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Improving the Airport’s Soundscape

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 26, 2025| 3 Comments »

Photo: Nashville Airport.
Singer Songwriter Joe West is the “house band” for the Nashville International Airport. He’s the son of Sarge and Shirley West, the first and only African American Country and Western Duo.

Remember when going to the airport was fun and even exciting? It’s sad that all the protective measures needed now have made the experience excruciatingly tiresome. Nowadays when I think of wanting to visit someone by plane, I hesitate.

Among the attributes of airports that today’s travelers object to is noise, and today’s story is about how some airports are making an effort to change that unpleasantness.

Dee-Ann Durbin has the story at the Associated Press.

“Background music,” she writes, “is no longer an afterthought at many airports, which are hiring local musicians and carefully curating playlists to help lighten travelers’ moods.

“London’s Heathrow Airport built a stage to showcase emerging British performers for the first time this summer. The program was so successful the airport hopes to bring it back in 2025. Nashville International Airport has five stages that host more than 800 performances per year, from country musicians to jazz combos. In the Dominican Republic, Punta Cana International Airport greets passengers with live merengue music.

“Tiffany Idiart and her two nieces were delighted to hear musicians during a recent layover at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

“ ‘I like it. There’s a lot of people here and they can all hear it,’ said Grace Idiart, 9. ‘If their flight got delayed or something like that, they could have had a hard day. And so the music could have made them feel better.’

“Airports are also carefully curating their recorded playlists. Detroit Metro Airport plays Motown hits in a tunnel connecting its terminals. Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in Texas has a playlist of local artists compiled by an area radio station. Singapore’s Changi Airport commissioned a special piano accompaniment for its giant digital waterfall.

“Music isn’t a new phenomenon in airport terminals. Brian Eno’s ‘Music for Airports,’ an album released in 1978, helped define the ambient music genre. It’s minimalist and designed to calm.

“But Barry McPhillips, the head of international creative for Mood Media, which provides music for airports and other public spaces, said technology is enabling background music to be less generic and more tailored to specific places or times of day.

“Mood Media – formerly known as Muzak – develops playlists to appeal to business travelers or families depending on who’s in the airport at any given time. It might program calmer music in the security line but something more energizing in the duty-free store. …

“There’s a science to Mood Music’s decisions on volume, tempo, even whether to play a song in a major key versus a minor one, he added. ..

“At the same time, many airports are going low-tech, hiring local musicians to serenade travelers and give them a sense of the place they’re passing through.

“Chicago’s O’Hare and Midway airports have more than 100 live performances each year. Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International Airport began a live music program five years ago and now has two stages featuring local artists.

“Tami Kuiken, the manager of airport music in Seattle, said the Seattle-Tacoma airport launched its live music program about a decade ago after a city commissioner heard live music at the airport in Austin, Texas.

“ ‘The idea was like, “Man, why doesn’t Seattle have music? We’re a music city too,’ Kuiken said. …

“It decided to try live musicians for a 12-week trial. It was so successful that the airport now features live musicians daily and is building new performance spaces.

“ ‘People’s anxiety levels are very high when they’re traveling,’ Kuiken said. ‘The feedback that we started getting was that once they got through the checkpoint and they were greeted with music, all of a sudden their anxiety and stress levels dropped.’ …

“When Colorado Springs Airport announced a live music program in March, more than 150 musicians applied. It now hosts two two-hour performances each week.

“David James, a singer and guitarist who plays at Seattle’s airport about once a week, said waking up in time for a daytime gig took some adjustment. But he’s gained new fans from all over the world.

“ ‘I get really sweet responses from people all the time, saying, “That was so soothing to be able to just sit and listen to [music],” ‘ James said. …

“Country stars like Blake Shelton and Keith Urban have come through Nashville’s airport and interacted with local musicians, said Stacey Nickens, the airport’s vice president of corporate communications and marketing. Shelton even gave one his guitar.

“Otto Stuparitz, a musicologist and lecturer at the University of Amsterdam who has studied airport music, said airports should think carefully about their selections. Music that’s meant to be actively listened to – like live music or catchy pop songs – can be very distracting in an already chaotic environment, he said. He has noticed some airports – especially in Europe – turning off piped melodies altogether. …

” ‘A well-crafted audio strategy is one that people aren’t particularly cognizant of,’ he said. ‘They just know they’re having a good time and that it’s appropriate.’ ”

I think that watching musicians playing live would create a more relaxing ambiance for me than canned recordings by whatever Musak calls itself now. How about you?

More at AP, here.

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Keeping Sudan’s Culture Alive

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on January 6, 2025| Leave a Comment »

Photo: AP/Amr Nabil.
Sudanese Camirata troupe founder Dafallah el-Hag at the Russian cultural center in Cairo, Egypt, this past September.

There is too much war going on.

I struggle to think what alternative Ukraine had after an invasion, but I wish there had been some less lethal way to kick the invader out. In the Middle East, the fighting has gone on beyond anything the world at large can condone. And there are endless ethnic wars in places like Myanmar and Sudan that pain me to think about.

Today’s little story about cheering up Sudanese refugees through art will seem like a feeble attempt to find something positive, but to those who have been touched by the music of kindness, even a tearful, grateful moment can be valuable.

Fatma Khaled wrote recently for the Associated Press (AP), “As the performers took the stage and the traditional drum beat gained momentum, Sudanese refugees sitting in the audience were moved to tears. Hadia Moussa said the melody reminded her of the country’s Nuba Mountains, her family’s ancestral home.

“ ‘Performances like this help people mentally affected by the war. It reminds us of the Sudanese folklore and our culture,’ she said.

“Sudan has been engulfed by violence since April 2023, when war between the Sudanese military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces broke out across the country. The conflict has turned the capital, Khartoum, into an urban battlefield and displaced 4.6 million people, according to the U.N. migration agency, including more than 419,000 people who fled to Egypt.”

[Think about that, a flight to Egypt.]

“A band with 12 Sudanese members now lives with thousands of refugees in Egypt. The troupe, called ‘Camirata,’ includes researchers, singers and poets who are determined to preserve the knowledge of traditional Sudanese folk music and dance to keep it from being lost in the ruinous war.

“Founded in 1997, the band rose to popularity in Khartoum before it began traveling to different states, enlisting diverse musicians, dancers and styles. They sing in 25 different Sudanese languages. Founder Dafallah el-Hag said the band’s members started relocating to Egypt … as Sudan struggled through a difficult economic and political transition after a 2019 popular uprising unseated longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir. …

“The band uses a variety of local musical instruments on stage. El-Hag says audiences are often surprised to see instruments such as the tanbour, a stringed instrument, being played with the nuggara drums, combined with tunes of the banimbo, a wooden xylophone. …

“Kawthar Osman, a native of Madani city who has been singing with the band since 1997, feels nostalgic when she sings about the Nile River, which forms in Sudan from two upper branches, the Blue and White Nile.

“ ‘It reminds me of what makes Sudan the way it is,’ she said, adding that the war only ‘pushed the band to sing more for peace.’

“Over 2 million Sudanese fled the country, mostly to neighboring Egypt and Chad, where the Global Hunger Index has reported a ‘serious’ level of hunger. …

“Living conditions for those who stayed in Sudan have worsened as the war spread beyond Khartoum. Many made hard decisions early in the war either to flee across frontlines or risk being caught in the middle of fighting. In Darfur, the war turned particularly brutal and created famine conditions. …

“Armed robberies, lootings and the seizure of homes for bases were some of the challenges faced by Sudanese who stayed in the country’s urban areas. Others struggled to secure food and water, find sources for electricity and obtain medical treatment since hospitals have been raided by fighters or hit by airstrikes. Communications networks are often barely functional.

“The performers say they struggle to speak with family and friends still in the country, much less think about returning. ‘We don’t know if we’ll return to Sudan again or will see Sudan again or walk in the same streets,’ Farid said.” More at AP, here.

During this tragic war, very little aid has gotten through, although nonprofits like Alight, one of my favorites, are always poised to help. Rachel Savage at the Guardian wrote that on Christmas, the first successful shipment since the war started a year and a half ago finally got through.

She wrote, “An aid convoy has reached a besieged area of Khartoum for the first time since Sudan’s civil war broke out in April 2023, bringing food and medicines in a country where half of the people are at risk of starvation.

“The 28 trucks arrived in southern Khartoum on 25 December, according to the World Food Program (WFP), which provided 22 trucks loaded with 750 tons of food.

“Unicef sent five trucks with medicines and malnutrition kits for children, while Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) [Doctors Without Borders] contributed one truck of medical supplies, according to the Khartoum State Emergency Response Room (ERR), a grassroots aid group that is helping to coordinate the distribution.

“Sheldon Yett, Unicef’s Sudan representative, said: ‘Access to the area has been essentially cut off due the conflict dynamics. It took three months of often daily negotiations with government authorities at all levels and with other parties who controlled the access.’ ” More at the Guardian, here.

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Will Sings

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 17, 2024| 2 Comments »

Photo: Singer and blogger Will McMillan.

I’ve been following the singing career of Will McMillan even longer than I’ve been following his blog, which I see several of you also follow. If you haven’t checked it out yet, I think you will like it: not just for the thoughtful way Will writes about living life with awareness but for recordings of some of his songs and links to others.

One of the many things Will does is prepare fascinating research on famous songwriters and present shows about them, often in libraries or retirement places. He comes up with obscure tidbits about his subjects’ lives and obscure songs that I guarantee you’ve never heard, no matter how famous the featured songwriter.

Ever since Will and pianist Joe Reid presented a show I saw on Cole Porter, I’ve been wanting to share a song he unearthed, a funny one about an ambitious oyster.

Watch out now! I’m into spoilers. The song ends as the little oyster, having previously descended down an elegant throat, begins to get jostled:

“Off they go through the troubled tide
“The yacht rolling madly from side to side
“They’re tossed about till that fine young oyster
“Finds that it’s time he should quit his cloister
“Up comes the oyster

“Back once more where he started from
“He murmured, ‘I haven’t a single qualm
” ‘For I’ve had a taste of society
” ‘And society has had a taste of me.’ “

Read all the lyrics at Oyster. If you don’t already read Will’s blog, click here. And you can download his songs at any of the sites that offer music, listed here.

Now a few words from Will:

“My latest releases are a wise gem by Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens called ‘Love Who You Love,’ the Frank Loesser gem ‘Thumbelina,’ a sassy Rodgers & Hart classic ‘The Lady Is A Tramp,’ a lovely song called ‘Cry (If You Want To‘ by Casey Scott, the Gershwin Brothers favorite ‘ ‘S Wonderful,’ an original song called ‘Boil A Frog Slowly,‘ and the Bacharach/David chestnut ‘Alfie.‘ “

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The Aphasia Choir

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on October 16, 2024| 5 Comments »

Photo: The Aphasia Choir of Vermont.
Aphasia Choir of Vermont founder and director Karen McFeeters Leary leading the group in a concert. Aphasia is caused by damage to the parts of the brain that control language.

We all know, or knew, someone who lost the ability to speak well because of a stroke or other brain injury. The condition is called aphasia. We also have heard that music can do miracles for people with disabilities — dementia for example. (Click here.)

Now read about the Aphasia Choir of Vermont and how it produces miracles for people with aphasia — and their families.

From the website: “The Aphasia Choir of Vermont was founded in 2014 by singer/songwriter and former speech-language pathologist Karen McFeeters Leary.

“The choir is composed of stroke and traumatic brain injury survivors who have expressive aphasia (difficulty talking or using language) as well as spouses, family members, University of Vermont (UVM) students studying speech-language pathology, and rehabilitation professionals from the UVM Medical Center who provide assistance.

“Because music is largely mediated by the undamaged hemispheres of the brains of people with aphasia, they can sing and are often fluent while singing even if they have severe difficulty speaking or are nonverbal. Bringing these individuals together in song enables them to experience freedom of expression in a context that fosters social connections and a sense of belonging.

“In honor of National Aphasia Awareness Month, the Aphasia Choir of Vermont performs a free public concert each spring, wherein educational information is provided in order to raise aphasia awareness in our communities. Concert audiences have grown since the choir’s inception, and attendees have used words and phrases such as ‘amazing’ and ‘awe-inspiring’ to describe what they’ve witnessed. In 2020, the American Stroke Association chose the Aphasia Choir of Vermont as the winner of their Stroke Hero Award for Outstanding Group. …

“If you or someone you know has aphasia and is interested in joining next year’s choir program, please contact Karen McFeeters Leary at kmcfeeters@aol.com or (802) 288-9777 for more information.”

But if you don’t live in Vermont, you should know there are aphasia choirs around the world. Click here.

It was my daughter-in-law who first heard about this music program in Vermont and knew it would be great for the blog. More here.

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Cool Japanese Instrument

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 15, 2024| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Anthony Mongiello via the Boston Globe.
Kojiro Umezaki plays the shakuhachi, a Japanese vertical bamboo flute.

In the same way different languages often express something about a culture that is not seen in other cultures, different musical instruments can do the same. A Japanese musical instrument called the shakuhachi is like that. And it can take hold of musical people in surprising ways.

A.Z. Madonna has the story at the Boston Globe. She writes, “You have probably heard this sound before. This is the first thing that shakuhachi player Kojiro Umezaki tells people who aren’t familiar with his instrument.

“Maybe you’ve heard the vertical bamboo flute in movies when you see a scene of Japan, or you’ve heard one playing in the background at an Asian restaurant. Or you might have heard it in video games; if you’ve played ‘Ghost of Tsushima,’ the acclaimed action-adventure game from 2020, you didn’t just hear a shakuhachi, you heard Umezaki playing it.

“But there’s more to the instrument than its status as a symbol of Japanese music and Japan itself. …

“ ‘It is the sound of the earth,’ said shakuhachi player and maker Perry Yung in a phone interview. ‘The sound of the wind passing through a bamboo forest. It’s a sound that is constantly shifting tone colors, like light passing in the sky through clouds.’

“The shakuhachi was historically used as a solo instrument in Zen Buddhist meditation, specifically by wandering mendicant monks. It also sometimes appears in Japanese classical music, often with a koto (zither) and the three-stringed shamisen. Most modern shakuhachis have five tuning holes, with four in the front and one on the rear, and they’re tuned to the minor pentatonic scale. However, the player can partially cover holes and bend pitches to produce any pitch they want. …

“It somewhat resembles a recorder, but has no mouthpiece, so producing a sound is trickier. ‘You have to find the spot that sets up the vibration with your lips,’ said Umezaki … ‘My mother likes to tease me and say that when I first started playing it, it took me a year to make sound.’

“The child of a Japanese father and Danish mother, Umezaki grew up in Tokyo and attended an international high school. There his choir teacher was a student of famed shakuhachi player Goro Yamaguchi, and he suggested Umezaki try the instrument as well. …

‘As someone with a mixed Japanese background, you do start to wonder about the Japanese side of who you are,’ he said. For him, playing shakuhachi was ‘the simplest way to get in touch with something that is very much identified with Japanese culture.’

“The instrument found Yung in 1994, while he was acting in a play directed by Ellen Stewart at the New York experimental theater venue La MaMa. Shakuhachi player Yukio Tsuji was in the production’s band, playing the instrument in a ‘very experimental manner,’ he said. … ‘But at one point, the show was silent, and then there was the shakuhachi, and it changed my world.’ After the show, Yung rushed backstage to ask where he might get one. ‘[Tsuji] just looked at me wide-eyed, and said, “I see you’re bitten now.” ‘ …

“Yung took a DIY approach — he bought bamboo at a flower market, and copied flutes at Tsuji’s own workshop, he said. ‘I basically learned how to play and make at the same time.’

“Some time later, he studied in Japan with Kinya Sogawa, an established professional musician and craftsman. ‘He didn’t speak any English, and I didn’t speak any Japanese at the time,’ Yung said. ‘But in the traditional manner of study, you imitate the master and don’t ask questions.’ …

“Umezaki has played with Silkroad, the broad global music initiative founded by Yo-Yo Ma, for over 20 years. He considers what he’s learned there the closest thing he’s had to conservatory training. …

“Yung, whose workshop floats between New York and Rhode Island, has more recently started incorporating the instrument into activism, particularly at rallies against anti-Asian hate. ‘I start my talk with a shakuhachi offering, to others who have been affected by the violence that has been perpetrated upon the Asian-American community in recent years.’ “

More at the Globe, here.

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Theater in a Ukrainian Subway

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 14, 2024| 2 Comments »

Photo: BBC/Sarah Rainsford.
Culture has had to move underground in Kharkiv, to hide from Russian drone and missile strikes.

I want to tell you about a beautiful initiative to move culture underground in Kharkiv, Ukraine. But you know that in a county at war, plans are made with the knowledge that they may go off track at any time. What matters most about the story is the indomitable spirit of the Ukrainian people and how they always strive to get things back on track no matter what.

The BBC’s Eastern Europe correspondent Sarah Rainsford wrote about the initiative in March.

“If you want to go to a concert in Kharkiv these days, you have to know who to ask. In Ukraine’s second city, just 40 kilometres [~25 miles] from the Russian border, mass gatherings have been banned since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Most cultural events that do take place are not advertised to make sure they do not get shelled.

“But after two years of near-silence, the Kharkiv National Opera and Ballet is about to burst back into sound — underground.

” ‘We want to bring life back to Kharkiv, including cultural life,’ the theatre’s general director, Ihor Touluzov, explains. ‘Demand for any kind of cultural event here is really high.’

“The bunker theatre is being prepared beneath the main auditorium, down several flights of stairs.

“It has no dress circle, chandeliers or champagne — and a lot of grey concrete. But follow the sound of music and it leads to a raised stage with spotlights and rows of seats. Most importantly, there’s a company of singers, dancers and musicians desperate to perform before a proper audience again.

” ‘We really miss our big hall, the feeling of being on a big stage with lots of people watching,’ violinist Natalia Babarok explains. …

“In the first weeks after the full-scale invasion, when Russian troops were closest and the shelling most intense, a missile landed near to the theatre. Chunks of stone were torn from the side of the building and windows blown out. The roof caught fire several times, but staff managed to extinguish the flames before they took hold. The risk to life remains. …

“When the main theatre closed in February 2022, Volodymyr Kozlov did not stop singing. Thousands of Kharkiv residents were living on the metro then, staying underground away from the explosions. So Volodymyr and a group of fellow artists would tour the stations, performing three concerts a day, a mixture of classical music and popular tunes.

“When he was not singing, Volodymyr was helping to evacuate residents from the areas under heaviest fire or delivering food and other supplies.

” ‘It was impossible to stop, because if you did then the thoughts [of danger] would enter your head, and you couldn’t let them,’ the baritone explains. …

“Volodymyr is performing alongside his wife, Yulia Forsyuk, a soprano soloist who plays the lead role in the Ukrainian opera, Natalka Poltavka. …

“Now the pair are rehearsing to perform for Kharkiv residents again, safely beneath the city streets. But it’s not just the surroundings and acoustics that are different. … One man was killed fighting on the frontline and several more have been mobilized; others are scattered as refugees.

“For those who have stayed in Kharkiv, everything is being adjusted to their reduced new reality.

” ‘Our director adapts the score to feel like everyone’s still there,’ Natalia Babarok describes the changes for the orchestra.

” ‘My husband plays the trombone, but he’s told to play the bassoon and the horn parts too. As a violinist, I might also play the part of the flute. You have to play for yourself, and for someone else.’ “

The long, beautiful article is at the BBC, here. No paywall.

Alas, last Friday: “KYIV, May 10 (Reuters) – Russian forces launched an armored ground attack on Friday near Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv in the northeast of the country and made small inroads, opening a new front.”

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Where Teens Can Make Music

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 2, 2024| 3 Comments »

Photo: Music & Youth.
The Music Clubhouse, one of several music-focused hangouts for teens in Massachusetts, opened unexpected doors for Kristiana — forming a band, participating in a music event with the Red Sox, being accepted to the Berklee College City Music Program.

Teens always need a place to hang out with other teens. The centers in today’s story offer a lot more than hanging out.

Catherine Hurley writes at GBH radio, “Eden Troderman knew where she wanted to spend her first afternoon as a student attending the Berklee College of Music: at BTC Records, the music production space at the Brookline Teen Center that she knew well. …

“The Brookline High School graduate, who releases songs under the name Aruna, has been playing music her whole life — which included writing some ‘really cringey songs in sixth grade,’ she said. But [Aruna] didn’t start releasing music until receiving some help from BTC Records.

“Founded in 2013, the Brookline Teen Center offers a community hub for teenagers who live or go to school in Brookline. It’s one of more than 800 active youth development nonprofits in Massachusetts, according to ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer.

“On that cold and icy afternoon in January, the center was active with teens playing basketball in the gym and huddling around small tables with snacks after school. Others were working on music in the BTC Records studio space. …

“Bri Skywall, teen technology coordinator at the Boston Public Library, said the library’s Teen Central aims to ‘provide what we call the “third space”: a space that isn’t their home and isn’t school or work, that they can come and just be themselves.’ A space where teens ‘don’t have to pay to exist,’ she said.

“Third spaces, which broadly include include free and publicly available spaces, social services organizations and low-cost commercial establishments, are known to strengthen communities. But research shows third spaces are declining, and disparities are more present along income, race and geographic lines.

“Connections in these spaces are informal, but the plans to expand them are in writing. Strengthening the BPL’s role as a third space is listed in the city’s Imagine Boston 2030 plan. And Boston’s Third Spaces Lab, in collaboration with New Urban Mechanics, aims to ‘make it easier for grassroots organizations and individuals to grow and nurture community-based third spaces from the bottom up,’ according to the program’s website.

“BTC Music Coordinator Pablo Muñoz said the center’s goal has always been to develop a space where teens can make music, whether they have big dreams in mind or are looking to express themselves day-to-day. …

“ ‘Whenever they’re having maybe not the best week, they’ll come in here and they’ll be like, “I want to do a song. I want to talk about this.” … They’ll get it out, and then they feel better, and they’ll work on their craft,’ Muñoz said. …

“With 60-70 hours of work, Troderman writing and Muñoz producing, she released her first song, ‘Crave‘ last May, which recently surpassed 1,000 streams.

“ ‘It’s a small milestone, but it means a lot to me. If people are even listening to my music, that’s crazy,’ Troderman said.

“Tom Goldberg, a junior at Brookline High School, started taking a music production class with Muñoz in early November. He’s still learning the basics, he said, but Muñoz has already helped him create a vocal-less track, teaching him how to establish a beat.

“ ‘I think I’m more confident in myself,’ Goldberg said. … [He] said if he were to show people at school the music he likes, there would be a different reaction than at BTC Records. ‘Here, [it’s] way more welcoming,’ he said. ‘Like the sense of community is way bigger here.’ …

“Teens at the center that day milled in and out of the control room, pushing open the heavy, soundproof door in search of Muñoz, their admired teacher and collaborator. Muñoz himself started at BTC in 2022, about a year after he graduated from Berklee. …

“The next day, on a colder and icier afternoon in Back Bay, four teens huddled around computers and small keyboards. They were there for Music Production with Hamstank, a weekly digital music creation session at the Boston Public Library. Somerville-based record producer Tony ‘Hamstank’ Hamoui has led the program for the last seven years. …

“Hamstank’s routine during the hourlong sessions differs from week to week. Sometimes he’s helping teens get started — like a participant that day who opened the music software for the first time and was already making a song — but he also supports kids with more advanced music skills.

“Hamstank glanced over to another teen, calling him a ‘master-level composer and vocalist.’ The student was working on a song he started the week prior, this time re-recording vocals in the space’s audio booth. …

“Hamstank said some kids come to the session with their headphones on, wanting to work solely on their own projects. ‘And that’s fine, but you always find them slowly taking the headphones off and listening and asking questions and talking to other teens,’ he said.”

More at GBH, here. No firewall. [Note: I may have used the wrong pronouns for Troderman. The GBH article was inconsistent.]

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Music for a Healthy Brain

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 1, 2024| 3 Comments »

Photo: Classical-Music.com.
Playing piano four-hands.

Where I live now, we think a lot about brain health. We know that parts of our brains are not working as well as they used to. It takes longer to remember a word. Sometimes a memory is completely gone, and then we worry.

I like to think of a young man I know whose father helped him use other parts of his brain for daily functioning after he was born without a cerebral cortex. This young man now lives independently, has a job in the city to which he takes a train, and is the subject of study by amazed doctors. He’s my hero these days. Brains can learn new tricks.

BBC health reporter Aurelia Foster wrote recently about one way to teach your brain new tricks, and that’s through music.

She wrote, “Playing a musical instrument or singing could help keep the brain healthy in older age, UK researchers suggest. Practicing and reading music may help sustain good memory and the ability to solve complex tasks, their study says. In their report, published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, they say music should be considered as part of a lifestyle approach to maintain the brain.

“More than 1,100 people aged over 40, with a mean age of 68, were studied. Scientists at the University of Exeter observed their brain function data as part of a wider study that has been finding out how brains age, and why people develop dementia.

“They looked at the effects of playing an instrument, singing, reading and listening to music, and musical ability.

“The researchers compared the cognitive data of those in the study who engaged in music in some way in their lives, with those who never had. Their results showed that people who played musical instruments benefitted the most, which may be because of the ‘multiple cognitive demands’ of the activity.

“Playing the piano or keyboard appeared to be particularly beneficial, while brass and woodwind instruments were good too. Simply listening to music did not appear to help cognitive health. The benefit seen with singing might be partly because of the known social aspects of being in a choir or group, the researchers say.

” ‘Because we have such sensitive brain tests for this study, we are able to look at individual aspects of the brain function, such as short-term memory, long-term memory, and problem-solving and how engaging music effects that,’ lead author Prof Anne Corbett told the BBC. …

” ‘Playing an instrument has a particularly big effect, and people who continue to play into an older age saw an additional benefit,’ she said. In the study, people who read music regularly had better numerical memory.

“Prof Corbett said: ‘Our brain is a muscle like anything else and it needs to be exercised, and learning to read music is a bit like learning a new language, it’s challenging.’

“Researchers did not test potential benefits of taking up a musical hobby for the first time later in life, but Prof Corbett said she believed, based on current evidence, it would be ‘very beneficial. …

” ‘The message is around how people can proactively reduce their risk of cognitive decline or dementia, and really thinking about engaging with music as a way of doing that.’ … However, she said: ‘It would be naïve to think taking up a musical instrument would mean you won’t develop dementia. It’s not as simple as that.’ “

More at the BBC, here.

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Music for Refugee Teens in Sweden

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 16, 2024| 4 Comments »

Photo: Anna Svanberg/Nobel Prize Outreach.
The Dream Orchestra started with just 13 members. Now there are more than 400, including this group performing at a Nobel Foundation event in Gothenburg, Sweden, in December 2023. 

Sweden has long been a country that took in refugees, but what I know from family members there is that Sweden doesn’t always do a good job helping immigrants integrate and feel at home. That’s why the orchestra leader in today’s story stands out.

As Mostafa Kazemi, originally from Afghanistan, recalls, the conductor told him that of course he could play an instrument even though he thought he couldn’t. “He’d been in Sweden for a matter of months,” Catherine E. Shoichet at CNN reports. “No one had talked to him like this before.”

The long and interesting article about the Dream Orchestra begins, “Ron Davis Álvarez stood on a train platform in Stockholm, stunned by what he saw. The Venezuelan orchestra conductor was visiting Sweden as part of a university exchange program. … He watched throngs of people getting off trains, their faces drawn and exhausted. Volunteers raced past him to hand out bananas and water to the new arrivals.

“ ‘I was completely in shock, seeing all of these young boys arriving,’ Álvarez recalls. He asked someone what was going on.

“The answer: ‘They are from Syria and Afghanistan. Many of them are unaccompanied. They traveled here alone.’

“ ‘What will happen to them?’ Álvarez asked. No one knew. …

“Álvarez was there watching, and he had an idea. That idea would change his life, and the lives of hundreds of others he hadn’t met yet. …

“It wasn’t long before Álvarez was back in Sweden. He’d been tapped as the artistic director of El Sistema Sweden, based in the coastal city of Gothenburg. … As he began his new role, the memory of what he’d seen months earlier on the train platform remained seared in his mind.

“El Sistema Sweden’s work was focused on younger children enrolled in Swedish schools. The youth he’d seen pouring into the train station were already in their later teenage years. It’s an age when many might assume it’s too late to learn an instrument.

“Álvarez knew it wasn’t. And he knew he had to try to help them. … With a handful of instruments on loan, he visited schools to drum up interest. Eventually, he recruited a group of 13 youth from Afghanistan, Syria, Eritrea and Albania. He dubbed them the Dream Orchestra.

“ ‘I remember coming into the room and there were a lot of girls and boys, and I was nervous,’ Álvarez says in a short film about the orchestra featured on its website. … Many of the Dream Orchestra’s members had never played an instrument before they joined. They came from different countries. They didn’t speak the same languages. …

“Mostafa Kazemi lights up when he recalls the day he met Álvarez in 2016.

“ ‘Which instrument do you play?’ the conductor asked him.

“ ‘I can’t play,’ Kazemi replied.

“Álvarez’s response was confident and unflinching: ‘Yes, you can. Come and pick which one you want.’

“Kazemi, originally from Afghanistan, was 16 years old at the time. He’d been in Sweden for a matter of months. No one had talked to him like this before. So a few weeks after the Dream Orchestra began, Kazemi became one of its first members. He picked the cello. …

“The small ensemble rehearsed on Fridays and Saturdays. Those were Álvarez’s days off, and also a time when he knew it was important to keep young people occupied and off the streets.

“At first, teaching the group wasn’t easy, Álvarez recalls. He was used to instructing younger Spanish-speaking students who came from similar backgrounds. This would require a different approach.

“Álvarez spoke English, and some of the other members of the Dream Orchestra did, too. But still, misunderstandings were frequent, even comical at times. Body language was key to overcoming those obstacles. So was finding a way to connect more deeply with each person – to learn what music they liked and where they came from and who they were.

“Another key part of Álvarez’s approach with these older students: giving them the confidence to make mistakes.

“I tried to build confidence – first the confidence of the sound.’ …

“ ‘Ron was full of energy all the time,’ Kazemi says. ‘And that made us want to do more and more and more. We were practicing at home. I even brought some more students. I told my friends. … And everyone told their friends, and everyone came to orchestra.’ …

“Now, eight years later, the Dream Orchestra has more than 400 members from nearly 20 countries who speak around 20 languages between them. …

“As [Álvarez] sees it, politicians and world leaders could learn a lot from this music ensemble.

“ ‘I see the orchestra like society,’ he says. ‘When you are in an orchestra, you need to learn how to hear each other, how to listen to each other, compassion, how to empathize.’

“That’s not to say there haven’t been challenges over the years. Some students at first struggled with taking direction from female conductors and teachers, Álvarez says, and tensions have boiled over at times between members of the orchestra whose home countries have a history of conflict with each other.

“Some conductors might direct their orchestras simply to play on and ignore these difficulties. Álvarez says he addresses them directly. He wants the orchestra not only to be a safe space, but a place where its members can grow and learn to live together.

“ ‘We are all people that need to respect each other. It’s difficult because you cannot erase this history, but you can rewrite the future,’ he says.”

More at CNN, here. No firewall.

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Asylum Seeker Shares His Music

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on February 16, 2024| 1 Comment »

Photo: Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor.
Nixon Garcia, a teaching artist at El Sistema Colorado, conducts students at the music school in Denver.

People sometimes forget that we need more immigrants, not fewer. Their contributions to the economy are well documented. In 2021, for example, they contributed more than $500 billion just in taxes (see Forbes here). Not to mention that they willingly apply for necessary jobs that go begging, sometimes for years.

And there are other contributions getting less attention. Consider what this one musician is doing. Sarah Matusek wrote about his work recently at the Christian Science Monitor.

“A few dozen children in Denver settle into seats, violins and violas in hand. With short cropped hair and a focused gaze, Nixon Garcia observes from off to one side. …

“This is a fall show-and-tell for parents at El Sistema Colorado, a free music school that prioritizes kids from low-income families. The Denver program was inspired by the original El Sistema in Venezuela, which since its founding in 1975 has sparked similar projects around the world. …

“With flutters of his hands and flicks of his wrists, the 22-year-old conjures up simple songs that he learned as a boy in the Venezuelan program. He’s brought that same sheet music to students in the United States, along with hopes for asylum. Working as a teaching artist at the Colorado program, he’s come full circle.

“ ‘El Sistema has been my second home throughout my whole life,’ says Mr. Garcia, who teaches in Spanish and English. 

“The original program’s catchphrase, ‘tocar y luchar‘ – or ‘play and fight’ in English – has evolved into a personal mantra of perseverance for the young conductor who can’t imagine returning home.  By the time he left Venezuela, in 2022, says Mr. Garcia, he’d been kidnapped three times. 

“Backdropped by mountains in northwest Venezuela, the town of La Fría sits near the Colombian border. Mr. Garcia’s family, who ran a poultry farm there, enrolled their son in the popular music program at a young age. …

“At age 5, he began learning the Venezuelan cuatro, which has four strings. Later on came the clarinet. As a teenager, Mr. Garcia began teaching other El Sistema students – a key mentorship feature of the program – and developed a love of conducting. But basic needs were stark; some students he taught sat on the floor, because there weren’t enough chairs. And beyond the solace of class, violence lurked.

“When he was a young teenager, in 2015, a criminal group, called a colectivo, kidnapped him and his family at a gas station. The group held them for several hours, his family says, and demanded thousands of dollars for their release. 

“Venezuela, meanwhile, devolved into further economic, political, and human rights crises under President Nicolás Maduro, causing millions to flee. Mr. Garcia began attending pro-democracy protests. …

‘You can see how everything is terrible. But in the end, you still love your country,’ he says. ‘You don’t want to leave.’ …

“Mr. Garcia was captured again by an insurgent group on his family farm in La Fría. Yet neither was he safe at college in another city, Mérida, where he studied engineering. … Although his family had arranged private security for him in La Fría, they decided that he had to leave. …

“A tourist visa that his family had secured some years prior still hadn’t expired. That became his ticket to the U.S. last year. Yet even as he moved into his cousin’s home in Monument, Colorado, an hour south of Denver, the adjustment was isolating. … A family member suggested he retreat to nature, take a moment to breathe. A prayerful hike in the nearby mountains, Mr. Garcia says, helped right his course. 

“Inspiration struck, tuning-fork clear: Why not return to music?  A Google search for nearby orchestras yielded a name he knew. The young conductor, in awe, reached out to El Sistema Colorado. …

“Mr. Garcia started out as a volunteer at El Sistema Colorado before the federal government issued the asylum-seeker his work authorization. That allows him to work legally while his asylum case moves forward. Now paid, he teaches groups of strings-learning students in an orchestra group called Allegro.

“The teaching artist is a ‘positive light’ at the music school, says Ingrid Larragoity-Martin, executive director of El Sistema Colorado. ‘He’s passionate about kids, and he knows how to work with them.’ …

“Meanwhile, he awaits the outcome of his asylum application, which may take years. Mr. Garcia says he wants to ‘work, make a life, and try to share as many things as we can from our country.’ ” 

More at the Monitor, here.

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Starting a Trombone Career at 72

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 26, 2024| 10 Comments »

Photo: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian.
Eighty-four-year-old Noreen Davis took up trombone at 72 and never looked back.

Where I live now, it’s nice to see people taking up some pursuit that always interested them but seemed out of reach. For example, there’s a retired radiologist across the hall whose wife is an artist whose work he has always admired. Nowadays, he’s throwing himself heart and soul into some high-level art classes here and is doing an impressive job.

Today’s story is similar. It starts with a woman in the UK Midlands paying attention to a dream she had when she was sound asleep.

Ammar Kalia writes at the Guardian, “Twelve years ago, Noreen Davies had a dream. In it, the artist and cafe owner, then 72, saw herself wielding an unusual instrument. ‘There was a jazzy tune on in the background and I was playing along on a trombone, bending the notes and having a great time,’ she says. ‘When I woke up, I knew I had to learn it.’

“She headed to her cafe in Leominster, Herefordshire, and had a [routine] meeting with her accountant. ‘At the end, I asked him if he knew anyone with a trombone I could try out and he said he had five! Turns out he played in a local brass band with his wife, so he ended up bringing one round to me, along with an old music book on the instrument, and that’s how it all started.’

“Now 84, Davies has gigged throughout the West Midlands with groups exploring everything from the blues to vintage jazz and big band funk. No matter the tune, she has stayed true to her vision of bending the notes on the giant horn, twisting and wailing like a held string on an electric guitar. ‘I’ve only had two lessons and in the first one the teacher told me to just play what was written, but I do whatever I want to,’ she says. ‘I use it more like a percussion instrument, improvising over the tunes.’

“The trombone is notoriously difficult to learn, since players have to judge the distance between notes by pulling and pushing its tubing, rather than pressing fixed keys. Davies, though, found the instrument easy, thanks to her musical history. At 14, she took up the guitar and taught herself to play chords with her younger brother. ‘I forced him to play along with me. I taught myself the piano, too, by working out songs I liked listening to,’ she says. …

“Davies’ confidence to play live grew through hosting monthly music nights at the cafe, including a jam session with Ric Sanders of Fairport Convention, although she faced a setback when a series of operations on her lungs meant she was unable to play for several months.

“One evening in 2018, when she had regained her strength, she went along to a jam session in nearby Bromyard and met two young musicians who were looking for a trombone to round out their trio. Luckily, she had hers in the boot of her car in case such an opportunity arose. ‘We did a few numbers together and they ended up adopting me,’ she says. ‘We played for a couple of years, until Covid. It was great fun.’

“The open world of jam sessions and gigs has since led Davies to more instruments. She is back on the piano and has added the accordion, the washboard and the baritone ukulele. ‘I ended up in a vintage jazz band because they needed a washboard player and I was the only one who took it up in the local area. I also play Bob Dylan tunes on the ukulele and I’m trying to learn some Cole Porter on the accordion,’ she says. … ‘Everyone should try it out – just get yourself to a jam session somewhere and see what happens.’ “

More at the Guardian, here.

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Innovation for Deaf Opera Goers

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 24, 2024| 3 Comments »

Photo: Carrie Shepherd/Axios.
The Lyric Opera of Chicago’s SoundShirts use “patterns and pulses” to make opera more accessible for the deaf.

It used to be that, for people with a disability, there were certain experiences they knew they would probably never access. With technology, that is changing. Consider how “feeling” the music in new, more subtle ways is helping those with hearing loss.

Michael Andor Brodeur reports at the Washington Post about the SoundShirt.

“Opera is everything all at once: music and drama, poetry and dance, grandeur and intimacy, spectacle and sound. This all-encompassing aspect makes it one of the most accessible art forms yet one of the most challenging to make accessible.

“For audience members who are deaf or hard of hearing, or who are blind or have low vision, attending an opera can be a deeply frustrating experience.

“A pilot program at the Lyric Opera of Chicago is trying on a new approach for deaf and hard-of-hearing people to experience opera: the SoundShirt, a jacketlike garment equipped with 16 haptic actuators* that transmit sound from the orchestra and stage into pulses, vibrations and other forms of haptic feedback in the shirt itself. …

“In addition to accommodations for mobility disabilities such as ramps and wheelchair seating, like many opera houses, the Lyric offers performances with American Sign Language interpretation, projected subtitles, and assisted listening devices for deaf and hard-of-hearing patrons. For blind people and those with low vision, the Lyric provides Braille and large-print programs, audio-described performances, high-powered glasses and pre-performance ‘touch tours,’ allowing audience members to feel various props, costumes and surfaces before the curtain rises.

“The SoundShirt, though, is cut from a different cloth than most accessibility technology, providing a mediated experience of the music that registers as physical and personal.

‘It doesn’t re-create the experience of listening to music,’ [director of digital initiatives Brad Dunn] says. ‘It’s its own thing.’

” ‘It translates the music into a different sensory experience that can be felt by people. And what I’ve seen through all of the early testing that we did is that audiences who are deaf or hard of hearing have responded very viscerally to it.’ …

“For attendees at a Lyric production of West Side Story earlier this year, input from the SoundShirt didn’t just help provide additional detail to the performance — it also illuminated the musical spaces in between, the interludes and interstitial passages of music, the overtures overloaded with crucial cues. Dunn recalls one tester’s eyes welling up with tears after the performance. …

“Lyric’s SoundShirt project was launched in partnership with the city of Chicago’s Mayor’s Office for People With Disabilities (MOPD), but the garment itself was designed by CuteCircuit, a London-based wearable technology design firm. …

“At the Lyric, an array of microphones positioned over various sections of the orchestra feeds audio information to a central computer. Dunn and his crew adapt the software to respond to the specific instrumentation of a given piece. … Those audio signals are divided across seven channels, each mapped to one of 16 different ‘zones’ on the SoundShirt, where motifs and melodies register as patterns and pulses across the garment’s 16 actuators.

“Thus, for a production of The Flying Dutchman, the violins and cellos are assigned to trigger haptic feedback along the right and left shoulders and upper arms. Timpani and bass, meanwhile, are sent down to the lower torso and hips. Wagner’s mighty horns are split across the upper arms like goose bumps, while vocals register at the wrists like a pulse. …

“Rachel Arfa is a longtime disability advocate and civil rights attorney who serves as commissioner of MOPD. As a deaf person who wears bilateral cochlear implants, the issue of accessibility has been close to her heart for a long time. … But while expanding accessibility is her life’s work, Arfa also knows that good intentions can often pave the road to nowhere.

“ ‘When Lyric approached me with this shirt, I was highly skeptical,’ Arfa said via email. [But she] agreed to test the SoundShirt at a recent Lyric production of West Side Story. Arfa was surprised to find the shirt actually felt like a good fit for the problem it is trying to solve. …

“ ‘I began to understand that the haptics on the SoundShirt vibrated in conjunction with the orchestra sounds. One example is when string instruments were played, the haptics followed the pitch and rhythm. A second example is when a singer was singing a long melody, the haptics picked up on this and I could experience this through the vibration. I am not able to hear this sound, but I could feel it. It was such a surprise and a thrill.’

“Tina Childress, an audiologist who lives in Champaign, Ill., is a late-deafened adult who wears cochlear implants and works as an advocate for accessibility in the arts. … Childress appreciated the haptic feedback at the wrists to indicate dialogue, and the way the shirt clarified the various elements of the score. After intermission, she lent the shirt to another audience member to try out. ‘I didn’t realize how much I was using it until I didn’t have it.’ ”

More at the Post, here. Axios Chicago has still more, here.

* haptic actuators are gizmos that provide localized bodily sensations and tactile effects

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Lifting Music from the Walls

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 13, 2024| 2 Comments »

Photo: Marica S. Tacconi, CC BY-SA.
The musical score depicted in Jacopo Guarana’s fresco in a Venetian orphanage. 

I know there is a lot of drudgery in historical research and archaeology, but what fun to discover clues about the past that can be brought to life in the present!

That’s what Marica S. Tacconi, professor of musicology and art history at Penn State, does. At the Conversation, she writes about her determination to bring back music painted on the walls of a Venetian orphanage centuries ago.

She begins by asking the reader to imagine today’s rock stars “teaching at an orphanage or homeless shelter, offering daily music lessons” and says “that’s what took place at Venice’s four Ospedali Grandi, which were charitable institutions that took in the needy – including orphaned and foundling girls – from the 16th century to the turn of the 19th century.

“Remarkably, all four Ospedali hired some of the greatest musicians and composers of the time, such as Antonio Vivaldi and Nicola Porpora, to provide the young women – known as the ‘putte’ – with a superb music education.

“In the summer of 2019, while in Venice on a research trip, I had the opportunity to visit the Ospedale di Santa Maria dei Derelitti, more commonly known as the Ospedaletto, or ‘Little Hospital, because it was the smallest of the four Ospedali Grandi.

“As a musicologist specializing in the music of early modern Venice, I was especially excited to visit one of the hidden gems of the city: the Ospedaletto’s music room, which was built in the mid-1770s. …. Little did I know that I would encounter music that hasn’t been performed in nearly 250 years.

“As we entered the stunning music room, I was immediately struck by its elegance and relatively small size. In my mind, I had envisioned a large concert hall; instead, the space is intimate, ellipse-shaped and richly decorated.

“Overshadowed by the more prominent Ospedale della Pietà, not much is known about the music-making that took place for centuries behind the walls of the Ospedaletto. But one of the greatest clues to its venerable history as a music school is literally on one of its walls.

“A fresco on the far wall of the room, painted in 1776-77 by Jacopo Guarana, depicts a group of female musicians – likely portraits of some of the putte – at the feet of Apollo, the Greek god of music. Some of them play string instruments; one, gazing toward the viewer, holds a page of sheet music. …

“The music notation was quite legible, and the composer’s name was inscribed in the upper-right corner: ‘Sig. Anfossi.’

“I took several photos of the fresco. I wanted to learn as much as I could about that piece of music painted on the wall. …

“Armed with those clues on the wall, I continued my research in the days following the visit to the Ospedaletto. I learned that the music by ‘Signor Anfossi’ shown in the fresco was drawn from the opera Antigono, composed by Pasquale Anfossi (1727-97) on a libretto by Pietro Metastasio. The work premiered in Venice at the Teatro San Benedetto in 1773.

“The text of the [aria] is legible in the excerpt on the wall. It reads, ‘Contro il destin che freme, combatteremo insieme’ – ‘Against quivering destiny, we shall battle together.’

“Like many works from the 17th and 18th centuries, the entire opera is lost. I was determined to find out, however, if that particular aria had survived. … Luck was on my side: To my delight, I found a copy of the aria in a library in Montecassino, a small town southeast of Rome. Why was that particular excerpt chosen to be displayed so prominently on the wall?

“Like other institutions in Venice, the Ospedaletto faced financial hardship in the 1770s. Evidence suggests that the putte of the Ospedaletto were likely involved in raising the funds for the decoration of the music room. The new hall enabled them to give performances for special guests and benefactors, which brought in substantial donations. Together with Pasquale Anfossi, who was their music teacher from 1773 to 1777, they rallied behind their beloved institution, saving it – at least temporarily – from financial destitution. …

“Incidentally, the putte may also have wanted to honor their teacher, as Pasquale Anfossi, too, is portrayed in Guarana’s fresco, directly behind the young woman holding up his music.

“One of the aspects I find most rewarding about the study of older music is the process of discovering a work that has been neglected and unheard for hundreds of years and bringing it back to modern audiences.

“Inspired by the Ospedaletto’s music room, [my colleague] Liesl Odenweller and I have embarked on a collaborative project that brings back not only the aria on the wall but also other music from the institution that has gone unheard for centuries … thanks to a generous grant from the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Venice Music Project. …

“Because the music of the past was written in a notation that’s different from that used today, it’s necessary to translate and input every mark of the original score – notes, dynamics and other expressive marks – into a music notation software to produce a modern score that can be easily read by today’s musicians.

“By performing on period instruments and using a historically informed approach, the musicians of the Venice Music Project and I are excited to revive this remarkably beautiful and meaningful music. Its neglect is certainly not a reflection of its artistic quality but rather likely the result of other composers, such as Vivaldi and Mozart, taking over the spotlight and overshadowing the works of other masters.”

More at the Conversation, here. The author has a nice description of her colleague testing the room’s exceptional acoustics.

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The Music of the Spheres

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on December 23, 2023| Leave a Comment »

Photo: Thibaut Roger/NCCR PlanetS/PA.
The planets surrounding the HD110076 star orbit it in neat ratios depending on their closeness to it. 

Where I went to high school, we memorized Bible verses every week. I always liked the words from this time of year: “The star, which they saw in the east, went before them till it came and stood over where the young child was.” So I’m going to say that today’s post on stars is a seasonal post.

At the Guardian, Nicola Davis delves into new star research from the journal Nature.

“Six planets that orbit their star in a coordinated dance have been discovered by scientists, who say the finding could help shed light on why planets in our own solar system move to their own beat.

“The newly discovered planets orbit a star that sits about 100 light years away in the constellation Coma Berenices, with a mass about 20% smaller than our Sun.

“Not only is their makeup different from planets within our solar system, but their movements appear to be tied together: the team said the time it takes one planet to travel around the star was related to that of the next planet by a neat ratio.

“ ‘This system has this very delicate resonant configuration,’ [said] Dr Rafael Luque, co-author of the research from the University of Chicago. The team said such ‘resonance’ should be common within planetary systems, arising from gravitational interactions between planets that begin as they form.

Astronomer Hugh Osborn, a co-author from the University of Bern, converted the resonance among these planets’ orbits into music.

“However, in reality only about 1% of observed planetary systems show resonance – and even fewer involve as many as six planets moving in a coordinated fashion. …

“The team added that the newly discovered planets sit close to their star, with temperatures of 170-650C, and have diameters two to three times that of Earth but smaller than Neptune, making them ‘sub-Neptunes.’ The masses of the planets and their densities were elucidated using ground-based measurements. …

“ ‘Even though we have found so many planets like these ones outside of the solar system, we do not know much about them,’ said Luque.

“Luque added that with six sub-Neptunes of varying sizes, temperatures and masses around the same, bright star, astronomers now had a way to explore how and why such planets differed. …

“Data from [Nasa’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite] has revealed that one planet had a nine-day orbit while another took 13 days to orbit the star. Subsequent data from the European Space Agency’s Characterizing Exoplanet Satellite (Cheops), suggested yet another planet took 20.5 days to orbit the star.

“The team realized these orbits formed neat ratios: the first planet from the star makes three orbits in the time it takes the second planet to make two orbits, and the second planet makes three orbits in the time it takes the third planet to make two orbits.

“The discovery led the team to propose that the orbits of the other three planets in the system also would be related by simple ratios. Further observations confirmed they were right.”

More at the Guardian, here. You should know that Dr Hugh Osborn, a co-author from the University of Bern, converted the resonance among these planets’ orbits into music. Listen to that music in an audio clip of about 2-1/2 minutes at Public Radio International’s The World, here. Very special.

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Music That Reduces Pain

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on December 16, 2023| 2 Comments »

Photo: Laura Chouette/Unsplash.
A study by McGill University in Montreal, Canada, asked participants to listen to different types of music and rate how it affected their pain levels.

The other day on the radio I heard a doctor talk about treating pain in the age of the opioid crisis. His ideas sounded risky and seemed based on a study of one — himself. Having been in recovery from opioid addiction for 15 years, he found he could handle a lot of opioids when he broke his leg. He didn’t get addicted again.

Can every recovering addict do that? Seems like there ought to be better ways. So far, opioids are the only thing that works for severe pain. Today’s story talks about a way to reduce suffering, but only a little.

Nicola Davis writes at the Guardian, “If you are heading to the dentist, you may want to turn up a rousing Adele ballad. Researchers say our preferred tunes can not only prove to be powerful painkillers, but that moving music may be particularly potent.

“Music has long been found to relieve pain, with recent research suggesting the effect may even occur in babies and other studies revealing that people’s preferred tunes could have a stronger painkilling effect than the relaxing music selected for them.

“Now, researchers say there is evidence that the emotional responses generated by the music also matter.

“ ‘We can approximate that favorite music reduced pain by about one point on a 10-point scale, which is at least as strong as an over-the-counter painkiller like Advil [ibuprofen] under the same conditions. Moving music may have an even stronger effect,’ said Darius Valevicius, the first author of the research from McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

“Writing in the journal Frontiers in Pain Research, Valevicius and colleagues report how they asked 63 healthy participants to attend the Roy pain laboratory on the McGill campus, where researchers used a probe device to heat an area on their left arm – a sensation akin to a hot cup of coffee being held against the skin.

“While undergoing the process, the participants [listened] to two of their favorite tracks, relaxing music selected for them, scrambled music, or silence.

“As the music, sound or silence continued, the participants were asked to rate the intensity and unpleasantness of the pain. …

“When the auditory period ended, participants were asked to rate the music’s pleasantness, their emotional arousal, and the number of ‘chills’ they experienced – a phenomenon linked to sudden emotions or heightened attention, that can be felt as tingling, shivers or goosebumps.

“The results reveal participants rated the pain as less intense by about four points on a 100-point scale, and less unpleasant by about nine points, when listening to their favorite tracks compared with silence or scrambled sound. Relaxing music selected for them did not produce such an effect. …

“Further work revealed music that produced more chills was associated with lower pain intensity and pain unpleasantness, with lower scores for the latter also associated with music rated more pleasant.

“ ‘The difference in effect on pain intensity implies two mechanisms – chills may have a physiological sensory-gating effect, blocking ascending pain signals, while pleasantness may affect the emotional value of pain without affecting the sensation, so more at a cognitive-emotional level involving prefrontal brain areas,’ said Valevicius, although he cautioned more work is needed to test these ideas. …

“The researchers say it is not yet known if moving music would have a similar chill-creating effect in those who do not favor it, or if people who favor such music are simply more prone to musical chills.

“What’s more, they say the size of the study might mean some relationships cannot be detected, while the relaxing music may not have been played for long enough for an effect to have been seen.”

More at the Guardian, here. No paywall. Guardian readers voluntarily donate to support the news.

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