Wednesday 12 September 2007

understanding goosebumps

Having got back to London late last night (i seem to spend my life on trains!) I left the others in 12A for the day rehearsing new drummer Loz, fixing amps and organising fliers. It was an unexpectedly sunny morning and i was with my 2 yr old boy in the park and i found myself reflecting on those first gorgeously rambling sessions in Treehouse where everything was an experiment and it was like stepping into the unknown (with new baby in tow..) and there was so much time and no pressure from anywhere! Its kind of different now we're doing gigs and have started to put records out and theres more people around us instead of us 3 (and our trusty manager)... its getting busy and for the first time we have deadlines! And as i'm thinking all these things .. goodness, whats that strange feeling in my stomach.. is it... NERVES? So i played toddler football for as little as i could get away with and rushed back home to practise the new songs in the set which i have to say i dont really know 100 percent.. yer know - structures and all.. and tried to visualise the whole thing.. and i started to get EXCITED! It got me thinking about music in general and during a 10 min cuppa tea break i pulled out the sunday papers (typically unopened as yet)and by chance came across a really interesting article called "Why does music affect us like no other art?" in the Culture section.. It was a review of a book called 'This is your brain on music: Understanding a human obsession' by Daniel Levitin who when i looked into it found out that not only was he a professor and writer of music psychology but that he'd actually designed and built loudspeaker systems for bands like Steeley Dan and then The Grateful Dead during the late 70's and 80's - you know that real experimental movement in San Francisco that was based around Berklee Music College - before engineering and producing (Santana amongst others) and running record labels. Now THAT'S alot to do in a few years! Anyway this article was saying that the whole of this guy's research is directed at understanding his goosebumps .. now isnt that what we all want to know? i also think its kind of emotional when clumsy science attempts to understand art.. i'll try to find the article online and post it up so you can read it!

Till next time..gotta prepare for tomorrow.. g'nite x

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