Book recommendation

[fasstrack]

I want to recommend in the highest way a book I stumbled on in the library yesterday: Music, the Brain, and Ecstasy by Robert Jourdain (Morrow, 1997). He's a scientist/musician who has very compelling thoughts about the nature of creativity, structure of composition and improvisation as they relate to memory, and the way these things form a confluence to impact and get strong reactions from the listener. These are supported by scrupulous research and the statements of many musical giants. His prose is top-notch and quite readable. I think anyone interested in music, the mind, improvising, or how we store and unleash ideas at the right time would get much from this book.

That's what I get going to the library in an attempt to pick up women.

Seriously, Jourdain is brilliant IMO. His thoughts on musical memory and both creativity and listening/responding validate my own, and his explanations of same are much more in-depth and scientific than my own could ever be. Great discussions, too, on the contrasting composing methods of a couple of fairly decent scribes named Beethoven and Mozart.

Edited October 14, 2009 by fasstrack

[Joe]

In the same vein -- though a much more difficult read, I think; quite Heideggerean -- is David Sudnow's WAYS OF THE HAND: THE ORGANIZATION OF IMPROVISED CONDUCT.

"Ways of the Hand tells the story of how David Sudnow learned to improvise jazz on the piano. Because he had been trained as an ethnographer and social psychologist, Sudnow was attentive to what he experienced in ways that other novice pianists are not. The result, first published in 1978 and now considered by many to be a classic, was arguably the finest and most detailed account of skill development ever published."

See: http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/defau...=2&tid=8512

[fasstrack]

quite Heideggerean

Heideggerean? I injured my self reading that

I've been more and more aware of 'extra-musical' explanations/roots of music the more I mature artistically and just by constantly performing. It seems to me if performing music (as opposed to writing it or some other activity away from the public eye) puts one in the 'eye of the hurricane' re social interaction we performers would do well to have some semblance of knowledge of what makes people tick. The natural outgrowth of that is concern with what they will respond to. The sociology piece has to do with the 'why' people respond (overlapping with psychology).

Some people have an uncanny ability to read people. I don't know that I do any more than the next guy but I find that studying and paying attention to how people act in groups and (obviously in our case) how and why they respond to music (in other words the effect we have on them) can at the very least make us want to be less self-involved. It's not about studying people to either please or control them (or measure reactions to calculate what to play), but about sensitivity period. None of this stuff makes me change anything I play, but I think being more aware of what might going on with people one interacts with can only help in any profession.

On another point (that I made earlier) what I loved about Jourdain's book is his analysis of how memory is organized and how it influences creativity. I don't want to speak for him and I already recommended the book. 'Nuff said.

But I'll look out for yours. Thanks.

Edited October 14, 2009 by fasstrack

[Bright Moments]

hmm - i just picked up this one:

[fasstrack]

hmm - i just picked up this one:

That's next on my list. Apropos of nothing I was looking through a Randy Newman songbook and was delighted to find he composed the ballad theme in Awakenings (the one Dexter as Rodolpho plays on piano). Gorgeous tune.

[medjuck]

I recommend This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin. Sacks refers to Levitin a couple of times in his book. Some of it gets a little tecnihical but there's great stuff in it and some wonderful anecdotes. (eg Joni Mitchell explaining that Jaco Pastorious was the only bass player who never complained that he couldn't figure out what chords she was using.)

Edited October 14, 2009 by medjuck

[fasstrack]

I recommend This is Your Brain on Music by Daniel Levitin. Sacks refers to Levitin a couple of times in his book. Some of it gets a little tecnihical but there's great stuff in it and some wonderful anecdotes. (eg Joni Mitchell explaining that Jaco Pastorious was the only bass player who never complained that he couldn't figure out what chords she was using.)

Will look into it. And how is Mr. Skvorky feeling? Better, I hope. His name was mentioned in Mike Zwerin's book La Trisstese de Saint Louis.