I am great fan, Ted, to the point where I rarely comment on your posts because I usually have nothing to add. However, this one is so disturbing in its misinformation and judgment that I felt compelled to comment. To be clear, I have an academic background in art history and mathematics, and I believe that the arts are critical for personal well-being and that of the body politic.
The statement made in the interview that "We humans are over 60% water and water amplifies sound" is utterly, completely, false. When a sound wave emanates from a guitar string, drum or a human vocal cord, it does so with a certain level of energy, no more, no less. It can be amplified by adding electric energy, such as with a guitar amplifier, but it cannot be amplified by passing through another substance. Ask a Navy sonar specialist about this and he will tell you that water is a better conductor of sound than air, but as for amplification in water, well, that would defy the laws of physics. That statement alone calls into question the credibility of the interviewees.
As for the dichotomy between the arts and science, tell it to Leonardo, Piero della Francesca or the American Peale brothers. The arts and science have always been closely connected and to claim otherwise has more to do with a shallow and very recently modern sensibility than it does with reality or the sweep of history.
The title of the book, "Your Brain on Art", has an ugly antecedent. It comes from an ad first broadcasted in 1987, back in the days of the Reagan administration. The ad was simple and brutal and totally lacking in any aesthetic sensibility. An off-camera person would crack two eggs into a hot frying pan while a voice over said "this is your brain on drugs". That was it. In certain media markets, they would repeat it twice to get it up to a 60 second ad length. The use of that metaphor in the title shows a kind of cluelessness and is antithetical to the case that they are trying to make. Implicitly, they are indicating a link between the arts and illegal drugs; certainly lacking in scientific, social and aesthetic judgment. I wouldn't read this book based on the title alone.
As for the positive neurological impacts of the arts, well, Hostess Twinkies also have positive neurological impacts. Reduction of the arts to mere cranial chemical processes is dangerous, particularly at a time when our society is so desperately in need of shared aesthetic experiences.
About the ad in ‘87, it did what it was supposed to do, which is be impactful. Considering it stayed with you all these years is an ad arts win. If there is such a thing. Doesn’t make it the best title for a book promoting the arts; a take we all agree on.
I’m glad he posted the “credentials” of these authors right up front. Kept me from wasting my time on the rest. Your comments confirmed my decision to ignore.
The recurring issue in this type of discussion is that we reduce art to a chemical experience. So it’s as good as taking a happy pill. It feels like we’re living in “a brave New World”.
It’s like saying the point of working out/body building is to get an endorphine kick - vs trying to be healthy or regulated.
I wish the scientific and non artistic world would investigate the purpose of the art - vs its side effects.
I believe you're the one confusing surface details for substance. The interest in chemical experiences is about having something to measure. It's very easy for a bunch of art trustees to just declare crappy art they happen to collect valuable artifacts of genius despite nobody liking their ugly, boring, trash. And plenty of people pretend to like things and even convince themselves they like them out of pure virtue signaling. Measuring people's biology means getting a more objective read on how people are actually reacting to experiences. And understanding the way people react to experiences is part of learning how to shape them to express yourself to others. It's on you if the only thing you can think of doing with a better understanding of people's aesthetics is to brain-hack them into an addiction.
I'm not against measuring it. I'm exhausted with with the insistence of reducing the purpose of art to its chemical effect on the brain. I get that people don't know how to value art and they try to understand it - hence measuring something measurable. But it's not the useful/right thing to measure. This type of measurement leads to put rave music - and other visual experiments soaring in the museum arena - at the top of art achievement. Not only it encourage parasites to fill up the art ecosystems - but it corrupts the whole government funding for the arts. And finally - it robs us from access to quality art and discourage society to produce artists that deserves the proper label
Again, I very much doubt the people I've read in neuroaesthetics consider the measurement of neurotransmitters some kind of end in itself. Nor that they in any way devalue art. Did Pythagoras ruin and devalue music by studying the mathematics of harmony? Did Goethe ruin and devalue art by studying color scientifically? Did Da Vinci devalue art by dissecting corpses to better understand anatomy? Art has never prospered in an environment of close-minded ignorance that insists you need to turn your rational brain off to appreciate it.
I don't know what art ecosystem you're in, but I'm aware of no government funding on the basis of biometric evidence that it achieves some biological goal. Honestly, I wouldn't mind if we could keep god-awful architects from erecting their hideous travesties by citing the cortisol spike dreadful environments give the public.
I'm as interested in the biology of art as I am in seeing what makes people think, or smile, or squint in confusion, or yawn. Besides, to a properly curious individual, math, psychology, and biology are interesting in their own right.
We agree that there are plenty of bad art. And that scientific analysis of art does add value and tools to the endeavor.
I disagree with the promise that biochemical analysis of an audience would keep at bay the production of crappy art by somehow exposing how people truly feel about it.
For one we don’t need it - commercial enterprises are good at capitalizing on it - and then it’s highly prone to manipulation.
Lastly -we know that theoretical knowledge is crucially important for artist development - in many dimensions and for various purposes. But - it’s not where art is coming from. The source of inspiration and the level of mastery required for true artistic achievement is way deeper than a collection of rules or the result of a neuro chemical reaction.
As far as how it is being perceived by a bystander - it’s so complicated. There are tons of filters ranging from their particular psychological state of mind to their cultural background - depth of actual cultural knowledge - and sometimes IQ.
By the way I’m a professional musician/composer. I love psychology and am very curious about neuroscience.
My background? I remember a teacher once grumbling that I was a "professional student," but he wasn't wrong. First I did BA in History, Classics, and Religion. Then I took a course on Game Development. Then it was illustration. Most recently, it was a Bachelor of Fine Arts. I've never had much luck finding work - but I know how to support my frugal lifestyle on awards and so on well enough that I've never been in debt. The real learning doesn't happen at all these terrible schools, however, in all the free time you save living like a hermit.
Whenever a scientist determines some devious proxy for cognition - whether it's neurotransmitters, or skin conductance tests, or even Paul Ekman's Facial Action Coding - you can be reasonably certain that the original whitepaper on the topic recognizes it as merely a statistically significant correlated factor in what is likely an overdetermined outcome. Then the pop-science writers report on it as though we'd just decoded the entire human condition. Certainly, in the publish-or-die environment of modern scientific academia, there are scientists who cave to the pressure and start to believe their own grant-proposal propaganda about "cracking the code" on humanity--and there's a fair share of junk science and even fraud--but for the most part, I think a doctor is going to tell you the data you get from your Fitbit, say, is scattered, low-quality, and ambiguous--probably not as important as being able to tell when you're actually upset, or just hangry. But then, it can be more useful than you'd think when someone tells you touch your lips when you're anxious, or point out some other habit that somehow makes you more self-aware.
I myself will not offer any grand theory about where artistic production or aesthetic appreciation come from. If I tried, I'd get lost in trying to write a Platonic dialogue when I'm clearly inadequate to the task. But whether you make art or appreciate it, I think prior knowledge and experience is necessary for the sort of revelation that makes artistic works feel meaningful. You can be cold and inhuman and liken it to a the solution of an equation that needs it's terms defined - or you can say it's like how to really appreciate a work on love it's probably necessary to have either been in love, or to have needed love - or, at least, we can say, if you find love, having been exposed to the work will better ground you in the actual experience.
A large part of creativity is in making disparate connections. I'd agree that some YouTube grifter preaching that "biohacking" your way to creativity with supplements is truly distasteful, but I've read enough literature where an author refers to mirror neurons, or dopamine, or the limbic system to hint at far more humanistic themes under a thin veneer of clinical pseudo-objectivity.
Happenstance led me to Eric Kandel's masterpieces: In Search of Memory, Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, and The Age of Insight. He writes extraordinarily well regarding our noggins and the impact of the arts on how they function. While I understand and share Ted's concerns about the product of technology on the arts, the wariness regarding the forfeiture of process - letting "machines" do more of the creative work - seems highly correlated to the effects of the Industrial Revolution on our physiographies: an initial burst of robustness followed by eventual stagnation and decline.
There's a Sirens' Song aspect to these "advancements"...and darned few seem inclined to be lashed to the mast.
Kandel was a mentor to me as an undergrad, even though my major was bioengineering. He tried rather hard to get me to consider grad school in neuroscience, but i was set on medical school. Read every chapter in his seminal textbook on neuroscience, maybe 20 times more work than what was required to get an honor grade in the class. I'd stay in on weekend nights and read about how the brain and retina process color instead of meeting friends at a bar in NYC. Learning how the brain works? It wasn't easy reading, but it certainly was pleasurable. Can't say enough good things about that man. The term genius gets thrown about far too liberally, but he was that in all caps.
I was increasingly disturbed as I read this. Horrified actually. I am greatly relieved that many comments here are from people as appalled as I am at the thought of the boss of corporate bosses being in charge of art now, on top of everything else in the race to the bottom of your brainstem.
I could pick apart almost each and every sentence uttered by the google spokespeople and say, here, this is the bland, robotic, obscurantist style of speech any giant corporate will hand you while they're taking your for everything you have. I would have asked them why. Why is google doing this? Is it because they love humanity and want us to be free of Tech Domination?
I'll stick to just this one - the marriage of STEM and art. Sounds nice doesn't it, but guess which one is boss. One will be like the the finance dep't and the other like the community outreach dep't. They'll look like equals on the org chart but hardly - the emissary continues to usurp the master.
I say this as someone with duelling university degrees - one in arts and the other in engineering. I also say this as someone who enjoys Ted Goia writing on everything under the sun. This interview has me agitated to the point where I'm not reading anymore substack for the rest of the day. Gah!
Anyone think the arts are getting better since the digital chip took over? Photographers like Annie Liebowitz clung to her film format. We all know bands who swear by the power and warmth of tape. I remember a conversation I had with, never mind who, but he got nostalgic when we spoke of a composer friend who dumped his Synclavier and all the gear and went back to his Steinway. He was a film scorer and it took the “what if” out of the “opinionaters” quiver and they were left facing a room full of musicians where they couldn’t turn it on its head easily according to someone’s insecure whim. Choices were made. Flesh on catgut, paint on canvas, playing next to a beating heart makes better art…but don’t say that in a meeting…especially a budget meeting.
Yeah, I know, you can make great things with a computer. Been there but it doesn’t feel as good.
Even if you play that old Steinway, it's so much cheaper, quicker and better quality to record it digitally. Limitations can sometimes spur creativity, but generally it's good that we have a choice and not everybody has to be limited the same way all the time. It's not the film grain that makes Annie Leibovitz's portraits stand out (and by the way, she shoots digital for something like 10 years already).
Yes. I knew Annie and I remember her resisting it. I know it’s cheaper and AI is even cheaper. Cheaper and flexible is why digital recording is ubiquitous and musicians are optional. As I mentioned, of course you can do good work digitally. I often did for years. But listening back, I remember the looks on the faces of the talent as they performed together more than I do on the overdubs. Truthfully I’d be lost trying to go back to tape. It would probably be hard to find people to align the machines. The thread was about humans and art. Enter the chip, exit the players, and hello AI. Just being sentimental and marveling at how fast it’s all come to be.
"The people involved in music and neuroscience often teach at the same universities, but I rarely see them involved in dialogue. I’ve even heard music professors complain about neuroscience, almost as if some kind of turf war is going on."
I find that neuroscientists and engineers do not talk about music musically, and as a musician, it's frustrating. I have yet to find a book about audio recording, for example, that explains in a musical way what compression is for — they all talk about what it does and how it does, but not what I as a musician would be hearing that would make me say I need to apply that tool. I'm sure it's very obvious that I'm a classically trained musician who didn't have audio engineering experience as part of my studies, so yes, I definitely can use the engineering perspective, but that's all there seems to be. (Recommendations to the contrary welcome.)
Likewise, when I read articles for the general public, about, say, learning rhythm, I can't recall a single article that refers to music education research. Instead, the journalists turn to neuroscientists — that is, people who have no experience teaching music. No one talks about the work of, say, Edwin Gordon, Phyllis Weikart, Doug Goodkin, Lucy Green, or even an OT/PT (there's a good book about helping kids with sensory processing issues that was written by a music educator who became an OT/PT, but it's slipping my mind at the moment) and what they have to say about how people learn to be rhythmic or why people might find rhythm challenging — not NPR, not the New Yorker, not the Guardian, not Ted Gioia. The neuroscientists do not speak to my condition as an experienced musician and educator. And I don't think they speak to my students' condition as learners, either.
So yes, maybe it's a turf war, but I completely understand why music professors might feel a bit slighted when they are not consulted about their area of expertise, when the journalists instead turn to people who have neither experience teaching music or playing music. There absolutely needs to be more dialogue, but it could start with musician journalists taking music education seriously.
I expect these neuro-centrists will find a neurological explanation for every thing also when there is none. Similar to early genetics studies that forgot about the strength of culture through generations.
About compression, I’m just trying this out. When we sing loud, the intensity changes the timbre of our voice. When we sing softly, the recording will still need to be heard above all the other noises in the surrounding. To have a one on one increase from audible soft to timbre changing loud in electrical signal would make the loud passages way too loud and require huge amplification ruining our ears. But you do have to perform in your natural way, you cannot sing more intense but not too much louder, that would inhibit you. So the recording is compressed.
Do not miss the exciting and creative experience that Chinese artists in voice, dance and design are making throughout the art world of China. I have not seen such creative and wonderful production quality anywhere in the U.S. or Italy, for example. Not even the ordinary American Idol type of audition comes close. Check it out.
Very true! Also, a few of the ancient instruments are interesting with their very special artists who have mastered their finer aspects. The current efforts given by the Chinese gov't to the music industry makes me hopeful that the world will be seeing more of their talented artists.
In Thailand there is a Chinese TV channel that broadcasts music 18 hrs. a day. Everything from traditional instruments playing traditional music to contemporaty music. There is pop music and Classical Orchestral Music.
35 years ago, I was creating educational videos, and helping to raise a young child. I became interested in media literacy, and pursued teaching it in various ways.
Today, that young child is about to begin a career as an elementary school teacher. I will share this piece with him, as I think he will play an important role in introducing arts to kids.
When I stopped working full-time a dozen years ago, I fell into a part-time gig as an uncertified, unregistered music therapist (i.e., I haven't trained as one; I just have a knack for it), playing music for high school kids and adults with disabilities of all types, everything from autism to cerebral palsy. I've had the challenge of finding music that they could enjoy and interact with, using rhythm shakers and singing. It's a mysterious process to interpret what can only be described as strange behaviour (but which becomes familiar, over time), and very gratifying when there are breakthroughs, however small.
Neuroscience is an amazing field. Sometimes I wish I was 50 years younger and just starting out (and more learned about science). But mostly, I'm grateful for the opportunities I've had to learn more about what it means to be human.
Nice to see Wissenkunst, literally science-art, a term first coined by the late William Irwin Thompson back in the Seventies, with another bridgehead in 'official' reality.
A little more techno-optimistic than Ted usually gets.
Folks who see their art as a food ticket are afraid of AI stealing their dinner. They've got reason to be afraid, but those who see art as a way to create and communicate are doing just fine.
My wife's a designer. She tells me how it used to take a dozens of people to make something like a magazine, where today, she makes entire, large websites totally solo. Why are people afraid of a future in which we can all do more with our creativity?
Imagine having the resources to write, draw, ink, color, design and typeset a graphic novel. Imagine having the resources to write and animate your own cartoon, or to direct an opera, or launch a fashion line, or make your own triple-A video game. So many of the mediums that currently belong to well-funded corporations are going to be up for grabs by mere kids. Hell, I see the crappy AI's that are available to chat with, and I want to create my own - something actually fun, and interesting, and surprising, and many-layered to talk to - like an interactive novel. If you hear the dopey songs about hamburgers and you dismiss AI, I'm sorry, but you lack imagination. AI will give creative people to do so much more of what creative people do - and hopefully, it'll take away the shit-work, like managing social media, or scanning, or fussing with digital settings.
I am great fan, Ted, to the point where I rarely comment on your posts because I usually have nothing to add. However, this one is so disturbing in its misinformation and judgment that I felt compelled to comment. To be clear, I have an academic background in art history and mathematics, and I believe that the arts are critical for personal well-being and that of the body politic.
The statement made in the interview that "We humans are over 60% water and water amplifies sound" is utterly, completely, false. When a sound wave emanates from a guitar string, drum or a human vocal cord, it does so with a certain level of energy, no more, no less. It can be amplified by adding electric energy, such as with a guitar amplifier, but it cannot be amplified by passing through another substance. Ask a Navy sonar specialist about this and he will tell you that water is a better conductor of sound than air, but as for amplification in water, well, that would defy the laws of physics. That statement alone calls into question the credibility of the interviewees.
As for the dichotomy between the arts and science, tell it to Leonardo, Piero della Francesca or the American Peale brothers. The arts and science have always been closely connected and to claim otherwise has more to do with a shallow and very recently modern sensibility than it does with reality or the sweep of history.
The title of the book, "Your Brain on Art", has an ugly antecedent. It comes from an ad first broadcasted in 1987, back in the days of the Reagan administration. The ad was simple and brutal and totally lacking in any aesthetic sensibility. An off-camera person would crack two eggs into a hot frying pan while a voice over said "this is your brain on drugs". That was it. In certain media markets, they would repeat it twice to get it up to a 60 second ad length. The use of that metaphor in the title shows a kind of cluelessness and is antithetical to the case that they are trying to make. Implicitly, they are indicating a link between the arts and illegal drugs; certainly lacking in scientific, social and aesthetic judgment. I wouldn't read this book based on the title alone.
As for the positive neurological impacts of the arts, well, Hostess Twinkies also have positive neurological impacts. Reduction of the arts to mere cranial chemical processes is dangerous, particularly at a time when our society is so desperately in need of shared aesthetic experiences.
Yes. All true.
About the ad in ‘87, it did what it was supposed to do, which is be impactful. Considering it stayed with you all these years is an ad arts win. If there is such a thing. Doesn’t make it the best title for a book promoting the arts; a take we all agree on.
Thanks for this. It's also my first time ever commenting. I appreciate you making your voice heard also.
I’m glad he posted the “credentials” of these authors right up front. Kept me from wasting my time on the rest. Your comments confirmed my decision to ignore.
The recurring issue in this type of discussion is that we reduce art to a chemical experience. So it’s as good as taking a happy pill. It feels like we’re living in “a brave New World”.
It’s like saying the point of working out/body building is to get an endorphine kick - vs trying to be healthy or regulated.
I wish the scientific and non artistic world would investigate the purpose of the art - vs its side effects.
It reminds me of my chemistry teacher in high school, who said that you can simply take a vitamin C pill instead of an orange. He believed it.
I believe you're the one confusing surface details for substance. The interest in chemical experiences is about having something to measure. It's very easy for a bunch of art trustees to just declare crappy art they happen to collect valuable artifacts of genius despite nobody liking their ugly, boring, trash. And plenty of people pretend to like things and even convince themselves they like them out of pure virtue signaling. Measuring people's biology means getting a more objective read on how people are actually reacting to experiences. And understanding the way people react to experiences is part of learning how to shape them to express yourself to others. It's on you if the only thing you can think of doing with a better understanding of people's aesthetics is to brain-hack them into an addiction.
I'm not against measuring it. I'm exhausted with with the insistence of reducing the purpose of art to its chemical effect on the brain. I get that people don't know how to value art and they try to understand it - hence measuring something measurable. But it's not the useful/right thing to measure. This type of measurement leads to put rave music - and other visual experiments soaring in the museum arena - at the top of art achievement. Not only it encourage parasites to fill up the art ecosystems - but it corrupts the whole government funding for the arts. And finally - it robs us from access to quality art and discourage society to produce artists that deserves the proper label
Again, I very much doubt the people I've read in neuroaesthetics consider the measurement of neurotransmitters some kind of end in itself. Nor that they in any way devalue art. Did Pythagoras ruin and devalue music by studying the mathematics of harmony? Did Goethe ruin and devalue art by studying color scientifically? Did Da Vinci devalue art by dissecting corpses to better understand anatomy? Art has never prospered in an environment of close-minded ignorance that insists you need to turn your rational brain off to appreciate it.
I don't know what art ecosystem you're in, but I'm aware of no government funding on the basis of biometric evidence that it achieves some biological goal. Honestly, I wouldn't mind if we could keep god-awful architects from erecting their hideous travesties by citing the cortisol spike dreadful environments give the public.
I'm as interested in the biology of art as I am in seeing what makes people think, or smile, or squint in confusion, or yawn. Besides, to a properly curious individual, math, psychology, and biology are interesting in their own right.
Few things:
We agree that there are plenty of bad art. And that scientific analysis of art does add value and tools to the endeavor.
I disagree with the promise that biochemical analysis of an audience would keep at bay the production of crappy art by somehow exposing how people truly feel about it.
For one we don’t need it - commercial enterprises are good at capitalizing on it - and then it’s highly prone to manipulation.
Lastly -we know that theoretical knowledge is crucially important for artist development - in many dimensions and for various purposes. But - it’s not where art is coming from. The source of inspiration and the level of mastery required for true artistic achievement is way deeper than a collection of rules or the result of a neuro chemical reaction.
As far as how it is being perceived by a bystander - it’s so complicated. There are tons of filters ranging from their particular psychological state of mind to their cultural background - depth of actual cultural knowledge - and sometimes IQ.
By the way I’m a professional musician/composer. I love psychology and am very curious about neuroscience.
What is your field and background?
My background? I remember a teacher once grumbling that I was a "professional student," but he wasn't wrong. First I did BA in History, Classics, and Religion. Then I took a course on Game Development. Then it was illustration. Most recently, it was a Bachelor of Fine Arts. I've never had much luck finding work - but I know how to support my frugal lifestyle on awards and so on well enough that I've never been in debt. The real learning doesn't happen at all these terrible schools, however, in all the free time you save living like a hermit.
Whenever a scientist determines some devious proxy for cognition - whether it's neurotransmitters, or skin conductance tests, or even Paul Ekman's Facial Action Coding - you can be reasonably certain that the original whitepaper on the topic recognizes it as merely a statistically significant correlated factor in what is likely an overdetermined outcome. Then the pop-science writers report on it as though we'd just decoded the entire human condition. Certainly, in the publish-or-die environment of modern scientific academia, there are scientists who cave to the pressure and start to believe their own grant-proposal propaganda about "cracking the code" on humanity--and there's a fair share of junk science and even fraud--but for the most part, I think a doctor is going to tell you the data you get from your Fitbit, say, is scattered, low-quality, and ambiguous--probably not as important as being able to tell when you're actually upset, or just hangry. But then, it can be more useful than you'd think when someone tells you touch your lips when you're anxious, or point out some other habit that somehow makes you more self-aware.
I myself will not offer any grand theory about where artistic production or aesthetic appreciation come from. If I tried, I'd get lost in trying to write a Platonic dialogue when I'm clearly inadequate to the task. But whether you make art or appreciate it, I think prior knowledge and experience is necessary for the sort of revelation that makes artistic works feel meaningful. You can be cold and inhuman and liken it to a the solution of an equation that needs it's terms defined - or you can say it's like how to really appreciate a work on love it's probably necessary to have either been in love, or to have needed love - or, at least, we can say, if you find love, having been exposed to the work will better ground you in the actual experience.
A large part of creativity is in making disparate connections. I'd agree that some YouTube grifter preaching that "biohacking" your way to creativity with supplements is truly distasteful, but I've read enough literature where an author refers to mirror neurons, or dopamine, or the limbic system to hint at far more humanistic themes under a thin veneer of clinical pseudo-objectivity.
Happenstance led me to Eric Kandel's masterpieces: In Search of Memory, Reductionism in Art and Brain Science, and The Age of Insight. He writes extraordinarily well regarding our noggins and the impact of the arts on how they function. While I understand and share Ted's concerns about the product of technology on the arts, the wariness regarding the forfeiture of process - letting "machines" do more of the creative work - seems highly correlated to the effects of the Industrial Revolution on our physiographies: an initial burst of robustness followed by eventual stagnation and decline.
There's a Sirens' Song aspect to these "advancements"...and darned few seem inclined to be lashed to the mast.
Kandel was a mentor to me as an undergrad, even though my major was bioengineering. He tried rather hard to get me to consider grad school in neuroscience, but i was set on medical school. Read every chapter in his seminal textbook on neuroscience, maybe 20 times more work than what was required to get an honor grade in the class. I'd stay in on weekend nights and read about how the brain and retina process color instead of meeting friends at a bar in NYC. Learning how the brain works? It wasn't easy reading, but it certainly was pleasurable. Can't say enough good things about that man. The term genius gets thrown about far too liberally, but he was that in all caps.
I was increasingly disturbed as I read this. Horrified actually. I am greatly relieved that many comments here are from people as appalled as I am at the thought of the boss of corporate bosses being in charge of art now, on top of everything else in the race to the bottom of your brainstem.
I could pick apart almost each and every sentence uttered by the google spokespeople and say, here, this is the bland, robotic, obscurantist style of speech any giant corporate will hand you while they're taking your for everything you have. I would have asked them why. Why is google doing this? Is it because they love humanity and want us to be free of Tech Domination?
I'll stick to just this one - the marriage of STEM and art. Sounds nice doesn't it, but guess which one is boss. One will be like the the finance dep't and the other like the community outreach dep't. They'll look like equals on the org chart but hardly - the emissary continues to usurp the master.
I say this as someone with duelling university degrees - one in arts and the other in engineering. I also say this as someone who enjoys Ted Goia writing on everything under the sun. This interview has me agitated to the point where I'm not reading anymore substack for the rest of the day. Gah!
Anyone think the arts are getting better since the digital chip took over? Photographers like Annie Liebowitz clung to her film format. We all know bands who swear by the power and warmth of tape. I remember a conversation I had with, never mind who, but he got nostalgic when we spoke of a composer friend who dumped his Synclavier and all the gear and went back to his Steinway. He was a film scorer and it took the “what if” out of the “opinionaters” quiver and they were left facing a room full of musicians where they couldn’t turn it on its head easily according to someone’s insecure whim. Choices were made. Flesh on catgut, paint on canvas, playing next to a beating heart makes better art…but don’t say that in a meeting…especially a budget meeting.
Yeah, I know, you can make great things with a computer. Been there but it doesn’t feel as good.
Even if you play that old Steinway, it's so much cheaper, quicker and better quality to record it digitally. Limitations can sometimes spur creativity, but generally it's good that we have a choice and not everybody has to be limited the same way all the time. It's not the film grain that makes Annie Leibovitz's portraits stand out (and by the way, she shoots digital for something like 10 years already).
Yes. I knew Annie and I remember her resisting it. I know it’s cheaper and AI is even cheaper. Cheaper and flexible is why digital recording is ubiquitous and musicians are optional. As I mentioned, of course you can do good work digitally. I often did for years. But listening back, I remember the looks on the faces of the talent as they performed together more than I do on the overdubs. Truthfully I’d be lost trying to go back to tape. It would probably be hard to find people to align the machines. The thread was about humans and art. Enter the chip, exit the players, and hello AI. Just being sentimental and marveling at how fast it’s all come to be.
It’s not what your brain is doing on art that matters; it’s what your soul is doing on it.
Please don't use the newsletter for marketing other people. Thank you.
I like the concept but it felt too general, lacking specific examples and true steps forward. It felt like a vague pitch.
Fine article!!!! 🤩
(May I point out: "exacerbated" not "exaggerated."
At your service (bow emoji)
Your Friendly Neighborhood Grammar Nazi
"The people involved in music and neuroscience often teach at the same universities, but I rarely see them involved in dialogue. I’ve even heard music professors complain about neuroscience, almost as if some kind of turf war is going on."
I find that neuroscientists and engineers do not talk about music musically, and as a musician, it's frustrating. I have yet to find a book about audio recording, for example, that explains in a musical way what compression is for — they all talk about what it does and how it does, but not what I as a musician would be hearing that would make me say I need to apply that tool. I'm sure it's very obvious that I'm a classically trained musician who didn't have audio engineering experience as part of my studies, so yes, I definitely can use the engineering perspective, but that's all there seems to be. (Recommendations to the contrary welcome.)
Likewise, when I read articles for the general public, about, say, learning rhythm, I can't recall a single article that refers to music education research. Instead, the journalists turn to neuroscientists — that is, people who have no experience teaching music. No one talks about the work of, say, Edwin Gordon, Phyllis Weikart, Doug Goodkin, Lucy Green, or even an OT/PT (there's a good book about helping kids with sensory processing issues that was written by a music educator who became an OT/PT, but it's slipping my mind at the moment) and what they have to say about how people learn to be rhythmic or why people might find rhythm challenging — not NPR, not the New Yorker, not the Guardian, not Ted Gioia. The neuroscientists do not speak to my condition as an experienced musician and educator. And I don't think they speak to my students' condition as learners, either.
So yes, maybe it's a turf war, but I completely understand why music professors might feel a bit slighted when they are not consulted about their area of expertise, when the journalists instead turn to people who have neither experience teaching music or playing music. There absolutely needs to be more dialogue, but it could start with musician journalists taking music education seriously.
I expect these neuro-centrists will find a neurological explanation for every thing also when there is none. Similar to early genetics studies that forgot about the strength of culture through generations.
About compression, I’m just trying this out. When we sing loud, the intensity changes the timbre of our voice. When we sing softly, the recording will still need to be heard above all the other noises in the surrounding. To have a one on one increase from audible soft to timbre changing loud in electrical signal would make the loud passages way too loud and require huge amplification ruining our ears. But you do have to perform in your natural way, you cannot sing more intense but not too much louder, that would inhibit you. So the recording is compressed.
Do not miss the exciting and creative experience that Chinese artists in voice, dance and design are making throughout the art world of China. I have not seen such creative and wonderful production quality anywhere in the U.S. or Italy, for example. Not even the ordinary American Idol type of audition comes close. Check it out.
Also in music, They have several symphony orchestras of excellent quality and play the music of several centuries including the 21st.
Very true! Also, a few of the ancient instruments are interesting with their very special artists who have mastered their finer aspects. The current efforts given by the Chinese gov't to the music industry makes me hopeful that the world will be seeing more of their talented artists.
In Thailand there is a Chinese TV channel that broadcasts music 18 hrs. a day. Everything from traditional instruments playing traditional music to contemporaty music. There is pop music and Classical Orchestral Music.
35 years ago, I was creating educational videos, and helping to raise a young child. I became interested in media literacy, and pursued teaching it in various ways.
Today, that young child is about to begin a career as an elementary school teacher. I will share this piece with him, as I think he will play an important role in introducing arts to kids.
When I stopped working full-time a dozen years ago, I fell into a part-time gig as an uncertified, unregistered music therapist (i.e., I haven't trained as one; I just have a knack for it), playing music for high school kids and adults with disabilities of all types, everything from autism to cerebral palsy. I've had the challenge of finding music that they could enjoy and interact with, using rhythm shakers and singing. It's a mysterious process to interpret what can only be described as strange behaviour (but which becomes familiar, over time), and very gratifying when there are breakthroughs, however small.
Neuroscience is an amazing field. Sometimes I wish I was 50 years younger and just starting out (and more learned about science). But mostly, I'm grateful for the opportunities I've had to learn more about what it means to be human.
Thanks, Ted.
Nice to see Wissenkunst, literally science-art, a term first coined by the late William Irwin Thompson back in the Seventies, with another bridgehead in 'official' reality.
Sometimes I get tired of this trend of justifying the existence of Art by lauding its scientific qualities.
Art for Art's sake. And our own.
It's now to sell art to modernists, to give them a post-rationalisation.
I see you’re a shill now, Ted. How did you get interested in that type of thing?
A little more techno-optimistic than Ted usually gets.
Folks who see their art as a food ticket are afraid of AI stealing their dinner. They've got reason to be afraid, but those who see art as a way to create and communicate are doing just fine.
My wife's a designer. She tells me how it used to take a dozens of people to make something like a magazine, where today, she makes entire, large websites totally solo. Why are people afraid of a future in which we can all do more with our creativity?
Imagine having the resources to write, draw, ink, color, design and typeset a graphic novel. Imagine having the resources to write and animate your own cartoon, or to direct an opera, or launch a fashion line, or make your own triple-A video game. So many of the mediums that currently belong to well-funded corporations are going to be up for grabs by mere kids. Hell, I see the crappy AI's that are available to chat with, and I want to create my own - something actually fun, and interesting, and surprising, and many-layered to talk to - like an interactive novel. If you hear the dopey songs about hamburgers and you dismiss AI, I'm sorry, but you lack imagination. AI will give creative people to do so much more of what creative people do - and hopefully, it'll take away the shit-work, like managing social media, or scanning, or fussing with digital settings.