Reed Ghazala - The Father of Circuit Bending

Even if you don't know what circuit bending is, you've definitely heard what it does. Although it's front and center in glitch, Avant-garde and noise music, elements of it can be heard in main stream genres too.

So what is circuit bending? The art of creatively rewiring, customizing, and shorting an electronic circuit. Usually it's tiny, low voltage electronics - guitar effects, children's toys etc. It's a really neat process, and something that tickles the experimenter in me!

Reed Ghazala is the acknowledged "father" of this practice. He might not be the first one to do it, but he's definitely the one to coin the term and spread it as a musical instrument. Here's a short documentary that's both informative and fascinating. Makes me want to go out and dig up all my half-dead electronics!

Interactive, Web-based Music Video for 3 Dreams of Black

Remember the Arcade Fire Google Chrome Video that I talked about a few months ago? It utilized the new HTML 5 standard and combined it with google maps - to create a personalized music video based on your location. Very neat stuff.

Today's post is something that further pushes the envelope with "web-based" music videos...and it's really awesome (it's brought together by Chris Milk, the same people who did the Arcade Fire vid).

"3 Dreams of Black" is a track from the concept album "ROME" by Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi. The album features Norah Jones and Jack White and will be released some time in the near future. In the mean time, they've released a really neat promo video that is designed specifically for viewing through a web browser. In fact, much like the Arcade Fire video, you can ONLY watch it online, using google chrome. But boy is it cool.

It's so interactive that it feels like a video game - you can change the view point, and guide the animals as they morph and interact with the environment. In fact in many ways it's closer to a video game, because many of the elements are rendered live (if you don't know what that means, it just means your computer is actually creating each frame, instead of just playing each frame).

What's more, you can also create your own animals/creatures to appear - and some of them will even automatically appear in other people's viewing experience. It's not just interactive, it also connects viewers to each other!

See the actual video at www.ro.me

See the behind the scenes video here:


What do you think?

LAPD radios...as Music

I often ponder the ingredients of a song - the structure, the chords, the genre, the lyrics... but even then, sometimes I am blown away with surprise, when certain ingredients are put together in such a way that they are far and beyond what I could have anticipated.

Today's post is a really strange, simple idea, but it comes across as really surreal and full of emotion. At youarelisteningtolosangeles.com, the musician? artist? combined the LAPD radio stream with ambient music from soundcloud. The result is this...really, cold musical landscape of a futuristic dystopia. Something straight out of a science fiction film noir. If Blade Runner was being remade in 2011, this is how the film would start.

The ingredients here are simple - ambient music + random cops talking about things going on in the city. Yet the result is so much more. The dialog of the cops are full of codes, and just muffled enough that you can sort of understand them...adding to the mystery of it, and making it seem almost robotic. The music makes it seem more dramatic, like a never ending dialogue of problems in the city....

Just check it out. Very neat. It's also intriguing to see how different ambient pieces change the feeling.

Shimon, The Robot That Can Improvise Music

In one my previous posts, I talked about "seperating performance from recording". In it, I discussed the digitization of an actual performance, such that you can simulate a recording - say a piano piece by Thelonious Monk - and replicate it on a real piano (If this doesn't make sense, you're not alone. It's something that's hard to explain with the current lingo in music. So go check the other blog post). Today's post is a similar endeavor, but with an even more challenging task - a robot that can not only simulate a player, but improvise over live music.

This can be done of course, by the fact that music - even improvisation - follows a set of general rules. Yet the fascinating thing here, is that the type of improvisation can be programmed to be characterized as different real life artists. As the video explains, Shimon (the name of the robot) can programmed to be "30% artist A, and 40% artist B, and the rest something else". At the same time, it is able to react to real time input by the musicians Shimon is playing with! That's an amazing technical accomplishment!

Of course, this makes me ponder the same question as the other post: Would you truly enjoy this music? Would it somehow "cheapen" it? Does it even matter?



And here's a full performance:

TrackDropper - Geocaching with Music!

Ahh... Music Hack Day. What a wonderful concept. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can check out my blog post on it here. Here's a really cool idea that came out of Music Hack Day London 2010: TrackDropper.

As I'm sure many of you net savvy readers are aware, geocaching is one of the neatest things to catch on in the last decade. With the advent of cheap GPS devices and the internet, the nerdy scavenger hunt has become an accessible and fun way to discover things about the places you go to - whether that is your local neighborhood, or somewhere in a foreign country. It lets you be just a little more connected to your surroundings, to your fellow human beings in a way that is strangely personal.

And then comes Trackdropper, created by Andrew Bruce, Chris Lowis and Yves Raimond. The concept is very simple: instead of just sharing music online to anyone who has an internet connection, this app associates a specific location with the music file. In other words, you have to actually go to the location to download the music. Geocaching....with music!

Yes, it's illegal, and it's piracy with a twist... but the potential to make this something extraordinary makes this really exciting.

By associating a specific location with your music, a musician could write a song that is specific to that place. You could dictate the surroundings, the atmosphere, the noise and smells that a musical piece is associated with! And because you have to go there personally to get it, that strange sense of being "personal" could be experienced by the listener. Imagine singing a song about a specific scene, a part of a river, a famous building.. and you can have the listener actually see the real thing as they listen. On a more practical usage, You could also easily release a song at a specific location to be timed with a public performance/signing, or other publicity events.

The app is currently limited to the Android phone, but isfree for download here. Go re-discover your own neighborhood!

TrackDropper from Yves Raimond on Vimeo.

Interactive, Personalized Music Video by Arcade Fire

I don't know how I completely missed this until now, but better late then never!

The new music video - although calling it that doesn't really describe everything that's going on in it - by Arcade Fire is one heck of an interesting experiment. It's a joint project between them and google. "...google? Google made videos?"

...well, not exactly. This is where it gets interesting.

Instead of a normal video, it's an interactive experience that combines traditional music videos, google maps, your own text input, mouse movements, and browser technology. Using a specific video clip as the basis, it uses the ability to place different sized browser windows to create a seamless experience that is custom made to each person.  By adding a location - and google streetview's photos of that area - the video renders 3D images of your address, while adding 3D animations over it.  At the same time, the multiple windows create a split screen (split several different ways) viewing experience that jumps between the windows, rendering different things. It's really quite neat, not just as a music video but as an internet browsing experience. Indeed, it's a refreshing and surprising way to enjoy the internet itself. This really changes the concept of the music video.

But really, this won't make any sense unless you see it yourself. To see it properly, you'll need to download google chrome.

So go see The Wilderness Downtown - An interactive film by Chris Milk, featuring "We Used to Wait" by The Arcade Fire.

To learn more about this project, and how it's done, go here.

Need a Drummer? A Guitarist? A Kazoo..ist? Musical Collective Might Be The Solution

If you're a musician, song-writer, or composer, you've probably been faced with the following dilemmas: You have an awesome idea, but you don't have the instruments to put it down in a recording.  You can't afford to pay for a professional studio musician, but you really need a drummer.  You have a great snippet of a song/piece, but maybe you don't know what to do with it.

In other words, you want to collaborate with someone...but you don't have the right people around you.

In the age of the internet however, this shouldn't be such a problem. Unfortunately, there wasn't much of a forum for this specific niche - you had craigslist to jam with locals, you had music forums to discuss technical/equipment related things, and you had sample library websites where the focus is a little different.  The closest thing were electronic music forums, but there wasn't much out there for composers and other musicians.  What musicians wanted was a forum where they could post snippets, ideas, or even entire songs - and have other musicians and composers add things to it.

Well, we seem to have finally arrived at such a forum.  The Musical Collective is brand spanking new website that is aiming to become the hubris for musical collaboration. It's still in it's infant stages, but I am hoping that it takes off - as the founder, Brad Westness says:

I wanted to make a place where people could collaborate on music, kind of like the famous stories of "The Postal Service" completing their album by mailing tapes back and forth. I thought this would be a little more convenient than mailing tapes.

Way more convenient indeed.

What do you think?

Indie Folk...with an African Twist

African musical influences - whether it be North, South, East or West African - have shaped the development of reggae, blues, rock, jazz, calipso, tango, mamba, salsa...and many other styles of music.  But in all of these cases, the African influence evolved into a brand new genre, effectively becoming it's own style of music.  Yet for all it's musical influence, it is rarely used as the primary motif of a piece of music.

"What do you mean?" You say?

This might be explained easier if I compare it to Latin music.  When a piece of music has a Latin flair to it, it is usually quite prominent - the rhythm, the scales, the melody, and even sometimes the language - is used in a way that it is front and center of the music.  If the basis is rock music - such as Santana's music - you can hear the Latin influence on the melody and rhythm, all the while still being undeniably "rock".  Or Indian music and the role it plays in "Norwegian Wood" by the Beatles, or "Beware..." by Jay-Z and Punjabi MC.

African styles of music however, don't often get that kind of creative usage in Western music. And I don't know why.

There are exceptions of course, and I find them very refreshing - such as Shakira's Waka Waka song, Paul Simon's Graceland, or even the Lion King soundtrack.  But you probably haven't heard much else that prominently has an African flair to the music.

Given that rarity...would you be curious what Indie Folk with African flair would sound like? Of course you would be!

If you've watched the MLB playoffs this year, you may have noticed a new Blackberry Torch commercial. While the commercial itself isn't incredibly memorable, the music in the background completely floored me - and I found myself hoping that it's an actual artist that plays this type of music, instead of it being a jingle that was written just for the commercial. In fact, it was only the last few seconds that really stood out, because it clearly had a twangy, nasal, multi-voiced rhythmic feel - a prominent African flair.

The song is by tUnE-yArDs, which is the moniker of an Oakland based musician named Merrill Garbus. It's really rough sounding - it's recorded at home, using non-professional equipment - but it makes the sound that much more raw and honest. She has one album out right now, and it's full of little gems that are African influenced, yet unmistakably indie folk. Where does her African flair come from? She spent some time studying and living in Kenya! Very cool.

So without further ado, here is "Fiya" (Fire) by tUnE-yArDs. If at first it seems really straightforward folk, wait until it builds up. The African flair comes in slowly, but completely takes over the melody and feel of the song at around 4:00.

A Rant About Live Shows

I've never done this on this blog, but I'm going to do it anyway and rant about something that bothers me: idiots at live shows.

I just came back from an - otherwise - great show, but it was practically ruined by a couple of selfish and inconsiderate audience members. I won't talk about what happened, but it got me thinking about concert etiquette. It's unfortunate, but true - some people just don't respect the etiquette of going to see live shows, and sometimes they ruin the experience for everyone around them. The worst part is that they act like it's their right to be inconsiderate, when clearly everyone is being affected.

There are unwritten rules in concerts, no matter what genre they are.  For some genres, it's more obvious, like classical music and operas. It's the same thing in any other concert though: there are rules. For example, at a folk or a hip-hop concert,  you don't mosh. I'm all about self expression and enjoying yourself, so if moshing is your thing, then I would say go for it.  But that's not the only issue at concerts. It doesn't matter if you feel like moshing, it's inappropriate. Why? Because it disrupts everyone else trying to enjoy the show, and it's extremely inconsiderate of those around you. If you want to do that, then do it at the back. Alternatively, if you get a group of people to sit in the middle of the mosh pit at a punk concert - that would also be inappropriate, for the same reason.

There's an art to getting to the front of the stage too - you don't just push and try to break through. You weave.  Don't hold up signs for the whole time either, because it blocks the view of everyone behind you.

Ultimately, it's these selfish people - who go to shows and think that "rock and roll" allows them to do whatever they want - that ruins it for everyone else.  It's your right to enjoy the show, but not at the expense of everyone around you.  If you, dear reader, happen to be one of those people, and you still think that you're allowed to just enjoy yourself no matter what - and everyone else be damned, it's a rock show - then you're being a hypocrite. Because even you follow certain rules of conduct, and there are things you would disapprove of. Think of this following scenario:  What if I gathered a group of drunk people to sing a different song from a different band during a live show, right behind you? I can't imagine you would appreciate that, and in fact it would probably ruin the whole show because it disrupts the enjoyment of the show. There's an etiquette to be followed, but more importantly, others around you to consider. Your actions, whether it be inconsiderately pushing, or dancing, or sitting, are ruining it for everyone else.  Rock and roll does not allow you to do anything you want - be mindful of others. Look around, we're all here to have a good time too, don't be an ass.

 The worst part is that often the songs these people are rocking out to are about respecting the people, or getting along, or fighting oppression, or something positive.  You would think that they would actually think about their own actions and how it negatively affects everyone else.

What do you think? What's the worst thing you've seen an audience member do at a show?

A Piano that Speaks English

Everything from traffic noise, violins, to our own voices are changes in the way the air around us move. When they create a sound, they are creating a wave that oscillates at certain frequencies. In theory then, by analyzing these frequencies and wave patterns and reproducing them with different mediums, you can recreate the sound of anything from animals to instruments, to pretty much everything. This is the theory behind synthesizers - they "synthesize" the frequency and wave patterns of instruments like violins, and reproduce them through pre-programmed sin waves.

In theory then, you could reproduce the sound of say, a violin, with anything. That's right. You could make hitting lego blocks, clapping hands, even a car - to sound like a violin. Why? Because we are able to analyze the frequency of a violin and break it down to small components. If we have enough precise control over (lots of) lego blocks, then we could manipulate them enough such that hitting them would produce a similar frequency pattern as a violin. Sounds far fetched?

There's an interesting comparison that you're probably more familiar with - image mosaics. Or pictures that are made up of smaller pictures:

Not perfect, but it's clearly visible - and this next video is essentially the musical equivalent.

Created by Berno Polzer as a performance art piece "Wien Modern" is an installation for the World Venice Forum 2009.  Using a detailed analysis of a recital of the Proclamation of the European Environmental Criminal Court, "Wien Modern" uses a combination of piano keys to simulate the sound of a human child. Each piano key would be like the small pictures in the image above - and the human voice like the Mona Lisa.



I'd like to see other instruments do these sorts of things too!

*I've been busy recording my own music in the past couple months, so this blog has suffered. I'll try to get this going again ASAP, but thanks for your patience in the mean time.

Cops Use Ice Cream Truck Music to Combat Crime

Before I get into the main story, Youtube has added - what I assume to be - a temporary feature on all videos. It's being introduced over a few hours, so it might not work on all vids, but from the looks of it, it seems to be heading towards universalization of.... the vuvuzela button.

If you go to any youtube video right now, you'll see a small soccer ball button in the bottom right corner. As most of you probably know, the vuvuzela is the instrument? noise maker? that has become ubiquitous on World Cup matches in this year's tournament. If you've watched any games, you'll know what I'm talking about. This button is hilarious, because it plays the Vuvuzela drone over the video you are watching, and it doesn't stop even if you mute the video (you have to press the vuvuzela button to stop it). It's a funny way to poke fun at the fact that people around the world are complaining about the noise. I won't get into whether we should interfere with cultural traditions or not... but what I will say is this: it's really neat how a simple sound can embody/signify an entire event and an entire sport. Justified or not, when you hear that noise, you can't help but remember the world cup. In fact, I found it difficult not to feel like I'm watching a football/soccer match regardless of the youtube video I was watching - such is the power of sound, and the power of association.

Now moving on..

The news article I want to talk about is some what related, in that it's about the power of sound and association. In a nutshell, a Belfast police officer was out patrolling one night, and came across a rowdy group teenagers who began attacking the car with bottles. So what did he do? He started blasting ...ice cream truck music at them. And it worked. They dispersed.

I find it amusing, but it really does speak to the psychological weight that music can have. I personally would probably have a hard time picking a fight with anyone... with ice cream music being blasted. It completely saps the tension in the situation.

Now as neat as it is to reflect on the power of music to define the emotional content of any given situation... there's a dark side to it as well. I think our assumptions and associations about different types/genres of music play an incredible role in defining our own musical tastes. It's really unfortunate that those who listen to classical might not enjoy jazz, and those who enjoy death metal won't listen to electronica etc...

I would like to think that this blog is playing a small part in reversing people's conceptions about what is "acceptable" as music. So thanks for sticking around and reading this blog!

If you want to check out the actual article about the Belfast cop using the ice cream music, go here

Music Hack Day

Put together music nerds with computer nerds, give them 24 hours to hack together a music related application/program, and you have... Music Hack Day.

It's a marathon coding session that encourages programmers to come up with new, innovative ideas about the way music can interact with computers. So far it's been a great success in London, Berlin, Amsterdam, Boston and Stockholm. Upcoming events are going to be held in San Francisco and Amsterdam. At the end of the event they showcase their apps, which can then be downloaded on their official website.

According to their homepage: "The main goal of Music Hack Day is to explore and build the next generation of music applications. It's a full weekend of hacking in which participants will conceptualize, create and present their projects. Music + software + hardware + art + the web. Anything goes as long as it's music related."

Apps range from things that apply to social networking sites such as myspace and facebook, to music streaming services such as soundcloud and last.fm, as well as standalone apps and websites. As you can expect, the products are not incredibly refined - but the ideas that come out of these events are sometimes really impressive.

Take a look for yourself at musichackday.org. If you click on the past dates you can see the prize winners from past events etc.

Another Way to Use a Glass Bottle

I've introduced a few posts that involve bottles before. Today's video is also based on a bottle, but it is different from the other videos in a significant way. In all the other videos, the bottle was either blown, or hit with a stick to produce a sound. In this video, the bottle is still blown... but it's used as a supplement to the voice. It's a really unique way to use an instrument.

Why do I see it as so unique? Because the bottle is essentially a supplement to the voice. The note that the bottle plays is always constant - by that I mean it plays the same note over and over again - but the melody doesn't sound that way because the vocal lines that are before and after it create a seamless melody. Furthermore, because the bottle has a different tonal quality than the rest of the vocal melody, the notes that the bottle plays feels like a punctuation, a moment of emphasis in the entire melody.

What's also cool is that because the bottle can't change tone - indeed, it's fairly constant in tone and timbre - but it's preceded and followed by the fluctuating vocal lines, the combination creates an "electronic music" feel to the whole thing.... even though it's just a bottle, a tambourine, and vocals!

By the way, this is by the Armenian artist Arto Tunçboyacıyan, who also played on a hidden track on a System of a Down album a long time ago. He's also played with Chet Baker and Al Di Meola, for those of you who enjoy jazz.

I wonder if there are other instruments that utilize a similar methodology? It really creates a neat feel to the song, and I would love to see other instruments used this way.

The Beatles 1000 Years From Now?

Musical Anthropology, or Musicology, is an academic discipline that traces the history of musical acts, periods, and styles. If you ever get to read the history of a musical piece, or the music of other cultures (both in location and in time), it's an absolute fascinating read.

As you might have noticed, I generally avoid putting up comedic videos/music on this site. This is because I want to use this site to promote the understanding and appreciation of music, and often comedic songs are making fun of styles, or are not meant to be taken seriously as a musical piece to begin with. But I've obviously made exceptions, when they illustrate some really neat feature of music in their comedic routine.

Why am I talking about this? Because this next video is a comedic video - a mocumentary set 1000 years from now, with musical anthropologists explaining the significance of the Beatles. It's pretty hilarious, because most of it is completely wrong.

But it makes you wonder: how much of what we assume about music and its origins are actually true? It's hard to say - Not that I'm claiming that the current musicologists are completely mistaken. Instead, I think this video really highlights the long history of music in the genealogy of human kind.

It may be true that we have digital and paper records these days.... but that doesn't mean the will always be around either. When you think about the fact that no political order has lasted 1000 years, it really makes you realize how much could change in the next 1000 years too. It's scary to think how impermanent everything is! This video could potentially become true in 1000 years!

....that being said, it also makes you realize the continued relevance of certain kinds of music, and how amazing that is. Gregorian chants can be around 1000 years old, and people still listen to them, as do many other musics from different parts of the globe.

Do you think the Beatles' music will be around in a 1000 years? It's quite a feat!

Louis Armstrong Sings Britney Spears

Before you read anything else on this blog post, listen to this. It's a 1932 recording by Louis Armstrong, the "original" version of Britney Spears' "Oops I did it again".




Interesting isn't it?
...now I want you to honestly ask yourself: Does this change your opinion of this song? Did you use to think it was a horrible song, but now it seems more legitimate? Perhaps because it is written and sung by a legitimate song writer/artist?












....because this is a complete hoax/fake. That's right, it's a fake. Knowing that it is fake, does it change your opinion of the song? Is it less "artistic"? If it was true that Louis Armstrong had written the song, I think there would be many more people who would accept it as a good song. Strange isn't it?

Ask yourself: How much of our "value" and judgment of music is actually our preconceived prejudices towards genres, artists, languages, etc? ...and how much is the actual piece of music?

Violin Strings Are Made of What??

This may come as a surprise, but the best violin strings are made not out of plastic, nylon, or metal - it's made out of lamb intestine. It's been that way for centuries. It's a long process that involves several steps before they resemble strings. Some of you may have heard the colloquial term for these strings: catgut (I have no idea why it's cat gut, because it's usually a much larger mammal, from pigs to horses).

It makes me wonder: who thought of doing this in the first place? It's a strange thing to think of doing.

If you want to see the production in action, check out the video below!

How Music Works

...okay, so maybe the title of this blog entry is a little misleading: after all, we can't say we've figured out everything about music. Nonetheless, there's a 4 part documentary whose title is exactly that. It's a really good documentary, even if you already know all of the things it talks about. The presentation is simple and effective, all the while explaining a range of musical theory and historical anecdotes. Really great stuff. Obviously, it's a very Western centric view of music, but it seems to understand that.

The first part is melody, and it tracks the development of melodies and song structures over the centuries. It covers topics like the pentatonic scale, which is a scale found in almost every single culture. Neat stuff.



The second part is rhythm, and it introduces some basic time signature differences, and how rhythm shapes music.



The third part is harmony, and it explores the development of harmony, and what makes it sound good to us.



The fourth part is bass, and it shows how the idea of a bass instrument is relatively new, and how it plays a prominent role in modern music.



An important note! These videos are hosted on what looks like a Russian youtube-like site. I think they limit the bandwidth of each video some how, so sometimes not all the videos will load. Don't worry! Come back and try it again in a few hours, or on another day. It should work eventually.

A National Anthem in 5 languages 5 writers and 2 keys: South Africa

If you wanted to show someone the emotional power that music can have, showing them a national anthem being sung at sports events might be a good example. National anthems are funny that way: most people certainly don't listen to their own national anthem on their own leisure time, and I suspect most people wouldn't say it's reflective of their taste in music either. Yet there's an appreciation and joy out of singing it with lots of people, or when we hear it being played at sports events. Now imagine being responsible for writing a national anthem! The pressure would be incredible - what do you say in it? what kind of music would it be? what language?

Now imagine that you're responsible for writing the national anthem for a deeply divided country with a history of oppression and violence between different groups....and you have South Africa in 1994.

As most of you know, South Africa emerged from apartheid in 94, with just such a history. It's totally fascinating what they did with the national anthem. At the time, Die Stem van Suid Afrika (written in Afrikaans, a language that is derived from Dutch) was the national anthem, with an official english version of it, The Call of South Africa. As you can imagine, the anthem represented oppression for most of the black population in South Africa. Instead, unofficially the song Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika was adopted as an anthem by anti-apartheid groups (which is, or has been, the national anthem for other nations in that region). If you've ever seen the film "cry freedom", one of the scenes involves a huge anti-apartheid meeting where the song is sung as an act of defiance, and it shows how significant the song became. It was a symbol of freedom and human rights. At the same time, the song represented terrorism and communism for the most of the whites, since that's what they were told by the government and media. So one divided country, with two national anthems, both hating the other.
*This is a crude summary of the complexities that existed in South Africa at the time, and in no way am I doing justice to the views that existed. I'm just trying to quickly show how divided the country was. If you want to know more about it, I suggest doing more research. This is not a forum for political discussion.*

In 94 - when Nelson Mandela became president - he ordered that both national anthems be adopted. So for awhile, South Africa had two official anthems. Then, in 96, both national anthems were combined into one, which is the current one that still remains. It's incredible - it starts off with Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika in Xhosa, then Zulu, then Sesotho, then switches keys and goes into Die Stem van Suid Afrika in Afrikaans, then in English. Since it doesn't go back to the original key, it is also the only national anthem to be Neo-Modal. In total, the music is written by 2 writers and the lyrics are written by 5. How amazing is that? Hear's what it sounds like:



Here's a video of it being sung by the national rugby team during the 2007 world cup, which they won!

Screaming Dance Music

It's funny how life works. A couple of posts ago I talked about the art of screaming, and now I come across this...

I have to admit I wouldn't actually listen to this on my leisure time, but it's certainly an original idea. I'm sure it fills a niche that never existed before!

What am I talking about? Ever wonder what would happen if dance music incorporated death metal screaming? Me neither. But someone did, and here's the result. Whatever you think of it, I think we can all agree it's worth listening to once, because this is definitely different:



I checked out their other videos, but they seem to be more of a rap group than a dance group. Screaming and rap didn't surprise me as much, so I posted this video instead. If you like it, they are called brokeNCYDE.

Dancing?

I've posted about different aspects of music here, from instruments, performance, vocals, and even music videos. I think all have the potential to move people, to touch people in ways that are impossible to describe in words. However, I had a very awkward realization when it was made apparent that I have not talked about dancing.

What made me realize this? This is even more embarrassing - the youtube video from "So you think you can dance", where all the judges were crying. I guess I will embed it here. The performance is supposedly extremely moving.



But I don't get it. Nada. I thought it was entertaining to watch, but in the same way that I am impressed with gymnastics. I felt nothing watching this. Believe me, I tried though. Hard.

So it is with this realization that I reflected upon my understanding of dancing, and came out wondering: Am I missing something here? Because I really don't think I get it. Perhaps the above video is just a bad example, but I still have yet to ever see a dance that moved me. Dances can look sexy, can look strong, can look impressive...but I can't imagine a dance that could make me feel something the way music can, the way a painting can, or the way that actors can (for me personally).

If anyone has any thoughts on this, please feel free to share! I would love to understand dance. It's so utterly tied with music, yet I am completely ignorant of it.