_How Music Works_ by David Byrne
McSweeneys, 2012
ISBN 978-1-936365-53-1
(17) Presuming that there is such a thing as "progress" when it comes to music, and that music is "better" now than it used to be, is typical of the high self-regard of those who live in the present. It is a myth. Creativity doesn't "improve."
NB: Our ancestors were as smart as we are. All the way back, too, our ancestors all the way back.
(28-29) It seems that creativity, whether birdsong, painting, or songwriting, is as adaptive as anything else. Genius - the emergence of a truly remarkable and memorable work - seems to appear when a thing is perfectly suited to its context. When something works, it strikes us as not just being a clever adaptation, but as emotionally resonant as well. When the right thing is in the right place, we are moved.
NB: The resonance is the point and its not limited to the emotions or audible sound.
(49) [Enlarged Talking Heads band] It might seem paradoxical, but the more integral everyone was, the more everyone gave up some individuality and surrendered to the music. It was a living, breathing model of a more ideal society, an ephemeral utopia that everyone, even the audience, felt was being manifested in front of them, if only for a brief period.
As I experienced it, this was not just a musical transformation, but also a psychic one. The nature of the music helped, but partly it was the very size of the band that allowed me, even as lead singer, to lose myself and experience a kind of ecstatic release. You can sometimes feel transported with a smaller group, but with a large band it is often the norm. It was joyous and at times powerfully spiritual, without being corny or religious in any kind of traditional or dogmatic way. You can imagine how seductive this could be. Its kinship with other more prescribed forms was obvious - the Gospel church, ecstatic trance in many parts of the world, and of course other kinds of pop music that derived from similar sources.
(52) I remembered a story about John Cage, who, when in Japan, asked someone what their religion was. The reply was that they didn't have a strict religion - they danced.
(58) Some of his [William Chow's, Peking Opera performer] comments were about how to make an entrance or how to direct an audience's attention. One adage was along the lines of needing to let the audience know you're going to do something special before you do it. You tip them off and draw their attention to you (and you have to know how to do that in a way that isn't obvious) or toward whoever is going to do the special thing….
A similar adage was "Tell the audience what you're going to do, and then do it."
(60) I made a documentary, Ile Aye (The House of Life), in Salvador, Bahia, (Brazil)
(67) Noémie began with an exercise [for dancers] I've never forgotten. It consisted of four simple rules:
1. Improvise moving to the music and come up with an eight-count phrase (In dance, a _phrase_ is a short series of moves that can be repeated.)
2. When you find a phrase you like, loop (repeat) it.
3. When you see someone else with a stronger phrase, copy it.
4. When everyone is doing the same phrase the exercise is over.
It was like watching evolution on fast-forward, or an emergent lifeform coming into being. At first the room was chaos, writhing bodies everywhere. Then one could see that folks had chosen their phrases, and almost immediately one could see a pocket of dancers who had all adopted the same phrase. The copying had begun already, albeit just in one area. This pocket of copying began to expand, to go viral, while yet another one now emerged on the other side of the room. One clump grew faster than the other, and within four minutes the whole room was filled with dancers moving in perfect unison. Unbelievable! It only took four minutes for this evolutionary process to kick in, and for the "strongest" (unfortunate word, maybe) to dominate. It was one of the most amazing dance performances I've ever seen. Too bad it was over so quickly, and that one did have to know the rules that had been laid out to appreciate how such a simple algorithm could generate unity out of chaos.
(80) The idea that somewhere out there exists one absolute truth implies a suspension of belief, which is an ideal for some, while for others admitting artificiality is more honest.
(89) Ignacio Varchausky or El Arranque and the documentary Si Sos Brujo [about old tango musicians]
(124) Early CDs, like the MP3s that followed, didn't sound all that great. Dr. John Diamond treated psychotic patients with music, but by 1989 he sensed that it had all gone wrong. He claims that the natural healing and therapeutic properties of music were lost in the rush to digitize. He believes that certain pieces of music can help soothe and heal, if they are the entirely analog versions, while the digital versions actually have the reverse effect. When his test subjects are played digital recordings, they get agitated and twitchy.
(149) Around this time, Eno and I were listening to a lot of the beautiful recordings released on the French Ocora label.
(155) It doesn't matter whether or not something actually happened to the writer - or to the person interpreting the song. On the contrary, it is the music and the lyrics that trigger the emotions within us, rather than the other way around. We don't make music - it makes _us_. Which is maybe the point of this whole book.
(156) I'm beginning to think of the artist as someone who is adept at making devices that tap into our shared psychological make-up and that trigger the deeply moving parts we have in common. In that sense, the conventional idea of authorship is questionable.
(239) One of their [Radiohead's] managers pointed out to me that it wasn't entirely the altruistic gesture it might have seemed [pay-what-you wish for new release]: so many of their fans were sharing files of their records immediately upon release (or sometimes even before) that they couldn't do worse than the pay-what-you wish plan. If there were going to be so many illegal downloads, this option might generate at least _some_ income from people who had previously paid nothing. As one of Radiohead's managers, Bryce Edge, told me, "The industry reacted like the end was nigh. 'They've devalued music, giving it away for nothing.' Which wasn't true. We asked people to value it, which is very different semantics to me."
How to Make a Scene
(253) 1. There must be a venue that is or appropriate size and location in which to present new material
(254) 2. The artists should be allowed to play their own material
(255) 3. Performing musicians must get in for free on their off nights (and maybe get free beer too)
(256) 4. There must be a sense of alienation from the prevailing music scene
(258) 5. Rent must be low - and it must stay low
(259) 6. Bands must be paid fairly
(260) When I later heard about bands actually paying to play in certain clubs, I knew things had been perverted in a terrible way. The desperate, innate desire to create and perform had been exploited rather than supported. It was like taking a basic human need, like wanting to love and be loved, and then finding a away to make money from it. It was a sign of the times. The me-first decade had begun.
7. Social transparency must be encouraged
(261) Plenty of music clubs are set up like movie theaters: when the show is over, everyone is asked to pay their bar and snack bills and leave. You can't go to most of these clubs just to hang out, because they have a schedule of specific show times, and if you show up before the show you came to see and there's an earlier set, you're not allowed in to see it. Needless to say, no one hangs out in these places. There is no community of musicians, and a scene can't begin to develop….
You know a scene is developing when you hang out at a place and you have no idea who's going to be playing
8. It must be possible to ignore the band when necessary
(262) It doesn't sound ideal, but maybe _not_ having to perform under intense scrutiny (it always seemed as if only the few folks in front were really paying attention) is important, even beneficial. This odd, relaxed, and even somewhat insulting arrangement allowed for more natural, haphazardly creative development.
(268) Capitalism tends toward the creation of passive consumers, and in many ways this tendency is counterproductive. Our innovations and creations, after all, are what keep many seemingly unrelated industries alive.
NB: anti-productive
(296) Roger Graef, who has written about the effectiveness of arts programs in UK prisons, believes that violence, like art, is actually a form of expression. Prisons, he says, are therefore ideal arenas for art creation and expression. Art can serve as an outlet for the violent feelings of inmates in a way that does not harm others, and that actually enhances their lives. Making art, Graef writes, "can break the cycle of violence and fear."
NB: violence as personal expression, Ballard's Crash and Super-Cannes
(307) Even in the periodic table of the elements, where all the materials that make up our world are ordered according to atomic weight, there are "harmonies." John Newlands, who worked on the table, discovered in 1865 that "at every eighth element a distinct repetition of properties occurs" - a pattern which he called the Law of Octaves. Newlands was ridiculed, and his paper on the subject wasn't accepted. But when his prediction that "missing" elements should therefore exist was later proven to be true, he was recognized as the discoverer of the Periodic Law. "Musical" relationships, it seems, are still viewed as governing the physical world.
(311) Walter Murch interview: In other words, Bode's Law gives a series of orbital ratios, which are mathematically identical to the common intervals in musical theory. They're primarily variations on what we call the 7th chord: C, E, G, B flat.
(317) This left only the vowel sounds, which are made with our vocal cords, as the pitched vocal sounds that are common among humanity. (No consonants are made using the vocal cords.)
NB: Vowels and open throat singing
(323) The first public concert was in London in 1672. It was organized by a composer and violinist named John Banister shortly after he was fired from the royal band. The price was one shilling, and the audience could make requests.
(342) In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki
(343) Why Is This Country Dancing? A One-Man Samba to the Beat of Brazil by John Krich
Homo Aestheticus: Where Art Comes From and Why by Ellen Dissanayake
(344) Walter Murch interview http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2007/04/heliocentric-pantheon-interview-with.html
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