An exchange between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson:
Do you remember what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by it. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its childhood.
That's a rather broad idea,' I remarked.
One's ideas must be as broad as Nature if they are to interpret Nature,' he answered.”
― Arthur Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet
Sandra Dodd left this message 2 days ago:
Last week's chat transcript is here: http://chattranscripts.blogspot.com/2016...
May 12: Musical Intelligence.
This week's chat is part two in the set of Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences theory. Musical Intelligence! How can unschooling parents nourish and expand their children's lives to include opportunities for them to explore and exercise that part of them?
What is it like, this "musical intelligence"? What does it connect to?
Sylvia Woodman joined the chat 2 days ago
Marta Venturini joined the chat 2 days ago
Sylvia Woodman: Hi Marta!
Marta Venturini: Hi Sylvia!
Marta Venturini: I'm trying to prepare a minecraft-themed party for Conchinha - she turns 7 on Sunday!!! 
Marta Venturini: Printing out some stuff and going off to buy some green and black paper plates and cups, oh and balloons, right after the chat. 
Sandra Dodd: Seven! I've been thinking of sevens for Joyce
I've been thinking of sevens for Joyce
Marta Venturini:
\
Marta Venturini: Times flies!
AlexPolikowsky7: Wow ! 7!!
Sylvia Woodman: Do you have a minecraft music playlist to play at the party?
Marta Venturini: No, I don't!
AlexPolikowsky7: Just so you all know I am musically challenged.
AlexPolikowsky7: If you search YouTube there are many Minecraft parodies songs or remakes. Fun ones!!
Marta Venturini: That would be super fun, Sylvia. What a great idea!
AlexPolikowsky7: I am singing one in my head now!
Sylvia Woodman: There are lots of Minecraft songs - lyrics set to popular music that my kids love to listen to when they are playing Minecraft.
AlexPolikowsky7: Jinx Sylvia!
Sylvia Woodman:
Sylvia Woodman: My kids mostly find them on YouTube but I bet you could download them for the party.
Marta Venturini: Ok, gonna work on that too. Later. 
Later.
AlexPolikowsky7: Marta do you have SoundCloud? Get the app and search Minecraft. Instant Minecraft music playlist!
Sylvia Woodman: Good idea Alex!
Sylvia Woodman: Good idea Alex!
Cath GB left this message 2 days ago:
Hi ! you can also convert you tube videos to mp3 to make a playlist, it's fun !
Marta Venturini: Already searching for it.
Marta Venturini: My phone is going to explode one of these days, with the ton of apps and games and photos that I have there. I need to really clean it up. Download photos and movies and store them elsewhere, especially.
Marta Venturini:
AlexPolikowsky7: Marta I messaged you some screen caps. Soundcloud is the way to go!
Sylvia Woodman: I'm totally amazed by what can get stored on my little phone.
Marta Venturini: Just saw them, Alex. Thanks! You're the best!
AlexPolikowsky7: My new phone has 128 G because ....
Sandra Dodd: As much as I love music, I don't play music when I have guests, nor put background music on for parties.
Sylvia Woodman: My phone is several years old now. At the time we splurged on the 64G! LOL
AlexPolikowsky7: I suffered years with only 8 .
Sandra Dodd: A couple of times I've been elsewhere, to meet with people and talk, and they've put on music they thought I would like.
Sylvia Woodman: I did that when you came to visit me!
Sylvia Woodman:
AlexPolikowsky7: It is nice to get all that storage. Although I do save my stuff in several places like Amazon Prime, iCloud and personal
AlexPolikowsky7: Computer and external drive
Sandra Dodd: I asked them if they wouldn't mind turning it off. The first time, I endured two songs, and then I asked. I was listening to the music and not to the people!
Sandra Dodd: I asked them if they wouldn't mind turning it off. The first time, I endured two songs, and then I asked. I was listening to the music and not to the people!
Sandra Dodd: Another time (not at Sylvia's) I was having dinner with an unschooling family and the music was too much in my brain for me to be calm and present with the food and people.
AlexPolikowsky7: I cannot talk with music in the background either.
Sandra Dodd: For me, honestly, it's probably the lyrics. That's part of the music, though. Instrumental music, I can sideline, mentally. Or I can relax into it.
Sandra Dodd: It's weird. I turn off the car stereo if someone wants to talk to me.
AlexPolikowsky7: I like music when no one is talking or I get overwhelmed
Sylvia Woodman: I used to always have music on in the background, but in the past year or so, I'm finding it harder to focus on my "primary" task if there is music in the background. Like now I can't write and listen to music, or read and listen to music.
Sandra Dodd: I like music to fall asleep to, or to have while I'm cleaning the kitchen.
Sandra Dodd: Teachers always told us "you can't do your homework and listen to music too"—but I COULD. I could have the Beatles or Rolling Stones on and still do my homework.
Sandra Dodd: Maybe it's age. Maybe age makes it worse. That first example of mine, I was 41.
AlexPolikowsky7: for me having kids was what changed. The moment I had my son I no longer wanted music in the background
Cath GB: I put the music in the car, but rarely at home.
Cath GB: And if it's too loud, then I can't hear myself think !
AlexPolikowsky7: Now I only like music if I am driving alone or doing physical stuff without others/talking
JennyC: Music is big in our house
AlexPolikowsky7: I think music is wonderful and it can really help improve my mood and even physical wellbeing. But I find I like it better as something I do alone. Not when I am connecting or talking to someone. Unless we are singing together!
Sandra Dodd: That might be it for me, too, Alex—having kids. But we listened to kid-stuff TONS, and sing-along stuff.
Sylvia Woodman: Gabriella and Harry are really into this show called Steven Universe and there are wonderful songs in every episode so the kids have a play list and are constantly singing the songs. There are some new episodes that will be airing beginning tonight so we are having a watch party!
Serah: I love music. In the background in the foreground. All the time. But less now when I want to focus on something.
Sandra Dodd: It was the focus, though, and not the background.
JennyC: Nearly everyday, someone is playing music or playing musical instruments.
AlexPolikowsky7: Kids stuff I'd different!! I knew all the Thomas songs!
AlexPolikowsky7: And singing together is different than listening!
Marta Venturini: Steven Universe is wonderful, Sylvia. We love it!
Sandra Dodd: Where is Steven Universe available, Sylvia? Can you put up a link?
Cath GB: metoo Alex ! and I still do ! my 10 yo found a Thomas dd not long ago, he was very fond of it - decided to watch it and I could still sing all the songs !
Marta Venturini: It's on Cartoon Network..
Serah: it's kind of a gulity pleasure for me though. Religiously we are told its something to stay away from. I do not truly believe that in my heart, hence the indulgence.
JennyC: Our living room is like a cozy band rehearsal room
AlexPolikowsky7: Awesome Cath! I went to two Thomas Day Out events and they played the songs in the train ride and I sang along the whole time!
Sylvia Woodman: http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/video/steven-universe/
Marta Venturini: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Universe
Marta Venturini: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Universe
Sandra Dodd: So Howard Gardner believes that "intelligence" is not a single thing. I think he's right. But schools and early psychologists saw it as something nearly physical, like the size of one's "intellect"—or brain.
Sandra Dodd: And often the unusual skill is music. Maybe math (as in the movie Rain Man)
But schools and early psychologists saw it as something nearly physical, like the size of one's "intellect"—or brain.Sandra Dodd: And often the unusual skill is music. Maybe math (as in the movie Rain Man)
AlexPolikowsky7: Stay away from music Serah?
Serah: well, not exactly stay away ---- more like its sinful.
Serah: certain types.
Serah: and certain instruments.
JennyC: I have a lot of extended family that are of a particular sect that doesn't allow musical accompaniment at church.
Sandra Dodd: And there has been a psychological oddity psychologists got excited about, which they called "idiot savant" but which is now "savant syndrome" or (where applicable) "autistic savant."
JennyC: Everything is a capella
Serah: sounds like my people, Jenny
Cath GB: in the 40s and 50s, rock and roll was considered devil music in some part of rural France by the priests...
Sylvia Woodman: Conservative and orthodox Jews don't play music during religious services. Playing musical instruments are considered to be doing work that is forbidden on the Sabbath and holidays.
AlexPolikowsky7: Footloose comes to mind! No music or dancing! Kids will do it anyway!
Sandra Dodd: The main difference (or the original difference, I think) between Baptists and Church of Christ is that Baptists will use a piano or an organ, and Church of Christ doesn't.
Sandra Dodd: Same songs, same sermons, I guess.
Sylvia Woodman: So it wasn't until I was an adult that I ever attended services where there were instruments played. It felt weird at first but now I really like it.
JennyC: Yep, Church of Christ.
Sandra Dodd: So...
AlexPolikowsky7: Well I am definitely musically challenged. I don't have good ears. It maybe because I don't hear well.
Sandra Dodd: IF someone can be "a musical genius" but be otherwise unable to function or (seemingly) to think, then that is separate from what was then considered "intelligence."
JennyC: My husband grew up going to those church services and then opted out as an adult because he's a musician.
AlexPolikowsky7: And cannot sing to save my life! I do love music !
Cath GB: if you considered a musical genius, is it because you can play music perfectly ?
Virginia W joined the chat 2 days ago
Cath GB: like Mozart ?
Sandra Dodd: So Howard Gardner (I'm very happy to know he did) sorted out the areas in which one individual might be GREAT, quick, but other people are slower, less interested. And he objects to "intelligence" being measured with just math and verbal ability.
Sylvia Woodman: Or maybe it has to do with having perfect pitch?
AlexPolikowsky7: Yes Cath. Someone like Mozart
Sandra Dodd: Mozart did other things, too, though. He could write well. He was physically strong and able. He was sociable.
Cath GB: ok, but which part in this is the practice, and which part is the intuition ?
Sandra Dodd: I think with "idiot savant," that's what they were seeing. Those are the people early psychologists were excited to find, when they were first trying to figure out how people knew things, and what caused problems.
JennyC: Not perfectly, but I do believe that people like my husband get overlooked because music isn't highly valued in schools. He is the kind of person who can pick up an instrument and play it and make it sound good.
Sandra Dodd: Alex, you meant ears? "I don't have good eats."
AlexPolikowsky7: Here a musical savant
Cath GB: and some people react differently to rythms, and sounds too. It relates to what they are inside, what they perceive... (think musicotherapy)
Marta Venturini: I've loved music all my life. My dad was a huge music lover too. Classical music mainly, in his case. I grew up with a lot of music surrounding me. I think he would have liked to be a maestro or a pianist, if he hadn't chosen engineering.
Sylvia Woodman: She must mean ears! We all see the pictures that she posts of delicious eats!
Sandra Dodd: Alex, slow down. I don't know what you're writing.
AlexPolikowsky7
http://youtube.com/watch?v=r6HCXx8U6Ko Musical savant
Sandra Dodd: Marta, hold on to that thought, about your dad.
AlexPolikowsky7: Yes ears . Sorry. I have been having so many issues typing intelligibly lately .
Marta Venturini: I will, it's such a sweet memory.
Sylvia Woodman: My parents loved Opera and classical music. They had a whole wall filled with program covers from Opera News and from programs that they received when they went to see performaces at the Metropolitan Opera House in NYC.
Sylvia Woodman: Every Saturday we listened to the Opera broadcast. Sponsored by Texaco!
Sandra Dodd: (I'm watching the video about Derek P. )
)
Virginia W: Both of my kids listen to tons of music
Virginia W: My husband and I also
Virginia W: My husband had played guitar since he was a child
Marta Venturini: My dad also liked some pop music, now that I think about it. He would make these cool tapes for our car trips and he'd sing along to Celine Dion songs, and Mariah Carey or Whitney Houston. My brother and I would make fun of him. Now it's such a lovely memory I have of him. He was so funny.
Now it's such a lovely memory I have of him. He was so funny.
JennyC: For a good portion of my childhood, we didn't have a tv, but we had music. We listened to a lot of classical. During a show and tell in school, for music class, we had to bring in a favorite song to share. I brought something by Vivaldi. My teachers thought it was great but the kids all thought I was weird. Later that year, a kid gave me a Pat Benetar 45 as a bday present. I'd never heard of her, or that music. I was 9.
Cath GB: my eldest (now 13, 5) always loved the violin, he takes lessons and loves it ! My 10 yo played the drums for a while, he is talented but was bored by the lessons - he loves rap music !
Virginia W: My dad was a guitar player and a rock snob.
Parvine: i grew up with both lots of American 60's music which my mother listened to and lot's of Arabic music as well. What I heard as a child moves me like a feeling inside me in my heart though I enjoy a variety of styles.
Virginia W: Beatles, Rolling Stones, Steely Dan
AlexPolikowsky7: This come as not surprise to anyone that lately all I listen to is Korean music . I just like the languabe and how it sounds so much!!!
AlexPolikowsky7: This come as not surprise to anyone that lately all I listen to is Korean music .
I just like the languabe and how it sounds so much!!!
Cath GB: I remember watching the discs on the turnable - i could stay there for hours, listening to music and watching the disc turn around !
Virginia W: Big vinyl record collection
Virginia W: Strict protocol for touching records
Sandra Dodd: OH yes, and for putting them back with dust sleeves?
Virginia W: Only touch the edges
Sandra Dodd: I took great care of some albums and now I don't have a decent turntable to play them on, only a cheapo from K-Mart.
Sandra Dodd: But it's easier to find the songs on youtube anyway, usually, than to get an album out.
Marta Venturini: My dad had a cleaning set for his vinyl records! We could not touch them. He was so careful with them.
He was so careful with them.
Sandra Dodd: I still have two cleaning sets. Sure.
Marta Venturini:
Parvine: Yes to those vinyl covers! I loved cleaning them!
AlexPolikowsky7: I have a turntable in my attic! We had a gramophone growing up as my dad collected old stuff. It was awesome!
JennyC: Both of my kids love music. Only my youngest seems to have the ability to be able to play it and think in those ways of hearing and translating what's in their head, and putting in out through an instrument.
Cath GB: when my grand dad died, we got his collection of 78... it was strange to listen to them on the 33 speed
Sandra Dodd: Can they both sing?
Sandra Dodd: What about rhythms? Drumming, or dancing?
Cath GB: my youngest is a great dancer but does not sing in tune at all !
Serah: my dad had crates and crates of record albums. When he turned religious he got rid of all of them
Sandra Dodd: The way music is available to hear has changed more in the past 100 years than by anything ever before that.
Virginia W: I hear my kids singing together in my older daughter's room sometimes
Virginia W: They don't do it in front of me
Virginia W: They don't do it in front of me
JennyC: Both my kids can carry a tune. My oldest does performance art stuff directly linked to very specific music.
AlexPolikowsky7: Gigi can sing in tune but the rest of us cannot.
Sandra Dodd: So I want to talk about this a big in the context of unschooling.
AlexPolikowsky7: Gigi used to to piano lessons but her teacher got really busy and we have not done any in almost a year.
Sandra Dodd: I could go on about some history of notation and school-music lessons and expectations, and I have the urge to, but it would be worthless.
JennyC: My youngest can take a melody and figure it out on the piano and turn it into something musical, not just plunking out the melody. I can plunk out a melody, but I don't have that ability to make it sound musical.
Sandra Dodd: Someone on facebook the other day write that a young girl picked up a book, opened it, and said "Piano words." She recognized that it was not for reading language, but for music.
Sandra Dodd: Nice.
Cath GB: my eldest takes violin lessons but his teacher is laid back - he has chosen not to do grades, she's perfectly ok with that, but other teachers were not.
Virginia W: My younger daughter loves to make videos with an app called Musical.ly
Sandra Dodd: But even the idea of written musical notation is not what music is, any more than a typewriter or a book printed in 1890 is "language."
JennyC: There are plenty of musicians that can play great things, but can't read sheet music.
Sandra Dodd: So part of deschooling should be finding music in a hundred places and ways that aren't music lessons. I'm glad I can read music and have made good use of it, but times are changing, and we didn't press our kids about it. We did talk Kirby into trying a homeschool band group. He went once, and hated it, and we didn't press him any more.
Cath GB: my husband always struggled to read music, he plays the piano since he is 13. But he composes marvelous melodies !
Sandra Dodd: And what has changed since Kirby was little is that now there are lots (more every day) of videos on youtube of people showing how to play something or other on various instruments. You can see lessons for just about any instrument. A friend was over here talking to me about a mongolian bowed instrument but he couldn't find out much about it.
JennyC: And there have been attempts to make notation for dance. It's called labanotation.
Sandra Dodd: Because of hanging out with Alex P. and her Korean focus, I knew what to do. I googled with the words he'd said until I found the name of it in Mongolian script.
Sandra Dodd: I cut and pasted that into google and came up with LOTS of things, not in English (and some that were). Sales sites for the instrument. And video lessons.
Sylvia Woodman: There is a big Homeschool Choir where we are. They are very strict and formal. There are uniforms and ranks and hours and hours of practice, but on the other hand, they win prizes at Choir competitions and have sung at the Whitehouse, so if you are looking to build a transcript or resume, that kind of thing looks impressive.
Parvine: Thats how Leili started learning to play guitar, through YouTube.
Sandra Dodd: Sylvia, or if you just like to sing enough to endure the uniforms. I would, if I were a kid.
Cath GB: I started ukulele on youtube too ! (still starting, a year later !)
Sandra Dodd: So yes—reading music isn't music.
Sandra Dodd: It's one part of some types of musical performance.
Sylvia Woodman: And they do complex music. So that's nice too. Gabriella and I have attended a couple of their concerts to see friends of ours sing.
Sandra Dodd: If I visit you and they're performing, Sylvia, I want to hear them.
Marta Venturini: I'm hoping that I'll be able to learn how to play the piano with the help of some youtube videos too. Someday.
Someday.
JennyC: I can read music, but I lack that musical quality that sets apart a person who can play music, from a musician.
Cath GB: not at all ! I wanted to play the piano, when I was 8 or 9. Went to the lessons and all I learned for 2 years was how to read the music, the rythm, etc. Not a piano in sight. I stopped... disappointed.
AlexPolikowsky7: When Daniel wanted to learn more playing the ocarina he found an
AlexPolikowsky7: App for the iphone
AlexPolikowsky7: It is awesome!
JennyC: I took violin lessons for years. I have a nice violin. I can play it. End of story.
Sandra Dodd: I met some kids in Edinburgh, and one was in the cathedral school choir. They were all nine, the kids in the group, because they were in the government-assigned parenting help groups. Cath—what are those called? Were you in the UK for a childbirth?
AlexPolikowsky7: It is Ocarina by Smule
JennyC: My husband who has never had a violin lesson, still plays it better than I do. He can't even read the sheet music for it.
Sandra Dodd: The term is "musicality": -=-I can read music, but I lack that musical quality that sets apart a person who can play music, from a musician.-=-
Sylvia Woodman: I took piano lessons for a decade. So I can read music and play some, but I hated to practice. I still improved over time, part is probably some natural ability, and some was just a function of getting older. It also helped that I really liked my teacher.
Cath GB: I was Sandra, but don't know what you are talking about...
Sandra Dodd: The problem with reading music is that someone can perfectly read it, and make the sounds—like playing a video game really well—and it won't be musical at all. It will be mechanical and irritating, but if it were a video game, it would have been high scores.
AlexPolikowsky7: So I have NO musicality unless you count rhythm as musicality because I am great in that! I can pick up that and follow any music
Sandra Dodd: They assign (or used to, or can, sometimes?) moms to a group when they're pregnant. Some groups stay in contact. Julie Daniel did. This mom in Edinburgh did.
JennyC: My violin teacher said of my violin ability, "you can hear when you have the wrong note and you can adjust accordinly. Not everyone can do that."
Sandra Dodd: So I went to the cathedral, to hear this kid sing, on a Sunday afternoon. It wasn't the main service. I was excited to be in a big church with a formal boys' choir.
Cath GB: Oh, yes, it is in Scotland... (not in England I think)- is it call family referral or something like that ? it's someone who follows the family...
Cath GB: I forgot the name...
Marta Venturini: I remember playing a game in my 20s with my then boyfriend and his brother and it consisted of guessing which song was playing on the radio. I could usually guess which song it was in 2 seconds or so. I usually won. I loved playing it!
I loved playing it!
Sandra Dodd: And they did Benjamin Britten. NO!!!!!! I was sad.
Sylvia Woodman: And there is also the ability to play with expression. Not just playing the notes but how the notes are played.
Marta Venturini: (don't know why that memory popped up right now but it did)
Sandra Dodd: Benjamin Britten is very modern, kind of experimental 20th century stuff. It should be in a glass and steel church.
Sandra Dodd: Here's a sample, not of what they sang that day, but of something I've sung myself in a choir as a teen.
Sandra Dodd
Virginia W: I remember a lot of song lyrics. They just stick with me.
Marta Venturini: My dad and mom met when they were in a choir singing, in their 20s.
Sandra Dodd: I love to do that with Holly, Marta. it's guessing a recording, more than the song itself. Some recordings can be recognized with one or two notes easily!
Sandra Dodd: Marta, Keitha nd I did, too.
Virginia W: A podcast I listen to was talking about All in the Family
Sandra Dodd: In a madrigal group—less formal, smaller choir.
Virginia W: And I started singing
Sandra Dodd: Those lyrics weren't great—"gee our old La Salle ran great" isn't "hearable" in the air.
Marta Venturini: -=-Some recordings can be recognized with one or two notes easily!-=- Yes!
Virginia W: And found out I knew all the lyrics to the theme song
Sandra Dodd: One thing I wanted to bring up today was the intersection of music and other things. I think music and language arts come together not just with lyrics, or poetry (rhythmic writing), but with theatre and speech-writing. Some words look fine on paper, or if they're spoken carefully maybe you can understand them, spoken aloud they can be ambiguous, or sung, they can be unintelligible.
Cath GB: I make my kids laugh because when I heard some songs I did not spoke english yet, so made up a lot of lyrics... Now it's hard to understand what the song really say because the made up words stick with me 
Sandra Dodd: And it takes trying it out aloud and seeing if people can understand it.
Cath GB: like opera !
Sylvia Woodman: That's actually kind of cool Cath!
Cath GB: I was surprised the first time I went to the opera to see there was the text on display.
Sandra Dodd: I've written ceremonies in old-ish English—in 16th, 17th century-ish language, and sometimes we came up with a phrase (even if it was a modern phrase) that could NOT be interpretted from hearing it aloud.
Sandra Dodd: And I think it's musical intelligence that helps in those instances.
Jill Parmer joined the chat 2 days ago
Sandra Dodd: Because it's not about the words themselves, but the sound of them.
Sylvia Woodman: Someone posted a meme a couple of days ago talking about how when we were growing up there were no websites where you could look up lyrics and my friends and I would have great debates (and sometimes bitter arguments!) of what the lyrics of a particular song were!
Sandra Dodd: I think the first album with the lyrics on was Sgt. Pepper's by the Beatles. And then they put lyrics in or on everything.
Sandra Dodd: And others started doing it, too.
Sandra Dodd: There used to be cheap newsprint magazines at the grocery store with song lyrics, in the early 1960's. I wish I had saved one. My mom had some.
Virginia W: I remember learning all those songs from that album
Sandra Dodd: Mostly "standards" and country and western things.
Sandra Dodd: So without tunes, there's still some music.
Sandra Dodd: Drumming. Rap.
Sandra Dodd: There are combinations of dance and rhythm. The performance group Stomp, some years back. (Are they still around?)
Sandra Dodd
Sylvia Woodman: Oh we took the kids to see a performance of Stomp in February! The LOVED it!
Sylvia Woodman: they
Sandra Dodd: Jenny, you tell this one in dance terms. There can be technically correct dance that isn't really dancing, but just "doing moves," like someone can "play music" without it being very musical.
Serah: so, they're still around? yay!
Sylvia Woodman: And then Jim (who sometimes is the biggest kid of all) found all the buckets and brooms from the basement and he and the kids and their friends all had fun making different rythrym patterns.
Sandra Dodd: Marta said her dad chose engineering instead of music.
JennyC: Yes, that's true
Sandra Dodd: They're pretty close, those two, sometimes.
JennyC: I taught some simple choreography last night for a musical audition.
Sylvia Woodman: Jim is very musical. He sings, reads music and he is also is very mathematical. Loves numbers and puzzles and games. I think there is something that links all of those things together.
JennyC: It's actors, so some can dance for sure and some cannot at all. Nearly everyone could do the steps.
Parvine: Stomp show is in UK and Portugal! Have you seen it Marta?
Marta Venturini: I haven't, no.
Sandra Dodd: I was looking for a cup-rhythm video to put here, but look—lessons!
Sandra Dodd: I was looking for a cup-rhythm video to put here, but look—lessons!
JennyC: And everyone had to also sing. And some could carry a tune but couldn't turn their voices into music.
Sandra Dodd
Virginia W: Sylvia, Bill also.
Sylvia Woodman
This is great too! Have you seen this Sandra? http://youtube.com/watch?v=TNUEbR6MSY0
Cath GB: oh, I need to check !
Virginia W: And computer code.
Sandra Dodd: -=- Jim is very musical. He sings, reads music and he is also is very mathematical. Loves numbers and puzzles and games. I think there is something that links all of those things together.-=-YES. Keith, too. I think it's patterns in layers—patterns going in two or three directions.
Sandra Dodd: So spatial reasoning plus music.
Sylvia Woodman: Right!
Sandra Dodd: ...seems to equal some kinds of engineering.
Marta Venturini: That's interesting!
Virginia W: Miriam and I learned the "Cup Song" hand jive a while back
JennyC: That would be my youngest!
Virginia W: That was fun
Sandra Dodd: So those things are all "musicality," too.
Virginia W: And the song was easy on uke
JennyC: Great with patterns and puzzles and numbers and music.
Sylvia Woodman: Gabriella has never been interested in music or instrument lessons lately has been singing along with her Steven Universe playlist with headphones on, so I can't hear the music but only her voice. She has a lovely singing voice!
Cath GB: it's a bit like the clapping game to me (when you clap hands with a partner while singing a song)
Marta Venturini: When you posted the Stomp video, it reminded me of this:
Marta Venturini
Sandra Dodd: I can't dance, Jenny. I can just go through motions, and then can't remember them later. Same with card-game rules. Something doesn't stick.
Sylvia Woodman: Or jumprope songs. (I think I just dated myself here!)
Sandra Dodd: But I can sing, and harmonize and remember lyrics. I can teach all the parts of a song, if there's sheet music or if I know it well.
Sandra Dodd: I remember jumprope songs. I was good at that, because it involved songs.
JennyC: And my oldest can take music and find inspiration from it and interpret it artistically. It's fun to watch her. She does surprising things.
Sylvia Woodman: I think being able to harmonize is amazing! It's like a magic trick for me. I can't understand how it is done.
Sandra Dodd: There are some Renaissance and slightly later dances that I used to participate in, and if there was a song to go with it, I could do it. Most often, I played music for others to dance.
Virginia W: Sometimes I can do it and sometimes I can't
Sylvia Woodman: Jenny is any of Luna's stuff on YouTube? I would love to see some of the things you talk about.
Sandra Dodd: Sylvia, it's something like painting—like matching and mixing colors.
Virginia W: Harmonizing
JennyC: I can harmonize! It's the only kind of singing I can do. Blend me in, because I can't do solo. I can hear and carry a tune.
AlexPolikowsky7: I am in awe of all of you musically talented people!
Cath GB
stomp reminds me of Les Poubelles Boys http://youtube.com/watch?v=gQcRuWqJ-j4
Sylvia Woodman: And I know there is some sort of math involved too. Like a note 1/3 above or something....but at the moment, it is all beyond me. Sort of like parallel parking. Today it is a complete mystery. Someday, I hope to unlock that mystery!
Sandra Dodd: A friend of mine who had known me a long time and we'd sung together in several formats (madrigal, hymns, old-timey, ballads) brought a friend of his who did an Irish song, and I started harmonizing on the chorus, second time through (after I'd heard it, because the song was new to me) and it was largely in 4th instead of 3rds (intervals—the chords) and he looked at me funny and at the end said "How did you know to do that?"
JennyC: Sylvia, I have some things on video, but the quality isn't great because the lighting and sound aren't great.
Sandra Dodd: I knew because I had heard other things in that style, and I knew that's how the harmonies went. I don't know how I knew. I knew what was wrong, so I did what was right.
Sandra Dodd: So apparently I don't know how it works, either.
Sylvia Woodman:
Sandra Dodd: The pianist in the first video above had perfect pitch. That term is misused, but what it used to mean was someone could identify a note by name. Like "That's an E" as he was doing about the pitch of the train engine.
Sylvia Woodman: It's like having a special knack for things. I have it for cooking and baking. If something is not right, I usually can figure out a way to fix it. It's part experience and part something else. I don't have the knack for gardening.
Sandra Dodd: I can't do that. My best friend could, when we were kids, and she was the best pianist in town. By the time she was 14 she was driven 90 miles each week for a better teacher.
Sandra Dodd: It's not really GOOD for anything. It's like a parlor trick, a bar trick.
JennyC: My youngest and my husband can both identify notes from hearing. My youngest is still learning it, but the fact that they can do it amazes me because I cannot.
Sandra Dodd: But if I'm going to harmonize a note, I don't need to slide up or down to it. I hear that note, and I can sing what will harmonize with it, by ear, and just can.
Sandra Dodd: The way some people can draw something quickly, recognizeably. Or the way some people can hear something in another language and repeat it and remember it.
Sandra Dodd: Or the way Keith my husband knows everyone in the family's bank account numbers, social security numbers, phone numbers...
Sandra Dodd: But lots of musicians can't do my trick, and are still great musicians, so it's not a requirement at all.
JennyC: Musicality can be good for learning languages!
Sandra Dodd: It's just a thing.
Sandra Dodd: I think people who have musicality might learn some languages easier.
JennyC: Hearing those differences in various sounds is difficult for me.
Sandra Dodd: Does anyone remember something on facebook recently about the pitch at which toilets flush? I don't remember who put it there. My toilet was broken that day, and so I remember joking about that.
Cath GB: I guess it's easier to pronounce a language - the accents. When I lived in italy, i was asked if I was Napolitan (because i had the napolitan accent !) - I took it as a compliment
JennyC: I'd be really good at bad lip syncing.
Sandra Dodd: Sometimes when people have perfect pitch, the world bothers them.
Sandra Dodd: Like people who are good at grammar and punctuation and spelling suffer from seeing it abused.
Sandra Dodd: SO music plus language I mentioned.
Sandra Dodd: Music plus logical/mathematical came up because of Marta's dad, and Sylvia's husband.
Sandra Dodd: Music plus kinesthetic—those stomp guys, and cup girls, and dancers.
Sandra Dodd: Music plus nature intelligence might be what allowed me to harmonize with music I hadn't heard but once. I knew what KIND of music it was, and what distinguished that from similar others.
Sandra Dodd: That's what helps people know which instrument would be good to use, when they're going to arrange something too—knowing the textures of the sounds of different instruments—or voices! Some voices blend and some don't.
Sandra Dodd: And sometimes because of genetic realities, siblings blend. The Everley Brothers. The Carpenters. Donny and Marie Osmond. The Andrews Sisters.
Sandra Dodd: Cath—probably the ability to hear the differences, so musicality plus linguistic intelligence plus nature intelligence—recognizing subtle differences in things.
Sandra Dodd: I want to tell stories about the combinations of music and interpersonal intelligence—emotions.
Sandra Dodd: In 1986 the Star Trek movie "The Journey Home" came out. Kirby was a nursling, just born recently. Keith and I went to the theatre. Early on, maybe even in the credits, the soundtrack has some VERY very low sounds, maybe supposed to be whale songs, but it was rhythmic. It scared Kirby.
Sandra Dodd: He was nursing. He stayed latched on, but looked at me to see if things were okay. I readjusted my hold in a reassuring way, and he turned his head toward the speakers and his eyes stayed big. Then the music changed, and he relaxed, and nursed himself to sleep.
Sandra Dodd: After that, I paid more attention to soundtracks and to Kirby.
Sandra Dodd: Before he ever said a word, I would sing a two-note song, just "Ah-AH" either up or down, and he would copy it, and well. The two notes and the same distance a apart. Fun.
Sandra Dodd: When I was 13 or 14, I had a music teacher tell us that music could affect other people's emotions. I thought about it. And to myself I thought this:
Sandra Dodd: "Bullshit."
Sandra Dodd: I was SO WRONG!!!
Sandra Dodd: It's clear with scary movies. If you turn the sound off, they're not so scary.
Marta Venturini:
Serah: scary movies are ALL about the musical background!
Sandra Dodd: When Kirby was 14, Final Fantasy IX was out, and he got the soundtrack on CD. I use to drive him to karate twice a week and he put the CD in and asked me to see if I could tell by the music what was happening in the game.
Sandra Dodd: I hadn't even seen the game, but I listened to it.
Sandra Dodd: I'm going to say right now, that series is famous for the music. I think they were the first to use real orchestral scores, instead of mechanical computer-game music.
Sandra Dodd: And it's from Japan.
Serah: cool!
Sandra Dodd: So each song, I listened for the emotion, and I would say "Someone tried and failed, and has gone off alone" or "A young person succeeded where others failed" or it would sound like fear or confusion.
Sandra Dodd: And every time, Kirby said "right." I was so impressed—not with me for interpretting it, but for that composer for being able to put a story into the music that way, even for someone who hadn't played the game.
Sandra Dodd: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_t...
Marta Venturini: The soundtracks for sad movies always get me crying. Music moves me in a big way, but I guess that's what they aim for in those dramatic movies anyway. I don't watch them much nowadays. I prefer more upbeat stuff.
I don't watch them much nowadays. I prefer more upbeat stuff.
Sandra Dodd: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_t...
Sandra Dodd: Alex Polikowsky led me into the never-ending world of Korean Dramas. The music is
Serah: I find it amazing how composers can design the movies for films as they are being made.
Sandra Dodd: I started to write "incredible," but believe it. They're doing something that few western composers can do, and they're doing it with western instruments.
They're doing something that few western composers can do, and they're doing it with western instruments.
Sandra Dodd: They've taken orchestral scores ("classical music" in one way of thinking of it) and have gone beyond and above.
Sandra Dodd: And some of them, in more "jukebox" fashion, take (or order up) pop music songs to go with different characters or situations.
Serah: and the symmetry between the visual element of the film and the muscial element are in complete cohesion
Sandra Dodd: gyes.
Sandra Dodd: yes, Sarah. I love it when they show a "making of" segment that shows the composer.
Sandra Dodd: Henry V, with Ken Brannagh, that sound track is really something.
Sandra Dodd: John Williams just owned the big screen for a long time. Indian Jones, Star Wars, Superman....
Serah: lately my favourite is the Dances with Wolves soundtrack
Serah: Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings etc...
Serah: Last samurai
Sandra Dodd: And recently on PBS there was a Danny Elfman show I saw part of. He scores lots of Tim Burton movies. He did the theme song for The Simpsons, and some other TV shows but I'm not finding a list.
Marta Venturini: The sound track for The Last Samurai is wonderful, Serah.
Serah: certain directors like to work with certain composers
Marta Venturini: At least some of the tracks...
Sandra Dodd: I watch Last Samurai without listening to the music. It's a big visual thing for me, so I need to put it on maybe without looking (if possible... nah...)
Serah: Fantastic Mr. Fox has a super soundtrack too
Virginia W: My husband got the idea for my older daughter's name while he was reading about the theme song to the Simpsons's
Virginia W: It's in the Lydian Mode
Virginia W: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lydian_m...
Sandra Dodd: El Cid, one of my favorite moves EVER, has a just-about-perfect 1950's sound track. It won awards. Composed by Miklos Rozsa, who did other moves in those days. Ben Hur.
Serah: what's her name Virginia?
Sandra Dodd: Oh, NICE, Virginia!!
Virginia W: Lydia
Serah: cool story Virginia!
Sandra Dodd: Appreciating that I was wrong in my youthful rejection of the idea that good composers can pick your emotions up and throw them around is maybe part of musical intelligence.
Sandra Dodd: Or, maybe, it can be done to anyone whether they know they're perceiving it or not (like with Kirby at the Star Trek movie)
AlexPolikowsky7: Music definitely affects my emotions!!
Sandra Dodd: And maybe that's why some music is sinful
Virginia W: I cry very easily from music
Sandra Dodd: (working back to an earlier part of the chat) because the instrumentation and rhythms can stimulate parts of people's emotions that might be best left unstimulated.
Serah: sinful because you are no longer in control of your emotions. some outside force (music) is.
Sandra Dodd: Before we're out of time, I want to do this combo: musical intellience + intrapersonal intelligence.
Virginia W: Jingles
Virginia W: Ad music
Sandra Dodd: Knowing yourself. Marta said, and Virginia said, and I say pretty often—to avoid depression, to ameliorate it if you know it's coming, don't listen to sad music!! DON'T
Marta Venturini: Yes
Sandra Dodd: To cheer up in the moment, to keep yourself above the surface, if you're a bi-polar / manic/depressive type of person, learn to manage that some by avoiding what pulls you down into the dark and kicks your sad ass.
Serah: well said, Sandra!
Sandra Dodd: ONLY listen to John Prine or Joni Mitchell when you're all cheery and on a long road trip or something. Not by yourself, at home, thinking of what's gone wrong in your life. That's dangerous.
Sandra Dodd: And my one-minute late summation:
Marta Venturini: I stopped listening to Prince when he died... It made me really sad.
Sandra Dodd: Encourage your kids to play with music in all kinds of ways. They're learning and growing. Help them turn the scary music off, if they're scared. Encourage them to appreciate other people's artistry.
Sandra Dodd: Live lightly and musically. And if you have a kid who doesn't seem very musical, don't worry a bit.
And if you have a kid who doesn't seem very musical, don't worry a bit.
Marta Venturini:
Serah: Thanks so much for the chat. Looking forward to next week. The boys and I are going to do the cup / drum lesson videos
Sandra Dodd: Nobody but that weirdo Howard Gardner thinks music is worth a damn.
Sandra Dodd: I'll stay here a bit if some of you want to add stories.
Marta Venturini: Howard Gardner rocks! Ha!
Virginia W: I have a neat movie score story
Sandra Dodd: Tell it, Virginia!
Virginia W: The kids and I decided to watch The Shining
Virginia W: And they were really noticing how music was used to build tension in that movie
Virginia W: So we're watching, and the strings are shrilling, building the tension until we all jumped!
Virginia W: At a title card that said "TUESDAY"
Sandra Dodd: I bet the composer and editor knew that, like a joke, huh.
Sandra Dodd: That they would have people all keyed up and then.... change the subject.
Virginia W: They got us
Sandra Dodd: Oh, man.
