Music and Happiness

Lifelong Learning for Music Lovers

Music for Hard Times

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Increase Your HQ (Happiness Quotient)

Here in New York we’ve had a pretty brutal winter along with equally hard economic news.So we’ve been listening to music that bolsters our spirits.

How about you?

Two character strengths that can help uplift us are VITALITY, which includes zest, vigor and energy, and HUMOR or playfulness.

Vitality is defined in “Character Strengths and Virtues”(Peterson and Seligman) as

“the subjective experience of energy and aliveness”; it has both physical and psychological connotations.”

Humor is described there as

“a composed and cheerful view on adversity that allows one to see its light side and thereby sustain a good mood.”

It might seem strange to choose the “St Louis Blues” to illustrate zest and humor in music, but humor us and read on. As Josh says, “It’s all in the interpretation.”

Listen to the sample on the audio and tell us if you agree with him.

Louis Armstrong and Velma Middleton made this recording in 1954. On the audio, along with the music, Josh makes some comments to help you get full enjoyment of the samples we have chosen for you.

Suggestion: Make a habit of listening daily to at least one piece of music that makes you smile and move. Add your favorite pieces to the Comments section below.

To hear the audio via streaming:

http://www.audioacrobat.com/play/W8KLh2RQ

If you’d like to get a recording of the 1954 version, you can find it on Louis Armstrong and his All Stars:

“Louis Armstrong Plays W. C. Handy,” Columbia CK 64925

Do You Have a Personal Story to Share with Us?

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We are working on a book connecting music and resilience. Resilience is the ability to bounce back from adversity, to maintain a sense of happiness even during hard times. We’d like to learn some of the ways music has helped you in life. Have you ever gone through a difficult event or period where you found that music helped you to survive–even thrive?

We’re wondering if you have any thoughts about your reasons for choosing the music you did.  For example, did it perhaps remind you of happier times in the past; did it offer you hope for a better times in the future; did it put you in touch with spiritual feelings, with a sense of transcendence?

If you can name specific pieces of music or recordings, that would help us even more to understand what particularly worked for you.  But that is not necessary.  Any random thoughts or guesses are interesting to us.

We hope you’ll join us yourself and/or send our question on to others. We can do both phone and in-person interviews. We guarantee that you will not be able to be identified in anything we use unless we have your written permission .

Here are the kinds of questions we are asking:

1.  How does music figure in your earliest personal history? What influences shaped your musical taste?

2.  If music has ever helped you cope with a crisis or ongoing problem, we’d like to hear what happened. What music did you listen to, either by conscious choice or not?

3.  How would you describe the music’s effects on you emotionally, physically, or in any way?

4.  Did you pick music with lyrics? How important were the words to you compared to the melody? What type of voice did you want to listen to in terms of gender, range, timbre, etc.?

5.  What other characteristics of the music were important to you?

6.  Were there special memories associated with the music you choise–personal, social, religious?

7.  If there were particular times of day/night you would listen, what were they and why? What about favorite places to listen and other factors, such as being alone or with others, quiet or active, etc.?

9.  Did you tend to listen to this music before the crisis?  Did you continue to listen to it afterward?

10. What do you believe the music did to help you?

11.  How likely would you be to turn intentionally to music during future periods of adversity?  What, if anything, would you do differently (regarding music) if that should happen?

12.  What are some of your “desert island choices” in music right now?

Contact us at musicandhappiness@gmail.com with questions or the willingness to be interviewed.  If you would prefer to send us written answers to these questions instead, we will appreciate that too and of course respect your confidentiality.  But we would love to speak directly with you.

Lynne and Josh Berrett

The Music of Resilience

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Historically, music has certainly played a key role in uniting people during national and social hard times. Many of the songs people respond to then continue to touch us in deep ways even in good times.

Think of France’s “La Marseillaise,” South Africa’s Nkosi Sikelel i’Afrika” (God Bless Africa), and the U.S.’s
“God Bless America.”

At Barak Obama’s inauguration Aretha Franklin turned “God Bless America” into a powerful gospel hymn of hope during a time of troubles.The reminder of the commitment to liberty and freedom, the echoes of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, all came together beautifully in her performance.

Another song that immediately comes to our minds, when we think about music that has helped people transcend pain is “We Shall Overcome.”

Its history shows its great staying power. Apparently it started out as a Sicilian mariner’s song in the 18th century. Over the next 2 centuries multiple composers –many anonymous–adapted, reshaped, and refined the basic melody, adding bits and pieces from other songs to both the music and the words, until the final product became the compelling version we sing today.

Those of us who remember the early days of the Civil Rights Movement can recall the thrill of hearing it sung by Pete Seeger at Carnegie Hall on June 8, 1963, in front of almost three thousand people. A few months later it was sung by hundreds of thousands during the March on Washington on August 28, 1963.

In South Africa, during apartheid, it was sung by political prisoners on the gallows.

(A personal note:Josh left South Africa in December 1959, just before apartheid became a national policy, but he is very proud of the night he stood alone in front of the South African Parliament Houses as a college student to protest the proposed segregation of the University of Cape Town.)

BTW, did you see the placard at the Inauguration which proclaimed, “We Have Overcome!”? What a moment!

What makes this song so memorable? Well, the words are an affirmation of a collective determination to resist oppression. Both words and music are simple in the best possible sense: most people can sing
them with ease because the voice range is comfortable; the music is made up of assertive chords that underline the strong words; the key Pete Seeger sings in (B major) is warm and just a half step down from C,
the key connected with light, truth and justice from Beethoven on.

At the concert, in fact, Pete Seeger introduced the song with these words:

“If you would like to get out of a pessimistic mood yourself, I’ve got a sure remedy for you”;

everybody began to clap and whistle because they knew what was coming. And they began to sing along with him.

Another magical moment.

You can get a sense of this historic moment and also hear the Soweto Gospel Choir’s stirring rendition of God Bless Africa on the audio recordings below:

To stream: http://www.audioacrobat.com/play/WRWbv2wQ

What do you think about our choice of music for a time of adversity? Does this music speak to you too?

A Simple Song

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This holiday season of 2008 is proving difficult for many people because of current economic hardships and fears for the future. Yet, paradoxically, it can also be a time of great opportunity,through a conscious focus on core values and deeper connections with our fellow beings.

We’re aware that those sentiments can sound overly simplistic.On the other hand, there is real virtue in simplicity, as Leonard Bernstein demonstrated in a beautiful little song he wrote for his dramatic piece, Mass: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers.

Mass was performed twice in New York City recently as part of a year long celebration of Bernstein’s 90th birthday (unfortunately he died at age 72). You can read an enthusiastic review here.

We think you will find “A Simple Song” as appealing and powerful as we do.

Please take a few moments to listen by clicking on  the link below:

For Streaming Audio: www.audioacrobat.com/play/W7rLNrBQ

Note: If you would like to buy a recording of Mass, Josh recommends the 2 CD box set on SONY (Amazon Standard Identification Number B0000029XM). Alan Titus is The Celebrant, with The Norman Scribner Choir and The Berkshire Boys Choir; Orchestra Conducted by Leonard Bernstein. He strongly recommends this over the more recent, more expensive version conducted by Kent Nagano.

The Music of Silence

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To access “THE MUSIC OF SILENCE,” just click  the link  For Streaming Audio:

Directions for Your Experiment With the Music of Silence:

Find a block of time when you can be undisturbed for at least 5 minutes. The particular time and location are completely up to you, but you need to be able to focus on your surroundings.

Create a listening chart by labeling a narrow column on the far left TIME LAPSE and the much wider column on the right SOUNDS HEARD.

Now simply describe what you hear during 5 minutes. For example: TIME LAPSE SOUNDS HEARD 0:00 It’s around 10 PM on Monday evening. I’m in my kitchen making tea. The wind is whistling through a small crack in the window—high pitched, ghostly

0:10 The tea kettle starts to whistle too. A shriller pitch than the wind 0:15

I hear voices from another room. Sounds like the buzzing of bees.

__________________________________________________________

At the end of 5 minutes, write a paragraph around these questions:

1. Did the same sounds keep repeating (wind howling, dogs barking, furnace rumbling)?

2. Or did they change, evolving into something new?

3. Would you describe your environment as a hi-fi or low-fisoundscape? Why?

4. How was your mood affected by what you heard?

5. Where there any surprises from this experiment?

We’d love to hear about your experience. Leave a comment here!

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