I just finished reading book number two for 2009: Oliver Sacks’ Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain. The book provides a broad look at music, its effects on the brain and certain disorders or psychological problems relating to music.

The book was enjoyable overall, being for the most part anecdotal. Sacks, a neurologist, provides countless stories of cases he and his colleagues have experienced over the years, and he sprinkles them with personality and identity with the patients so as not too be too impersonal.

However, on the whole, the book seems slightly elevated, giving a sense that one might appreciate it a bit more if they knew more of the terminology of neurology and psychology than the average reader. Coming from a musical rather than psychological perspective, this was certainly the case for me. That said, I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested first and foremost in psychology and music second.

The part of the book I enjoyed most was where the subject of music therapy was discussed. He looks at several severe mental conditions — Alzheimer’s, Tourette’s, Parkinson’s, etc. — and describes how music has played a part in not only easing the pain and frustration of those experiencing such issues, but also showing how in some cases music-based therapy can reverse some of the effects of these conditions.

I think I need to find something a bit less cerebral — pun intended — to read as book number three of 2009.

“Hey, how do you spell ‘mountain’?”

“Wh… what?”

“How do you spell ‘mountain’?”

“You design logos for Mountain Dew. How do you not know how to spell ‘mountain’?”

“Hahaha! I’m just messin’ with you! I can totally spell ‘mountain.’ Heh… heh…”

Of course, as I’m starting delve deep into this “artists doing what they’re created for” idea lately, someone has to go and prove my point by doing the opposite.

Lil’ Wayne, whose latest album I gladly play on repeat, is known for being prolific, always in the studio working on something. That, to me, is the sign of an artist that’s found their niche, and his is clever, fresh hip hop. Except now he’s decided to make a rock album. One listen will tell you this probably isn’t going to turn out well. It sounds like a natural-born rapper trying to not be a rapper and overlooking some genre “rules” in the process.

It’s an artist exploring. That has to be respected. If artists didn’t explore, nothing would ever change. But to release those explorations to the public could tarnish his image, and thus his art.

Maybe some artists are prolific in their niche because they are one-trick ponies that are particularly good at that one trick. If they didn’t explore, they wouldn’t ever know where the boundary was. But once they hit it, why venture across it to a place where judgment will be swift and painful?

Here’s Ingrid Michaelson covering Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love”:

It’s always interesting to me to see musicians covering other musicians’ work. It’s a very direct attribution to the original creator, and it probably happens more in pop music than in any other art form, at least at this point in time.

“Copying” art and attributing artistic predecessors are interesting things to think about. I would argue that the majority of the hip-hop world is built on honoring those that came before. Some call it copying, I call it respect.

But it’s 2:11 am so maybe I should talk more about that later.

Once again, I have a case of writer’s block. Last year when I decided to give up my songwriting and drawing goals after a couple months, it was because I wasn’t good at making myself create on cue. Clearly it’s no different for writing, though perhaps a bit easier for me to fake.

So there’s the question of the day: is it okay to fake art? To force it just to keep the creative momentum flowing? I don’t know the answer to that.

Seth Godin said this just today:

You could watch the most non-creative, linear-thinking, do-it-by-the-book cop work to solve a crime and you’d be amazed at how creative her solutions seem to be. Creative for you, because you’ve never been in that territory before, it’s all new, it’s all at the edges. Boring for her, because it’s the same thing she does every time. It’s not creative at all.

This makes me wonder if, in some sense, creativity is simply knowing your environment so well that you can flex and move within your personal limitations and that, for you, it doesn’t seem like creativity. It just looks like it to everyone else because you know your space better than they do.

So is creativity relative? Does it even exist? It seems like more of a product of practice than anything. Someone should write a book about that. Oh wait.

Much to the dismay of many an anti-hipster, I am thoroughly enjoying Animal Collective’s new album Merriweather Post Pavilion. The song “My Girls” especially is ridiculously catchy and ingenious.

This morning I watched the music video for “My Girls” and a sense of inspiration hit. All of a sudden there was an itch to be creating music. Something about the song touched the creative nerve in my brain (however dormant the action of creation may be). It reminded me of something Bob Boilen of NPR’s All Songs Considered said about a Radiohead show (that I was at!):

These guys write great songs, and sometimes you can even sing along to them, but what they do better than any band is create a sonic adventure — a soundscape which, at its best, stretches time and allows the mind to wander and rejuvenate. I think of it as resetting the synapses. Creativity breeds creativity. When the music was over, I felt unboxed and changed and pretty darn happy. Drugs are overrated; music is underrated.

Resetting the synapses. I like that. Everyone should make a list of songs (or any kind of art, for that matter) that resets their synapses, where its creativity inspires your creativity. Here are eight songs that inspire me to create:

1. Radiohead – “15 Step” (In Rainbows)
2. Black Moth Super Rainbow – “Forever Heavy” (Dandelion Gum)
3. Animal Collective – “My Girls” (Merriweather Post Pavilion)
4. Eightball – “Drama In My Life (feat. Psycho Drama)” (Lost – Chopped and Screwed)
5. Burial – “Archangel” (Untrue)
6. Radiohead – “House of Cards” (In Rainbows)
7. Ryan Adams – “The Shadowlands” (Love Is Hell)
8. M83 – “Lower Your Eyelids to Die With the Sun” (Before the Dawn Heals Us)

And an iLike playlist if you want to listen to the songs:

Read the rest of this entry »

The other day a friend asked my advice about an interesting predicament of hers. She’s in art school studying photography and does occasional wedding photography while she’s in school to earn some extra cash. The predicament arose when a client asked if she could mimic the style of a better-known photographer in the area.

My first reaction was that this was out of line on the client’s part to ask. Wedding photographers get hired based on their portfolio, so clients need to choose accordingly. To ask someone to use someone else’s voice is not only asking for a product they don’t sell, but it could very well ruin the end product by forcing the artist out of her natural flow, creating something sub-par.

My second reaction was for her sake: She would have to “practice” this other photographer’s style for the next few months before the wedding. As an art student, does she want to spend the coming months copying another artist’s voice when she should be focused on discovering her own? She’s aiming to be an artistic photographer, not a wedding shooter, so that seems like a bad idea.

Moral of the story: don’t force art. I keep saying this, but art in its truest form is creating that which the artist must by their nature. Not what someone else’s nature. Certainly there’s some control a paying client can ask for, but they need to know where the line is drawn.

I just got this link from Sir Cameron Ingall‘s Twitter and had to check it out, what with it relating to Radiohead and all. You can now “direct” a video of Radiohead playing “15 Step” live. I was going to show off my sad attempt at it, but the widget/link thing on their site isn’t working. It’s probably for the best. (In case it gets fixed, here’s a handy link.)

Isn’t technology wonderful? Radiohead has such a great grasp on how to publish content in the Internet age, and not just because they gave away In Rainbows for free. They’ve been pushing out all sorts of remix contests, video webcasts, and countless other things since the album’s release.

I think all of this has helped them keep fans and grow new ones in big ways over the past year. Of course, they have a budget that allows them to innovate and create these new ideas. Someone else just needs to take these ideas and make tools to do the same thing cheaply and easily for artists just getting their start.

Immediately at noon eastern time today, the new White House website went live. As a web developer, Internet nerd and open information enthusiast, I was very excited to see what Obama’s administration had done with the site.

The new design is regal, elegant and modern, befitting of a 21st-century president, and I’m glad to see they provide RSS feeds so that the information they publish is more accessible than ever.

But the most interesting detail was this:

One significant addition to WhiteHouse.gov reflects a campaign promise from the President: we will publish all non-emergency legislation to the website for five days, and allow the public to review and comment before the President signs it.

From the first post, Change has come to WhiteHouse.gov

I want to be optimistic here, because it is encouraging to see an immediate act of government openness. But, one, does this mean Obama and his advisors will actually be reading these comments? And, two, I know the Internet. Unless they build an ingenious moderation system to filter out trolls and spam, this could quickly become an empty promise when their commenting system allows far too much noise in with the signal. Even if it is well-moderated, it’s likely to become just one more place for one-issue groups to gather and “demonstrate” rather than provide a place for useful discourse to take place.

Good luck, Obama. I really hope you haven’t dug yourself into a hole with this one. That would be a bad way to start out a presidency that I have had a lot of hope in so far.

Sure, Wikipedia gets all the fame, but there are plenty of other ways for a crowd to create a useful collection of data. My personal favorite is MusicBrainz, who provide all sorts of tools collect and organize data about music. The perfect combination technology, music and an obsessive desire for an organized music collection.

If you’re tired of having AC/DC show up as three separate artists on your iPod or that misspelled track name has been bugging you, use MusicBrainz Picard to retag, rename and move your music files. And while you’re at it, contribute a change or two for the sake of doing something nice for others.

I imagine a day when, as soon as an any artist large or small confirms details of their newest release, it shows up on MusicBrainz, much like current topics show up on Wikipedia almost instantly.

Crowd-sourced data is extremely useful — not just for organizing your collection — and MusicBrainz may actually be a better example of this than Wikipedia, thanks to their voting system and having more strongly-typed data.

(Completely coincidentally, MusicBrainz is operated right here in San Luis Obispo, literally a block away from where I work. I didn’t even know this until well after I started using and contributing to the service. *cough cough* If you guys need a web developer… just sayin’.)

I promise to not be this nerdy the rest of the week.