Music is free, and so are we.
Here’s a brief reprieve from all the editorializing: two recently discovered videos that changed the way I thought about music. The first is not a single video but a Harvard lecture series by classical music icon Leonard Bernstein entitled “The Unanswered Question” from 1973. It is without a doubt the best 40+ year old video…
“We are the music while the music lasts.” – T.S. Eliot In modern-day song sharing — what we think of as “music” — there are three participants: musicians, listeners and industry. When music first originated, there was little if any separation between musician and listener. Certainly, there was no business of music upon which to…
Music evolved alongside language and culture over millions of years to form a universal method of communicating emotion. For most of our species’ history, music’s primary purpose was to unify communities. Over time, various forces conspired to make music’s primary purpose entertainment. Chief among these was the music industry, which subjugated and exploited cultural evolution…
Did you ever stop and wonder, “Where the hell did music come from?” The public has many misconceptions about how music began. Perhaps the biggest of all is that music had its origin as entertainment — a superfluous if enjoyable pastime. It is easy to see where we might have gotten this idea. For decades…
