Category: Music

Before I’d finished the first chapter two wonderful facts and interpretations had leaped out from the pages of Powell’s book. First, The Star Spangled Banner [shouldn’t it have a hyphen? Ed.] is sung to the tune of The Anacreontic Song, which is basically (second verse anyway) the 17th Century equivalent of Ian Dury’s Sex and Drugs and Rock ‘n Roll with its lines:

And, besides, I’ll instruct you like me to entwine
The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus’s vine

And then Powell refers to the “gentle poetry” of Motorhead’s Ace of Spades and the “gritty realism” of Donny Osmond’s Puppy Love. Now, that’s class in non-fictional writing I’d say.

I cry each night my tears for you
My tears are all in vain

vs.

If you like to gamble, I tell you I’m your man,
You win some, lose some, it’s all the same to me

Anyway, Powell’s book is a perfect match for the sciencebase site – songs and science – in John Powell’s latest book: “Why We Love Music: From Mozart to Metallica” out 5th May and available to order now.

From the book’s blurb: “Why does music affect you so profoundly? It impacts the way you think, talk, feel, behave and even spend money. With his conversational style, humour, and endless knowledge, scientist and musician John Powell showcases fascinating studies – for example that shoppers spend more money in stores that play classical music and, even more astounding, they are more likely to buy German wine in stores playing German music. With chapters on music and emotions, music as medicine, music and intelligence, and much more, Why We Love Music will entertain through to the very last page.”

Full review to follow…

In the meantime, here’s Dr Powell explaining wind instruments with beer, scissors and a straw

“Sing what needs to be sung, nothing more, nothing less” — David Bradley

“Nowadays, what isn’t worth saying is sung” — Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, The Barber of Seville

“Anything worth thinking about is worth singing about” — Bob Dylan, Singer-songwriter of Minnesota

“The key to longevity is to learn every aspect of music that you can” — Prince, Another singer-songwriter of Minnesota

“How strange when an illusion dies. It’s as though you’ve lost a child” — Judy Garland Actor-singer of Minnesota

 

UPDATE: There is a movement among musicians to boycott the major streaming services and to hope that music fans do to. Indeed, many musicians would be happy if listeners pirated most of the music they listen to if they’re not going to buy CDs or vinyl rather than pay a monthly fee to a streaming service that pays the artists a tiny fraction of a penny per listen.

Yesterday there was yet another hacking scare. Rumours went around that users of the popular music streaming site, Spotify, were seeing tracks they weren’t expecting, their playlists were skewed and other problems arose. Security bloggers suggested we all change our passwords immediately as a precaution (it’s a good idea to refresh passwords from time to time, anyway). Spotify is denying a breach although a data dump that looks suspiciously like Spotify usernames, passwords and personal details turned up online, according to Mashable.

Anyway, I alerted my Facebook and Twitter crowd as soon as I heard, again, it’s sensible to refresh passwords and this was a better safe than sorry situation at the time whether or not it eventually turns out that Spotify had a data breach.

One wag on my Facebook page, however, gave me a laugh this morning, pointing out that she has asbolutely no intention of changing any passwords because her whole music collection is on vinyl. Hah! She can keep her crackles and pops though and I do wonder how she manages to take his music with her when he travels…or…maybe…just maybe…she doesn’t need to and is quite content to absorb the acoustic atmosphere of the places she visits without blocking it all out with noise-cancelling earbuds and the latest Bowie tribute/Beyonce soft drink/Miles Davis soundtrack…or whatever.

It would be a very Zen moment, wouldn’t it, if we all went back to unblocking our ears, as we did for the 99.999% of human history before the invention of the Sony Walkman.

UPDATE: “looking for treble”, “all about the bass”, “it’s a sign”, “big mouth” now all available as various types of print, as greetings cards, throw pillows (scatter cushions), phone covers, duvet covers, and shower curtains from the sciencebase FineArt site. Others to follow. Please put in a request for your favourite.

The original two sets I did can be found on my Imaging Storm site. I reckon these would be perfect for beermats, mugs, fridge magnets, teeshirts, cushion covers and much more as gifts and giveaways for the muso in your life. Let me know if you’d like high-res versions to print, I can also edit them to include your logo and link

My musical celebration of the recent announcement of the discovery of gravitational waves, ripples in spacetime, the very fabric of our reality, generated by the collision of two black holes 1.3 billion light years away that began their outward journey at the time multicellular life on Earth was first beginning to emerge.

Why are all our rock heroes dying? David Bowie, Motorhead’s Lemmy and former drummer Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor, Yes’s Chris Squire, Toto’s Mike Porcaro, Mott the Hoople’s Dale Griffin, blues legend B.B. King, REO Speedwagon’s Gary Richrath, bassist Jimmy Bain, electronic music pioneer Edgar Froese, Greek great Demis Roussos, APP’s Chris Rainbow, Free’s Andy Fraser, legendary Lindisfarne’s Simon Cowe, Paul Kantner and, on the same day, Signe Toly Anderson from Jefferson Airplane, EW&T’s Maurice White (the day before I wrote this), The Eagles’ Glenn Frey, Colin Vearncombe (aka Black)…the list goes on…

Any claims that any of these deaths were anything to do with the sex and drugs and rock ‘n roll excesses of the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, 10s, would be pure speculation. It’s just pure statistics people, there is no conspiracy. They’re simply getting old and succumbing to the diseases of old age. Too old to die young…

There’s a gallery of rockers we lost in 2015 here

A century since Einstein’s published his General Theory of Relativity and the launch date of the new track from Diagrams, the artistic moniker of Sheffield-based Sam Genders on which I played a tiny advisory role on a nanoscopic part of the lyrics.

“I’m fascinated by science and had been reading Einstein’s biography on the last European tour,” says Genders. “When I read that the centenary of the theory was approaching I was inspired to write a song to commemorate it.”

Swirling atmospherics reflect the cosmic subject matter, which inspired the track as synthesizers hum and whirl; yet these textures are juxtaposed with Genders' rich, subtle vocal delivery and pastoral horn arrangements. The overall effect is wistful, but cautiously optimistic, drawing parallels between the incomprehensibility of universal matters, and, as Genders puts it, 'the cosmos that we each have inside our heads.

The imagery included in Bates’ animation alludes to these parallel themes, as two figures seek to be reunited as they float through the void. They drift past intricate, intertwining concentric patterns while Genders sings of dancing ‘like two electrons held in the orbit of a radium ion’.

I’ve been casting around for a good way to avoid the trip hazard that is the generic guitar lead, they’re tiresome in my home “studio” where wires are everywhere, but, also a mission critical problem in the small venues I’ve gigged at, especially when fellow musicians tread on them mid-song and suddenly I’m unplugged and silent…

Turns out there’s a local company here in Cambridge, SmoothHound, who have weighed in with a clean and lean piece of kit that could be the best catch for the home musician, street buskers, the semi-pro (and probably even) pro gigging players. Their classic Wireless Guitar System uses digital wireless audio to get rid of the wire but avoids that whole bulky belt pack transmitter technology too. In fact, having tried it out in a live setting a couple of times, I can vouch for the fact that you almost forget it’s there, it just jacks into your guitar (electric, electro-acoustic, bass, whatever) almost out of sight and out of mind. The receiver simply plugs into the desk or your amp and sends out rich, high-fidelity sound, that picks up every nuance of your tone without any of the nasty hiss of the outmoded VHF-type systems out there.

It’s all very easy to setup. Just plug it in and switch on. The system automatically adapts to the environment and avoids interference from any nearby Wi-Fi gadgets. Moreover, the SmoothHound has an ARM chip in the transmitter and in the receiver to encode and decode the signal from your guitar without any loss of quality and does all that pretty much instantaneously giving it a very low latency, which worked perfectly playing live with my electro-acoustic Taylor  six-string recently). Speaking of which, the system has a range of about 60 metres, which is more than adequate for your home studio or the upstairs room at the local pub.

The two AAA batteries in the transmitter last about 15 hours, which would be plenty even for Springsteen, and the mains-powered receiver has a charge indicator for transmitter battery strength so your guitar tech (yeah, right) knows when to run to you with replacements, preferably not mid-song. Oh, and here’s a top tip: being wireless at your soundcheck means you can step away from the performance area and listen to the full band (and you), which is a very useful thing to be able to do when setting up!

I’ve been fishing for an angle for this review and so I’m reeling in a few puns I’ve hooked just to say that the SmoothHound frees you entirely from the guitar lead that so often gets snagged and tangled while you play whether you’re gigging or riffing on a chair at home with your Marshall cranked up to 11. Highly recommended. Weigh up SmoothHound here or sail on over to amazon to land one right now.