A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol

 Robinson Music, Inc. to hold Sixth Annual

Metrowest Musical Fun Day!

6/8/14 – WESTBOROUGH, MA – On Sunday, June 8th, 2014 from 12- 4 pm Robinson Music, Inc. plans to hold their sixth annual Metrowest Musical Fun Day!

This event will be a great opportunity for children and their parents to hear, touch and try out a variety of musical instruments, including guitar, piano, and all typical school band and orchestral instruments with the assistance of professional musicians - the perfect chance to explore the possibilities for those who’ve been thinking about playing an instrument but haven’t quite decided which one.

Students who have decided to play an instrument in the school band or orchestra and want to get a head start on learning how to play it will receive coupons valid for discounts on their first lesson and be able to reserve rentals for the summer or fall at special 3 month rates for as low as $21.99. 

All band and orchestra accessories will be on sale throughout the day at Special Fun Day Pricing!

In addition, demos, sample classes and informational flyers will provide details about programs offered in the RMI Lesson Center.  Particularly of interest will be this summer’s programs, which currently include Drum Line,  our “Unique Percussion” featuring Steel Drums, Guitar for Kids (ages 7 – 12), Kids On Keys (ages 4 – 8) and Children’s Summer Singing Weeks (ages 5 – 9), both of which can be found at www.karenamlaw.com/childrens_music.html.

Students studying in RMI’s Lesson Center will be performing throughout the afternoon – sharing their talents on their chosen instruments for your listening pleasure.  We’ll also have a live band playing outside on the green.  Free hotdogs, chips and soft drinks will be available throughout the day.

To find out more about Metrowest Musical Fun Day!

 Robinson Music Soprano to Present

Vissi d’arte - Vissi d’amore . . . Così è la vita!

I live for art - I live for love . . . Such is li

06/07/14 – WORCESTER, MA – Soprano Karen Amlaw, accompanied by pianist Mark McNeill, will present Vissi d’arte - Vissi d’amore . . . Così è la vita! I live for art - I live for love . . . Such is life! on Sunday, June 7th, 2014 at 3 PM in Birches Auditorium at Briarwood Community Center, 65 Briarwood Circle, Worcester, MA.  Admission to this performance is free and open to the public (donations to defray the costs of preparing and presenting this program will be accepted at the door).

The program, selections of women’s musing moments in songs & arias, is planned to open with Amy Beach’s Three Browning Songs followed by Richard Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder.  The second half of the program includes arias from Puccini’s Tosca, Verdi’s Ernani, Cilèa’s Adriana Lecouvreur, and Ponchielli’s La Gioconda.

Ms. Amlaw, first alternate in Connecticut Concert Opera’s 2013 American Opera Idol Competition, recently has been proclaimed as “magnificent,” “absolutely gorgeous,” and “destined to sing.”  In 2003 she returned to singing after a 15 year leave and since then has sung several partial roles including Verdi heroines Aida (Aida), Elvira (Ernani), Desdemona (Otello), Leonora (La forza del Destino), Elisabetta (Don Carlo) and both Amelias (Un ballo in maschera & Simon Boccanegra).  Other partial roles have included Nedda (Pagliacci), Santuzza (Cavalleria rusticana), Maddalena (Andrea Chénier), and the title roles in Tosca, La Gioconda, Madama Butterfly, and Adriana Lecouvreur, among others.  She sang Mother Gerald in Boston Opera Collaborative’s production of Dialogues of the Carmelites under the direction on Marc Astafan and Michael Strauss and has been featured in programs with Longwood Opera, Opera Worcester, Mass Theatrica, Greater Worcester Opera (formerly known as Worcester Opera Works) and Lowell Opera Company.  Ms. Amlaw is currently under the tutelage of world renowned dramatic mezzo Sondra Kelly and acclaimed New York based coach/conductor Douglas Martin.  When not singing you can find Ms. Amlaw in Studio #5 at Robinson Music teaching Kids on Keys as well as private piano.

A sought after collaborative pianist, Boston native Mark McNeill is a graduate of the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, MA, where he earned a graduate performance diploma with distinction in collaborative piano with an emphasis in vocal accompaniment.  As a Stern Fellowship recipient at Pepperdine University‘s Songfest in Malibu, California Mr. McNeill worked with Martin Katz, Graham Johnson, and Margo Garrett.   He has served as assistant music director for Intermezzo, the New England Chamber Opera Series, and has further experience with both stage and musical directing, conducting and arranging for small orchestra, and audio recording/production.  Past recitals have taken him to Germany, Austria, Greece, and throughout the Northeast.  His current and past teachers include Brian Moll, Elena Roussanova Lucas and Meropis Kollarou.
 

To find out more about Ms. Amlaw or this upcoming performance

Visit Ms. Amlaw’s website at www.karenamlaw.com/Karen-Amlaw-Soprano.html

Check out this event on Facebook at www.facebook.com/events/1411825355750464

View a flyer for this event at www.karenamlaw.com/Recital_Poster_2014.jpg

"Sheer exuberance" -The New York Times

“These youthful players are helping form classical music's future. Long may they ECCO.”       -The Washington Post

In 2001, a group of musicians – colleagues and friends from leading conservatories and music festivals across the country collectively – envisioned the creation of a democratically-run, self-conducted chamber orchestra that would thrive on the pure joy and camaraderie of classical music making. This organic approach and high level of passion and commitment resulted in ECCO, a dynamic collective that combines the strength and power of a great orchestral ensemble with the personal involvement and sensitivity of superb chamber music. 

Now soloists, principal musicians from across the country, and renowned affiliates with the Marlboro music Festival, ECCO has received nothing but great acclaim ever since its formation. The program for their Worcester debut demonstrates ECCO’s efforts to define the future of orchestras – a mix of great works by composers known and unknown, classical and non-classical.

Members of the East Coast Chamber Orchestra will be presenting a mini-performance and masterclass for Burncoat High School string students on the Friday before their performance in Tuckerman Hall.

  

Saturday, March 15, 2014
Tuckerman Hall - 8:00 PM Performance

Tickets: Adult $42, Student $15, Youth $5


Buy Tickets here

Is Music the Key to Success?

By JOANNE LIPMAN

CONDOLEEZZA RICE trained to be a concert pianist. Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, was a professional clarinet and saxophone player. The hedge fund billionaire Bruce Kovner is a pianist who took classes at Juilliard.

Enlarge This Image

Anna Parini

Multiple studies link music study to academic achievement. But what is it about serious music training that seems to correlate with outsize success in other fields?

The connection isn’t a coincidence. I know because I asked. I put the question to top-flight professionals in industries from tech to finance to media, all of whom had serious (if often little-known) past lives as musicians. Almost all made a connection between their music training and their professional achievements.

The phenomenon extends beyond the math-music association. Strikingly, many high achievers told me music opened up the pathways to creative thinking. And their experiences suggest that music training sharpens other qualities: Collaboration. The ability to listen. A way of thinking that weaves together disparate ideas. The power to focus on the present and the future simultaneously.

Will your school music program turn your kid into a Paul Allen, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft (guitar)? Or a Woody Allen (clarinet)? Probably not. These are singular achievers. But the way these and other visionaries I spoke to process music is intriguing. As is the way many of them apply music’s lessons of focus and discipline into new ways of thinking and communicating — even problem solving.

Look carefully and you’ll find musicians at the top of almost any industry. Woody Allen performs weekly with a jazz band. The television broadcaster Paula Zahn (cello) and the NBC chief White House correspondent Chuck Todd (French horn) attended college on music scholarships; NBC’s Andrea Mitchell trained to become a professional violinist. Both Microsoft’s Mr. Allen and the venture capitalist Roger McNamee have rock bands. Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, played saxophone in high school. Steven Spielberg is a clarinetist and son of a pianist. The former World Bank president James D. Wolfensohn has played cello at Carnegie Hall.

“It’s not a coincidence,” says Mr. Greenspan, who gave up jazz clarinet but still dabbles at the baby grand in his living room. “I can tell you as a statistician, the probability that that is mere chance is extremely small.” The cautious former Fed chief adds, “That’s all that you can judge about the facts. The crucial question is: why does that connection exist?”

Paul Allen offers an answer. He says music “reinforces your confidence in the ability to create.” Mr. Allen began playing the violin at age 7 and switched to the guitar as a teenager. Even in the early days of Microsoft, he would pick up his guitar at the end of marathon days of programming. The music was the emotional analog to his day job, with each channeling a different type of creative impulse. In both, he says, “something is pushing you to look beyond what currently exists and express yourself in a new way.”

Mr. Todd says there is a connection between years of practice and competition and what he calls the “drive for perfection.” The veteran advertising executive Steve Hayden credits his background as a cellist for his most famous work, the Apple “1984” commercial depicting rebellion against a dictator. “I was thinking of Stravinsky when I came up with that idea,” he says. He adds that his cello performance background helps him work collaboratively: “Ensemble playing trains you, quite literally, to play well with others, to know when to solo and when to follow.”

For many of the high achievers I spoke with, music functions as a “hidden language,” as Mr. Wolfensohn calls it, one that enhances the ability to connect disparate or even contradictory ideas. When he ran the World Bank, Mr. Wolfensohn traveled to more than 100 countries, often taking in local performances (and occasionally joining in on a borrowed cello), which helped him understand “the culture of people, as distinct from their balance sheet.” 

It’s in that context that the much-discussed connection between math and music resonates most. Both are at heart modes of expression. Bruce Kovner, the founder of the hedge fund Caxton Associates and chairman of the board of Juilliard, says he sees similarities between his piano playing and investing strategy; as he says, both “relate to pattern recognition, and some people extend these paradigms across different senses.”

Mr. Kovner and the concert pianist Robert Taub both describe a sort of synesthesia — they perceive patterns in a three-dimensional way. Mr. Taub, who gained fame for his Beethoven recordings and has since founded a music software company, MuseAmi, says that when he performs, he can “visualize all of the notes and their interrelationships,” a skill that translates intellectually into making “multiple connections in multiple spheres.”

For others I spoke to, their passion for music is more notable than their talent. Woody Allen told me bluntly, “I’m not an accomplished musician. I get total traction from the fact that I’m in movies.”

Mr. Allen sees music as a diversion, unconnected to his day job. He likens himself to “a weekend tennis player who comes in once a week to play. I don’t have a particularly good ear at all or a particularly good sense of timing. In comedy, I’ve got a good instinct for rhythm. In music, I don’t, really.”

Still, he practices the clarinet at least half an hour every day, because wind players will lose their embouchure (mouth position) if they don’t: “If you want to play at all you have to practice. I have to practice every single day to be as bad as I am.” He performs regularly, even touring internationally with his New Orleans jazz band. “I never thought I would be playing in concert halls of the world to 5,000, 6,000 people,” he says. “I will say, quite unexpectedly, it enriched my life tremendously.”

Music provides balance, explains Mr. Wolfensohn, who began cello lessons as an adult. “You aren’t trying to win any races or be the leader of this or the leader of that. You’re enjoying it because of the satisfaction and joy you get out of music, which is totally unrelated to your professional status.”

For Roger McNamee, whose Elevation Partners is perhaps best known for its early investment in Facebook, “music and technology have converged,” he says. He became expert on Facebook by using it to promote his band, Moonalice, and now is focusing on video by live-streaming its concerts. He says musicians and top professionals share “the almost desperate need to dive deep.” This capacity to obsess seems to unite top performers in music and other fields.

Ms. Zahn remembers spending up to four hours a day “holed up in cramped practice rooms trying to master a phrase” on her cello. Mr. Todd, now 41, recounted in detail the solo audition at age 17 when he got the second-highest mark rather than the highest mark — though he still was principal horn in Florida’s All-State Orchestra.

“I’ve always believed the reason I’ve gotten ahead is by outworking other people,” he says. It’s a skill learned by “playing that solo one more time, working on that one little section one more time,” and it translates into “working on something over and over again, or double-checking or triple-checking.” He adds, “There’s nothing like music to teach you that eventually if you work hard enough, it does get better. You see the results.”

That’s an observation worth remembering at a time when music as a serious pursuit — and music education — is in decline in this country.

Consider the qualities these high achievers say music has sharpened: collaboration, creativity, discipline and the capacity to reconcile conflicting ideas. All are qualities notably absent from public life. Music may not make you a genius, or rich, or even a better person. But it helps train you to think differently, to process different points of view — and most important, to take pleasure in listening.

 






















NOW ENROLLING!!
Spring classes begin the first week of March!!
Does your child want to learn to play the piano / keyboard? Pre-register today!!
Kids On Keys is a fun, innovative approach to musical instruction for the young child. It provides an excellent foundation for future musical study regardless of what instrument your child ultimately pursues.
To learn more or to sign up for this program visit the Kids on Keys Website.
Come Discover the Fun!
details

Music Lessons Boost Emotional, Intellectual Development

Music Lessons Boost Emotional, Intellectual Development

"A Far Cry" Chamber Orchestra and David Krakauer, clarinet

"Dreams & Prayers"

Sunday, October 20, 2013
Mechanics Hall - 3:00 PM Performance, Pre-concert Lecture 2:00 PM by Stephen Ledbetter

Tickets: Adult $42, Student $15, Youth $5 - Buy Tickets

“A Far Cry sounds poignant, precise, and subtle…the high caliber of musicianship was so constant, and that is something listeners have grown accustomed to at this ensemble’s performances" - The Boston Globe

about the Artists

A Far Cry stands at the forefront of an exciting new generation in classical music. According to the New York Times, the self-conducted orchestra “brims with personality or, better, personalities, many and varied.” A Far Cry was founded in 2007 by a tightly-knit collective of 17 young professional musicians – the Criers – and since the beginning has fostered those personalities, developing an innovative structure of rotating leadership both on stage and behind the scenes. By expanding the boundaries of orchestral repertoire and experimenting with the ways music is prepared, performed, and experienced, A Far Cry has been embraced throughout the world with more than two hundred performances, three albums, a powerful presence on the internet, and a European debut tour planned for 2012. The Criers are proud to call Boston home, and maintain strong roots in the city rehearsing at their storefront music center in Jamaica Plain and fulfilling the role of Chamber Orchestra in Residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Collaborating with local students through an educational partnership with the New England Conservatory, A Far Cry aims to pass on the spirit of collaboratively-empowered music to the next generation.

Known simply as “Krakauer” to his fervent following, David Krakauer is nothing less than an American original who has embarked on a tremendous journey transforming the music of his Eastern European Jewish heritage into something uniquely contemporary. That journey has lead Krakauer to an astounding diversity of projects and collaborations ranging from solo appearances with orchestras to major festival concerts with his own improvisation based bands.

He has shared the stage with a wide array of artists such as the Klezmatics, Fred Wesley, Itzhak Perlman, Socalled, Eiko and Koma, Leonard Slatkin and Iva Bitova while being sought after by such composers as Danny Elfman, Osvaldo Golijov, David Del Tredici, John Zorn, George Tsontakis, Mohammed Fairouz and Wlad Marhulets to interpret their works. In addition, he has performed with renowned string quartets including the Kronos, Tokyo and the Emerson and as soloist with orchestras such as the Orchestre de Lyon, the Orquestra Sinfonica de Madrid, the Phoenix Symphony, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Dresdener Philharmonie and the Detroit Symphony, among many others.

Having been showered with accolades for his groundbreaking work in classical, klezmer and jazz, Krakauer now finds himself at an artistic crossroads and is ready to make a daring leap into a new phase in his career. His next project, The Big Picture, may be his most adventurous to date. With an all-star crew of fellow musical renegades, Krakauer is re-imagining familiar themes by such renowned film music composers as John Williams, Marvin Hamlisch, Randy Newman, Wojciech Kilar and Vangelis, as well as interpreting melodic gems by the likes of Sidney Bechet, Sergei Prokofiev, Mel Brooks, Ralph Burns, John Kander & Fred Ebb and Jerry Bock that have appeared in popular films. Having already contributed to films by directors Ang Lee and Sally Potter, Krakauer now takes on the challenge of bringing a modernist vision to tunes that resonate on a deeply emotional level with generations of moviegoers.

Once again the Sunny Side Swing Band will be playing at Tenka Asian Bistro in westborough on Rt9.  Sept 28th from 9pm-11PM

On Rt 9 in Westborough MA.   Below is a little bit about SSSB.   Please go check them out.

Sunnyside Swing Band is: Bob Mooney, guitar; JoAnn Martone-Pipes, percussion; Brian Shaw, bass: and Randy Scaletta, guitar and vocals.  Bob, JoAnn and Randy started the group in 2010 and Brian joined them in 2011.  Veteran musicians who have played various styles of music, the group shares a love of jazz, especially swing classics from the Great American Songbook of the 30’s and 40’s.   Blending in some Latin instrumentals, a few jazz classics from the modern era and the occasional pop hit, the SSB repertoire has expanded from the swing foundation but not strayed from “good tunes that are easily conveyed through an acoustic light-jazz format”.

Randy:

“I was in Hawaii and the country band I had played with for 30 years had recently disbanded.  While I was there, I bought an ukulele to learn and pluck while I sat on the beach and vacationed.  I also bought a book of jazz classics and had a great time strumming the uke and singing.  After revisiting all these great songs from my days as a clarinetist…Gershwin numbers, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington tunes, etc…. I wondered why I’m not playing these on the guitar.  The music is so deep and has so much potential, both emotionally and theoretically.  Every time you play a tune the challenge is there to ride the inspiration and use your imagination towards greater musical expression.  I came home from Hawaii, bought an archtop guitar and haven’t stopped digging into the rich catalog of music from the period before rock and roll took over the world.  I’m happy to have partners in SSB that share my enthusiasm.”      

SSB has been performing in a variety of venues, such as restaurants, bookstores, and private concerts and functions.  

Interesting article about choosing the right instrument for your son or daughter. Good read. Enjoy.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/09/living/parents-kids-body-type-music-instrument/

WHY MUSIC EDUCATIONROCKS!

Do you have a budding pianist? A drummer wannabe? A future flutist? Playing a musical instrument is very beneficial to children. So, why should yours learn to play?

They say that music is the universal language. Regardless of where you are from or what your background, a good melody is something that everyone can enjoy and understand. There must be something behind that, right?
For children, music provides many, many benefits. Experts agree, there are lots of good things about letting your child learn to play an instrument. Here are 10 reasons why your child should put down the remote and pick up a musical instrument.

1. IT WILL BOOST THEIR BRAIN POWER

Want to give your child a mental advantage? Music can do that. "More and more studies show a correlation between higher academic achievement with children who are exposed to music," says children's music specialist Meredith LeVande of MonkeyMonkeyMusic.com. "Music simply stimulates parts of the brain that are related to reading, math, and emotional development."

2. IT WILL IMPROVE THEIR MEMORY

Where did that shoe go? That's a question asked far too many times in far too many households with kids. Help your kids remember more (and learn more!) with music. "Further research has shown that participation in music at an early age can help improve a child's learning ability and memory by stimulating different patterns of brain development," says Maestro Eduardo Marturet, a conductor, composer and musical director for the Miami Symphony Orchestra.

3. IT HELPS THEM SOCIALLY

Picking up an instrument can also help your child break out of their social shell too, experts say. "Socially, children who become involved in a musical group or ensemble learn important life skills, such as how to relate to others, how to work as a team and appreciate the rewards that come from working together, and the development of leadership skills and discipline," says Marturet, who also oversees the MISO Young Artist program in South Florida, which allows young musicians to hone their musical skills as part of a professional orchestra.

4. IT'S A CONFIDENCE BUILDER

Are there any areas of life that aren't enhanced by having good confidence? Probably not. And if you want your child to develop their confidence, learning to play a musical instrument can help.
"They find that they can develop a skill by themselves, that they can get better and better," says Elizabeth Dotson-Westphalen, a music teacher and performer.

5. IT TEACHES PATIENCE

We live in a world of instant gratification, but real life demands having patience. When you are playing in a band or orchestra (and most musicians do), you have to be willing to wait your turn to play otherwise the sound is a mess. That inadvertently teaches patience. "You need to work together in a group to make music," says Dotson-Westphalen.

6. IT CAN HELP THEM CONNECT

Who doesn't sometimes feel a little disconnected from their lives? Music can be a much-needed connection for kids (and adults too!). "It can satisfy the need to unwind from the worries of life, but unlike the other things people often use for this purpose, such as excessive eating, drinking, or TV or aimless web browsing, it makes people more alive and connected with one another," says Michael Jolkovski, a psychologist who specializes in musicians.

7. IT'S CONSTANT LEARNING

In some pursuits, you can never truly learn everything there is to know. Music is like that. "It is inexhaustible -- there is always more to learn," says Jolkovski.

8. IT'S A GREAT FORM OF EXPRESSION

People pay a lot of lip-service to expressing yourself. But how can kids really do that? One great way is through the arts -- like music. "It gives pleasure and expresses nuances of emotional life for which there are no words," says Jolkovski.

9. IT TEACHES DISCIPLINE

There's this old joke that begins "How do you get to Carnegie Hall?" The answer? "Practice, practice, practice." To improve in music, you have to not only do well in classes, but devote time to practicing outside of the lessons too. That requires discipline. "Exposing kids to musical instruments is the key. They are naturally curious and excited about them -- and the discipline that parents AND kids learn by sticking with it is a lesson in itself," says Mira Stulberg-Halpert of 3D Learner Inc., who works with children who have ADHD.

10. IT FOSTERS CREATIVITY

Above all, playing music -- particularly as kids get to more advanced levels in it -- is a creative pursuit. Creatively is good for the mind, body and soul.

by Sarah W. Caron

"Pull-outs have become almost a nightmare for many elementary school principals, who view the practice as a kind of pernicious anemia that attacks whole-class instruction time. Once pull-outs take hold in a school, there appears to be no end to them, and no way to rid the instructional program of their debilitating impact."- From "Pull-outs: How much do they erode whole-class teaching?" by F. English, appearing in Principal, May 1984, p. 32. BACKGROUND Many school instrumental music programs remove students from aregular classroom for individual or small-group instrumentalinstruction. Often, this practice causes tension among teachers and administrators. Many of those opposed to pull-out lessons are concerned that students will fall behind in their academic performance by missing classroom instruction time. In the study described below, the test scores of students who leave theirclassroom for thirty-minute string instrument lessons twice each week are compared to the scores of students who remain in the classroom. STUDY METHOD The authors studied the 1995 results of the Ohio Proficiency Test (OPT) given to fourth-grade students in Hamilton, Ohio. To make the comparison between string and non-string students as fair as possible, the researchers looked at students' scores on a previous standardized test, the Cognitive Abilities Test, or COGAT. Each of the 148 fourth-grade string students was matched to a non-stringstudent who achieved the same verbal score on the COGAT. This made a total of 296 students whose scores on the Ohio Proficiency Test were analyzed, and the academic abilities of the non-string students selected for the study matched the academic abilities of the string students as closely as possible. RESULTS Listed below are the mean (average) Ohio Proficiency Test scores for the students in this study: WRITING String Students: 5.05 Non-String Students: 4.85 READING String Students: 229.5 Non-String Students: 223.2 MATHEMATICS String Students: 214.8 Non-String Students: 211.8 CITIZENSHIP String Students: 231.3 Non-String Students: 224.8  Listed below are the percentages of students in this study achieving test scores at or above standard performance. The standard for the 1995 Ohio Proficiency Test is 4.0 in reading and 200 in all other areas. WRITING String students: 85% Non-string students: 85% READING String students: 89% Non-string students: 87% MATHEMATICS String students: 76% Non-string students: 65% CITIZENSHIP String students: 93% Non-string students: 87% AT STANDARD ON ALL SECTIONS OF THE TEST String students: 68% Non-string students: 58% CONCLUSIONS From the results of this study we can conclude that the string students did not suffer negative academic effects when compared to students of similar academic capability who remained in the classroom. We can also conclude that the overall Ohio Proficiency Test performance of the students who participated in string pull-out lessons was better than the performance of the students of similar ability who did not participate in the string program. The results of this study seem to indicate that students who study instruments in a small-group or individual setting actually improve their academic abilities, however this study was not designed to document improvement, and further study is needed before drawing this conclusion. The author of the Ohio report offers this analysis of what takes place during pull-out string instruction: "When string students are excused from their classrooms for string class, they are not leaving instruction. They are moving to another classroom in a different area of the building. The concepts taught in string [lessons] go far beyond pitch and rhythm. For example, a student must understand fractions and their relationships to each other in order to manipulate rhythm. The student who has trouble understanding the abstract concept that a half is twice one quarter may comprehend the concrete example of his or her bow moving twice as far on half notes as quarter notes. The musician reads abstract concepts from the page and then translates them into concrete phenomena that involve time and space."

©2013 Children's Music Workshop• info@childrensmusicworkshop.com

Why Music Makes Our Brain Sing

By ROBERT J. ZATORRE and VALORIE N. SALIMPOOR

Published: June 7, 2013

MUSIC is not tangible. You can’t eat it, drink it or mate with it. It doesn’t protect against the rain, wind or cold. It doesn’t vanquish predators or mend broken bones. And yet humans have always prized music — or well beyond prized, loved it.

In the modern age we spend great sums of money to attend concerts, download music files, play instruments and listen to our favorite artists whether we’re in a subway or salon. But even in Paleolithic times, people invested significant time and effort to create music, as the discovery of flutes carved from animal bones would suggest.

So why does this thingless “thing” — at its core, a mere sequence of sounds — hold such potentially enormous intrinsic value?

The quick and easy explanation is that music brings a unique pleasure to humans. Of course, that still leaves the question of why. But for that, neuroscience is starting to provide some answers.

More than a decade ago, our research team used brain imaging to show that music that people described as highly emotional engaged the reward system deep in their brains — activating subcortical nuclei known to be important in reward, motivation and emotion.Subsequently we found that listening to what might be called “peak emotional moments” in music — that moment when you feel a “chill” of pleasure to a musical passage — causes the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine, an essential signaling molecule in the brain.

When pleasurable music is heard, dopamine is released in the striatum — an ancient part of the brain found in other vertebrates as well — which is known to respond to naturally rewarding stimuli like food and sex and which is artificially targeted by drugs like cocaine and amphetamine.

But what may be most interesting here is when this neurotransmitter is released: not only when the music rises to a peak emotional moment, but also several seconds before, during what we might call the anticipation phase.

The idea that reward is partly related to anticipation (or the prediction of a desired outcome) has a long history in neuroscience. Making good predictions about the outcome of one’s actions would seem to be essential in the context of survival, after all. And dopamine neurons, both in humans and other animals, play a role in recording which of our predictions turn out to be correct.

To dig deeper into how music engages the brain’s reward system, we designed a study to mimic online music purchasing. Our goal was to determine what goes on in the brain when someone hears a new piece of music and decides he likes it enough to buy it.

We used music-recommendation programs to customize the selections to our listeners’ preferences, which turned out to be indie and electronic music, matching Montreal’s hip music scene. And we found that neural activity within the striatum — the reward-related structure — was directly proportional to the amount of money people were willing to spend.

But more interesting still was the cross talk between this structure and the auditory cortex, which also increased for songs that were ultimately purchased compared with those that were not.

Why the auditory cortex? Some 50 years ago, Wilder Penfield, the famed neurosurgeon and the founder of the Montreal Neurological Institute, reported that when neurosurgical patients received electrical stimulation to the auditory cortex while they were awake, they would sometimes report hearing music. Dr. Penfield’s observations, along with those of many others, suggest that musical information is likely to be represented in these brain regions.

The auditory cortex is also active when we imagine a tune: think of the first four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony — your cortex is abuzz! This ability allows us not only to experience music even when it’s physically absent, but also to invent new compositions and to reimagine how a piece might sound with a different tempo or instrumentation.

We also know that these areas of the brain encode the abstract relationships between sounds — for instance, the particular sound pattern that makes a major chord major, regardless of the key or instrument. Other studies show distinctive neural responses from similar regions when there is an unexpected break in a repetitive pattern of sounds, or in a chord progression. This is akin to what happens if you hear someone play a wrong note — easily noticeable even in an unfamiliar piece of music.

These cortical circuits allow us to make predictions about coming events on the basis of past events. They are thought to accumulate musical information over our lifetime, creating templates of the statistical regularities that are present in the music of our culture and enabling us to understand the music we hear in relation to our stored mental representations of the music we’ve heard.

So each act of listening to music may be thought of as both recapitulating the past and predicting the future. When we listen to music, these brain networks actively create expectations based on our stored knowledge.

Composers and performers intuitively understand this: they manipulate these prediction mechanisms to give us what we want — or to surprise us, perhaps even with something better.

In the cross talk between our cortical systems, which analyze patterns and yield expectations, and our ancient reward and motivational systems, may lie the answer to the question: does a particular piece of music move us?

When that answer is yes, there is little — in those moments of listening, at least — that we value more.

Robert J. Zatorre is a professor of neuroscience at the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital at McGill University. Valorie N. Salimpoor is a postdoctoral neuroscientist at the Baycrest Health Sciences’ Rotman Research Institute in Toronto.

4th of July store hours

We will be closed July 4th-7th.  We will reopen Monday July 8th with normal business hours.   Have a great weekend everyone!!

If anyone is down the cape My band milk street station will be playing @ bourne scenic park at the rotary.  


http://www.bournescenicpark.com/entertainment_schedule

Just wanted to let you all know of a great group called  the Sunny Side Swing band.   They will be playing at 

Tenka Asian Bistro june 29th from 9pm-11PM On Rt 9 in Westborough MA.   Below is a little bit about them.   Please go check them out.

Sunnyside Swing Band is: Bob Mooney, guitar; JoAnn Martone-Pipes, percussion; Brian Shaw, bass: and Randy Scaletta, guitar and vocals.  Bob, JoAnn and Randy started the group in 2010 and Brian joined them in 2011.  Veteran musicians who have played various styles of music, the group shares a love of jazz, especially swing classics from the Great American Songbook of the 30’s and 40’s.   Blending in some Latin instrumentals, a few jazz classics from the modern era and the occasional pop hit, the SSB repertoire has expanded from the swing foundation but not strayed from “good tunes that are easily conveyed through an acoustic light-jazz format”.

Randy:

“I was in Hawaii and the country band I had played with for 30 years had recently disbanded.  While I was there, I bought an ukulele to learn and pluck while I sat on the beach and vacationed.  I also bought a book of jazz classics and had a great time strumming the uke and singing.  After revisiting all these great songs from my days as a clarinetist…Gershwin numbers, Cole Porter, Duke Ellington tunes, etc…. I wondered why I’m not playing these on the guitar.  The music is so deep and has so much potential, both emotionally and theoretically.  Every time you play a tune the challenge is there to ride the inspiration and use your imagination towards greater musical expression.  I came home from Hawaii, bought an archtop guitar and haven’t stopped digging into the rich catalog of music from the period before rock and roll took over the world.  I’m happy to have partners in SSB that share my enthusiasm.”      

SSB has been performing in a variety of venues, such as restaurants, bookstores, and private concerts and functions.  

SSB Website