A fascinating individual with a great TED talk on a beautiful subject. If you’re interested in the seemingly magical properties of music to affect us in surprising ways, Robert Gupta’s presentations are must-see talks.
I can’t believe I’ve never seen anyone do this yet. Dave Finlayson, trombonist with the New York Phil, gets clever with his video camera. The performance is great but… I just can’t stop laughing.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soDn2puEuL8&w=420&h=315]
Aside from the entertainment and the performance itself, anyone who wonders how a trombone works is getting a close-up look. You can actually see the various distinct positions the slide has to be held at, and the quick but fluid motion necessary to get between them for a clean change of pitch.
In case you haven’t heard / seen / tinkered with this yet… you have to watch “Old Spice Muscle Music.” And be sure to noodle around with it after the short video is done. As a drummer and sound guy I was weirdly entertained!
Old Spice Muscle Music from Terry Crews on Vimeo.
A neat little edutainment channel on YouTube, called Vsauce, is full of geeky-fun videos about fascinating science questions. One I really enjoyed watching:
“Will we ever run out of new music?”
If I ask you to think about the song “Happy Birthday,” your brain can probably recall it for you and you can hear it playing in your head. This is called audiation.
Well, what if I asked you to hear “Happy Birthday” in your head… and at the same audiate “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” as well? Can you do it? I can’t either. Suddenly we’ve dropped off from a nearly universal, inborn ability to a very rare skill.
Now that you’re thinking about that… you HAVE to hear the Radiolab piece called “A 4-Track Mind” about the stunning and unique gift of ragtime pianist Bob Milne.