My brain was designed to inhabit a fairly small social network of maybe a few dozen other primates — a tribe. Beyond that size, I start to get overwhelmed.
And yet here I am in a world of over 6 billion people, all of whom are now inextricably linked together. I don’t need to travel to influence lives on the other side of the globe. All I have to do is buy a cup of coffee or a tank of gas. My tribe has grown into a single, impossibly vast social network, whether I like it or not. The problem, I believe, isn’t that the world has changed, it’s that my primitive caveman brain hasn’t.
I am fantastic at seeing differences. Everybody is. I can quickly pick out those who look or behave differently, and unless I actively override the tendency, I will perceive them as a threat. That instinct may have once been useful for my tribe but when I travel, it’s a liability.
When I dance with people, I see them smile and laugh and act ridiculous. It makes those differences seem smaller. The world seems simpler, and my caveman brain finds that comforting.
“For a long time,” Bhatnagar says, “I thought that there was no place for me in music because I have no formal training. I found that there’s a space for experimenting, for making my own music. I really want to encourage everybody to get out there, make some instruments, make some sounds. Maybe what they make will be beautiful, maybe it’s not, [but] you should enjoy it either way.”
Here’s a video of him cranking his Möbius music box:
I like the koto-esque bend built in to this one:
And a motor moving beads against the head of a drum:
On the March 2nd episode of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart made Dan Schorr seem young and hip, and the always-brilliant Samantha Bee introduced us to “Gruntr”:
Er…did Rick Sanchez say “Boom!” at the start of that clip?
The Hungarian government featured drawings by Eva Zeisel as part of America’s sesquicentennial celebration in 1926.
This video was recorded in 2001, when she was 95 years old:
A few choice quotes:
“…I’m doing my work like I always did…”
“…I call myself a maker of things…”
“…novelty is a concept of commerce not an aesthetic concept…”
“…we are actually concerned with a playful search for beauty…”
“…I made the things — particularly — because I wanted to use them to see the world…”
Larry Lessig at TED, on John Philip Sousa’s fear that recording devices would cause us to stop using our vocal chords, the new meaning of literacy, and the revival of read-write culture:
1. Prepare – Select your instrument to access the sheet music and rehearse with the conductor
2. Submit – Upload your performances and submit them to join the YouTube Symphony Orchestra
3. Entries – Browse videos to get ideas and check out the competition
The musicians selected will be brought to Carnegie Hall next April to perform a new commission by Tan Dun.
In this interview, Tan Dun explains his desire to bring street sounds and the symphony orchestra together:
There’s also a set of twenty four videos in which musicians from the London Symphony Orchestra (one of the participants in the project) offer master classes on the new piece.
