also visit us @ http://www.reverbnation.com/ariztoteles.
TO VISITORS, please support our band in http://www.reverbnation.com/ariztoteles. Mark likes, become fans, and Play the music on the site.
for this blog keep going,build friendship,and community
Now, a statistics nut by the name of Brian Chesley has taken Daniels’ original concept and explored a different genre: rock ‘n’ roll.
Now, to be honest, Chesley’s data isn’t as solid as Daniels. The
sample size is minute in comparison — Daniels recently examined
another 20 new rappers, bringing his total to 105; Chesley, meanwhile,
only looks at 10 rockers (What, no Bruce?). Also, instead of using
Daniels’ lyrical benchmark of 35,000 words, Chesley kept his data to
17,000 words, “because I couldn’t get more
lyrics for Led Zeppelin – they only have [approximately] 70 short songs
on A-Z lyrics.” (Daniels’ method would have meant Zep wouldn’t be
counted at all.)
All the guts aside, Chesley charted the data with average words per
song on the Y-axis and number of unique words on the X. What’s
immediately apparent is that most rockers average about 210 words per
song with 2,000 unique words over all; The Eagles, The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, U2, and Led Zeppelin all cluster together in that area, with AC/DC and Metallica being slight outliers in either direction.
The more shocking statistics come with the unique outliers. First up is KISS, who have been making music
since 1974 but have apparently gotten away with using fewer than 1,400
words. Chesley pointed out that common theory is you should know about
2,000 words to converse at a basic level, but KISS’ conservative
vocabulary shouldn’t be too surprising. “This makes sense to some degree
– Kiss has a heavy metal style that focuses on instrumentals and raw
energy.” In other words, words don’t matter when music rocks hard!
On the other end of the spectrum you’ve got Pink Floyd. Such great portions of their songs
are grooves and jams, but they never skimped on the dark lyricism. Even
though they only used about 135 words per song, they used over 2,600
different ones. That gives them the largest vocabulary of the bands
Chesley looked at by almost 400.
Curious about where the rockers would stack against the rappers,
Chesley had to extrapulate his data, as you can see below with
Metallica. The results put the heavy metal icons in the 10th percentile
just behind Drake, while Pink Floyd settles somewhere ahead of T.I. in
the 25% range. Chesley wraps up his article with a conclusion we all
always knew to be true, but now have the statistics to back it up: “Key
take away – classic rock artists generally do not use a robust
vocabulary in their lyrics; they instead rely on awesome instrumentals,
vocals, and energy.”
source : http://consequenceofsound.net/
Some people think music education is a privilege, but I think it's essential to being human."
-Jewel - singer, songwriter and instrumentalist
Barack Obama Says :"Education in the arts is more important than ever. In the global
economy, creativity is essential. Today's workers need more than just
skills and knowledge to be productive and innovative participants." He
continues to explain that creative experiences are part of the daily
work life of engineers, business managers and hundreds of other
professionals. "To succeed today and in the future, America's children
will need to be inventive, resourceful and imaginative."
The opportunity to learn about the arts and to perform as artists is
an essential part of a well-rounded curriculum and complete education.
The arts help students explore realities, relationships and ideas that
cannot be conveyed simply in words or numbers. And the arts engender
innovative problem solving that students can apply to other academic
disciplines while at the same time, provide experience working as a
team.[1] Rocco Landesman, Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts,
echoes the President's Committee's thoughts. He firmly believes that
"when a school delivers the complete education to which every child is
entitled - an education that very much includes the arts - the whole
child blossoms."
The Academic Benefits of Music Education
"I've been playing the violin for over 10 years... In the meantime, I've developed a liking for high-level math, like calculus..."
-High school student
Researchers have studied the benefits of music education for decades,
consistently finding strong correlations between music and academic
achievement. For example, positive results have been noted in
standardized tests. Regardless of socioeconomic background, according to
a 10-year study that tracked more than 25,000 middle and high school
students, music-making students get higher marks on standardized tests
than those who have little or no music involvement. The College Entrance
Examination Board found that students in music programs scored 63
points higher on the verbal and 44 points higher on the math sections of
the SATs than students with no music participation. Additionally,
students performed better on other standardized tests such as reading
proficiency exams.
Similarly, a study examining the relationship between participation
in high or low-quality school music programs and standardized test
scores showed that students in high-quality programs scored higher on
both English and mathematics standardized tests than their counterparts
who did not have high-quality instruction (Johnson, 2006). The
researchers also found that students in exceptional music programs as
well as low-quality instrumental programs still performed better in
English and mathematics than those students receiving no music classes.
These findings were all confirmed in the first major study to compare
data from four longitudinal studies. In this landmark study, James
Catterall, found that teenagers and young adults of low socioeconomic
status (SES) who have a history of in-depth arts involvement show better
academic outcomes than do low-SES youth with less arts involvement.
These students have higher test scores in science, writing and math, as
well as higher overall GPAs than students who lacked arts experiences.
Better GPAs also were observed among high SES students.
Lastly, a study performed at the University of British Columbia
emphasized that participation in music does not hamper achievement in
other domains. "Widespread notion is that instructional time spent on
music courses is 'wasted' because it takes away from time used for
academic 'core' subjects and thus slows down students' progress in those
courses. [However] our results imply that music participation benefits
students in ways that are directly or indirectly linked to higher
academic achievement in general. . ."[2]
Mathematics Skills
Research has clearly found that music instruction helps develop the
capacity for spatial-temporal reasoning, which is integral to the
acquisition of important mathematics skills. One explanation is musical
training in rhythm emphasizes proportion, patterns, fractions and ratios
expressed as mathematical relations.
U.S. Department of Education data showed that students involved in
band or orchestra during their middle and high school years demonstrated
significantly higher levels of math proficiency by grade 12. The
results were even more pronounced for low-income families. Those who
took instrumental music were more than twice as likely to perform at the
highest levels in math as their peers who were not involved in music
(Catterall, 2002). Similar findings were found by Helmrich (2010) who
concluded that formal instrumental instruction was positively correlated
with algebra achievement. He also analyzed the data for differences
between white and black students, finding that students of both races
performed better than those who received no music instruction.
Interestingly, the degree to which music instruction affects the
achievement of black students is greater than that of white students.
A meta-analysis of 15 studies involving 701 children ages 3 to 12
years (Hetland, 2000) suggested that children provided with music
instruction score higher than controls on spatial-temporal tasks.
Children who begin music instruction very early in life are likely to
show the greatest benefits. And longitudinal research suggests that at
least two years of music instruction are required for sustained
enhancement of spatial abilities (Rauscher, 2002).
Other studies have demonstrated the correlation between music and
academic performance at a young age. These include Cutietta (1998) who
found that elementary school children who played in the orchestra scored
considerably higher on math and spatial intelligence tests and Shaw
(2000), who conducted a four-month study on the effects of piano
instruction on making spatial and temporal distinctions. The
second-graders who received piano instruction for 25 minutes each week
scored 15% higher than the test cell and 27% higher on questions devoted
to proportional math. Shaw concluded that piano lessons condition the
brain and that spatial awareness and the need to think ahead reinforced
latent neuronal patterns.
Reading and Language Skills
In the case of language development, the relationship between music
and skill transfer is less obvious or direct. Nonetheless, what we
write, read and hear involve words that are used and understood in
specific contexts. These contexts can be seen as spatial networks where
words are related to other words and expressions. Thus, overall reading
skills improve with exposure to music, as does the quality of a
student's writing.
In 2000, Ron Butzlaff conducted a year-long study on 162 sixth
graders to determine whether instrumental music instruction helps
children acquire reading skills. At the end of the year, all the
students were given the Stanford Achievement Test, which explores
reading and verbal skills, and Butzlaff found that students with two or
three years of instrumental musical experience performed significantly
higher on the exam than the students with no instrumental music
instruction. Similarly, in 2000, using a sample size of more than
500,000 high school students, Butzlaff found a strong and reliable
association between music instruction and reading test scores.
Other researchers have demonstrated that music enhances reading and
cognitive development as well. For instance, in a 1995 study with six to
nine year-old students with learning difficulties specific to reading,
Bygrave tracked the children in a 30-week study in Michigan. Post-test
results indicated that the music program had a significant positive
effect on the students' receptive vocabulary. Another study, involving
six to 15 year-old boys, found that music training significantly
increased verbal memory. As expected, the longer the training, the
better the verbal memory (Ho, Cheung & Chan, 2003). Finally in "Arts
education, the brain and language," musicians were found to have
significantly increased second language performance, greater fluency and
competency compared to non-musicians (Petitto, 2008)
The Practical Benefits of Music Education
"It is clear from the research the arts provide the type of emotional, creative and expressive development that students can benefit from throughout their lives."
-Dr. Nancy Rubino - Senior Director, College Board
Not all benefits derived from a music education are academic. Many
studies have found that involvement in music leads to positive personal,
social and motivational effects. Specifically, Catterall (2012)
demonstrated that the arts significantly boost student involvement -
both for low SES and high SES groups -- in extracurricular activities
and student government, reduce discipline problems and increase the odds
that students will go on to graduate from both high school and a
four-year college. In short, music helps improve the overall quality of a
young person's life.
A Columbia University study revealed that students in the arts are
found to be more cooperative with teachers and peers, more
self-confident and better able to express their ideas. As a result,
researchers have found a reduction in aggressive and anti-social
behavior as well as an increase in pro-social behavior (Bastian, 2000).
Similarly, a study by Shields (2001) using music education in a
mentoring program found a significant positive increase in
self-perception derived from musical competence and a correlation
between musical competence and global self-worth. Students felt free to
be themselves and gained confidence from the experience. Finally,
students who participate in school band or orchestra have the lowest
levels of current and lifelong use of alcohol, tobacco and illicit drugs
among any group in our society. Importantly, these positive behavioral
effects steadily increase and persist over time.
Performing with others also helps students build critical thinking
and problem-solving skills. Students who play an instrument in a band
need to acquire certain social and emotional skills necessary to be a
contributing member, including discipline, collaboration, patience,
persistence and motivation (Adderly, 2003). In addition, performing in
front of others helps boost children's self-esteem and gives them the
opportunity to overcome fears and see they can succeed.
The arts also create a supportive environment that promotes
acceptance of constructive criticism and safely allows one to take risks
(Barry, 2002). In several national studies over the past decade,
students at risk of dropping out of school cite participation in the
arts as their reason for staying. These students also reported watching
fewer hours of television, participating more in community service and
having less feelings of boredom in school. Similarly, orchestra students
in Tacoma, Washington (Cutietta, 1998) followed over a two-month period
were found to have more positive attitudes about school and less
classroom friction and competitiveness.
Finally, in Catterall's 2012 study, the findings revealed a large
increase in volunteerism in young adults with arts-rich high school
experiences. This was true for both low income and high income students,
with a greater impact seen on low income students.
Today's Reality
"The skills gained through sequential music instruction, including discipline and the ability to analyze, solve problems, communicate and work cooperatively, are vital for success in the 21st century workplace."
-U.S. House of Representatives, 2006
The Facts
Despite the strong supporting evidence, the arts remain on the fringe
of education. Music classes are often the last to be added and first to
be dropped in hard economic times. According to the Department of
Education’s report, "Arts Education in Public Elementary and Secondary
Schools: 2009-2010," more than 1.3 million students in elementary school
receive no music instruction. The same is true for roughly 800,000
secondary school students. Likewise, the National Assessment of
Educational Progress (2008) found that private schools have better music
education than public ones and suburban schools are better equipped
than inner-city and rural schools. By extension, schools in higher
income areas consistently offer more music and arts classes than schools
in poor areas - a finding consistent with both reports.
But all students -- 100 percent - should have access to arts instruction. The Partnership for 21st
Century Skills, a national organization that is built on partnerships
with the business community, advocates for not only the 3Rs, but the
4Cs: Critical thinking and problem solving, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity
and innovation. In a study of superintendents and employers, both
agreed that creativity is increasingly important in the U.S. workplace
and that arts training is crucial to developing that creativity.[3]
As "Reinvesting in Arts Education" concludes, the narrow focus on
only teaching the basics clearly has not been the answer. Many high
school graduates lack the skills to make them successful in
post-secondary education and later in the work force. Their report
discusses the 21st century skills including problem solving,
critical and creative thinking, dealing with ambiguity and complexity,
integration of multiple skill sets and disciplinary work.
Catterall's 2012 study once again backs up this premise, as data
conclusively showed that both low-SES and high-SES students with strong
arts backgrounds ended up in professional majors in college (i.e.,
accounting, education, nursing) and were planning professional careers
by age 30 (i.e., management, sales, teaching). Casner-Lotto (2006)
concurred stating that employers are placing value not just on basics
but also applied skills such as problem solving, collaboration and
creativity. Finally, business leaders from diverse industries such as
Xerox, GlaxoSmirthKline and Google all agree that music aids students in
skills needed in the workplace including flexibility, effective
communication, creativity and innovation.
Public Opinion
Interestingly, the lack of support in the classroom does not mirror
the vast majority of the general public's views. A May 2005 Harris Poll
revealed that 93% of Americans agree that the arts are vital to
providing a well-rounded education for children. In addition, the poll
showed public support for the arts in the following ways:
86% agree an arts education encourages and assists in the improvement of a child's attitudes toward school
83% believe that arts education helps teach children to communicate effectively with adults and peers
54% rated the importance of arts education a "ten" on a scale of one to ten
Government Views
While the government overtly supports arts education, it is powerless
at a regional level. In August 2009, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan
wrote a letter urging all school and education community leaders to
remember the arts when determining budget and programming decisions for
the upcoming school year. He stated: "I write to bring to your attention
the importance of the arts as a core academic subject and part of a
complete education for all students... I was reminded of the important
role that arts education plays in providing American students with a
well-rounded education. The arts can help students become tenacious,
team-oriented problem solvers who are confident and able to think
creatively."[4]
The White House even started a Music Series, complete with a "Coming
Up Taller" award. Awards are given to successful programs across the
country that reach students who have insufficient opportunities to
explore the arts. The award's unusual name stems from the pride students
feel when given the chance to find their voices through the arts. As
honorary chairwoman, Mrs. Obama, said: "Music shows young people not
just the powers of their imaginations... but the power of discipline and
hard work, and of teamwork as well."[5]
Tomorrow's Future
It is evident that the call for more rigorous academic standards is
insufficient without a concomitant focus on developing creativity and
imagination. In fact, many believe the U.S. will lose its competitive
edge as an innovative world leader unless a shift in thinking and
teaching is made.
Relying on government, individual school systems - even public
sentiment -- is not enough. For this reason, the private sector must
step in to fill the void left by the current educational system.
Organizations such as Music Empowers help provide equitable access to
music and all its benefits by advocating for youth in areas where
traditional music education is limited. By helping fund and develop
music programs that clearly foster an appreciation for music, improve
academic achievement, build self-esteem, teach critical social skills,
and engender creativity and innovation, Music Empowers hopes to ignite
the spark of creativity that lies within all children and inspire a love
of learning. Only then -- when children have access to academics their
schools provide and music that private philanthropy provides -- will
they be able to achieve their highest potential. It is a goal we all
should share. *Ellen Judson has worked for more the 20 years in marketing, both
on the client and agency side. In such roles, she created strategic
marketing plans performed extensive market research and wrote materials
for public relations, advertising and promotional activities. Taking on
the new topic of music education, Ellen has found the array of benefits
overwhelming and hopes to convey to others the consistent and impressive
correlation between music education and improved academic and social
behavior.
A 1993 study
of college students showed them performing better on spatial reasoning
tests after listening to a Mozart sonata. That led to claims that
listening to Mozart temporarily increases IQs — and to a raft of products purporting to provide all sorts of benefits to the brain.
In 1998, Zell Miller, then the governor of Georgia, even proposed
providing every newborn in his state with a CD of classical music.
But subsequent research has cast doubt on the claims.
Ani Patel, an associate professor of psychology at Tufts University and the author of “Music, Language, and the Brain,”
says that while listening to music can be relaxing and contemplative,
the idea that simply plugging in your iPod is going to make you more
intelligent doesn’t quite hold up to scientific scrutiny.
“On the other hand,” Patel says, “there’s now a growing body of work
that suggests that actually learning to play a musical instrument does
have impacts on other abilities.” These include speech perception, the
ability to understand emotions in the voice and the ability to handle
multiple tasks simultaneously.
Patel says this is a relatively new field of scientific study.
“The whole field of music neuroscience really began to take off
around 2000,” he says. “These studies where we take people, often
children, and give them training in music and then measure how their
cognition changes and how their brain changes both in terms of its
processing [and] its structure, are very few and still just emerging.”
Patel says that music neuroscience, which draws on cognitive science,
music education and neuroscience, can help answer basic questions about
the workings of the human brain.
“How do we process sequences with complex hierarchical structure and
make sense of them?” he asks. “How do we integrate sensation and action?
How do we remember long and difficult sequences of information? These
are fundamental neuroscience questions, and music can help us answer
some of these questions, because it’s in some ways simpler than
language, but it’s still of sufficient complexity that it can address
these very deep and important aspects of human brain function.”
In addition, Patel says music neuroscience research has important
implications about the role of music in the lives of young children.
“If we know how and why music changes the brain in ways that affect
other cognitive abilities,” he says, “this could have a real impact on
the value we put on it as an activity in the schools, not to mention all
the impact it has on emotional development, emotional maturity, social
skills, stick-to-itiveness, things we typically don’t measure in school
but which are hugely important in a child’s ultimate success.”
EL SISTEMA
At the Conservatory Lab Charter School in Boston, every student receives music instruction.
“It doesn’t matter whether they have had music instruction before or not,” says Diana Lam, the head of the school.
The school, which accepts new students by lottery, is bucking a
national trend, as more and more cash-strapped school districts pare
down or eliminate music programs.
Lam says music is part of her school’s core curriculum because it
teaches students to strive for quality in all areas of their lives — and
because it gets results.
“Music addresses some of the behaviors and skills that are necessary
for academic success,” she says. “Since we started implementing El Sistema, the Venezuelan music program, as well as project-based learning, our test scores have increased dramatically.” STRONGER EXECUTIVE FUNCTIONING
But what does the latest scientific research
tell us? The question, according to neuropsychologist Nadine Gaab, is
not simply whether music instruction has beneficial effects on young
brains.
“There’s a lot of evidence,” Gaab says, “that if you play a musical
instrument, especially if you start early in life, that you have better
reading skills, better math skills, et cetera. The question is, what is
the underlying mechanism?”
At her lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, Gaab leads a team of
researchers studying children’s brain development, recently identifying
signs in the brain that might indicate dyslexia before kids learn to read. Gaab and her colleagues are also looking for connections between musical training and language development.
“Initially we thought that it’s training the auditory system, which
then helps you with language, reading and other academic skills,” she
says.
Instead, in a study published last month, Gaab and her team
delineated a connection — in both children and adults — between learning
to play an instrument and improved executive functioning, like
problem-solving, switching between tasks and focus.
“Could it be,” Gaab asks, “that musical training trains these
executive functioning skills, which then helps with academic skills?”
To find out, researchers gave complex executive functioning tasks to
both musically trained and untrained children while scanning their
brains in MRI machines.
“For example,” Gaab says, “you would hear the noise of a horse,
‘neigh,’ and every time you hear the horse, whenever you see a triangle
you have to press the left button and whenever you see a circle you have
to press the right button. However, if you hear a frog, the rule
switches.”
While noting the children’s ability to follow the rules, the
scientists also watched for activity in the prefrontal cortex of the
brain, known to be the seat of executive functioning.
“We were just looking at how much of the prefrontal cortex was
activated while they were doing this ‘neigh-froggy’ task in the
scanner,” Gaab says. “And we could show that musically trained children
and professional adult musicians have better executive functioning
skills compared to their peers who do not play a musical instrument. We
could further show that children who are musically trained have more
activation in these prefrontal areas compared to their peers.”
So does music-making enhance executive functioning?
Gaab hastens to add, “We don’t know what’s the egg and what’s the
hen.” That is, whether musical proficiency makes for better executive
functioning, or vice-versa.
But Gaab cites other studies which imply the former.
“It’s most likely the musical training that improves executive
functioning skills,” she says. “You could just hypothesize that playing
in an orchestral setting is particularly training the executive
functioning skills because you have to play in a group; you have to
listen to each other.”
And Gaab says that’s analogous to what happens in the brain of a musician.
“There are a lot of different brain systems involved in successfully
playing even a small musical piece: your auditory system, your motor
system, your emotional system, your executive function system; this
playing together of these brain regions, almost like in a musical
ensemble.”
CHANGING ‘BRAIN PLASTICITY’
But the question remains: Why would acquiring musical skills
influence language and other higher brain functions? Neuropsychologist
Patel has developed a theory he calls the OPERA hypothesis.
“The basic idea is that music is not an island in the brain cut off
from other things, that there’s overlap, that’s the ‘O’ of OPERA,
between the networks that process music and the networks that are
involved in other day-to-day cognitive functions such as language,
memory, attention and so forth,” he says. “The ‘P’ in OPERA is
precision. Think about how sensitive we are to the tuning of an
instrument, whether the pitch is in key or not, and it can be painful if
it’s just slightly out of tune.”
That level of precision in processing music, Patel says, is much
higher than the level of precision used in processing speech. This
means, he says, that developing our brains’ musical networks may very
well enhance our ability to process speech.
“And the last three components of OPERA, the ‘E-R-A,’ are emotion,
repetition and attention,” he says. “These are factors that are known to
promote what’s called brain plasticity, the changing of the brain’s
structure as a function of experience.”
Patel explains that brain plasticity results from experiences which
engage the brain through emotion, are repetitive, and which require full
attention. Experiences such as playing music.
“So this idea,” he says, “that music sometimes places higher demands
on the brain, on some of the same shared networks that we use for other
abilities, allows the music to actually enhance those networks, and
those abilities benefit.”
One striking example of this is the use of singing to restore speech. At the Music and Neuroimaging Lab
at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Dr. Gottfried Schlaug has
pioneered singing as a therapeutic method of rehabilitating victims of
stroke and other brain injuries, as well as people with severe autism.
And some of the most recent music neuroscience research is using
music as a tool to better understand, and even predict, language-based
learning disabilities.
But not all of the ideas behind this research, or even the methods, have come from scientists. TESTING LITERACY WITH MUSIC
Paulo Andrade teaches music at Colegio Criativa, a private school in
Marilia, Brazil. He and his wife Olga, who’s also a teacher there,
became interested in the relationship between musical and language
skills among their elementary school students.
“We both work with the same children,” Andrade says, “and we started
to exchange information about how the children were going. I could
relate the musical development of children to their language ability and
literacy.”
Andrade developed some collective classroom tasks to identify
children at risk of learning disabilities. He asked his second-grade
music class to listen to him play a series of chord sequences on the
guitar, and identify each one.
“I asked [the] children to write visual symbols to represent the
sound sequence they were hearing,” he explains, “a simple line to
express chords in the high register and a circle to represent the chords
played in the low register.”
Andrade made the students pause before writing down the identifying
symbol. This would test their working memory, a kind of mental Post-it
note crucial to language comprehension.
“What I presented to children was simple rhythm, for instance,
[Andrade imitates the sound of his guitar] ti-tum-tum-chi. I counted the
meter one, two, three, four, and then they start to write.”
What Andrade saw was that the kids who had severe difficulty with the
task were also struggling with reading and writing. He knew he had good
data, but he needed help from a scientist to analyze his data and
methodology, and to write up the findings for publication.
“I read some papers by Nadine Gaab, and I searched for the page on the Internet and found Harvard and emailed her,” he says.
Recently, Andrade was in Boston on a Harvard fellowship, working on a follow-up to his research at the Gaab lab.
“We have found that this task, given to second-graders, can predict their literacy ability in the fifth grade,” Andrade says.
About her collaboration with the Brazilian music teacher, Gaab says,
“I think that’s a really nice example of neuroeducation, bridging
neuroscience and education.”
And she adds that Andrade’s musical test is particularly useful, in
that it can be administered cheaply and easily to whole classrooms,
regardless of the students’ native language.
“What we would love to do is replicate this study in the U.S.,” Gaab
says, “but there’s no funding right now, so we’re working on that.” FUNDING DIFFICULTY
Patel, the Tufts professor, says that getting funding for research in
music neuroscience is often a challenge. It’s still a young field, he
says, “and funding bodies tend to be very conservative, in terms of the
kind of research they fund.”
The difficulty in sustaining funding may be similar to what music educators are facing.
“In terms of music in the schools,” Patel says, “it’s interesting
that music is often the very first thing to be cut when budgets get
tight, and as far as I know, that’s never based on any research or
evidence about the impact of music on young children’s lives; it’s based
on the intuition that this is sort of a frill.”
Gaab, Patel’s fellow neuropsychologist, agrees.
“Currently there’s a lot of talking about cutting music out of the
curriculum of public and private schools, and I think it may be the
wrong way to go,” Gaab says. “It may cut out some of the important
aspects, such as to train executive functioning and have fun and
emotional engagement at the same time.”
Both Gaab and Patel believe that music neuroscience is paying off,
not only in showing the tremendous practical importance of music
education, but also to help answer fundamental questions about the
deepest workings of the human brain. This post originally appeared on WBUR’s CommonHealth blog. Read more about the latest in neuroscience research by checking out the Brain Matters special series.
Fellow artists, I’m sure you can relate to
unconstructive criticism. That awful feeling of someone seemingly
attacking your creativity without rhyme or reason can leave you feeling
pretty deflated.
Critique is something all creatives will
face from time-to time, and it’s easy to be particularly sensitive when
coming up against somebody offering less than flattering feedback.
There are many ways you can choose to handle this, but here are 4 steps in particular that I’ve found to be quite effective:
Step 1: Understanding the critique
You’ve put effort into a project only to
have it fall on “deaf ears”, a live performance doesn’t get the desired
reaction, a song concept is rejected by your peers but you’re not sure
why – then ask!
In order to make sense of the reason for
someone’s displeasure – you must ask. Unless you’re superhuman
(specifically Professor X), you cannot read minds, and not asking
creates the risk of making that same mistake again. After all, criticism
is only constructive if you can learn from it!
In order for you to not become conceited,
seeing every possible comment that isn’t a compliment, as a dig, you
need to become aware of the fact that sometimes, opinion just means a
person’s dislike of your work, is simply a matter of preference.
Step 2: Accepting the critique
You’ve understood the reasons behind the
harsh words: You’ve managed to refrain from having a hissy fit or
resorting to returning insults, and you’ve decided not take anything too
personally. Great!
Accepting the fact that you might not
appeal to everyone is a key element is getting along as an artist. Once
you’ve understood the reasons behind the critique, and decided whether
itís something you wish to take on board or not – it can no longer
affect you.
Step 3: Embracing the criticiser
At all costs, avoid being drawn into a pointless game of one-upmanship.
We’ve all seen or heard about entertaining
Twitter-feuds, shocking Facebook revelations and other forms of
scandalous exposé that shed light of the inner goings on of the
mainstream music industry, and more often than not such feuds are
usually fuelled by differences of opinions from the artists in question
and their “haters”.
As fun as these stories are to read about, there is something to be learned here:
Instead of wasting time trying to get your own back on the person that offended you, embrace them!
If you can’t physically do so in person, be
sure to respond to them in real time (by using the inter-web for
example); You’d be surprised at the reaction you might get once you get a
civilized dialogue going with the perpetrator – remember, you can catch
more flies with honey than with vinegar!
Step 4: Moving on
Once you’ve understood, accepted and
embraced the critique, youíll be all set – to forget it! The criticism
that is, not the lesson.
You see, carrying every negative comment
ever made about you around, will do nothing for your self-esteem.
Besides, as long as you exist, theyíll be people in existence that
ruffle your feathers and that, you cannot avoid.
And so to conclude with some very humbling words once spoken by Aristotle:
To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing. - Aristotle
With the barrage of new websites and blogs targeting independent
artists, it can be difficult to know where to start when it comes to
marketing your music. Information and
ideas are everywhere and unless you’ve got a strong marketing
foundation it can feel like trying to put together a giant puzzle
without being able to look at the box. With that in mind, I’ve put
together a list of 10 marketing basics to help expose the underlying
structure that makes a music marketing campaign successful. 1. The music has to be great. If your music isn’t
cutting it, your time will be better spent working on that rather than
coming up with clever marketing ideas. Trying to market bad music is
like trying to conduct electricity through plastic. You can ramp up the
voltage, but the charge isn’t going to go very far. 2. Get in front of people. Good internet marketing
should be used in combination with live performances, not as a
substitute. You have to create a live show that’s remarkable. Get in
front of real people and show them why you or your band deserve their
attention and their money. You’re going to have an uphill battle trying
to market a band that plays mediocre shows or that doesn’t play shows at
all. 3. Tell people who you are. If I happen to walk in
half-way through your set, don’t make me work to find out who you are.
Make sure I know your name and that I’ll remember it. Put it on your
kick drum. Have a banner. Mention your name a few times.
If I meet you somewhere, be able to tell me who you are as an
artist-clearly and concisely. If you can’t condense the essence of your
music into a short and interesting sentence then you will have problems
marketing yourself. 4. Get email addresses. Have a friend or two go
around and collect emails while you play. You need a means to market to
the people who want to stay in touch with you. Don’t just count on
people finding out how and when to buy your CD or go to your show. Be
proactive. Make your mailing list a priority and don’t miss
opportunities to expand it. I went to a panel discussion over the
weekend that included Ariel Hyatt. She passed around a clipboard where
people could write in their email address and in return they got some
cool tips on web marketing. It’s not random luck that she is a very
successful publicist. 5. Connect. Derek Sivers tells the story of how
Terry McBride of the Network Music Group came up with the idea to have
one of the bands he managed take a different approach to selling CDs at
their shows. Typically they would mention that they had CDs for sale
for $15. What they decided to try instead was telling the audience that
they wanted everyone to leave with a CD and that they could pay whatever
they could – even if that meant it was free. They appealed to a sense
of emotional connectedness with their fans and changed the dynamic of
the sale. They ended up bringing in about 4x as much money per night
with this approach! And because they had more music in circulation in
the towns where they did this, they ended up dramatically increasing
their turnout for future gigs. 6. Simplicity is key. There’s a saying in marketing:
“The confused mind always says no.” If you’re not clear on who you are
and what you want people to do then your fans won’t be either. Don’t
ask people to do too many things. If you’re at a show, don’t tell people
to see Joe to buy a CD, then go to Cindy to buy a T-Shirt and then be
sure to find Jamal to sign up for the mailing list. You can have someone
collecting email addresses, but also have a signup form at your merch
booth, where you sell your merch and CDs. Send everyone there. “Don’t
forget to stop by and see Janet for CDs and T-shirts.” Mention this more
than once.
The same thinking applies for your website. Don’t tell people to
follow you on Twitter, vote for you in a contest, buy a t-shirt and
listen to the new song all at the same time. Have those options
available, but be clear about what is the top priority. If you decide
that the priority is for people to purchase your music, make sure that
when people visit your site they can clearly see how to purchase your
music. 7. Repetition, repetition, repetition. Marketing
guru Jay Conrad Levinson suggests that people need to be exposed to a
product an average of nine times before they will take action and buy
it. Don’t expect people to come to a show because they saw a flyer.
Think long term. Stay on track and keep hammering your message home. 8. Create a funnel. One strategy that affiliate
marketers use is creating a number of sites that support what they call
their “money site.” They’ll create sites designed to pull in and engage
new people, with the ultimate goal of sending them to the money site,
which is optimized to convert these visitors into customers. I recommend
thinking about your social networking profiles as your supporting sites
that funnel traffic to your website, which is your “money site.” Test
different ideas on your main site to see what works. Tweak and optimize
it so that you convert more and more of your visitors into fans and
customers. 9. Ask for the sale. Don’t be shy when it comes to
promoting your product and asking people to buy it. If you don’t ask
people to buy what you’re selling then you probably won’t make much
money. If this feels weird or uncomfortable to you, I highly recommend
checking out the work of T.Harv Eker. He’s got a great book called
“Secrets of the Millionaire Mind” and does seminars all over the world,
many of which are free. 10. Keep score. One thing that successful artists
have in common with business people is that they know the score. They
keep track of the results they get and use this feedback to help guide
them.
Know what you sold on any given night. Know what your net profit was
on a given night. Know how many people signed up for your mailing list.
Compare those numbers to the last time you played at the same venue or
in the same town. Establish goals and compare your numbers to your
goals. Keep track of the traffic to your website and your conversions
statistics. You can set up free traffic analysis for your site at
analytics.google.com.
If you sell 10 CDs on your site one day and then you decide to put a
“buy now” button on your home page and you only sell 8 CDs the next day,
then you might start to think it wasn’t such a good idea. If you’re
keeping track of your traffic stats though, then you might see that
there were 312 visitors the first day, but only 150 the second day.
This means that you actually converted a much higher percentage of
visitors on the second day. If that trend keeps up then you know you’ve
made the right move. If you don’t know how much traffic you’re getting
then you’re working in the dark.
Another benefit is being able to see where traffic to your site is
coming from. If you notice a spike in traffic and you see that it’s
coming from a blog that posted about you, then you can capitalize by
visiting the blog and initiating a relationship, or at least leaving a
comment and reinforcing your presence.
If you understand the fundamentals of marketing you’ll have a solid
frame of reference to help you make sense of all the new sites and
services that are constantly popping up. It’s important to know not just
how or what to do, but also why. I strongly recommend reading business
and marketing books to help you with your music career. You might be
surprised by the insights you get by reading authors like Seth Godin, Al
Reiss, Jay Conrad Levinson, and Claude Hopkins.
