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BILLY JOEL: PURVEYOR OF FINE HORROR AND HEAVY METAL

April 10, 2020 / TheListenInitiative / Leave a comment

Billy Joel made me fall in love with horror movies…oh, and heavy metal. 

 * 

Fells good to get that off my chest.

Sorry, let me provide a little context. I grew up in a fairly typical,
lower-middle class, midwestern home. When I was younger Dad worked at a steel
mill, and Mom taught piano lessons and worked at local call centers to provide.
Home was typical of the region. Conservative, Christian values reigned and much
of what our parents were protecting us from was anything that was perceived as a
threat to our simple way of life. As such the following things were not allowed
in my home growing up:

 1. Bee Gee’s albums (Guys intentionally singing in that high register?…Not in
    our house!) 
 2. The television show Three’s Company (A man cohabitating with not one, but
    TWO women?!?!  No way – This one turned out to be for reals problematic)
 3. Balloons (Weird, I know…mom had a phobia of them)

Typical conservative, midwestern values (with the exception of the balloons).
With one notable exception. Cable TV. Dad grew up with nothing. His dad had an
8th grade education and his family could barely afford the essentials. When Dad
became a grown up there were a few luxury items that he was willing to pay for
no matter what. Being the sports nut that he was, cable TV was one of them (Golf
was the other).

Hmmm, did I also mention that I was an actual latchkey kid for a couple years?
That’s right, I was a latchkey kid. Now before you go feeling too sorry for me,
keep in mind that this was typical of the time. I was born in the late 70s,
raised in the 80’s, and a teen in the early 90s. That makes me about as
Generation X as you can get. Latch-keying was all the rage back then! We had
parents that worked hard to provide out of love and they trusted us to come home
from school and take care of ourselves. I had a chain with a house key on it
that I would wear to school, and when I got home I would let myself in the house
and fix myself a snack and wait for mom to come home. Once she got home from her
day job she would then proceed to teach piano lessons into the evening which is
when Dad would get home. 

I mentioned I had cable right? So as a young latchkey kid in the 80s I developed
a best friend very quickly in the young, up and coming presence of a little
thing called MTV. And this best friend was glorious. I would get home, dine on
pop tarts and then relax in front of unsupervised Music Television that quickly
was educating me on the world. In the early days MTV was all music videos, none
of the other nonsense that it eventually became. Except there were only like 2
dozen videos that were on rotation. Same ones, over and over and over, every
day.



Even with the presence of MTV I was probably on course to be a perfectly
typical, All-American Midwestern kid until this beautiful bastard in all his
adult contemporary glory came into my life. 

And let me tell you, that dude did a number on me. It all started with this
video. Do yourself a favor and watch this gem in it’s entirety. I’ll wait, it’s
worth it.



The young, unsupervised me had never seen anything like it. It simultaneously
terrified and intrigued me. I couldn’t have been more than 7 years old when I
first saw it. Almost every image in it scared me. (Now that I’m a grownup it
should have scared me more to eventually face the pressure of adulting but back
then? This was pure visual horror) I became scared that the floor in my house
would eat me, my bedroom would fill with water…and that my own television would
suck me into it. But even as these images terrified me, I weirdly also couldn’t
look away from them. In fact I used to sit and wait for that video to come on
just so I could be scared by it. That damn music video became the gateway drug
for a multitude of scary movies that a kid my age had no business watching.
Billy Joel’s Pressure became Poltergeist, became The Twilight Zone, became
Children of the Corn, became Carrie, became The Shining, all before I was 10
years old. And even though they kept me from sleeping, I freaking loved them.

*Weird side note. Why was getting sucked into a TV such an 80s horror trope? See
Poltergeist and The Twilight Zone: The Movie.

So what about the heavy metal? Just listen to the sound of that song. I
immediately loved the intense synthesizer the first time I heard it. Having a
mom that was a classically trained piano teacher meant that I grew up surrounded
by classical music and busts of famous composers. I always loved the song In the
Hall of the Mountain King, and this riff reminded me of that. It was intense and
heavy like that song. The notes didn’t sound like other music that was on the
radio. (Turns out it was played in a minor key to give it that intense sound
JUST LIKE IN THE HALL OF THE MOUNTAIN KING!) – And then Joel’s singing, every
time he said pressure he yelled it! As far as the 7 year old me knew, that
intense sound may as well have been Reign in Blood by Slayer (Sorry, Slayer
would come later for me). I freaking loved it. I began telling people I liked
hard rock. Eventually someone asked me what hard rock bands I liked and I said
Billy Joel. After facing the ridicule that followed I quickly recruited my
friend Jon P to ride bikes with me (again, unsupervised) to the local Musicland
store where I bought my first real metal album. Which only happened because of
Mr. William Martin Joel.



So the next time Billy Joel tries to convince you that he didn’t start the fire,
just know that he’s not telling the whole truth. He lit the fire in me…for a
lifetime of appreciating good metal and good horror. And so Mr. Joel, while you
may be an easy target for the pretentious music snob that I eventually became,
as far as I’m concerned I still like you just the way you are. 

Now during this pandemic stay safe out there folks. While you’re isolated create
something, share some music, make a playlist, make a beat, even a bad beat. It
will be worth it, you will have participated in the creative process. Which is
exactly how Billy Joel would want it. And if you’re like me, it probably feels
like you’ve been isolated for the longest time.

Cheers,

JJ




POP VALUE PT 3: POP MUSIC PUPPETEERS

November 5, 2018November 7, 2018 / TheListenInitiative / Leave a comment

I recently found myself at a Zedd concert. More and more these days, rather than
finding artists I like and buying tickets to see their shows, I find myself at
concerts where the tickets are given to me free of charge and there are
assurances that chairs will be available for me to sit in. My middle age
cantankerousness and general frugality make the opportunity to sit down and free
tickets the initial bar of entry for concert attendance these days. (An issue I
need to remedy, but another time). As I sat there listening to Zedd for the
first time and watching thousands of fans from my seat at the back, I was struck
by the energy and enthusiasm of the crowd all jumping in unison with the beat
and the flashing lights. I thought to myself, I get the draw. Not my thing, but
I understand why people would get into this. In a sense, there was unity here,
dare I say community? But then I had another thought. There was a puppet master
on the stage pulling the strings to compel this action. And where there is a
puppet master, there must be a puppet, right?



I want to clarify here, this is not a commentary on Zedd, EDM, or loving to jump
and dance at a concert, although if I find you jumping and dancing in front of
me at a concert and obstructing the view from my seated position, we may have
words. This is a discussion about the concept of manipulation. Music and
manipulation actually go hand in hand. Probably more than any other art form.
The majority of music, and not just pop-music, is built upon repetition and
structure. The blues is as formulaic an art form as there is, generally
combining a fairly rigid 12 bar structure and the use of proscribed notes of
tension and resolution to deliver it’s effect. There is comfort in knowing the
end from the beginning and having an intuition about the middle, but as with
anything good, there seems to be a point where the milk turns. The question here
is whether your pop-music has turned. And more importantly, how can you avoid
going along without noticing.





It’s midterm election week, so we might as well get into some politics, right?
What could be the harm in that? In the aftermath of the 2016 election, there was
an uproar about Russian manipulation of the American election system. All of the
sudden, people were acutely aware that social media had been deceiving them!
That it had been preying on their good-natured acceptance of the world reflected
in their phone and tablet screens. But wait! What? The world is not what I see
on FB?!? The feigned surprise at this revelation was somewhat comical, but not
quite as comical as the ad FB damage control put out:



I love how this is posed as a passive, “…and then something happened.” (If you
haven’t read parts 1 and 2 of this series, you might want to go back and review.
In part 1 we discuss the impact of money on the news). So I decided to call FB
and chat with them about their ad.

Me: “Oh dear! “Something happened?” FB, can you tell me!? What happened!?”

FB: “…we had to deal with spam, and click bait…”

Me: “Ok, ok, hold on. “Something happened…?” and then “we had to deal with…?”
I’m not sure what the grammatical term here is, but I believe these passive
sentences contain an object (us), but is missing an actor. The one who is making
“something happen” and then making us “deal with [it].”

FB: “Well, like the news media of the 80’s and 90’s, we realized we had a
captive audience and now needed to monetize that. So we gave anyone with a
checkbook the opportunity to reach you on a level that would, ahem, encourage
you to act in a certain way, ahem.”

Me: “FB, do you have a cold?”

FB: “No.”

Me: “Oh. Anyways, when you say “encourage,” what exactly do you mean? And
encourage us to do what?”

FB: “Ummm…”

This imaginary conversation with FB went on for quite a while, but FB taught me
some really important concepts, so I’ll save you some time and give you the
cliff notes:

 * Humans are susceptible to all sorts of manipulation
 * Humans are also bad at realizing that they are susceptible to manipulation or
   knowing that they are being manipulated
 * Manipulation results in action
 * Action results in money
 * Money results in FB and humans
 * 



So, now that The Listen Initiative has so kindly informed you that you are
susceptible to manipulation, and that you are bad at realizing it, and since we
are obviously experts on the topics we write about so you should listen to us,
you might ask, “what does that have to do with pop-music, and more importantly,
what can be done?” I’m glad you asked.

Consider the pattern of money and manipulation in the examples of the news media
and FB, and consider that the purpose of a great majority of corporate sponsored
pop-music is primarily to sell records, and you have an identical recipe for
manipulation. And just like when your FB feed subjected you to spam and click
bait, your pop-music subjects you to spam-like recycled ideas and click bait
beats that set your mind on auto-pilot until, eventually, you don’t even realize
that Russian trolls are telling you who to vote for and what to eat for dinner,
and the monotony of your music turns your mind into mush.

What to do about this? First, understand that you are susceptible to
manipulation, and that companies are putting billions of dollars into
understanding manipulation better than you can ever hope to. Second, where there
is money, there’s a good chance there is an underlying effort to manipulate. And
third, listen to the album Hunky Dory by David Bowie. A great album for
resetting your manipulation index. It is an album that continually challenges
our auto-pilot by taking songs and melodies to unexpected places, without going
too far into avant-garde. Fourth, remind yourself of points one and two, and
listen to Hunky Dory again.







POP VALUE PT 2: COMMUNITY AND CONNECTION

October 30, 2018 / TheListenInitiative / 1 Comment

I had a unique experience this week at the movies.  I was in a small California
town about 40 minutes outside of Reno, NV.  While I was there the new movie
Mid90s was set to open up.  As a teen product of the 90’s, I had been looking
forward to seeing that film so I drove into Reno and caught it on opening
night.  I loved it.  It was a great period piece but it didn’t just rely on
gratuitous nostalgia, it actually had an interesting story with strong themes
about the importance of connection.  It’s a coming of age story that explores
the skate and hip hop communities of the mid 90s.  The main character navigates
a difficult home life as well as life in the social margins in an effort to find
connection.  (*Editor’s note:  This movie is not for those averse to the bad
language or imagery of kids participating in illicit behavior)  The soundtrack
was amazing as well.  In my opinion, for a movie like that to work, the
soundtrack has to be perfect.  This one was.  I’m comfortable saying that the
overall package of movie, music, and nostalgia belongs next to other notable
nostalgia pieces such as American Graffiti, and Dazed and Confused.  I
digress…back to my experience at the movie.  A fascinating thing happened during
the show.  I was at the movie by myself (as I do on the road) and a particular
scene of the movie started.  I should add a little context…many of the scenes in
this movie feel specifically like they’re built around the songs that are
playing in them.   So much so, that the songs themselves become part of the
movie scenery.  It’s really well done.  During this particular scene I began to
notice the sound of a child’s voice in the background of the film.  I thought it
sounded familiar and after a couple of seconds I was certain I recognized it. 
As I was realizing what it was, I started to look around the theater.  Down the
row from me was another fellow, sitting by himself.  He looked to be about my
age and was wearing a Thrasher brand hat.  I noticed he was alert and looking
around as well.  It felt like he was recognizing the same thing I was.  I took
my attention back to the movie and now I was certain what I was hearing.  The
child’s voice was a soundbite from the intro of a classic Kung Fu movie called
Shogun Assassin where a child is describing his samurai father.  The reason I
knew this was because it was also sampled and used at the beginning of one of
the great underground hip hop songs of all time The GZA’s classic song Liquid
Swords.  Sure enough, the kung fu sample in the movie transitioned into that
classic GZA beat providing the background of a great scene in the movie.





My new friend on the row with me and I just looked at each other with the same
knowing grin as our heads bounced to the beat.  We were smiling because we both
knew the same thing…that only real Hip Hop heads from the early 90’s would know
that track.  We had immediate kinship.  And why wouldn’t we?  We now knew that
we were alumni of the same fraternity.  We had immediate community.  And this
fraternity that we were part of wasn’t something everyone was in.  Only people
with certain elevated tastes were granted entry.  At the completion of the movie
my new found friend and I didn’t have to exchange a single word.  We gave each
other accepting head nods, accompanied by that same knowing smile, and I got in
my car to drive back to my hotel.  As I drove through the Sierra Nevada
mountains I contemplated the feeling of community I felt during the movie as
well as the themes of community and connection that the movie itself explored. 
I couldn’t help but think about several conversations I’ve had recently in which
I’ve found myself expressing dislike of pop music and defending higher forms or
musical artistic expression.

I will admit that I’m overly defensive of my music, and I will also admit that
i’m particularly accusatory of pop.  I think it’s because music very much
represents community to me.  For me, I think it’s always been that way.  When I
started 7th grade as a lost kid very much trying to appear cooler than I was, I
remember wearing a KJQ radio station t-shirt (KJQ was the last real bastion of
independent rock radio in my home state).  And I’ll never forget the day that
the older kid in my math class looked at me and said, “cool shirt bro.  What
kind of stuff do you listen to?”.  Now that I think about it, that might have
been the very beginning of music representing my community.  Fortunately for me,
I gave the right answer to the older kid.  From that point on, music has served
continuously as a gate into community, and a great finder of friends for me.  I
remember sitting in my freshman math class and having a senior see the De La
Soul – 3 Feet High and Rising cassette in my bag, and him saying to me “Dude,
you listen to De La?!  Nice!”.  I never felt more cool.  I remember my older
friend, D, trusting me enough to give me a copy of a Meters tape and then later
listening to me talk about how it changed my life.  I remember another older
friend, B, who gave me a mix tape of Neil Young songs after he found out I
played the bass, and then him inviting me to come jam with him.  Again, never
felt cooler.  And it continued.  After high school I spent a couple of years in
Washington State.  I was young, in a foreign state, and didn’t have any friends
that went there with me.  Some of the best friends I made there started with the
simple question, “Hey man, what do you listen to?”.  And if the answer was
correct we instantly bonded.  My friend J loved punk, for my friend B he dug
classic rock and deep funk, and when my other friend B said he dug Black Star I
knew we were kindred spirits.  When I moved back to Utah and continued college,
I really only made 1 friend during my undergraduate years.  That was R.  We
quickly bonded over a common love of sitting in the back of all of our classes,
making fun of the same people, and quoting early 90’s hip hop.  And when I
eventually met LP (the more logical half of the Listen Initiative) one of the
very first discussions we had was around music as we were both testing the
waters of the other person to see if their taste in music was good enough to
warrant continued discussion.  Which it was.  And it did.  (To the tune of about
90 typed pages of dialogue discussing art, music, expression, and more)

Speaking of LP, I hope you read his recent pt.1 post about pop.  He asked some
important questions.  His point about the value of a glass of water wasn’t lost
on me.  I think this is why I tend to get a bit defensive when it comes to taste
in music.  For most people, community and connection is as necessary as that
glass of water in the desert that is life.  I’m an unusual individual in that
I’m an outgoing introvert.  This means that I am not shy, and I give the
appearance of being an extrovert publicly.  Unfortunately though, social
interactions, engagements, and relationships emotionally exhaust me.  For those
of us with the introvert gene, often times community and social connection is
experienced within the margins where we seek a form of social authenticity that
isn’t readily found in the overproduced, mass distributed, loud, inauthentic,
watered down, vapid sections of popular social structures.  To a person like me,
the music that I identify with in many ways represents community, connection,
and authenticity that exists in the sacred space of the margins where people
tend to be a little more thoughtful, a little bit weirder, and a helluva lot
more authentic.  I crave it, I value it, and I understand how fragile that
authentic space is.  Like a glass of water in the desert, I would never want to
just throw it out there to over-hydrated groups of popular kids that couldn’t
care less about it.  Maybe the masses that love pop have a similar sacred
community.  I’ve never experienced it though.  To my knowledge, there’s not a
fringe group of uncool kids out there that are granting entrance into their
highly vulnerable world by checking each others love of Adam Levine and Katy
Perry tracks at the door.  For part 3, we plan to explore further what that
value of pop is.  In the meantime check out this classic song from the margin of
the early 2000’s.  LP turned me on to this guy.  We spent close to a year
debating whether it was good or not.  Turns out it was really good.  If you
listen to this song and it means something to you, next time you see me feel
free to say “dude, you listen to LCD?!?”  And we’ll probably be friends.





Cheers!

JJ


POP VALUE PT 1: POST MALONE, MUSIC’S ALEX JONES

October 21, 2018October 21, 2018 / TheListenInitiative / 2 Comments

Everything we interact with has a value. Value discussions are always tricky
because assigning value is largely subjective. A glass of water in the desert
has a much higher value than the same glass of water in your kitchen. When we
talk about art, and particularly popular art, this discussion can devolve
quickly into personal attacks on another’s sensibilities. In certain circles,
the term pop music is a dirty word. In others it is the banner of success. Music
snobs turn up their noses at anything approaching mass popularity and the hoi
polloi who adore it, while the populous sneer at the musical elitists for their
inability to just have fun, and not take everything so seriously all the time.
After interacting on the subject, each group inevitable throws up their arms and
says to the other that “you just don’t get it.” Each is probably right. Labeling
something pop music does not forever distinguish it as a lesser form of art. But
being popular, likewise, does not in any way bestow value on the music or the
listening experience. But speaking in generalities, the question should still be
asked. Is there a viable concern that pop music should at least be approached
with suspicion when it comes to its value?

We hear a lot today about the polarization of the news media, where we are
constantly confronted by the advocacy of skewed perspectives in the guise of
fact and news, but how did we get here? A thoughtful consideration of how our
news media got to where it is today can help us understand whether we should
consider with skepticism the value of just routinely throwing on that Now That’s
What I Call Music, Vol. 943 again.

Once upon a time, American’s got their news from Walter Cronkite, considered
“the most trusted man in America.” Today we are subject to news about the news.
Whether it’s the generally harmless misremembrances of Brian Williams, or the
anger inciting conspiracy theories of Alex Jones, things have clearly changed.
Like anything, the news media has evolved over time. And like evolution does,
that change mostly occurred gradually. But in the 1980’s and 1990’s, things
began to change at a greater clip. Before that time, networks viewed news
broadcasting as a public service. News bureaus were not cash cows, and
accordingly, their motivations could be focused on the journalistic task at
hand. In 1986, when Loews Corp. purchased CBS, that all began to change. The
introduction of conglomerate ownership of television networks (Leows Corp. ->
CBS; Capital Cities Communications and later Disney -> ABC; General Electric ->
NBC) changed the landscape. With corporate oversight that required an alignment
with shareholder values, (i.e. profits, profits, profits) news divisions were
required to move from public service sectors to profit centers. When the primary
question guiding your actions is, “what sells?”, it shouldn’t be surprising that
the answer is sex, drugs, drama, and disagreement. And what is our news media
these days, if not exactly that. Is it any wonder that there are concerns that
our news media is not based on facts, perspective, and context. We are asking it
to be entertainment, not news. Entertainment has value, but it is important to
distinguish that its entertainment value does not correspond to an intrinsic
news value.



Back to music. An underlying proposition in much of what we do here at The
Listen Initiative is that the things you listen to, combined with the way you
listen to them, can have a big impact on the way you interact with the world.
For better or worse. In past posts we have discussed how our art consumption can
function as a sandbox for exercising our listening skills, and in the process,
developing empathy, compassion, understanding, tolerance, etc. (see here & here
for starters). These choices we make in our music listening can impact whether
we are able to ward off many of the problems we see in society today and prepare
us for real world interactions. And although I may never convince you that my
musical value system is the right one, although I believe that has been shown to
be true time and time again, asking some more pointed questions about our value
systems can help move the needle in a positive direction. So, although all of us
have strong opinions about our favorite music, consider the following as you
take stock of your listening habits to see where there might be opportunity for
introducing a glass of water into a desert space in your listening landscape:

 * Are there differences between what you like and what you find interesting?
   Focus on the interesting.
 * Identify one artist you like and one you don’t. For each of them, list three
   things you think they are great at and three things you think they are not
   the best at.
 * Look through this list, and find something you’ve never heard of and spend 20
   minutes actively listening to it (i.e. active listening = listening being
   your primary activity of focus.)

Maybe it’s not as imperative that we pick our music as carefully as our news,
but skipping the low brow stylings of Post Malone for the constantly curve ball
throwing likes of Tierra Whack (below) might actually be good practice for
resetting your listening ear and help you avoid getting sucked into the spiral
of group think echo chamber’s built by social media bots and Alex Jones.

Tierra Whack





Tuck Buckford




DOES THE SPEAKER HAVE THE RIGHT-OF-WAY?  (ON BEING A BETTER DRIVER)

May 25, 2017May 25, 2017 / TheListenInitiative / Leave a comment

The death of a media mogul might seem like a strange source for a Listen
Initiative post, but JJ sent me this article titled Roger Ailes Was One of the
Worst Americans Ever and the prompt question “What’s your take on this type of
writing? Tiabbi is a really good writer. What do you think about him using his
platform to write this. It’s an amazing piece but also a discouraging piece.”

[For those who don’t care to read the article, it is a review of what the writer
believes to be Ailes uniquely negative legacy in American culture and the media,
and a somewhat celebratory announcement that the man was dead.]

Reading the article under the influence of JJ’s prompt I was expecting something
quite dramatic, but my response was probably a nod to what he found discouraging
about the piece. I simply asked back, “is it different than other writing these
days?” It seemed to me like a standard strongly worded partisan opinion piece,
like the ones that permeate the media these days. Underlying JJ’s question was
an inquiry into whether that’s the way it should be. Should we be writing and
talking like this. Should our expressions be in such emotionally loaded terms to
people in a vulnerable psychic state?  Thinking about this article reminded me
of an experience I had a couple of weeks ago.

On a pleasant Saturday morning I was walking with my 4 and 6 year old boys to
their t-ball game. We left the house early so that they could ride their bikes
to the game.  We got to a point where we needed to cross a crosswalk over to the
elementary school field where the game was being played. There are no stop signs
or lights at the intersection, but there is a large painted crosswalk and signs
in either direction that look like this:


A car approaching on the near side of the street saw us waiting on the sidewalk,
ready to walk the boys’ bikes across the street, slowed and stopped to let us
proceed. The cars on each side of the cross street also stopped. As we started
walking across the street, I kept my eye on a minivan in the distance coming
towards us in the far lane. By the time we walked slowly to the middle of the
street it looked like the minivan still hadn’t seen us in the crosswalk. I
started yelling towards the car and running, pulling my four year old to get out
of the way. The car finally saw us as it entered the intersection and abruptly
stopped just short of the crosswalk. Expecting an apologetic wave of
acknowledgement, I was surprised when the driver started gesturing with his
hands in frustration that we were in front of his van.

[Now, at the risk of making this article seem like it is about pedestrians and
traffic laws, I do want to clarify for all of those frustrated drivers out there
who feel like the vehicle has the right of way because its bigger, faster, and
as a driver you are always in more of a hurry than the pedestrian, (I mean,
really, if the pedestrian were in as much of a hurry as you were they would have
gotten in their car, right?) that in this scenario, pedestrians do have the
legal right of way. Or as the Utah Code so eloquently puts it, “the operator of
a vehicle shall yield the right-of-way by slowing down or stopping if necessary:
(i) to a pedestrian crossing the roadway within a crosswalk when the pedestrian
is on the half of the roadway upon which the vehicle is traveling; or (ii) when
the pedestrian is approaching so closely from the opposite half of the roadway
as to be in danger.]



I am very understanding of initial mistakes, and with a simple acknowledgment
would have walked on without another thought. But when he doubled down and with
flailing limbs implied that we were in the wrong, my frustration began to boil.
I pointed to the white stripes on the road and crosswalk sign and yelled back to
him that we were in a crosswalk, assuming maybe he hadn’t noticed. He rolled
down his window and continued yelling. I instructed my kids to keep going and
get on the sidewalk, and having left my sons bike in front of his car so he
couldn’t drive, walked over to his window. In a frustrated tone he said loudly,
“get your F*%#ING kids out of the way so I can drive.” At this point I glared
deep into his soul, leaned into his car and yelled so loudly into his face that
spittle was flying out of my mouth and my throat was sore afterwards, “IT IS A
CROSSWALK!” And then I turned and walked away, hearing him yell back “don’t you
swear at me!”

So, why would an article about Roger Ailes remind me of this experience, and why
would I feel the desire to write about either here?  JJ’s question made me
consider, in our expressions, our speach, and our art, who has the right of way?
 The expresser/speaker/artist, or the listener/audience?  We’ve previously
discussed the question of who owns a forum in relation to the message from the
Hamilton cast to Mike Pence.  We’ve laid out concepts of free to listen zones as
compared to free speech zones.  And JJ and I have often discussed the concepts
of expressive critique like political correctness, among other tagline in
current media.  My conclusion has been twofold, one, in the conflict between a
speaker and a listener, the speaker has the right-of-way, and two, our focus
should be more on disecting our listening and less on analysing the shoulds and
shouldn’ts of expression.

Our constitution sets us up for this conflict, thanks a lot Jimmy Madison!  The
preamble to the Constitution states, “We the People of the United States, in
Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic
Tranquility…establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”  And
then right there in the First Amendment, the Congress is prohibited from
“abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.”  So which is it?  Do we want
a more perfect union of domestic tranquility, or similar collective benefits? Or
do we want to preserve the individual freedom and opportunity for each and every
individual to be able to speak freely* regardless of the resulting disunion and
turmoil!  The ratification and inclusion of the First Amendment answers that
question.  The decision was to preserve personal freedom or have no union.
Domestic tranquility, and a more perfect union were the goal, but where the two
might come in conflict, free speech takes precedent, as it should.  Regardless
of offensive result, or even malicious intent, the freedom of expression has the
right of way.

[*I understand that there are still constitutional limits to certain types of
speech.]

That’s all well and good as an academic snapshot, but that is also not to say
that free speech rules supreme and we should ignore opportunities to advance a
more perfect union and increase domestic tranquility without further
consideration.  My second realization from the article and the crosswalk
experience was that we do ourselves a diservice focusing so much on disecting
the shoulds and shouldn’ts of speech. We spend our days on semantics and speech
checking, running the things we hear through our own TSA airport check,
screening for what we deem to be wordly weapons that could cause damage, and
shouting for the confiscation of opinions that we believe have the possibility
of creating danger.  But what if, rather than being a frustrated driver trying
to argue the perameters of the crosswalk, what constitutes the driver’s half of
the roadway, or how close must a pedestrian be to my approaching car to
constitute “in danger” and require me to stop my vehicle, we instead focused on
being more attentive, alert, and respectful drivers?



In each of our metaphorical cars of life, what would happen if we lifted our
foot off the taking offense pedal just a bit, and turned up the context knob on
our stereo “all the way to 11.”  Maybe even respectfully steer our car through a
neighborhood unlike the one we are familiar with, and instead of comparing and
being grateful that our roads are not like these, imagine what it would be like
to grow up in this other place, to play in that park on the left that is so
different than your own, or the school or church up around the corner, and what
that might mean for the way we think, talk, and act.
Everything we hear, read, or see has context behind it, and it may not be the
context we assume.  Especially in the current political and cultural climate,
expressions of frustration and opinion are dripping with unarticulated context
and life experience.  Before moving to frustration and offense, can we add the
speakers context to what we are hearing in an effort to better understand their
perspective and motivation?  Can we avoid imposing upon them our own judgment
and believed context?  If we can do that, I think we have a chance at fulfilling
the goal of the preamble and moving, with freedom of expression, ever so
slightly towards a more perfect union of justice and domestic tranquility.  It
will not be a world of homogeneity, but one of different and vibrant notes that,
just like the notes of a chord, combine to equal more than just the sum of its
parts. Look at that, circled all the way back to music!  Who’d have thunk!

Lp

JJ requested an artistic visual representation, so here you go:




IN MEMORIAM – CHRIS CORNELL

May 19, 2017 / TheListenInitiative / Leave a comment

Chris Cornell of Soundgarden, Audioslave, Temple of the Dog, etc. passed away
this week.

Chris Cornell changed music for me.

I had Cobain, I had Vedder.  I needed something different though.

My first exposure to Cornell was on MTV’s late night alternative showcase 120
Minutes.  It was this video.



Watch at least to the 1:57 mark.

My life changed.

I had my new frontman.

The hair, the voice, the everything.

Henry Rollins once said that he went to a Soundgarden concert to see Chris
Cornell peel the paint off walls with his voice.

Cornell was a frontman for frontmen.

My first rock band T-Shirt was a Soundgarden – Badmotorfinger shirt.



The first album I wore out and had to buy a duplicate of was Badmotorfinger.  It
also happened to be the first CD that caused my DAD to come into my room and
tell me he didn’t like what I was listening to.  (Such an important moment!)

It’s a sad day.  The early 90’s were an awkward but a beautiful time.  A group
of musicians changed the musical and cultural landscape.  Time has not been kind
to that group as sadly many of them have left us too early.  Add Cornell to that
list.  I hope history won’t forget about that era.  I hope history won’t forget
about Chris Cornell.  His voice was incredible.  He brought authenticity to a
genre that quickly became a caricature of itself.  He never forgot that it was
always about the music.  Cornell was a torchbearer for an era that totally
altered how I consumed music.  Here’s a few of my personal favorites.

Rest in Peace to a beautiful musical soul.

-JJ

By the way, I know TOTD is a cheesy overplayed pick . What can I say, i’m
feeling sentimental.  Trading vocals with Vedder was a great idea.  Vedder never
stood a chance.




And a super bonus…Cornell singing the lyrics to One by Metallica while playing
the music to One by U2.  Weirdly cool.




CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT AND OTHER BULLCRAP

May 15, 2017May 15, 2017 / TheListenInitiative / Leave a comment

Did you ever stop to think about the old saying “Curiosity killed the cat” and
what it’s trying to tell us?  It’s basically saying mind your own business and
don’t poke your nose in places where it doesn’t belong.  Seems reasonable enough
right?  Except it’s not.



It turns out that there’s a whole lot of research studying the benefit of
curiosity.  Curiosity has been linked to better learning, improved coping
efficacy and reduction in suicidal ideation, and has been suggested to be as
important as overall intelligence to our well being.  So why would we want to
stifle our curiosity?  (The conspiracy theorist with mild to moderate conduct
disorder in me just assumes that this was a classic proverb perpetuated by
institutions wanting to remain in power and prevent individuals from questioning
things and expressing their individuality…but that’s a piece for a different
day).  As humans we are meaning making machines.  Our brains have a natural
predisposition to try and ascribe meaning to the things that happen around us.
 Art gives us a canvas that allows our brains the opportunity to practice making
meaning.  Our curiosity is the driving force behind our quest to make meaning of
things!

So ask yourself, how curious of an individual are you right now?  Do you find
yourself admiring the novel, and questioning the how and the why of things?  Do
you enjoy learning about new things and exploring new perspectives counter to
your own?  Do you question how things work?  Do you find yourself trying to
understand how other people feel and why they might feel that way.  I recently
read a piece by a book critic on the value of reading things that we hate.  It
was interesting.  It made me think.  I am wondering now what the overlap between
hate-reading (or hate-listening) and curiosity is.  It seems like sometimes,
when faced with the option to consume art that challenges or disagrees with us,
or that we just find contrary to our tastes we have a sort of artistic fight or
flight instinct that kicks in.  We either fight against it by trying to diminish
the value of it or we just turn tail and run (flight) from it.  I wonder if
there’s a third option though that involves lingering and taking it in.  Maybe
that’s part of the purpose of curiosity.  Some of my most valuable listening
experiences (both with music and with people) have involved being faced with
something where my natural inclination was to either run from or fight against
but instead I allowed my curiosity to lead out and I stayed in the moment and
just listened.  I experienced that the first time I listened to a Public Enemy
album, the first time I read the Autobiography of Malcolm X, and countless times
professionally when I have been working with difficult, defiant adolescents.
 One of the articles I referenced earlier describes a Curiosity Quotient in
which you can measure a person’s curiosity.  It described people that have high
CQ’s this way:  “People with higher CQ are more inquisitive and open to new
experiences. They find novelty exciting and are quickly bored with routine. They
tend to generate many original ideas and are counter-conformist.”  The good news
is that unlike IQ which for the most part is static, CQ appears to be something
that can be developed.



Looking back at the ground we’ve covered here at The Listen Initiative I think
I’m realizing that Curiosity has been one of the driving forces.  Much of LP and
my discussion is the result of our own curiosity.  I hope you’ve read LP’s
recent explorations around whether or not he’s buying the concept of empathy
because they’re a direct result of his curiosity.  Just like my thoughts on
critics and cynics and empathy were a result of my curiosity.  It’s the
curiosity that drives us and prevents us from becoming too complacent with where
we’re at.

I’ve recently been curious about the principle of inertia as I’ve been
experiencing the negative side to it.  Inertia is “resistance of any physical
object to any change in its state of motion; this includes changes to its speed,
direction, or state of rest”.  In other words something that is in motion wants
to stay in motion, and something that is not in motion wants to remain not in
motion.  The inertia that I’ve been experiencing has been around my writing (or
lack thereof).  I’ve had about a 6 month (or longer haha) writers block.  I’ve
had plenty of good ideas that I’ve made a note of, and lot’s of great
conversation and text threads with LP, but just haven’t been able to formalize
them in writing.  My writing vehicle came to a halt and I haven’t been able to
put it in motion…it’s that darn inertia I tell ya.  It finally hit me the other
day that while we usually think of inertia in relation to physical objects, the
principle probably also applies to other things as well such as emotion,
relationships, intellectual endeavors, etc.  And it probably (definitely)
applies to curiosity as well.  One of LP and my long standing questions is
whether or not the climate around us is changing or are we just becoming
stagnant and calcified.  I think there’s a real potential that we do stagnate
and calcify if we don’t stay in motion.  Unbeknownst to us, maybe our curiosity
has been our quest to keep the machine in motion.

So what does this have to do with listening, empathy, music, or any of the other
things that we frequent around here?  Maybe nothing or maybe everything?!?  I
guess that’s up to you.  At this stage if you’ve been with us in any capacity,
hopefully it’s ignited in you a level of curiosity that wasn’t there before.
 And hopefully that will continue to grow.  Because it turns out that your
curiosity just may be increasing your overall quality of life.  So go out and
question things!  Look up words and phrases when you don’t know what they mean!
 Question what you think you know, question what other people are telling you,
question what you think you like!  Try to figure out how something works!  Try
something new!  Take up painting, or writing*, or woodworking, or just start
listening to music again!  Just don’t become intellectually content or
complacent, and dammit be curious!  It probably won’t kill you, and it might
actually be the thing that saves your life!  (A brief caveat here…if you can’t
temper your curiosity with a little bit of common sense you may need a curiosity
mentor in your life to help you out…I would recommend an LP if you can find one)

(*Interesting side note – For me writing is the ultimate exercise in listening
as I have to really listen to the thoughts that are in me and attempt to give
them fair representation by putting them into words)

To help you out here’s a few random songs for the curious individual.  And
thanks for continuing to join us on our journey.  Your comments and perspective
continue to fuel our own curiosity.

Cheers!

JJ



Songs for the Curious Individual!








JIMMER FREDETTE: THE FACE OF YOUR EMPATHY PROBLEM

March 28, 2017 / TheListenInitiative / 1 Comment

As I tried to walk myself back off the ledge from which I am considering pushing
empathy off, I tried to do some research to see if there was anything that would
give me pause.  Was there anything that might dissuade me from giving empathy a
little nudge and watch with satisfaction as it fell into oblivion.  Maybe I just
wasn’t thinking about it the right way.  What might I be missing?

I happened upon this RSA ANIMATE video of a Jeremy Rifkin speech on empathy.



One of the things that I noted is his explanation that the expansion of empathy
is directly correlated to our selfhood.  Or as Rifkin puts it, “selfhood goes
together with empathic development.  Increase selfhood, increase empathic
development.”

This statement also frames the limits of empathy.  Our empathy extends only as
far as our selfhood and the ties we have and make with others.  Throughout
history, as technology advanced, people continued to find additional ties with
other humans and as those ties were made, and those individual identities bonded
together, the sphere of one’s potential empathy expanded to more and more
people.  We could now imagine better the feelings of more and more diverse
individuals we may have never met.

In many ways, these ties are simple fictions that we use to facilitate the
extension of our selfhood.  They are things that we have constructed.  There is
no nationality until we make a nation to belong to, there is no demographic
until we decide a categorization matters.  They are identities we use to feel
bigger than ourselves, to feel connected.  But as the world shrinks through
technology and ability to travel far and wide, we seem to have also become more
selective about what ties we will make.  And thereby limiting the extent to
which our empathy can operate.



What does this have to do with, empathy or music?  There’s really only one
person that can help us figure this out…Jimmer. (If you know who I’m talking
about already, then I am probably talking to you in particular.  If you are not
sure who Jimmer is, see here).  Quick backstory for anyone who has yet to be
“Jimmered.”  Jimmer Fredette is a basketball player.  He is Mormon, went to BYU,
won nearly every college player award possible and was drafted into the NBA with
high expectations.  Jimmer ultimately washed out of the NBA and is currently
playing in China.

An empathy epiphany of sorts occurred a while back when my social media feed
began buzzing about Jimmer scoring 73 points in a Chinese league basketball game
(almost as impressive as the scoring total is the matador defense on display
during the below highlight reel).



The social media reaction I witnessed was a combination of communal elation in
the “shared” accomplishment, accompanied by a good amount of outrage that “our”
Jimmer, who just scored 73 points in a game, was not respected enough by NBA
executives to still be in the league.  People felt wronged on Jimmer’s behalf.
 They incorporated a projected empathy on themselves, and assumed they were
feeling what Jimmer felt. Walking in his shoes if you will.  People were glad to
expand their selfhood to encompass Jimmer’s experience and express feelings of
accomplishment and outrage, but why were they not equally willing to extend the
same to Jared Cunningham?  Who, you say?  Oh…you didn’t hear about Jared?

Jared Cunningham played basketball at Oregon State, he was drafted by the Cavs
in the first round of the 2012 NBA draft, oh, and he scored 74 points in a
Chinese basketball league game a couple months before Jimmer scored his
pedestrian 73.  He also didn’t need double overtime to do it like Jimmer did.
 But there was no buzzing about his accomplishment in my social sphere.  There
was no outrage about him similarly washing out of the NBA after high hopes.  I
heard nothing about it.  Why?





I’m sure there could be many reasons, but from my perspective, it is likely
because the community surrounding me here in the shadow of the Y had made no
ties to Jared.  They had created no common kinship with which to mutually
connect.  And without expanding their ties to include players from Oregon State,
or those drafted by the Cavs, or some other categorical association, there was
no opportunity for empathy to surface on Jared’s behalf.  Now this is certainly
a trivial matter for a discussion about empathy, and this is not to say that
people in my social sphere should have had the same reaction to Jared’s
accomplishment.  But it does highlight some of the self imposed limits of
empathy, and provides a relevant example for why expanding your listening in a
particular way may actually be essential in developing empathy for others.

Music is a way for us to expand our selfhood to include cultures and individuals
with whom we would have no other opportunity to connect.  Music is an avenue for
us to “annihilate time and space.”  But only if we choose to break out of the
echo chamber within which we are comfortable.  It will happen only if we make
repeated and consistent attempts to expand the sensory input we receive.  And
honestly and sincerely consider that which is specifically beyond our existing
self.

So where does that leave my relationship with empathy?  I continue to cringe at
the use, and I suppose, the predominant misuse of the word empathy.  (If anyone
feels inclined to do a research project surveying the use of the word “empathy”
in news and media and determine the percentage of its proper use, I would
greatly appreciate it.  Lately, when I hear someone say “we need more empathy,”
I get the sense that what they really mean is “I/we need you to listen to me/us
better, and when you do, you will come over to my way of thinking and feeling”).
 For now, I haven’t pushed empathy over the cliff just yet, but the word hangs
precariously on the edge, and I’m still in ready posture to give it that final
nudge at a moments notice.  But another statement from the Rifkin video got me
to thinking about a few words we may want to use in it’s place in the meantime.
 My thoughts behind this statement will have to wait for another day, but I
think it’s worth considering that “we show solidarity with our compassion.”

Lp


EMPATHY, YOU ARE DEAD TO ME!

March 22, 2017March 22, 2017 / TheListenInitiative / 1 Comment

I’m not an sentimental person, but I’m slowly getting better.  I’m also not one
for habitual expressions of affection.  Some of this is a product of my
introverted nature, but there is also an aspect of it that relates to my feeling
that meaning and value can often be diminished through casual overuse.  I
once witnessed someone I know make a phone call to coordinate with a neighbor
about who would pick up the kids from school or soccer practice or something.
 With rides successfully coordinated, this person ended the call with the
habitual “love you” and hung up.  Although it’s always nice to hear that you’re
loved, I’m guessing this neighbor woman was a little confused by this
unexpectedly affectionate farewell.

Ed Catmull, the founder of Pixar, wrote that an adage worth repeating is also
halfway to being irrelevant.  His point was that he had witnessed many great
sentiments that were slapped on bumper stickers or t-shirts with the best of
intentions, only to become meaningless anecdotes disconnected from any behavior.
 These simplistic adages would be broadly appropriated, and in the process of
ubiquitous use they would become increasingly distant from the complex topic
that they were meant to point towards.  The adage would ultimately stand
independent of its context.  It would no longer point towards a further
destination, it would become the destination.  Once it did, it would inevitably
lose all purpose and meaning.

I have been thinking about this a lot lately.  At some point in the last couple
of weeks I started to have a negative psychological reaction to the use of the
word empathy.  I’ve also been feeling a bit drained and under the weather so I
might be having a negative physical reaction to the word as well.  Maybe it has
been due to overuse in politics, while witnessing a equal lack of action behind
the use of the word.  Whatever the reason, I have decided that it may be time
for me to lay empathy to rest in the graveyard of words and adages, next to
“open dialogue,” “political correctness,” “success,” “epic,” “leverage,”
“mindfulness,” etc.

Sadly, the word empathy has hit Journey level for me.  It’s the point where
something that is otherwise utterly…well…fine, becomes abrasive and off putting.
 Each time I hear the word used by some talking head on TV, an imploring podcast
host, or in conversation among friends, I have started to cringe a little and
experience that familiar shiver that runs down my spine each time I hear Joe
Perry belt out the command that I don’t stop believin’!  Well Joe, I have
stopped believin’.  I’ve stopped believin’ that conversations about empathy are
moving us anywhere.  Not because the fundamental concept is problematic, it is
as important as ever, but the word seems to have lost its substance.  And until
the substance can be rediscovered, I think I will lay it to rest.  Feel free to
talk me down, from this ledge, but I’m not seeing a lot of behavior change by
calls for just a little bit more empathy.  The principles behind empathy are
still essential and should continue to be promoted, but as a word – empathy, you
are dead to me.

Lp

 

 

 

 



 

 

 


THE LANGUAGE OF ART (PART 3)

February 28, 2017 / TheListenInitiative / Leave a comment

In two previous posts, we have discussed being musically “from somewhere,” and a
philosophy of travel through musical immersion.  As I considered these concepts,
another thought came to mind.  What is the language of art, and how well do we
“speak” it.

Language has always fascinated me.  And I’ve always loved science fiction.  For
these reasons, the recent movie Arrival piqued my interest.  It is a fascinating
portrayal of empathy, philosophy and language.  The movie is based on the
novella Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang.  As with most great science fiction,
and great art for that matter, embedded in surface level simplicity of an alien
adventure is a depth that requires unpacking.  Relevant to this blog post, that
unpacking reveals the proposition that understanding another’s language
influences the way we think, and is necessary for us to truly serve one another.

We usually refer to language in the strict written or spoken form.  And always
reference this type of linguistic definition when asking what languages a person
knows.  Sometimes, we may refer to emotional modes of language like those
referenced in the 5 Languages of Love.  I don’t know that I have ever heard
someone talk of musical languages, but how many musical languages do you know?
 How many genres do you feel you deeply understand and appreciate what is being
communicated?  Are there any genres you feel comfortable utilizing to
communicate your own thoughts and feelings? Do you understand a variety of
musical languages, but speak only a few.  Or maybe you understand a few, but
speak none?

With this concept of musical languages in mind, consider this follow up
challenge to the previous two challenges we gave to 1) listen to music “from”
somewhere other than where you’re from and 2) seeing if you could travel through
your focus on the feel of listening.  In the first challenge, you were going for
exposure.  In the second challenge you were going for immersion.  This challenge
is for understanding and creation.

This is a long term play, will take some time and effort, and can take many
forms.  Even if you don’t consider yourself to be musical, see if you can work
on picking out a simple song on the piano for a few weeks and then take that
experience with you as you listen to Ray Charles play the piano.  If you picked
up a guitar for a couple months in your youth thinking that it would be your
ticket to getting the attention of some love interest but haven’t touched it in
a while, go pick it back up and learn a simple blues scale and play it along
with some blues song.  Do you find that this experience improves your ability to
listen and adds a perspective to the way you communicate?  My experience is that
if you will do that, you will start to hear things you have never heard before.

And for some music you might not have heard before, here are some tracks by
Johann Johannsson.  He composed the soundtrack for Arrival and is one of my go
to artists for mellow contemplative music.





 



 




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