Numeracy and literacy are the core business of Australian schools. But should we add music to that list? Too often in schools music is seen as an optional extra yet research shows that learning to play a musical instrument boosts cognitive development and gives children the edge at school. Music is also a tonic for emotional well being.
Hannah Critchlow speaks with Anita Collins about her book The Music Advantage: how learning music helps your child’s brain and wellbeing. Collins’ unpacks a number of benefits associated with music, including the association between hearing, speaking and reading, the importance of melodies in voice to aid cognitive development, the connection between singing and empathy, the link between rhythm and learning to read, and how learning a new instrument at 40-50 can help reduce cognitive decline when you are older.
I wonder if the challenge with ‘learning music’ is not so much the belief in the benefits of music, but the actual pedagogical possibilities. I feel that the challenge is what this all looks like at scale?
From mid-80s post-punk to chart topping classics, take a glimpse into Paul Mac’s astounding career
From classical piano to Itch-E and Scratch-E to Dissociatives to Stereogamous to teaching at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Paul Mac has had a wide ranging career:
There’s simply not enough space to list all of Mac’s collaborators over the years, but the volume and quality of artists who hold him in high regard speak to not just his work, but the way in which he works.
“If I find someone who I think is a true believer, then I just hold on to them and I invite them back for other things and sometimes they invite me back for their things,” Mac says.
“There’s plenty of really good people out there. Just don’t be a dick. Be that person that is fun that people want to work with. That has great ideas, but is also a joy to be around. If I find other people like that, I stay in touch with them, and we do more stuff. It just makes sense.”
For every Paul Mac collab you’re aware of, there are probably a dozen that you’ve heard without knowing he was involved.
It’s great starting a project when you’re limited to these instruments and limited to this scale, and you’re working out what can you do with it rather than just, you know, everything being possible. I like to know what I can’t do and then work inside that.
Spotify Wrapped has become an annual tradition, marking the change of seasons the same way beloved cultural staples like Starbucks holiday cups or Mariah Carey mark the holidays. But as Spotify’s feature rose in popularity, so did a growing discourse about algorithms, the use of which has become standard procedure on social media, and which Wrapped relies on.
Reflecting upon Spotify’s Wrapped, the yearly review, Kelly Pau reminds us of the place of algorithms and artificial intelligence embedded within these choices:
An algorithm takes a set of inputs and generates an output, the same way a recipe turns ingredients into a cake. For Spotify to rely on algorithms means it uses data from its consumers to generate music discovery delivered through playlists. Open Spotify’s home page and you can find any number of curated playlists that source user data collected from the app, from “Top Songs in the USA,” which aggregates collective data, to “Discover Weekly,” which draws from personalized data. To create these playlists, Spotify tracks the music you listen to, organizes it into certain categories, measures tracks against other listeners, and uses that information to choose what music to show you.
These choices and recommendations often come with their own sets of biases and assumptions around gender and mood. They help mold a ‘templated self’ or what David Marshall describes as a dual strategic personadual strategic persona:
Through a particular study of online entertainment reviewing, this chapter explores the emergence of a new strategic persona in contemporary culture. It investigates the way that the production of entertainment-related commentary, reviews and critiques online is increasingly defined by a complex relationship and intersection with what is described as a dual strategic persona. Along with a public presentation of the self as reviewer across multiple platforms, the new online film reviewer is also negotiating how their identity and value are aggregated and structure into algorithms.
Although these curations are designed to share, I am more interested in using them as a point of reflection. I am always intrigued about what they do and do not say about my listening habits this year, this goes with the regular recommendations as well. I actually wonder if Spotify Wrapped reflects the place that music has served at times this year, a form of fast food, consumed as a means of escape, rather than something to stop and consider. For me, this has led to more pop at times. In addition to this, my statistics are corrupted in that I often play music for my children.
“Building back better” is comparable to remodeling an old house (reform), whereas, “Building back different” is comparable to deconstructing that house in order to construct a whole new building (transform). Which is a whole different level of thinking, requiring new models and maps.
David Culberhouse pushes back on the call to build back ‘better’ and argues that instead we need to focus on building back differently.
If we are going to be able to move from reforming to transforming, to move from “Building back better” to “Building back different,” we will have to become much more aware. Aware of how much of what we consider for the future, of the ideas that are informing that future, are often projections pushed forward from the models and maps that have been constructed from both the past and the present.
His issue is that a focus on better often limits us to models and maps that have been constructed over time, whereas the focus should be on strategic thinking that is focused on the future.
This has me wondering about the place of history within all of this and the importance of not repeating the same mistakes twice.
I came upon Go-Go Sapien after seeing Twinkle Digitz live, Will Hindmarsh’s solo act. Love in Other Dimensions by Go-Go Sapien is always musically rich and interesting, yet at the same time often silly and absurd. At the end of the day thought, it always feels sincere.
With so much going on in the world at the moment, I found this album the perfect escape into another world in which to enjoy and laugh in equal parts. As the FVMusicBlog captures:
I listened to the whole album with a smile on my face and an ear worm in my ear all day.
My favorite track is SexxxKisss. Musically, the verse is loose with the electronic beat never quite providing a clear groove. In contrast, the chorus drops into a clear hook and groove that never ceases to have me wanting to start moving. Oh, and then there is the rapping in the bridge:
First I take sex and then I take a kiss
Then I put them both together like a love barista
So now you got your mix of SEXKISS BLISS
Doctor Zeuss couldn’t put it any beter than this
To be honest, this albums feels like it borrows from everywhere, yet at the same time never quite fits anywhere. As soon as it begins to sound like something oddly familiar, the next track will be completely change things up. Triple J Unearthed suggest they sound like Ariel Pink, ween and The B52s. Others suggest Frank Zappa meets Flight of the Concords.
As the end of the 20th century approached, Radiohead took to the recording studio to capture the sound of a society that felt like it was fraying at the edges. Many people had high hopes for the new millennium, but for others a low hum of anxiety lurked just beneath the surface as the world changed rapidly and fears of a Y2K meltdown loomed.
Amidst all the unease, the famed British band began recording their highly anticipated follow ups to their career-changing album OK Computer. Those two albums, Kid A and Amnesiac, released in 2000 and 2001, were entrancing and eerie — they documented the struggle to redefine humanity, recalibrate, and get a grip on an uncertain world. In this episode, we travel back to the turn of the millennium with Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood and the music of Kid A and Amnesiac.
With the aniversary of Kid A and Amnesiac, as well as Kid A Mnesia Exhibition, Rund Abdelfatah and Ramtin Arablouei speak with Stanley Donwood and Thom Yorke about legacy of albums. The podcast traces Radiohead’s rise, the contrast provided and Zygmunt Bauman’s discussion of ‘Liquid Modernity’.
Around the same time, a Polish philosopher named Zygmunt Bauman published a book called Liquid Modernity. His big idea was that the anxiety and unease people in the West were feeling in the late 20th century was due to the fact that technology was developing faster than culture: We could not keep up with the lightning-fast advancements in communication, transportation and entertainment. Radiohead captured that feeling in Kid A and Amnesiac. Maybe it’s a testament to these albums’ prophetic vision that 20 years later, they feel just as relevant. Maybe we still haven’t caught up with that rapidly changing world.
In a different take, Andy Beta traces some of the sounds captured in the album, such as Tortoise, Aphex Twin, Autechre and Alice Coltrane.
Once you start grasping how deeply we are products of our time, you can almost invert the idea of genius. Maybe the genius isn’t so much in the inventor as in the age. When an idea’s time is ripe, maybe that idea is just gonna happen: The voltage is so strong it’ll course through several different people at once.
So, what kind of ‘evidence’ is being referred to by the former Minister when he rightly insists we need to ensure that pedagogy is evidence-based’. Is he referring to evidence derived from primary research, such as randomized control trials (RCTs) and observational studies; or secondary research, including systematic reviews of the research literature? The fact is there is no single type of evidence. It is generally recognised that different evidence types have different methodological strengths. At the pinnacle of the ‘hierarchy of evidence’, are systematic reviews, followed by RCTs, cohort studies and then case-controlled studies, case reports and finally expert opinion. Without identifying the type of evidence to which he refers, the former Minister, appears to resort to lay-opinion disguised as evidence.
As principal of St Luke’s, I challenge students to answer three questions:
Who am I?
What can I do?
What problems do I want to solve?
You won’t find any one of these three questions on a HSC paper. I dare say that none of those questions appear in any examinations for school systems across the world. However, in answering these three questions throughout their time at St Luke’s, students are more able to understand their SIM (strengths, interests and motivations), engage with concepts such as ‘flow’ and ‘purpose’, and therefore enter a post school world with confidence by knowing where they can contribute.
Greg, if the focus for learners is about identifying problems worth solving, I wonder where that leaves teachers and what it means for them?
Usually I only ‘let myself’ read fiction on holiday breaks. But I’ve been drawn a lot more to fiction in the last couple years. It started a couple Christmas breaks ago when I received some free ebooks from Audible and I listened to a science fiction novel and got hooked into an epic series. Then I listened to a couple books that I never would have selected for myself, just because they were free… and I loved them. But reading fiction outside the holidays always came with a little self-imposed guilt.
David, your discussion of fiction reminded me of an interview between Stan Grant and Dan Haesler where at the end of the conversation they talk about the power of reading, thinking and questioning when it comes to leadership. This is about going beyond one’s own world view and challenging your perceptions. I think that fiction is a powerful way of doing this.
As Ursula K. Le Guin touches on in her introduction to The Left Hand of Darkness:
In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we’re done with it, we may find – if it’s a good novel – that we’re a bit different from what we were before we read it, that we have changed a little, as if by having met a new face, crossed a street we never crossed before. But it’s very hard to say just what we learned, how we were changed.
When I sometimes skim through lifestyle magazines my wife loves to read, and encounter an article that triggers another link to a problem I’m working on, that is serendipity. I love walking into book stores and going home with a new purchase that I didn’t foresee on a subject that I at first wasn’t interested in.
Here are some examples of what digital fluency could look like, and what some schools are already actively creating. One example is giving high school students a LinkedIn account and spending time supporting what it means to have a public profile and how to curate a positive digital footprint compared to a personal social media footprint. Other schools are creating blended courses for parents on how to understand the difference between the pedagogic use of digital devices in schools and the challenges of a more open ended environment of digital device use outside of school in the home. Another example is having students develop public service announcements regarding malware and then coaching younger students on how to identify phishing emails and how to manage an antivirus app. Another is walking through the architecture of effective password creation and developing sustainable strategies to ensure a solid level of security in the students personal lives as a podcast. Or having students coach their parents through the privacy and security settings of their favorite app and create a how-to help screencast.
The digital age enabled productivity but invited procrastination. Julian Lucas on why writers are rebelling against their word processors.
From literary Rube Goldberg workflows, distraction-free text editors and e-ink tablets, Julian Lucas dives into the world of distraction-free writing. He unpacks applications and devices such as iA Writer, Ulysses, Bear, Word ‘focus mode’, Hanx Writer, OmmWriter and Freewrite Smart Typewriter and reMarkable. All along, Lucas explores the friction between paper and computers, and the benefits and negatives associates with each.
The most venerable form of literary friction may be the scratch of pen on paper. Computers have largely failed to replace the original focussed word processor, which is not only cheap and abundant but uniquely conducive to the forms of spatial thinking—arrows, scribbles, doodles, and diagrams—that writing often demands. Physical mark-making also quickens the memory, which is one reason that handwritten notes are so much easier to recall than their typed equivalents. Yet paper can also fail us in the heat of composition, when the time comes to search notes and splice sentences. The two indispensable systems square off. For years, I’ve switched between them in what can feel like a war of attrition: scribbling until my hand cramps, typing until dazed by the screen, and wasting time with scanners to translate between mediums.
Personally, I think the challenge for a clean workflow is something that everyone grapples with. Having a distraction-free space to write is central to that.
I am also reminded of Marc Scott’s appeal against Word from a few years ago:
So please… pretty please… please with bells on top, borders of apples and the word PLEASE written in bright blue Word-Art; think next time you want to send a Word document by email or put one on your website, think about your recipient. Could you use the body of the email or a page on the site? Perhaps you could save the file as a .txt, .rtf or PDF. Just spare a thought for those of us that choose not to use Microsoft Word, and respect our right not to do so.
My older self knows that life’s mistakes are destiny’s way of laying the tracks that will bring my younger self to the place where I am at this very moment — the mostly happy place, where I sit, with the sun coming through the window, writing an answer to your excellent question.
Watched
Watching this recount of how Adolf Eichmann was found and abducted from Argentina in 1960 I was left thinking how many failed attempts to find him there may have been?
Jason Kottke also shares some links to other accounts about Eichmann:
The 50 best albums of the year, as voted by the Double J team
I am always intrigued by looking through lists of best albums, what albums did I also gel with? What albums did I seemingly miss? The albums that made my list were:
James Blake – Friends That Break Your Heart
Lana Del Rey – Chemtrails Over The Country Club
Julia Stone – Sixty Summers
Tropical Fuck Storm – Deep States
Courtney Barnett – Things Take Time, Take Time
Shihad – Old Gods
For Those I Love – For Those I Love
The War On Drugs – I Don’t Live Here Anymore
Fred again.. – Actual Life (April 14 – December 17 2020)
The Avalanches – We Will Always Love You (wasn’t that 2020?)
However, there are quite a few I have clearly overlooked.
More importantly, I am left intrigued by the albums not included. I cannot find Damian Cowell’s album mentioned anywhere online, a part from a random Rolling Stones article. I am not sure if it is the medium or what it is, but definitely leaves me wondering if there is a list of albums out that there simply lay dormant, seemingly excluded from the clubhouse?
One of the most important Samuel Beckett documents is Tom F. Driver’s interview with “Beckett by the Madeleine” in which Beckett stressed the distress, the mess in the world today, and dismissed any overt religious interpretation of Waiting for Godot. This text is reproduced from: Stanley A. Clayes, ed., Drama and Discussion (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1967), pp. 604-7. Diver’s interview was originally published in Columbia University Forum 4 (Summer 1961): 21-25.
In an interview with Tom F. Driver, Samuel Beckett talks about the importance of finding the right form to capture the chaos:
What I am saying does not mean that there will henceforth be no form in art. It only means that there will be new form, and that this form will be of such a type that it admits the chaos and does not try to say that the chaos is really something else. The form and the chaos remain separate. The latter is not reduced to the former. That is why the form itself becomes a preoccupation, because it exists as a problem separate from the material it accommodates. To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artists now.
Wouter Groeneveld