Speaker 1: When we doubt ourselves, we aren't able to be our
Speaker 1: authentic selves. We aren't able to speak freely, move freely.
Speaker 1: Doubt comes from self consciousness. A certain amount of doubt
Speaker 1: is sort of a good thing, you know. Getting back
Speaker 1: to this crossing traffic, I mean, am I going to
Speaker 1: make it? Or not? Well? Good to doubt yourself there
Speaker 1: if there's a chance to get hit by a bus.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers
Speaker 2: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 2: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 2: think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
Speaker 2: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 2: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 2: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 2: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 2: just about thinking. Actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and
Speaker 2: creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast
Speaker 2: is about how other people keep themselves moving in the
Speaker 2: right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for
Speaker 2: joining us on this episode. We have a returning guest,
Speaker 2: Daniel Leviton. He's founding Dean of Minerva University in California.
Speaker 2: He's also the James McGill Professor Emeritus of Psychology, Neuroscience
Speaker 2: and Music at McGill University Montreal. He's the author of
Speaker 2: many books, including This Is Your Brain on Music, The
Speaker 2: World in Six Songs, and a new book discussed here
Speaker 2: with Eric called I Heard There Was a Secret Chord,
Speaker 2: Music as Medicine.
Speaker 3: Hi, Daniel, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me back, Eric.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a real pleasure to have you on. And
Speaker 3: when I saw the title of your latest book, I
Speaker 3: was like, all right, we definitely have to talk. Your
Speaker 3: latest book is called I Heard there Was a Secret
Speaker 3: Chord Music as Medicine, And so we'll be getting into
Speaker 3: that in a second, but before we do, we'll start
Speaker 3: like we always do with the Parable. In the Parable,
Speaker 3: there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild and they say,
Speaker 3: in life, there are two wolves inside of us that
Speaker 3: are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which
Speaker 3: represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the
Speaker 3: other's a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and
Speaker 3: hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops and they think
Speaker 3: about it. For a second. They look up at their
Speaker 3: grandparent and they say, well, which one wins, and the
Speaker 3: grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to
Speaker 3: start off by asking you what that parable means to
Speaker 3: you in your life and in the work that you do.
Speaker 1: Well. You know, we were together a few years ago
Speaker 1: talking about my book about fake news, and when you
Speaker 1: asked me the parable, I went back and I looked
Speaker 1: at my answer from back then.
Speaker 3: Uh huh.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because because in a different context, I have
Speaker 1: different thoughts, which is I think as it should be.
Speaker 1: Back then, I said, well, I found the parable a
Speaker 1: bit simplistic, because I think it can be healthy to
Speaker 1: feed fear. There are things you should be afraid of,
Speaker 1: like crossing a freeway when there's traffic coming in both directions.
Speaker 1: That's a good thing to fear, and people who are
Speaker 1: fearless often end up dead, and for no reason other
Speaker 1: than that they didn't have even a modicum of self restraint.
Speaker 1: And at the time I also said that I thought
Speaker 1: that although hate is an ugly word, I think it's
Speaker 1: important to be able to hate things that are wrong,
Speaker 1: to hate injustice, to hate inequality, to hate people who
Speaker 1: are haters. There was an old Get Smart routine. Melbrooks
Speaker 1: and Buck Henry had written this TV show from the sixties,
Speaker 1: and Maxwell Smart, who's are in op a hero and
Speaker 1: secret agent, encounter as a psychiatrist who started a group
Speaker 1: with the acronym hate and I forget what the hat
Speaker 1: E stand for, but effectively they are trying to stamp
Speaker 1: out hate groups. And the guy says, we hate hate
Speaker 1: hate it. So now where I'm more in a musical
Speaker 1: artistic headspace, we are in more polarized time than we
Speaker 1: were five years ago or whenever it was you and
Speaker 1: I spoke. I do think that it's important to see
Speaker 1: the glass half full, and so naturally I want to
Speaker 1: feed in my own life that part of my nature
Speaker 1: that embraces things like kindness, bravery in the face of challenges,
Speaker 1: being able to stand up against injustice takes some bravery,
Speaker 1: especially now. And of course love. I think those are
Speaker 1: unimpeachable goals. But you don't want to love things that
Speaker 1: are bad. You don't want to love murder and pillaging,
Speaker 1: and you know so I still find it a simplistic
Speaker 1: parable but a valuable one because look, we've been talking
Speaker 1: about it for three minutes here there's a lot to
Speaker 1: unpack there.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I try to approach every day with kindness and with love.
Speaker 1: I try to reserve fear and hate for when they
Speaker 1: are called for, and greed I have no use for
Speaker 1: in my own life, for anybody else's life. I don't
Speaker 1: want to feed that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I'm impressed that you went back and listen
Speaker 3: to what you said before. That's more than a lot
Speaker 3: of people do.
Speaker 1: Well, that was the love. That was the love of
Speaker 1: That was the love. Yeah, the love of your show,
Speaker 1: the love of the ideas that you're bringing.
Speaker 3: And thank you. So let's turn our attention to music.
Speaker 3: I wanted to start with a line that you said
Speaker 3: that really just caught my eye very early on. And
Speaker 3: you say, art, science and medicine trade in doubt and
Speaker 3: in its remedy, improvisation. Talk to me about how improvisation
Speaker 3: is a remedy for doubt.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when we doubt ourselves, we aren't able to be
Speaker 1: our authentic selves. We aren't able to speak freely, move freely.
Speaker 1: Doubt comes from self consciousness. A certain amount of doubt
Speaker 1: is sort of a good thing, you know. Getting back
Speaker 1: to this crossing traffic, I mean, am I gonna make
Speaker 1: it or not. Well, good to doubt yourself there if
Speaker 1: there's a chance to get hit by a bus. But
Speaker 1: when it comes to art, doubt is the enemy of creativity.
Speaker 1: We've done brain studies on this. Most famously, my colleague
Speaker 1: Charles Limb found that when master improvisers are trying to
Speaker 1: come up with something new musically, they don't engage a
Speaker 1: part of the brain that's not normally engaged. You might think, oh, well,
Speaker 1: there's this improvisation module in the brain, and improvisation's really
Speaker 1: hard and it requires a lot of resources. So they
Speaker 1: got to tap into that. No, no, sir, they had
Speaker 1: to shut down the little school marm in the brain
Speaker 1: wagging the finger and saying, you're no good? Who told
Speaker 1: you to play that note? That sounds terrible? Who do
Speaker 1: you think you are? So improvisation and creativity, I think
Speaker 1: only flourish when we trust ourselves. Now you can go
Speaker 1: back later with the power of editing and you can say, well,
Speaker 1: you know that idea wasn't so great. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to keep that one. But in the moment, in the
Speaker 1: heat of the moment of generating ideas, whether it's for
Speaker 1: music or a novel or a painting, for dance just
Speaker 1: for a conversation you're having with a friend or a
Speaker 1: new product, in any domain where you're trying to be creative,
Speaker 1: just let the ideas flow and trust yourself to come
Speaker 1: back later and prune out the bad ones.
Speaker 3: Yep. So let's talk about healing and music. You said
Speaker 3: it's a recent feature of Western society that we've separated
Speaker 3: healing in music and that they have traditionally gone together.
Speaker 3: Say a little bit more about that.
Speaker 1: Well, from what we know, for tens of thousands of years,
Speaker 1: music was a staple in the healing arts. It was
Speaker 1: used for everything from treating injuries and wounds to depression
Speaker 1: and sleep disturbances. And you think of ancient drumming and
Speaker 1: drumming circles and shaman and faith he hailers. Music was
Speaker 1: almost always a part of those indigenous people's traditions, and
Speaker 1: then it kind of fell away with the age of
Speaker 1: enlightenment and rationality because we didn't have an evidence base
Speaker 1: for it. And we're just coming back around now in
Speaker 1: modern times. Starting in World War Two, the Army sent
Speaker 1: music therapists into VA hospitals, and around the year two thousand,
Speaker 1: my lab and others started doing brain imaging studies that
Speaker 1: showed what was going on in the brain when people
Speaker 1: listen to music or performed and used it not just
Speaker 1: for healing, but just for pleasure. And it was through
Speaker 1: that kind of biological inquiry and discovery that we were
Speaker 1: able to make the foundation of an evidence based this
Speaker 1: is what's happening, this is why it works, this is
Speaker 1: how it works, and it's amenable to scientific inquiry.
Speaker 3: One of the things that you mentioned in the book,
Speaker 3: that you talk about that scientists like you believe is
Speaker 3: part of the benefit of music is that it brings
Speaker 3: lots of different networks of the brain together at the
Speaker 3: same time. It's not working only on say, a section
Speaker 3: of the brain. It actually brings whole networks together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's really you know, you said it better than
Speaker 1: I do. I don't actually have that phrase in the book,
Speaker 1: but I like that. I would have steal that It does.
Speaker 1: So it binds together different processes and patterns of thought
Speaker 1: in the brain, and because of that, it can bring
Speaker 1: you to tiers of joy or tears of sadness. It
Speaker 1: can have a great emotional impact, and it can be
Speaker 1: used to treat diseases and most notably movement disorders. Parkinson's
Speaker 1: multiple sclerosis, stuttering, which is a movement disorder. Also. I mean,
Speaker 1: we don't think of stuttering as a movement disorder, but
Speaker 1: it is because you've got to move your tongue and
Speaker 1: your lips in your jaw in order to speak fluently.
Speaker 1: And that's what goes awry. The motor system, the movement system,
Speaker 1: and it's what allows music to help treat things like
Speaker 1: intractable depression and post traumatic stress disorder, marshaling the cognitive,
Speaker 1: the emotional, and the movement centers, connecting these different regions.
Speaker 1: As you say.
Speaker 3: You also mentioned that there are separate brain circuits for
Speaker 3: integrating and binding music together. What does that mean? Integrating
Speaker 3: and binding?
Speaker 1: Well, let's get a bit down in the weeds. But
Speaker 1: if you'll allow me a digression. Sure this this long
Speaker 1: form radio, isn't it?
Speaker 3: It is?
Speaker 1: I think it makes the most sense if we use
Speaker 1: an analogy, which of course you're opening parable was when
Speaker 1: you look out at the world around you. I'm looking
Speaker 1: at a computer and a monitor and a microphone, and
Speaker 1: I've got a painting on the wall and a lamp
Speaker 1: and a window and a tree outside the window. I'm
Speaker 1: taking in the world around me with my eyes, and
Speaker 1: so I'd invite the listeners to just take a moment
Speaker 1: and look at the world around you. Now, what are
Speaker 1: some features of what is being transmitted to you, Assuming
Speaker 1: that you are sited, not all of us are cited.
Speaker 1: For one thing, The world is out there. It's not
Speaker 1: inside your head, of course, it's out there in the world,
Speaker 1: and the information that you have about it, from a
Speaker 1: physics and biological standpoint, is just a bunch of photons
Speaker 1: bouncing off of objects and impinging on your sense receptor,
Speaker 1: your retina, and from that your retina has to pull
Speaker 1: together these perceptions. Now, the retina is not a camera.
Speaker 1: It doesn't see the way a camera does, and the
Speaker 1: photons are just individual packets of light. So you've got
Speaker 1: brain circuits that extract from that signal that hits the retina.
Speaker 1: The different attributes of what you see. The color is
Speaker 1: processed in one area of the brain. Whether something's moving
Speaker 1: or not is in another area of the brain movement
Speaker 1: centers of the visual system, and then we've got parts
Speaker 1: of the brain that process edges and shapes and shading
Speaker 1: and contrast. These are all different circuits. They evolved separately
Speaker 1: and it all comes together later. Where later in brain terms,
Speaker 1: is like forty thousandths of a second, not very long,
Speaker 1: but you then get a perception of the world that's
Speaker 1: out there, component by component. I didn't even mention depth.
Speaker 1: You've got depth perception that has to take the signal
Speaker 1: from the two eyes and integrate it. People who only
Speaker 1: have vision in one eye, or if you close one
Speaker 1: eye you lose all depth perception. It's binocular disparity that
Speaker 1: gives you depth. I went into this great analogy because
Speaker 1: I think it underscores how complicated perception is. It's a
Speaker 1: constructive process. Your brain is constructing inside your head some
Speaker 1: representation of the outside world. We do the same thing
Speaker 1: Eric with sound. The only information you have about the
Speaker 1: auditory world comes from your ear drums wiggling in and
Speaker 1: out in response to molecules hitting them because they're vibrating
Speaker 1: for some reason. So the loudness of an object or
Speaker 1: a sound is processed separately from its pitch or its duration,
Speaker 1: and special processing modules have to extract that information. And
Speaker 1: then the different pitches are pulled together into representation of
Speaker 1: melody and harmony, and the different durations into rhythm and
Speaker 1: meter and tempo, and it all comes together about forty
Speaker 1: thousands of a second later, and you hear either a
Speaker 1: cat meowing, or you hear a symphony, or you hear
Speaker 1: a door creaking, and your brain has to assign those
Speaker 1: interpretations of the world. And the other interesting thing is
Speaker 1: that for sound feels like it's coming from inside your
Speaker 1: head for most of us, not like it's outside, which
Speaker 1: is different than vision. It feels more intimate. Now we've
Speaker 1: seen patients who have disruptions in these systems. There are
Speaker 1: people with various visual disorders who can see the color
Speaker 1: of an object but not where it is. You put
Speaker 1: an apple in front of them and a banana, and
Speaker 1: let's say, well, I see something red and I see
Speaker 1: something yellow, but I don't know where they are, or
Speaker 1: vice versa. They see disembodied color and they see that
Speaker 1: there's a banana and apple, but they don't know which
Speaker 1: is which color because there are red bananas, there are
Speaker 1: yellow apples. So I mean, it's very confusing for them.
Speaker 1: And we see people with auditory disorders where they can
Speaker 1: track the rhythm of something but not the melody. Of course,
Speaker 1: most of them become drummers, just kidding a music joke,
Speaker 1: just kidding drummers, but yeah, you see where this is going.
Speaker 3: If you're a drummer listening to this show, ignore Daniel
Speaker 3: and call me because I'm in need of a good drummer.
Speaker 3: So just that's a public service announcement. The reason I
Speaker 3: wanted to go into those weeds is because of how
Speaker 3: miraculous that is. That it's doing those things in multiple
Speaker 3: different parts of the brain, and then it's bringing them
Speaker 3: all together almost instantaneously into what seems to be a
Speaker 3: unified whole thing. Now, as we listen to music, we
Speaker 3: can tweeze it apart. We can go the opposite direction, right.
Speaker 3: I can say, oh, let me pay attention to what's
Speaker 3: happened rhythmically. Let me pay attention to what's happening melody
Speaker 3: or harmony wise, so we can deconstruct that that's not
Speaker 3: how it appears to us initially.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly right. So we can will our attention.
Speaker 1: We can direct our attention and say, Okay, I'm in
Speaker 1: the concert hall. I want to just listen to the
Speaker 1: obos for a minute. And if you know what an
Speaker 1: obo sounds like the obos are playing at that moment,
Speaker 1: you can do that. It might be harder if you're
Speaker 1: not experienced to pick out the first violins from the second.
Speaker 1: But you can do that. And when you're at an
Speaker 1: outdoor concert listening to Phish or The Grateful Dead, you
Speaker 1: can decide to ignore the planes flying overhead and the
Speaker 1: birds chirping. And we call this selective attention. You can
Speaker 1: direct your attention. And similarly, you can say, and we
Speaker 1: musicians do this, We'll listen just to the chord progression,
Speaker 1: or just to the lyrics, or just to the little
Speaker 1: filigrees the vocalist putting in his or her performance.
Speaker 3: And this also answers a long famous coon. You answered
Speaker 3: a famous zen coon in your book, which is if
Speaker 3: a tree falls in the forest and no one is
Speaker 3: there to hear it, does it make a sound? And
Speaker 3: the answer you have informed us is that no, it
Speaker 3: does not.
Speaker 1: I suppose this is a rather pedantic point, but to
Speaker 1: me and to neurobiologists, sound is a mental construct. The
Speaker 1: physics of the world is that there are molecules being
Speaker 1: disturbed that tree falls, and it's going to displace molecules
Speaker 1: that will then be flying out from the source of
Speaker 1: the fall, and if they don't hit an ear drum,
Speaker 1: all they are is a molecular disturbance. You can register
Speaker 1: the I'm on a meter or an instrument of some sort.
Speaker 1: But like I say, it's a pedantic, semantic definitional point.
Speaker 1: That sound is something that is heard and interpreted by
Speaker 1: some sort of organism. So you know, look, if there's
Speaker 1: a squirrel there that jumps out of the way, I
Speaker 1: would say, the squirrel heard the sound. No squirrel, no bird,
Speaker 1: no human, no organism, no sound.
Speaker 3: Right, And you know, we could say it's a pedantic point,
Speaker 3: but it also talks about something that I think is
Speaker 3: really important in general, which is the fact that what's
Speaker 3: happening in here in our brains that seem so real
Speaker 3: and it is on one hand, but on the other hand,
Speaker 3: it is constructed, right, It is constructed by the brain.
Speaker 3: We are going from moving molecules vibrating to what we
Speaker 3: hear as sound, and the brain is filling in that.
Speaker 3: You know, everything after that piece. And I think that's
Speaker 3: fascinating to know, and it shines a light I think
Speaker 3: on how so many aspects of the brain work.
Speaker 1: Perception is a constructive process. That is what we teach
Speaker 1: and it's what we believe. The reality that you hold
Speaker 1: in your head, your mental model of the world, visual
Speaker 1: auditory smells, tastes, touch, They are constructed by your brain.
Speaker 1: And the reason it's important to understand that is because
Speaker 1: I like the word to use. Filling in. The information
Speaker 1: stream that we get is often degraded or incomplete. You're
Speaker 1: blinking several times a minute, many times a minute, and
Speaker 1: so you're missing some information. You're not getting every piece
Speaker 1: of audio information, and so our brains are giant pattern
Speaker 1: detectors whose job is to fill in missing information and
Speaker 1: make inferences. And we often make the wrong inference, which
Speaker 1: is why you might misunderstand a conversation. I don't mean
Speaker 1: that you misunderstand the person's intent. You hear a different
Speaker 1: word than they said because part of it was obscured
Speaker 1: and you're filling it in wrong. Or I think we've
Speaker 1: all had the experience. You're reading something and you go
Speaker 1: by a word and by the end of a sentence,
Speaker 1: the sentence didn't make sense, and so you go back, Oh,
Speaker 1: I misread that word. What does that mean? It you
Speaker 1: blinked over it your eyes. We're moving too fast and
Speaker 1: your brain filled in the wrong thing. And that happens
Speaker 1: all the time. It happens to us hundreds of times
Speaker 1: a day. Your brain is filling in the wrong thing.
Speaker 1: Most of the time, it's inconsequential, so you don't notice.
Speaker 3: Lots of neuroscientists talk about our brains as prediction machines,
Speaker 3: that they are predicting what they are going to receive.
Speaker 3: And if the top down signal of what my brain
Speaker 3: predicts it's going to get and the bottom up signal
Speaker 3: of what is actually being sent to me, if those match,
Speaker 3: everything's fine, and we just go on. Does that align
Speaker 3: with what you understand about neuroscience, and if so, how
Speaker 3: does that affect our experience of music?
Speaker 1: Well, that's actually the key to music. That's why music works,
Speaker 1: and it's why humor works. This top down process you
Speaker 1: refer to expectations, we're making informed predictions about what's going
Speaker 1: to happen next. We can't help, but do it. We
Speaker 1: evolve that way. I would say above a certain level.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of the right term. Certainly, all
Speaker 1: mammals need to be able to predict what's going to
Speaker 1: happen next to avoid dangers and hazards. Predators, humans need
Speaker 1: to do it. I don't know how far down the
Speaker 1: phylogenetic tree it goes. Fish make predictions, birds make predictions
Speaker 1: to some extent, worms do, but that's a product of
Speaker 1: having brains. Brains evolved in order to predict what will
Speaker 1: happen next. That's one of their primary functions and secondary function,
Speaker 1: I would say equal, is to have some form of
Speaker 1: memory of what's happened before to inform those predictionstions are
Speaker 1: based on past patterns. I said, you know at the
Speaker 1: outset the brain is a pattern detector. Why well, it
Speaker 1: needs to know and understand patterns in order to predict
Speaker 1: the future, which is an adaptive thing. Allows you to
Speaker 1: get out of the way of something coming towards you,
Speaker 1: or to know that this food isn't going to poison you,
Speaker 1: and know that if you drink you won't be dehydrated.
Speaker 1: Did all of that? I mean drink water, not things
Speaker 1: like alcohol, which dehydrating. But the beauty of music within
Speaker 1: all of this is that, whether you know it or not,
Speaker 1: and whether you're a musician or not, your brain's trying
Speaker 1: to figure out what's going to come next in the music.
Speaker 1: And when those top down expectations are rewarded when you're correct,
Speaker 1: that helps you to follow along with the music and
Speaker 1: get more engaged and immersed in it. If every single
Speaker 1: one of your predictions were met, you'd find the piece boring.
Speaker 1: The piece has to surprise you to capture your attention.
Speaker 1: We only learn something when our expectations are violated, and
Speaker 1: learning is exciting to us as a species. We are
Speaker 1: a learning species, and so when the composer and the
Speaker 1: performers of a piece can surprise you just enough of
Speaker 1: the time to hold your interest, that's when the magic happens.
Speaker 1: Music can't be all surprised or you have no foothold,
Speaker 1: you have no idea what's going on. And I think
Speaker 1: of Schoenberg's twelve tone music, which is effectively random sequences.
Speaker 1: At a certain point, you have no idea what's going on,
Speaker 1: and it becomes unappealing. But then on the other extreme
Speaker 1: you have things like baby Shark, Baby sharked a just
Speaker 1: there's no surprise there and it becomes annoying. Finding that
Speaker 1: perfect balance is tough, and it's not the same for everybody.
Speaker 1: But when composers hit it for you, as I say,
Speaker 1: that's when the magic happens.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I think that there's certainly some element of
Speaker 3: some of us preferring more of familiar versus more surprised,
Speaker 3: depending on what you like to listen to.
Speaker 1: The BBC has this show called Desert Island Discs. It's
Speaker 1: been one of the longest running shows. I think it's
Speaker 1: been going since the forties. Really it's really extraordinary. And
Speaker 1: you know, people come on they say, oh, well, you know,
Speaker 1: you go into Desert Island you get to choose eight
Speaker 1: pieces of music. And my friend Dan Gilbert and I
Speaker 1: were talking about this. Dan Gilbert's an immensely talented and
Speaker 1: fun psychologist who studies happiness and he's the happiest person
Speaker 1: I know. And he was saying, you know, everybody answers
Speaker 1: the question wrong on that show, because what they do is,
Speaker 1: you know, and they'll have people on. They'll have actors
Speaker 1: and statesmen and musicians and writers, and you know, they'll
Speaker 1: talk about pieces that were formative in their development or
Speaker 1: pieces that are their favorites. But if you think about it,
Speaker 1: if you're stuck on a Desert Island disc for the
Speaker 1: rest of your life and you only have eight pieces,
Speaker 1: you're going to rapidly grow tired of be Bappa Lula
Speaker 1: or Mabeline.
Speaker 3: By Barrier Anarchy in the UK, Yeah.
Speaker 1: You're going to grow tired of it. What you really
Speaker 1: want is a piece that has some complexity and some
Speaker 1: room to move in. You want Moller's Ninth. Even if
Speaker 1: you don't like Maller's Ninth, you know, after a few
Speaker 1: years of listening to it, its secrets will become unlocked.
Speaker 1: Maybe you'll never like it, but you know, I think
Speaker 1: I would load it up with a couple of comfort
Speaker 1: food kinds of things. Yeah, but then I'd want to
Speaker 1: put in some difficult stuff that would grow with me
Speaker 1: or that I would grow into.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a fascinating way of thinking about it. I've
Speaker 3: reflected on that also, like how would I balance wanting
Speaker 3: to hear stuff that I know I love but is
Speaker 3: simple enough to your point that there wouldn't be much
Speaker 3: to explore after a certain amount of time. All right,
Speaker 3: So now let's talk in more detail about music and healing.
Speaker 3: And you talk in the book a fair amount about
Speaker 3: music therapy, and you say that music therapy falls into
Speaker 3: two broad categories, passive or active. So first share a
Speaker 3: little bit about that distinction, and then we'll go into
Speaker 3: some of the specific applications of music for healing.
Speaker 1: So passive is you listening to music and maybe not
Speaker 1: really attending to it, like you and I were talking
Speaker 1: earlier about how as musicians we might study a piece,
Speaker 1: you know, we might become actively listening, but just you know,
Speaker 1: passively listening it's on in the background, or you're using
Speaker 1: it for meditation, active music, music making, being in a
Speaker 1: drum circle, writing a song, playing an instrument. Those are different.
Speaker 1: And another distinction I would make is music therapy versus
Speaker 1: music interventions. Music therapy is a kind of reserved term.
Speaker 1: It involves a certified music therapist, which is a specialty
Speaker 1: and a certification in most countries. Usually a diadic relationship
Speaker 1: between a therapist and a patient, or perhaps a therapist
Speaker 1: in a group such as group therapy. But it involves
Speaker 1: a qualified professional helping you to achieve therapeutic goals, either
Speaker 1: through music listening or music making. Okay, And then we
Speaker 1: have music interventions, which are like when you go to
Speaker 1: your dentist's office and they put on music, you know,
Speaker 1: headphones while they're drilling at you. You know, that's that's
Speaker 1: not a music therapist. The music hasn't been designed specifically
Speaker 1: for you. They're just guessing what will relax you. And
Speaker 1: my dentist puts on music that makes me stabby, and
Speaker 1: so I have to bring my own music.
Speaker 3: Okay, thank you for making that distinction. Let's talk about
Speaker 3: music therapy for now, which is where a therapist is
Speaker 3: trying to bring about some sort of clinical result by
Speaker 3: using music with their patients. And there's a few different
Speaker 3: areas you alluded to movement disorders before. Share a little
Speaker 3: bit about what some of the common movement disorders that
Speaker 3: music can help with, and how do we think it's
Speaker 3: helping or in what ways is it helping.
Speaker 1: I think one of the easiest cases to wrap our
Speaker 1: heads around is Parkinson's when it reaches the point where
Speaker 1: individuals with Parkinson's can no longer walk continuously and smoothly.
Speaker 1: So what's happening there is that the disease degrades those
Speaker 1: circuits in the brain that are responsible for maintaining gate
Speaker 1: gait gate. And you know, we're bipedal, We're inherently unstable.
Speaker 1: You've got to coordinate putting one foot in front of
Speaker 1: the other. You have to put it down when the
Speaker 1: other foot is up. You can't have both feet up
Speaker 1: at the same time. It seems rather obvious, but you
Speaker 1: know infants can't do it. You have to learn. And
Speaker 1: when those circuits become degraded Parkinson's individuals might freeze and
Speaker 1: be unable to start walking, or once they start, they
Speaker 1: may freeze and be unable to continue. And if you
Speaker 1: play music for them that has a tempo that's approximately
Speaker 1: at their gate, after a few seconds, supplementary circuits in
Speaker 1: the brain that are not damaged begin to synchronize with
Speaker 1: that tempo. Neurons fire and synchrony with it, and they
Speaker 1: act as an external timekeeper that allows the Parkinson's patient
Speaker 1: to move and walk without a walker and without assistance.
Speaker 1: And therapy that employs that technique can allow over time
Speaker 1: for somebody with Parkinson's to just think about music and
Speaker 1: not actually have to hear it and then be able
Speaker 1: to walk. And that's a game changer. We take mobility
Speaker 1: for granted, those of us who can move, and if
Speaker 1: you've ever broken your leg in a ski accident or something,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you realize, Oh, mobility is pretty
Speaker 1: great and when you lose it, it leads to a
Speaker 1: lot of quality of life implications. And so music in
Speaker 1: Parkinson's is a big deal.
Speaker 3: Does this just work in certain cases? Are there any
Speaker 3: variables about who this works for and who it doesn't?
Speaker 1: Well, it doesn't work for everybody with Parkinson's, but it
Speaker 1: does work for most people that we've seen. It wouldn't
Speaker 1: work if you were hearing impaired, obviously, although it might
Speaker 1: work if we could put a vibroa tactile vest on
Speaker 1: you that gave you the beat. That hasn't been explored,
Speaker 1: but it's worth exploring. It seems to work also for
Speaker 1: movement disorders that are non Parkinson's related, like for multiple
Speaker 1: sclerosis and other central nervous system problems.
Speaker 3: And the principle is the same that you're using the
Speaker 3: rhythm of music to bring in other brain circuits that
Speaker 3: are not the compromised ones exactly by you're sort of
Speaker 3: going around those and saying, hey, okay, So now the
Speaker 3: next one is fascinating to me, partially because I lost
Speaker 3: a father about a year and a half ago and
Speaker 3: my partner's mother passed about two years ago, both of
Speaker 3: them from dementia. So some of this research and how
Speaker 3: music is helping dementia and Alzheimer's patients is really fascinating.
Speaker 3: Tell us about some of it.
Speaker 1: So there's two parts to the story. One is, I
Speaker 1: think the more well known case people with advanced memory
Speaker 1: impairment may no longer recognize their loved ones. Sometimes they
Speaker 1: don't even recognize themselves in a mirror and they'll start
Speaker 1: trying to have a conversation with the mirror image. They
Speaker 1: don't recognize where they are, and this can of course
Speaker 1: lead to profound disorientation, and with that comes typically one
Speaker 1: of two responses. Patients either become very violent and angry
Speaker 1: because nothing makes sense, then they need to be sedated,
Speaker 1: or they fold in on themselves and become somewhat catatonic.
Speaker 1: The world is not making sense and they don't know
Speaker 1: who they are, and it's just very disturbing for them
Speaker 1: and for anybody who cares about them. But memory works
Speaker 1: on a first in, last out basis. In other words,
Speaker 1: that's a term from computer science, but from the old
Speaker 1: days when we would load up tapes and hard drives
Speaker 1: it with data. But the idea is that the memories
Speaker 1: that are formed earliest in life are the last ones
Speaker 1: to go. They're more resilient to decay and disease and injury.
Speaker 1: And so if we play DEMENTSI patients music from their youth,
Speaker 1: typically from say the ages of ten to sixteen, they
Speaker 1: recognize it. They can sing along, and it allows them
Speaker 1: to reconnect with a piece of themselves they had lost,
Speaker 1: and the effects can last for weeks just playing them
Speaker 1: that music of their youth, and it leads to great
Speaker 1: improvement and quality of life. They can engage again in conversation,
Speaker 1: often mood change, and that's a very powerful demonstration of
Speaker 1: music's effect. I alluded to two parts to the story
Speaker 1: of dementia. The other is that if you play a
Speaker 1: musical instrument, or saying, if you're a musician, even an
Speaker 1: amateur musician, that ability is often resistant to the disease.
Speaker 1: And we've seen lots of now on Instagram and YouTube.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of cases of elderly individuals who
Speaker 1: don't know what's going on, but they can still play
Speaker 1: pieces on the piano they learned when they were twenty
Speaker 1: or that they learned recently. It's never too late to
Speaker 1: learn an instrument. Sixty, seventy and eighty year olds can
Speaker 1: learn an instrument, and it's neuroprotective to do so. And
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean that you won't get Alzheimer's, but it
Speaker 1: means you'll still have a way of connecting with the
Speaker 1: world if you do right.
Speaker 3: You mentioned performers like Glenn Campbell and Tony Bennett, who
Speaker 3: were still able to perform with Alzheimer's because the music
Speaker 3: part of their brain appeared to be some unaffected.
Speaker 1: That's exactly right. Yeah, these are very well practiced circuits.
Speaker 1: And the other aspect of music is that it carries
Speaker 1: along with it the seeds of its own instructions and
Speaker 1: its own structure. So once you get started in a song,
Speaker 1: songs tend to be repetitive in some way, so it
Speaker 1: kind of carries you along.
Speaker 3: Elsewhere in the book, you talk about how remarkable our
Speaker 3: memory for music is, and it really is striking. Like
Speaker 3: I do not have a good memory in general, a
Speaker 3: particularly episodic memory of things that happened, you know, at
Speaker 3: different points in my life. But put on a song
Speaker 3: that I listened to when I was eight, and I
Speaker 3: know every word. I know everything. And you even point
Speaker 3: out like even non musicians will pick up very sensitive
Speaker 3: differences like that something's just a little bit off. You know.
Speaker 3: It's amazing that somehow memory encodes itself, at least for
Speaker 3: it seems like for a lot of us in a
Speaker 3: far stickier way.
Speaker 1: Music is sticky because in cognitive science terms, it's a
Speaker 1: highly structured stimulus by structured. I mean it's organized. It's
Speaker 1: organized in multiple ways that allow you to fill in
Speaker 1: missing pieces if you forget them. So we've all learned
Speaker 1: to count, and so if I go one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, nine, ten,
Speaker 1: you know which number I left out. Because it's so overlearned,
Speaker 1: it just seems silly to you that you wouldn't know
Speaker 1: that eight is the number I left out. Music, you know,
Speaker 1: there's only twelve notes. We learned the scale ba da
Speaker 1: da da da da da duh. It's the only thing
Speaker 1: that could Yeah, we know that. And we know that
Speaker 1: if a melody is going bad Da da da da
Speaker 1: da da da da da da da, you know we
Speaker 1: know there's a pattern there. Even if we're not musicians,
Speaker 1: we recognize that it's structured. The melody, the rhythm, the
Speaker 1: choices of notes and durations are all very highly stereotypical.
Speaker 1: So our memory is keeping track not just of the
Speaker 1: particular memory, but of the schema that is the overall
Speaker 1: pattern of things, and that makes it resistant to decay
Speaker 1: and loss.
Speaker 3: That's really interesting that it is because it is so structured.
Speaker 3: Do you think any of it also has to do
Speaker 3: with the fact that it is bringing multiple networks of
Speaker 3: the brain together that you've got rhythm in one area
Speaker 3: pitch in another area.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's that. And so the way memory
Speaker 1: works is it's really not stored in any one place.
Speaker 1: It's stored in a distributed network. We don't know this
Speaker 1: for sure, but when we have patients on the operating
Speaker 1: table for brain surgery, they're typically awake during brain surgery,
Speaker 1: and the reason is that if something needs to be repaired,
Speaker 1: the surgeon wants to be careful not to cut something
Speaker 1: or cauterize something that's an essential function, and so they'll
Speaker 1: be applying a small electrical charge to different areas of
Speaker 1: the brain and see what happens. This is typical with
Speaker 1: epilepsy where they have to cut out a focal point.
Speaker 1: They don't want to remove your speech center or a
Speaker 1: music center. And we've seen that if you apply a
Speaker 1: small electrical current to part of the temporal lobe, somebody
Speaker 1: will say, oh, well.
Speaker 3: That's a song that's fascinating.
Speaker 1: In reality, the song is not there. That's just the
Speaker 1: entry point to a node. It's like saying if I
Speaker 1: turn on the switch to the light in my room,
Speaker 1: the light isn't where the switches the lights of the
Speaker 1: sea lag or it's a floor lamp or something, but
Speaker 1: that just happened, you know, that's where I complete the circuit.
Speaker 1: But in reality, in the brain, you know, yet it's
Speaker 1: probably the case that the rhythm's in one place and
Speaker 1: the pitches in another, and the vocal timbres in another,
Speaker 1: and the rhyth lyrics are in another. But that's the
Speaker 1: nexus point. And we know this because we've seen patients
Speaker 1: who can lose lyrics and retain all the rest after
Speaker 1: a stroke or some other brain damage, or they lose
Speaker 1: their perception of rhythm, but they maintain their perception of
Speaker 1: melody and so on.
Speaker 3: Another area that you write about in the book is
Speaker 3: music and helping with chronic pain. What are we learning there?
Speaker 1: So some years ago my lab show that when you
Speaker 1: listen to music you like, of course that's subjective, but
Speaker 1: music you like, your brain produces its own opioids and
Speaker 1: dogenous opioids. And Francis Collins was just on the Colbert Show,
Speaker 1: well the Late Show with Stephen Colbert talking about this study.
Speaker 1: Francis in the White House Science Office. He's been a
Speaker 1: big promoter of music and medicine using that platform and
Speaker 1: his former platform as the director of the NIH National
Speaker 1: Institutes of Health, the world's largest biomedical research organization. So
Speaker 1: this music and medicine that you and I are talking
Speaker 1: about is becoming more i'd say accepted within the government,
Speaker 1: which means it's becoming more accepted by healthcare providers. And
Speaker 1: the idea that your brain can produce opioids in response
Speaker 1: to music is part of why it can help with
Speaker 1: chronic pain. The opioids that we take, you know, oxycotton
Speaker 1: or codeine and things like that heroin, they're addictive, and
Speaker 1: the amount of opioids that your brain produces in response
Speaker 1: to music are not as high as pharmaceutical levels, but
Speaker 1: probably high enough that you might be able to get
Speaker 1: by with music in an advil rather than music and
Speaker 1: a highly addictive substance.
Speaker 3: Now, is that the sort of thing where with people
Speaker 3: who seeing really good results with that, that there is
Speaker 3: some sort of therapy that is going on there or
Speaker 3: I'm assuming it. Maybe it is. Maybe it's not as
Speaker 3: simple as putting on a song you like. Is there
Speaker 3: something more to music therapy for chronic pain that therapists
Speaker 3: are doing well?
Speaker 1: So that's a sticky question. We can have self medication
Speaker 1: with music and most of us know what kind of
Speaker 1: music will sue us. I think part of the difficulty, though,
Speaker 1: this idea of a desert island disc that you might
Speaker 1: get tired of. You know, maybe your go to music
Speaker 1: for pain relief is no longer working for you. And
Speaker 1: that's where a music therapist comes in. They can help
Speaker 1: you discover music that might serve the same functional therapeutic purpose.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not music that you're tired of.
Speaker 3: We talked earlier about two types of music therapy. There's
Speaker 3: listening to music, there's making music. When we talked about
Speaker 3: memory and dementia, we talked about how people are able
Speaker 3: to continue to make music. Do we see with chronic
Speaker 3: pain any applications of making music or is it largely
Speaker 3: been studied in the context of passively hearing music.
Speaker 1: There are more studies on music listening because it's easier
Speaker 1: to do, but there are some emerging studies on making
Speaker 1: music and pain relief. And yeah, I think the effects
Speaker 1: are even more powerful when you're making music. I mean,
Speaker 1: provided that the pain isn't in your fingers or something
Speaker 1: and you need your fingers to play. But even in
Speaker 1: that case, it seems as though the pain goes away
Speaker 1: while you're playing.
Speaker 3: So if we want to maybe tie up this music
Speaker 3: therapy part of the conversation for someone how widespread is
Speaker 3: music therapy as something that people can find therapists to do.
Speaker 3: Most people in a major city could find musical therapists,
Speaker 3: you know where health insurance companies with all this, like
Speaker 3: how does this translate from what you're seeing in the
Speaker 3: science to individuals who are trying to perhaps get help
Speaker 3: with any of these conditions. We've talked about.
Speaker 1: The AMTA, the American Music Therapy Association music therapy dot
Speaker 1: org has a website. You can find certified music therapists there. Increasingly,
Speaker 1: in the coming years, I think we'll find that music
Speaker 1: therapy is available in clinics and hospitals. But I would
Speaker 1: start there the MTA, and there are you know, if
Speaker 1: you're in a city like Miami or Boston or Los
Speaker 1: Angeles or cities where there are music therapy university programs,
Speaker 1: there's students who are going to be doing internships. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd start with music therapy dot org. Great, there are
Speaker 1: thousands of music therapists and some of them will do
Speaker 1: remote sessions.
Speaker 3: Another thing, changing directions slightly, but staying with music. You
Speaker 3: say that many people list unwanted music in public spaces
Speaker 3: as a chief annoyance of modern life, and that the
Speaker 3: EPA has amended the Clean Air Act to include unwanted
Speaker 3: music under noise pollution. Does that mean I can do
Speaker 3: a citizens arrest on somebody who's playing music too loud
Speaker 3: on the sun? Does that give me the authority to
Speaker 3: do that?
Speaker 1: I suppose, But you know, getting back to the wolf,
Speaker 1: I would be fearful, Yes, yes, I mean if they're
Speaker 1: playing a tuba, they might hit you over the head
Speaker 1: with it.
Speaker 3: Yes, it is amazing how frustrating sound everywhere sometimes can be.
Speaker 1: On that point, yeah, I think the thing we find
Speaker 1: most annoying is the loud subwiffing sounds from a car
Speaker 1: where somebody's playing typically hip hop, although not always that,
Speaker 1: But it's the subwhifer that you can actually see the
Speaker 1: car bouncing up and down because the bass is so loud.
Speaker 1: And the annoying thing about based from an acoustics perspective,
Speaker 1: is that the base signals travel much farther than the
Speaker 1: high frequencies. Low frequency waves are themselves many feet long,
Speaker 1: and so those traveling waves can travel greater distances, which
Speaker 1: is why whales who have very low voices, as it were,
Speaker 1: sounds can make their cries and their whale song heard
Speaker 1: for over one thousand miles. That low pitch can travel,
Speaker 1: and evolutionarily, a loud low pitch, you know, from an
Speaker 1: ancestral standpoint, it would usually signify an avalanche or a
Speaker 1: herd of elephants coming towards you, and so it's meant
Speaker 1: to evoke fear. From an evolutionary standpoint, I don't think
Speaker 1: the person in my neighborhood playing music is necessarily trying
Speaker 1: to evoke fear, although maybe, but you know, that's why
Speaker 1: we don't like it.
Speaker 3: Interesting, I did not know either of those facts that
Speaker 3: the base waves the lower frequency waves travel further, but
Speaker 3: it makes sense given that they're bigger.
Speaker 1: And they're non directional, which is why if you have
Speaker 1: a subwifer in your home, you can put it anywhere
Speaker 1: in the room and it'll have the same effect. Whereas
Speaker 1: the speakers. I mean, you know, if you're an audiophile,
Speaker 1: you want to make a triangle, an equilateral triangle where
Speaker 1: the speakers are as far apart from each other as
Speaker 1: you are from them. That's where you get the optimal
Speaker 1: sound and the optimal stereo field, and it lows the
Speaker 1: orchestra of the band to sound natural. Subwipher doesn't matter
Speaker 1: because the base, being a long way form, is non directional.
Speaker 3: Well, another fact I didn't know, but it makes sense
Speaker 3: because I see subwifers positioned in a far more random
Speaker 3: pattern than I see speakers. Yeah, okay, we're going to
Speaker 3: close on this. You talk about the minor third in
Speaker 3: speech as well as music. Yeah, yeah, there's an example
Speaker 3: of a falling minor third being derisive correct, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: or yeah yeah, which means I'm agreeing. Yeah, what happens
Speaker 3: if I do an ascending minor third?
Speaker 1: Try one?
Speaker 3: So does music help us to live better lives?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a question, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, But it's interesting. A cultural universal seems to be
Speaker 1: the descending third as the teasing or the derisive or
Speaker 1: the sarcastic. And we don't know why that is. It
Speaker 1: just seems to be the case. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and yeah yeah is a cultural universal. You hear it
Speaker 1: from kids in every culture we know of, So it's
Speaker 1: just a funny thing. I don't know why that is.
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody does.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's fascinating that when we hear it, we know
Speaker 3: what it means.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. And prosody is the term linguists used to
Speaker 1: refer to the melody of a language, and in every
Speaker 1: other respect, languages differ greatly on prosodic meaning. So in English,
Speaker 1: if we want to make a statement, we usually have
Speaker 1: the pitch of the sentence fall down towards the end,
Speaker 1: like I just did there, And if we want to
Speaker 1: ask a question, as you did, we would have the
Speaker 1: pitch go up. So is this a question? Is this
Speaker 1: a rhetorical question?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 1: The pitch goes up, which is why for a certain generation,
Speaker 1: people younger than you and I use so called up speak,
Speaker 1: they sound unsure of themselves. It sounds as though they're
Speaker 1: questioning rather than stating. And I fight this all the
Speaker 1: time with my students. They'll come in undergraduates typically, although
Speaker 1: I've seen it in colleagues now because it's a generational thing.
Speaker 1: They'll say, I'm not exaggerating. So I did this experiment
Speaker 1: and we had these variables, and I played music for people,
Speaker 1: and it sounds like they're asking me a question. With
Speaker 1: each of them, it undermines their authority, and I don't
Speaker 1: know where that comes from other than that. I think
Speaker 1: they were raised to be non confrontational, and asking a
Speaker 1: question sounds non confrontational. Are we going to the movies?
Speaker 1: You want to have dinner at the tie place? You
Speaker 1: know that's not asserting yourself. You know, let's have dinner
Speaker 1: at the tie place. I don't want to eat tie?
Speaker 1: I do?
Speaker 3: Do?
Speaker 1: Do I want to eat tie? You know? It's just
Speaker 1: but you know, there are certain things that need to
Speaker 1: be factual and need to be asserted, and the upspeak
Speaker 1: kind of confuses all of that for me and my generation.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I agree. It is curious to wonder why
Speaker 3: that becomes as pervasive as it does. I guess it's
Speaker 3: just the speech. You know, ticks that we all have.
Speaker 3: I have about one hundred of them. As my editor
Speaker 3: Chris would tell you, he just manages to get most
Speaker 3: of them out of the interviews.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we all do. But getting back to the point
Speaker 1: I meant to make, but I digressed there is that
Speaker 1: different cultures use prosity in different ways, and so one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why it's hard for us to learn
Speaker 1: a foreign language isn't simply learning the vocabulary, but learning
Speaker 1: the melodic intonation of that language. In a way that
Speaker 1: is authentic to the language and the way other speakers
Speaker 1: of it use it. That can be very difficult in
Speaker 1: French and even more difficult in Chinese or Thai.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as I mentioned earlier to you before we start,
Speaker 3: I'm in Portugal as we record this, and yes, Portuguese.
Speaker 3: It's challenging the rhythms and the speech.
Speaker 1: You can get the words out, but you're going to
Speaker 1: sound like a foreigner, and you might be misunderstood even
Speaker 1: though you got the words right because of the rhythm
Speaker 1: and the melody.
Speaker 3: We're off yep, so we are about out of time here.
Speaker 3: Two things I'd like you to leave us with, one
Speaker 3: thought about music and healing that we haven't talked about
Speaker 3: that might be interesting to someone or helpful. And then
Speaker 3: also share a little bit about your audiobook because it
Speaker 3: has some special things that you would expect in a
Speaker 3: book about music.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't think you missed anything, but I appreciate
Speaker 1: that you are a good researcher. One thing that I
Speaker 1: would just like to emphasize is that playing an instrument
Speaker 1: is really neuroprotective and healthful, and it doesn't matter whether
Speaker 1: you're good at it or not. It disappoints me always
Speaker 1: to hear people say, oh, well, I can't sing or
Speaker 1: I can't play a musical instrument. I mean it's fun.
Speaker 1: I grew up where there were pick up basketball games
Speaker 1: every afternoon in my neighborhood, and I never heard a
Speaker 1: kid say, oh well, I'm no Wilt Chamberlain, so I'm
Speaker 1: not going to play with you. Guys. You play basketball
Speaker 1: because it's fun and it doesn't matter whether you're good
Speaker 1: or not. I mean, it's fun. And I've never heard
Speaker 1: anybody say at a dinner party, I'm no Martin Luther King,
Speaker 1: I'm no Edward R. Murrow, so I'm not going to talk.
Speaker 1: I'm not an orator, you know, But we say it
Speaker 1: about music. I'm no ell I Fitzgerald. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to sing. I'm no Keith Jarrett, so I'm not going
Speaker 1: to even touch the piano. It's really sad to me
Speaker 1: music it's not a competition.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I do not come by a lot
Speaker 3: of talent musically by nature. I have just persevered over
Speaker 3: the years, and it's one of the things that I
Speaker 3: am most grateful to my younger self for having done,
Speaker 3: because it is such a gift to be able to
Speaker 3: play even at whatever level I'm able to play, I'm
Speaker 3: so glad I know how to do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And truly great musicians often don't care whether you're
Speaker 1: good or not. They will play with you because it's
Speaker 1: not about what you're capable of. My friend Victor Wootin
Speaker 1: makes a really nice analogy, and I know that you
Speaker 1: like analogies because parables are analogies. Indeed, if you go
Speaker 1: to a friend's house for dinner and they've got an
Speaker 1: eight year old, are you going to talk to the
Speaker 1: eight year old? Of course you are. You're going to
Speaker 1: modify what you talk about. You may or may not
Speaker 1: talk about the war in Ukraine with them, or if
Speaker 1: you do, you know you're going to modify to talk
Speaker 1: at their level, and you're going to try not to
Speaker 1: be condescending or you know, insulting, but you'll try to
Speaker 1: adjust what you say. And musicians do the same. Musicians
Speaker 1: will play with you and adjust what they do so
Speaker 1: as not to make you look bad. You're not going
Speaker 1: to talk to that eight year old and try to
Speaker 1: make them look like an idiot. And a competent, big
Speaker 1: hearted musician, even a pro, is going to not try
Speaker 1: and make you look bad, they're going to try to
Speaker 1: work with you with what you bring.
Speaker 3: I've been fortunate to be around a bunch of very good,
Speaker 3: very kind hearted musicians that you've described, who played with
Speaker 3: me from the very beginning, and it's part of why
Speaker 3: I stuck with it.
Speaker 1: And it lifts you up. It lifts you up right,
Speaker 1: yes one, Yeah, I've been a great beneficiary of that.
Speaker 3: Okay, your book.
Speaker 1: I read the audiobook. I include some musical examples there
Speaker 1: that I play on the piano or the guitar. And
Speaker 1: then whether you have the audiobook or the ebook or
Speaker 1: the physical print book, there's a playlist that I created,
Speaker 1: actually a series of playlists on all the major streaming services.
Speaker 1: So the idea is that there's a QR code on
Speaker 1: the back of the book. Maybe you'll include one on
Speaker 1: your website, and it will take you to all two
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy five songs in the book, in the
Speaker 1: versions mentioned, and you can listen to them as you
Speaker 1: follow along.
Speaker 3: There's that many of them in the book. I mean
Speaker 3: I read the book and there were a lot of songs,
Speaker 3: but I had no idea whether there were that many.
Speaker 3: That is a lot.
Speaker 1: Well, some of them are just a mention. They're not discussed.
Speaker 1: But you know what, I opened the book describing a
Speaker 1: concert performance of Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, and
Speaker 1: you know they were playing in walked Bud, and so
Speaker 1: I mentioned that they were playing it. I don't really
Speaker 1: dissect dissect it, but you know, if you want to
Speaker 1: know what in walk Bud sounds like, there.
Speaker 3: It is wonderful. Well, we will put links in the
Speaker 3: show notes to your work and where people can get
Speaker 3: the book. And Daniel, thanks so much for coming on again.
Speaker 3: I've really enjoyed the conversation. It's great to see you again.
Speaker 1: Great to see you. Thank you for having me.
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