Sweet Seventeen

So I was Goodwill hunting again yesterday. And behold I was a mighty huntress. Yesterday's Booty...

Radio La Chusma (local group...really good stuff)
Joe Satriani.....Flying in a Blue Dream
Alicia Keys.....The Diary of Alicia Keys
Tonic.....Lemon Parade (I have NO idea who or what this is. But sometimes I like to try something completely unfamiliar as a musical adventure)
En Vogue.....Funky Divas
Aaron Neville.....The Tattooed Heart
Kathleen Battle and Wynton Marsalis.....Baroque Duet
Paul McCartney.....Flaming Pie
Bruce Hornbsy and the Range.....A Night On the Town
Fine Young Cannibals.....The Raw & The Cooked
Toy Story 2 Soundtrack (my boys are thrilled)
Barbra Streisand.....Memories (the duet You Don't Bring Me Flowers always makes me think of my Dad)
Andrea Bocelli.....Aria
Harry Connick Jr.....20
Jackson Browne.....World In Motion
Brandon Heath.....Don't Get Comfortable
Phil Collins.....Both Sides

All told...this haul was less than 40 dollars. Not bad. Not bad at all! :D Any thoughts on any of my selections? What have you heard? What would you like to hear?

So I skipped a few letters...

O was Oingo Boingo
P was Phil Collins
Q was a free day
R was Robert Palmer, Rush, Richard Bona, and Red Hot Chili Peppers
S was Sarah Machlachlan, Sara Tavares, Sting, Seal, and Simon&Garfunkel

And Today was T! Tchaikovsky, They Might Be Giants, Toto, Tower of Power, and I think I'll do more Tchaikovsky in just a minute.

Today was also Piano Lesson day. We've decided to make it a goal for both boys to finish Suzuki book two in less than six weeks. This would be a BIG accomplishment...but I think they can do it. We're moving and this would be something of a gift to their teacher.

Here's one of my little players...this is my second son.

N is for Notes

I'm writing this morning with the N music already tantalizing my ears, waking my mind, and bringing a nascent smile to my face....

N does not have many choices for us, but they are good ones.

We have several albums of the Newsboys, our favorite Christian group. High energy, good harmonies, solid lyrics... You gotta love 'em. Lead singer Peter Furler recently departed the group and was replaced by Michael Tait, formerly of DC Talk. The feel won't be quite the same...but I think they'll still rock.

A mix CD of the music of New Orleans is also on tap. I want my boys to learn the Neville Brothers' song Brothers. Our favorite on this album though is Allen Toussaint's deliciously groovy Funky Bars, which has some of the dumbest lyrics ever...but sounds so good you don't care!

For the unfamiliar choices, I have two Nina Simone albums to get acquainted with. And as I mentioned above, I am imbibing some intoxicating tones along with my morning coffee. Now playing is violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg with guitarists Sergio and Odair Assad. The music has a stirring gypsy flair...a glorious way to start the day!

I couldn't find any videos from this album, but here's Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg.

Music, Mean Moms, and Many Michaels

Well, I didn't get as much of L listened to as I would have liked. Ahhh the price you pay for raising musicians. A lot of the the music of the day involved small people practicing piano and then jamming on the new electric keyboard.

They got the keyboard for Christmas. Every night I take the power cord and I don't give it back the next day until they've practiced piano. Meeeean Music Mommy! And it's January, which means it's time for my oldest son (he's almost 12) to do his annual "I don't really wanna play piano" mope. We had our usual chat about he's way too good at it to waste the skill, and how I can find hoardes of adults on any given day who wish they had learned, and how if he never touches it again after he's grown up that's fine but it won't be MY fault he doesn't know how to play.... ;) But when he was practicing, I think I really hit on something that will help. I started telling him, conversationally rather than mommy-lecturish, about the neurological impact of working towards playing an instrument. He was intrigued. He loves sports and likes working out. So I pointed out to him that practicing an instrument was a workout for his brain. We're going to start studying that more in depth in days to come. Here's hoping!

Anyway. Today's letter is M. And appaently today's name is Michael since we have no less than seven albums just by Michaels. Specifically Michael Buble, Michael Franti, and Michael Jackson. We also have Miles Davis, Marc Cohn, Marc Anthony, Madou Djembe, Mario Otero, Matt Cattingub, Mandy Patinkin, Morphine, mixes of Motown, and Mundial Muzique.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!

The Marc Cohn is a new album, The Rainy Season, I picked up at the thrift store. I had his self-titled one when I was much younger... I think we'll start out with that one and do some Miles Davis today. Also the Mundial Muzique has not been listened to yet. Then I shall earn cool-mom points by playing Michael Jackson in the car.

In the meantime...If you only know Mandy Patinkin from Inigo Montoya or Criminal Minds, you're missing out! His singing is incredible! Check this out!

La la la

Ah L...lovely lyrical L lolls and languishes lazily.

We're back on alphabetic track today and I'm excited about the L-ish possibilities, as we have a good mix of the familiar and the novel.

Music we know:

Soundtracks from Labyrinth and Little Shop of Horrors. My boys love both of these. Ever since they were teeny, I have answered the question "Why not?" with "because I'm a mean green mother from outer space". When I finally got the Little Shop soundtrack, they found out where I got that! And did you know that was written by Ashman and Menken of Disney fame? You can hear a strong resemblance to The Little Mermaid's ballad Part of Your World at the end of Somewhere That's Green.

Music we kinda know:

Lenny Kravitz It Is Time For A Love Revolution and Greatest Hits. We've heard the former a few times and the latter only once. I need to be productive today...so I'll definitely spend some time groovin' with Lenny.

Louis Prima... another Disney connection, Louis played King Louie in The Jungle Book! These two cds were gifts. I have listened to them once through.

Music we don't know.

Latin Jazz - a 3 disc set of artists such as George Shearing, Ike Quebec, Johnny Blass, Eddie Palmieri and more. I've never played it....but the titles look good. ;) Lots of bossas and sambas...yum.

Late Night Moods - another mix. This one has names from the very familiar like Michael Buble and Ella Fitzgerald, to the "Who is that?" like Nicola Conte and Royksopp. One fabulous chanteuse on there is familiar to me, but might not be to you. The beautiful-inside-and-out Zoe Theodorou. I helped put on her studio concert here back in June. She will have a live DVD and CD coming out very very soon, and you will want to get in on that action! It was one incredible evening of jazz!

Lizz Wright...another gift. Don't know anything about her at all!

Time to get moving!!

K-less.

Unbelievable. With over 744 albums on my iPod, I have no letter K. So today was something of a musical free-for-all. I must be awfully rebellious, because I really enjoyed the freedom from my self-imposed alphabetical dictatorship!

I started the morning off with some Artie Shaw, followed by Jack Johnson. Then indulged in one of my new favorites, Sara Tavares. She is magically delicious in a make-my-ears-so-happy kinda way! After that, we got really adventurous and simply hit Shuffle. Hall&Oates to Sarah Vaughan to Dvorak to Preston Reed to Bing Crosby to Ella Fitzgerald to Paul Simon to.... Well, you get the idea.

I got to hit the thrift stores a bit and found three to add to the library.

Barenaked Ladies: Stunt - this has the song One Week that makes me ridiculously happy. The boys were THRILLED with it from the very first measure. We listened to it three times before we got home.

R.E.M. Automatic For The People

Bizet: Carmen Suites No. 1 & 2

I welcome suggestions of Ks you think I should try. And if you want something a little different and delightful...try this!

J is for Juxtaposition

Why? Because today I juxtapose another topic on top of merely listing our listening for the day.

Today is J. The hard thing about J is that many of my favorites are Js and I have to force myself *not* to listen to them while working on listening to more unfamiliar tunes. So...I must resist the pull of Josh Groban, Jack Johnson, John Mayer, and John Legend to spend quality time with Joshua Redman, Jimmy Dorsey, James Taylor, and yes, even Jessye Norman. I have Joshua Redman swirling his sax through my speakers write now...and it's goooooood.

I was thinking yesterday about what I am doing, potentially, to my brain with this delicious bounty of new music.

From Daniel Levitin's book This Is Your Brain on Music:

…Listening to music caused a cascade of brain regions to become activated in a particular order: first, auditory cortex for initial processing of the components of the sound. Then the frontal regions…that we previously identified as being involved in processing musical structure and expectations. Finally, a network of regions – the mesolimbic system – involved in arousal, pleasure, and the transmission of opiods and the production of dopamine, culminating in activation in the nucleus accumbens. And the cerebellum and basal ganglia were active throughout, presumably supporting the processing of rhythm and meter.

So...you might as well see yourself as pushing play on your brain as well as your iPod whenever you crank up the tunes. And the activity for new-to-you music is even more neurologically frenetic...

Trying to appreciate new music can be like contemplating a new friendship in that it takes time, and sometimes there is nothing you can do to speed it up. At a neural level, we need to be able to find a few landmarks in order to invoke a cognitive schema. If we hear a piece of radically new music enough times, some of that piece will eventually become encoded in our brains and we will develop landmarks.

I think of music and the brain like water wearing a path over the ground. We go so much more easily towards the established paths. That's why familiar music is so soothing. Why when we are stressed or distressed, reaching for favorite tunes is often a first-line response. Well-loved music boosts dopamine production in the brain, which is a guaranteed mood-lifter. But the unfamiliar? With unfamiliar music, there is that feeling of...awkward "Hey...do I know you? Can I let you in?" on an almost primal level. I've noticed that, even though I like what I'm listening to, I can feel a very slight level of anxiety that isn't there when I'm listening to music I have memorized. However, I know as "we" get to know each other...as my brain becomes accustomed to the melodic flow and knows better what to expect from each artist...I will be able to relax and enjoy the music even more than I do on first listen.

My point? Listening to new music is like a workout for the mind. I'm stretching my neurons in new directions. I'm forcing my grey matter to work at processing new sensations instead of simply stagnating with the routine. January is the time when many are working on pushing their bodies into new strength...don't forget to work your brain at the same time!