Yesterday was the big blizzard of 2009. My area in NJ seemed to get hit a little less than the surrounding areas, Philadelphia, and NYC. But it seemed like an opportune time to take the huskies out and get some footage for my second movie project. All I had to work with was my iphone, so it was a good chance to test the video quality. My dogs are pretty unpredictable, sometimes they can play for hours, yet other times they will just want to nap. Yesterday there was a fair mix of play and laying around in the snow. I didn't have much time to get great footage because my hands were freezing, but I was able to get some.

Having done a movie project this before, this one took a lot less time once I was able to import the videos from my phone. Imovie is remarkably intuitive to use and splicing together frames was very easy. For my music I chose "Been Caught Stealing" by Jane's Addiction. Watching the footage of my dogs immediately made me think of this song since it includes dog barking in the intro. Also my huskies routinely play tug of war with a stick and try to steal it from each other. But by the time I got my phone out and started recording they were beginning to lose interest. Overall, I think my final movie project was successful, but I wished I had more time to elaborate on it.

Continuing from my last blog entry.....Neuroscience can provide some interesting perspective on what is happening in the brain in a "flow" state. Studies have revealed that the neurotransmitter, dopamine, which is responsible for the brain's reward process, plays a crucial role in the ability to achieve flow. When a person is so focused on a task that they lose track of time, and the activity is just difficult enough to provide a challenge, the brain produces more dopamine. This not only helps to heighten the senses to rise to the challenge and accomplish the task, but it also upregulates the "reward" centers of the brain giving us positive reinforcement and feelings of well being.

The states of mind, or brain I should say, are what musicians, artists, and people from all other types of professions, strive for to achieve a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment in their life on a day to day basis. I would even venture to say that these experiences are actually what makes us truly happy in life as opposed to money, success or respect from others. For musicians it plays a particularly important role, and it is also very apparent considering the monetary rewards for most musicians are small. Yet their are so many musicians graduating from conservatories and music schools around the country each and every year.

It all comes back to dopamine. Recently studies have shown that dopamine and endorphins are closely linked. Endorphins are essentially naturally produced opiates that help elevate performance, dull pain, and increase drive. Just as runners can get a "runner's high", I believe musicians can also achieve this state. And most strive to do it on a regular basis. After all, the feeling of nailing a passage of music and being on top of your game can be quite addictive. So whether you call it "flow" or increased production of dopamine, this optimal experience is essentially why us musicians keep coming back for more.

I have been doing a lot of research on "flow" lately. Flow is the state where one becomes totally focused on an activity, and meets or exceeds a challenge leading to heightened states of awareness, consciousness and self-confidence. This is a phenomenon that is widely studied in the field of psychology, as it has a lot of practical applications for mood and life affirming changes.

Throughout my life as a musician, I've found that this is one of the sole driving forces that brings me to practice every day, and want to improve. It is the feeling of accomplishment that you get by making small leaps one day at a time. Just when you think that you've reached a high level, you become aware of some new perspective that takes you're playing to another level.

This relates to music technology/education because the state of flow is the ideal learning state. As a private teacher myself, I strive to push my students to discover this and use it as a tool to improve. I think for any subject in any situation, the concept of flow is an invaluable tool for progress. Because of it's impact in my life, I've done a lot of research into what is exactly happening in the brain in a flow state. The field of neuroscience has made some significant advancements in the last few years which I will talk about in my next blog entry.

The project involving Finale was interesting at first but proved to be somewhat frustrating. It wasn't hard to find Bach Chorales on the internet, but they were all music and mp3 files. I eventually found piano PDF versions. This was my first time using Finale, and I actually found it pretty intuitive. My composer friends have told me that Sibelius is vastly superior but, I don't believe you can download a version of Sibelius for free.

I found that inputting the notes in Finale was fairly easy, but when I tried to take screen shots and move into Photoshop, I began to have problems. Everytime I took a screen shot, an opened it in photo shop, the notes, and or lines would be misaligned. Eventually I discovered that I was simply viewing the file in photoshop at an incorrect percentage. The next part of trying to adjust, and convert to black and white was somewhat tricky. The version of PS that was demonstrated in class was not the same one I had, so it took some trial and error to get the final product right. I was able to make it work by converting it to a newspaper setting, turning the contrast all the way up, and dropping the lightness to almost nothing.

While this was a fairly simple project, I encountered, with many of the projects as well, a decent amount of hiccups along the way. There is often a small error I might make, or perhaps some simple step I leave out, but I feel that the amount of time I end up spending on these projects is always more than it should normally take. Continually saving and uploading also adds time to the process. But I am glad I have had the opportunity to work with these programs, and I can definitely see myself using Finale more often in the future.

For my first movie project I decided to do a piece on Glenn Gould. He has been one of my favorite piano performers for some time. I remember when I first heard his recording of the Goldberg Variations, which happened to be his later recording. I was stunned at the musicality and fluid technique. I later discovered that his first recording the one he made when he was much younger), some believe, is a more accurate representation of how the piece should be played. I've always disagreed with this, perhaps because I heard the later recording first.

Anyway, because of the play on the number 32 surrounding him, I decided to title my movie 32 short stills about Glenn Gould. He was born in 1932, a movie was made about him called "32 Short Films", he retired from public performance just shy of 32, and one of the pieces that made him famous was the Goldberg Variations, a 32 section work if you count the aria, and aria di capo. He was also known to be quite eccentric. He typically sang along with his recordings, and in public performance. He was also social outcast to a certain extent, which was probably a product of his perfectionism and genius.

For the actual movie, I chose the opening aria of the Goldberg Variations. I selected various images of Gould from the web, trying to represent a wide variety of places in his life and career. I ended up spending quite a bit of time on this, because I wanted to line specific musical moments with specific frame changes. Each time I made an adjustment, I would have to readjust everything else. I don't know if this approach came off as effective in the final product, but I'm glad I made the effort to do so, even though it took me so much longer.

It's time to get back on the blog wagon. It's been a while since I've made an entry so I will have to do some catch up.

I saw a very interesting presentation a while back in one of my other classes. It was a guy who develops tools for music education based on the controls and interfaces for games such as Guitar Hero. What was fascinating was that he developed he programed his own software to be compatible with nearly any device. You are able to assign sounds and or functions to various buttons, strings, triggers....etc, for a variety of results. He explained that the kids, teens, and adults that tried the techniques always had a lot of fun and became very enthused. He described how he had young kids, who were already familiar with a guitar type controller, learn to play songs, improvise, and coordinate ensembles without reading notes. They simply would press the blue key, or green bar, to produce whatever sound they desired. He also showed us controllers based on the popular interactive dance games that are layed on the floor with different sensors for your feet. The fact that his software could be used with any device, and was easily customizable made extremely accessible to a wide variety of people.

The only draw back I can possibly think of to this would be that it might the process of learning to read music for some students. This however is probably a weak argument against the world of accessible music making that this brings to students. I would also guess that many times certain students can be turned off by having to read notes, and decide they want to get out of music in the very beginning, where if they had a guitar hero controller, they would get more immediate satisfaction and explore further. All in all, I really enjoyed the presentation and it made me think of how the future of music education is moving in this direction. I can't think of any better and faster way to peak a student's interest then to teach them music with the tools and instruments they have already been using at home.

I am glad to have finally finished my music concrete project. Although at first this seemed to be a simple project it took a lot more time than I originally anticipated.

For my sound source it seemed logical that I choose huskies, since (besides the fact that I have two of my own) the sounds they make have always made me laugh. Huskies have a unique way of communicating that is somewhere between a howl and a bark. Most people call it "husky talk." I had originally wanted to sample the sounds of my own dogs, but since I don't have any great way to record them right now, I chose to use a clip off You Tube of a dog named Mishka.

This particular video is hysterical and most people seem to agree as it has more than 1.5 million views. In the video the dog's owners are trying to get him to say "I love you," and it's amazing how close he comes. I also added a 1 sec clip off of a Beastie Boys track of another dog saying "I love you." I used this clip for a rhythmic foundation, alternating with left and right speaker channels. I gradually add in Mishka's vocalizing which builds in intensity towards the middle at which point I combine two segments to create a syncopated type of effect. This particular rhythm I carry to the end, while the howling and "talking" builds in intensity to a full husky chorale.

The piece ends with the syncopated effect repeating and then abruptly becoming distorted and then stopping. This effect I created with the Wa Wa control and also by pitch manipulation. I used a total of six separate tracks to create this piece. This project was a lot of fun for me, and I hope to recreate it in the near future only this time use my own dogs as a source material.