned in to each other.

Have a great holiday week no matter how you celebrate the season!

Music in the soul can be heard by the universe.
Lao Tzu

4.23- Tuning Slide: Why We Love and Hate Christmas Music

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

Let us have music for Christmas… Sound the trumpet of joy and rebirth; Let each of us try, with a song in our hearts, To bring peace to men on earth.
~ Mildred L. Jarrell

It’s always fun to go digging and surfing on the Internet about music and musical subjects. For these few weeks I am moving away from the specifics of trumpet playing and going into the broader picture of music and life. Last week I started thinking about holiday music and focused on an old Hanukkah song by Peter, Paul, and Mary as well as a flash mob example for World Choral Music Day.

But it is Christmas that dominates the airways this time of year. Any attempt at deviation from the basics of Christmas music can bring the wrath of many. Who would have ever thought, before the Me Too Movement that a seemingly innocuous parlor song of a husband and wife over 74 years ago would be at the center of a controversy. A song that happens to also be an Academy Award-winning Best Song! Not to enter the controversy, but it does point out how music- and Christmas-related music- can be a hot button issue. Ignore the fact that the song, like a number of others that pass for popular this time of year have absolutely nothing to do with Christmas!

Anyway, music of the season is also a great tool to get you to buy, and then buy some more. Here is an article I found from a few years ago:

Scientists Prove Why Christmas Music Literally Drives You Crazy
That might be pleasant for a while, but soon you won't be able to escape it. Scientists have actually found out why it is that we love Christmas music in the beginning of season and despise it towards the end. It's called the "mere exposure effect," and it's coming for you this month. Because while it may be fun to hear once or twice, by the time you've heard "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" for the 13th time, you're liable to run someone over yourself.

According to NBC News, there's a statistically proven progression from love to hate during Christmas season. The chart looks like an upside-down U: Our familiarity with something across a couple of listens makes us think we love it, then it becomes oversaturated and we begin to hate it. It's like being tortured. The frustration and the boredom from hearing the same damn songs starts to become unbearable. Then the rage begins to boil, and all that cheery Christmas music playing endlessly on the radio starts to sound a lot more like the demonic carolers from the first Gremlins film.

It will play ceaselessly in stores and malls in attempts to encourage consumers to be more liberal in their spending. There's science to back that up, too. Shoppers spend significantly more time and money in stores playing slow-paced Christmas music.
— Link

Yes, but… why does this happen and why do we respond? From U S News and World Report in 2013:

Here's a riddle for you: When is a song not exactly a song? When it's a Christmas song.

Sure, holiday hits will take cues from tried-and-true music moves – feel-good chord progressions or dramatic blasts of choral crescendo. But just try to exercise your inner music critic next time you hear that Christmas tune you love to hate or hate to love or just love (chances are, you are not neutral on this subject).

Because there's nothing like the power of music to plumb – and elicit – the depths of human emotion. And there's nothing quite like the holidays to do the same thing, especially since the season comes with a playlist.

Indeed, the classics are classics for a reason, explains David Ludwig, dean of artistic programs at the Philadelphia-based Curtis Institute of Music.

"A lot of these songs have existed for hundreds and hundreds of years and have survived the test of time precisely because they're so singable, they're so accessible, they're so flexible," that they can work for a jazz ensemble or group of carolers, he says….

And music, he explains, is fundamental to celebration, be it Christmas or any happy occasion in any culture around the world. "Every celebration we have, I think people feel like it's not quite complete without music," Ludwig says. With Christmas in particular, "music has been really inextricably linked, hand in hand, with the holiday." …

Ludwig adds that the winter holidays are a particularly poignant time for music. "When it's most cold out and the bleakest, is sometimes the time when people want to celebrate the most," he says. "[That's when they] want the most warmth and sense of community with each other."
— Link

I agree. With both these articles. I love Christmas music for many of the reasons I like music in general. It can do so many things and express so many emotions. Kind of like Christmas itself. I started the season (in mid-November) listening to the “Holly” channel on Sirius XM satellite radio, but got very tired of it after about 10 days. Too many versions of Santa Claus is Coming to Town or My Favorite Things (incidentally, another of those this is not a Christmas song songs.) No, I don’t get homicidal with too many of those, I just go back to the Real Jazz channel!

On the other hand I don’t tend to get tired of the nearly 1,400 Christmas songs on my iTunes playlist. For one it is extremely diverse in almost every genre of music. Plus I can shuffle to the next one or pick an album that sets a mood that I am looking for. Beginning in 2011 I have produced my own Christmas video each year, missing only last year. I put them together as a way of expressing the many sides of Christmas as I am feeling it in any given year. (Here’s the playlist of my Christmas videos (LINK))

have done music slideshows and videos for over 45 years now. Music moves me to also put pictures to the songs. It is how I think and act. I never know what is going to move me in any given year for videos and for the Christmas video. This year as our quintet walked into the local Festival of Trees I was met with dozens of “Moravian Stars” and a big sign that said “Be the Light”. I knew where it was going.

So, to finish this week’s post, here is the 2018 video. I share it with the hope that something in the music and the words will move you. That is the power of all music. To move people, us, to be more than we have been and to move forward into whatever is coming next.

4.22- Tuning Slide: A Month of Holidays

Weekly Reflections on Life and Music

December is full of the beauty of Light and love we can bring into our life.You can chose to be stressed or you can choose to let the small stuff go and be peaceful this Holiday season. It really is a choice you make.
― Eileen Anglin

Music and holidays go together. Music, as any of us who are musicians and music lovers know, can be the most expressive way to celebrate a holiday- or just daily life for that matter.

• Love songs abound for Valentine’s Day.
• There are the ecstatic sounds of resurrection joy on Easter.
• We have elegies for Memorial Day.
• John Phillip Sousa moves us to marching on the 4th of July.
• The horse and sleigh carry us over the river and through the woods for Thanksgiving.
• There are even holidays that celebrate different styles and means of making music. (- Link)

December is a great Holiday Month. It is a whole month when we usually do celebrate a holiday- namely Christmas. But there are others as well, the most famous being the eight-day Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.

The darkness of the whole world cannot swallow the glowing of a candle.
— Robert Altinger

[Hanukkah remembers an event] that happened over 2000 years ago when the Holy Lands were ruled by the Greeks. A small army of faithful Jews defeated the Greeks and drove their army from the land. That was a miracle because the Greeks were very powerful. God had handed over the powerful to the weak. The Jewish people reclaimed their Holy temple in Jerusalem, and rededicated it to service to God. Part of that service was to light the menorah. There was only enough purified olive oil to light the candle for one day. It burned for eight days, until more purified oil could be made. God had done another miracle. To commemorate these miracles, the festival of Chanukah was started. Each night of the 8 day festival, a new candle of the menorah would be lit, remembering the 8 days that God kept the candles burning. By the end of the festival all eight lights are lit. (- Link)

The story of Hanukkah is one that reminds people to this day of the power of light. It also challenges people to this day to continue to keep their light shining. Like most holidays it isn’t just about remembering, it is also about living. (Kind of like most great music as well!) To celebrate then, here is an old Peter, Paul, and Mary song that celebrates the Festival of Light that Hanukkah remains to this day.

Light one candle for the Maccabee children
With thanks that their light didn't die
Light one candle for the pain they endured
When their right to exist was denied
Light one candle for the terrible sacrifice
Justice and freedom demand
But light one candle for the wisdom to know
When the peacemaker's time is at hand

Don't let the light go out!
It's lasted for so many years!
Don't let the light go out!
Let it shine through our hope and our tears.

Light one candle for the strength that we need
To never become our own foe
And light one candle for those who are suffering
Pain we learned so long ago
Light one candle for all we believe in
That anger not tear us apart
And light one candle to find us together
With peace as the song in our hearts

Don't let…

What is the memory that's valued so highly
That we keep it alive in that flame?
What's the commitment to those who have died
That we cry out they've not died in vain?
We have come this far always believing
That justice would somehow prevail
This is the burden, this is the promise
This is why we will not fail!

Don't let the light go out!
Don't let the light go out!
Don't let the light go out!
Songwriters: Peter Yarrow
Light One Candle lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc

I’ll dig more into holidays and music the next two weeks. But for today, turn on the music for you and celebrate.

But before you do that, yesterday (the second Sunday in December) was one of the music holidays: National Choral Music Day! Perhaps the new “tradition” of flash mobs may be one of the better ways to celebrate music in public and many of them are choral. I found this neat one on You Tube from UNASP EC which is an engineering school in Brazil. Yep, engineers singing! A choral flash mob of the Freddie Mercury/Queen classic- Somebody to Love.