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Believe Your Ears is the memoir of composer Kirke Mechem, whose unorthodox path to music provides a fascinating narrative. He wrote songs and played music by ear as a newspaper reporter, a touring tennis player, and a Stanford creative-writing major before studying composition and conducting at Harvard. He describes his residencies in San Francisco, Vienna, London, and Russia, and gives detailed attention to his choral music, operas, and symphonies. He writes that “the twentieth century gave us much brilliant music” but shows how atonality came to dominate the post-war period. His lyric style belongs to no particular “school,” avoiding the trends, –isms, experiments, fads, and lunacies of the period. He encourages younger composers who are trying to bring back beauty, passion, and humor—even entertainment—to classical music. He asks music lovers to believe their own ears, not the lectures of “experts.” Believe Your Ears is addressed to all who love classical music. Along the way, readers will meet Dimitri Shostakovich, Wallace Stegner, Billie Jean King, the Grateful Dead, Richard Rodgers, Benjamin Britten, Bill Tilden, and Aaron Copland—a who’s who in Mechem’s storied career.
This book is based on an extensive filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Diana Deutsch, Professor of Psychology at UC San Diego and one of the world’s leading experts on the psychology of music. This conversation provides behind the scenes insights into her discovery of a large number of auditory illusions, including the so-called Octave Illusion, which concretely illustrate how what we think we’re hearing is often quite different from the actual sounds that are hitting our eardrums. This carefully-edited book includes an introduction, Revealing Mistakes, and questions for discussion at the end of each chapter: I. Eclectic Beginnings - Music, art, philosophy, and philosophical psychology II. Tones, Pitches and Critical Values - Intriguing results in music and memory III. The Octave Illusion - How to confuse the brain with tones IV. Medical Applications - A highly suggestive result for epilepsy patients V. Eyes vs. Ears - The neurophysiological differences between vision and hearing VI. Gut Issues - The impact of discomfort VII. The Scale Illusion - Auditory scene analysis and evolutionary factors VIII. Surrounded by Illusions - From the Glissando Illusion to Tchaikovsky’s 6th IX. Perfect Pitch & Tone Languages - Why Mandarin might help your musicianship X. Towards Monotony? - The tonal implications of globalization XI. Embracing Discomfort - The benefits of being confused About Ideas Roadshow Conversations Series This book is part of an expanding series of 100+ Ideas Roadshow conversations, each one presenting a wealth of candid insights from a leading expert in a relaxed and informal setting to give non-specialists a uniquely accessible window into frontline research and scholarship that wouldn't otherwise be encountered through standard lectures and textbooks. For other books in this series visit our website (https://ideas-on-film.com/ideasroadshow/).
In this ground-breaking synthesis of art and science, Diana Deutsch, one of the world's leading experts on the psychology of music, shows how illusions of music and speech--many of which she herself discovered--have fundamentally altered thinking about the brain. These astonishing illusions show that people can differ strikingly in how they hear musical patterns--differences that reflect variations in brain organization as well as influences of language on music perception. Drawing on a wide variety of fields, including psychology, music theory, linguistics, and neuroscience, Deutsch examines questions such as: When an orchestra performs a symphony, what is the "real" music? Is it in the mind of the composer, or the conductor, or different members of the audience? Deutsch also explores extremes of musical ability, and other surprising responses to music and speech. Why is perfect pitch so rare? Why do some people hallucinate music or speech? Why do we hear phantom words and phrases? Why are we subject to stuck tunes, or "earworms"? Why do we hear a spoken phrase as sung just because it is presented repeatedly? In evaluating these questions, she also shows how music and speech are intertwined, and argues that they stem from an early form of communication that had elements of both. Many of the illusions described in the book are so striking and paradoxical that you need to hear them to believe them. The book enables you to listen to the sounds that are described while reading about them.
The level of stress and conflict in today's world is higher than seen in decades. We all can use tools for managing the emotions this has caused. At the same time, there also appear to be more "high conflict" people who are preoccupied with blaming others and verbally venting or attacking those around them. Yet, these upset emotions and conflicts can often be calmed immediately through the use of a simple EAR Statement(TM), a method developed and refined by Bill Eddy over the past fifteen years and taught to hundreds of thousands of professionals and individuals. Following on the success of his widely-known BIFF Response(R) method and books, this new book by Bill Eddy on EAR Statements will come in handy in all kinds of upset situations: family conflicts, workplace disputes, neighbor controversies, and any other setting. A simple statement communicating empathy, attention and/or respect to an angry, sad, mentally ill or any upset person at any time can work wonders in minutes. Yet it's not as easy as it looks. It takes practice and this book gives over twenty examples of applying this method in families, communities, customer relations, volunteer organizations, public service, politics, business, police encounters, racial conflicts, schools, mental health settings, and others. Empathy, attention and respect are what all people are looking for, especially when upset or in a conflict. This book will give you the details of how to calm upset people with EAR every day.
"I’m not hanging noodles on your ears." In Moscow, this curious, engagingly colorful assertion is common parlance, but unless you’re Russian your reaction is probably "Say what?" The same idea in English is equally odd: "I’m not pulling your leg." Both mean: Believe me. As author Jag Bhalla demonstrates, these amusing, often hilarious phrases provide a unique perspective on how different cultures perceive and describe the world. Organized by theme—food, love, romance, and many more—they embody cultural traditions and attitudes, capture linguistic nuance, and shed fascinating light on "the whole ball of wax." For example, when English-speakers are hard at work, we’re "nose to the grindstone," but industrious Chinese toil "with liver and brains spilled on the ground" and busy Indians have "no time to die." If you’re already fluent in 10 languages, you probably won’t need this book, but you’ll "get a kick out of it" anyhow; for the rest of us, it’s a must. Either way, this surprising, often thought-provoking little tome is gift-friendly in appearance, a perfect impulse buy for word lovers, travelers, and anyone else who enjoys looking at life in a riotous, unusual way. And we’re not hanging noodles from your ear.
Do you struggle to maintain good health? Are you tired of the onslaught of new technology invading your life? Do you long for the simplicity of the good old days? Are you troubled by social unrest in the world? And, perhaps most importantly, has the explosion of political and corporate lying made you distrustful and angry? You are not alone; many people feel the same way. The good news is, some of the problems are not that difficult. In fact, it’s quite likely that you and a friend have sat at the kitchen table and solved most of them. The bad news is, many of your solutions are only opinions, and they count for precious little. This book offers scientific facts to replace rumors, lies, and opinions. Each short chapter shines a clear, mind-stretching light on today’s mess of important topics that keep the reader turning the page. Here are a few of the ninety-two chapter headings: • The rise of women and decline of men • Are you old yet? • Big data • Music as medicine • Home-made anxiety relief • Wonderful sleep • Approach to death • Optimal health and PH level • How to make yourself happier • Empty memories • Conspiracy theorists • Lies and face management • The beauty of being alone • Your body: home to trillions of microbes
In this book you will read about common life experiences. You will quickly learn of the uncommon approach by the author. There are many examples offered and questions asked. Much of this information has been received via a strong intuitive process. There may be many surprises along the way that have you contemplating your approach to the world. Without college degrees or religious protocol, this author has learned to listen to a much more reliable source. The human condition is changing and it involves everyone, including you. With an open mind and an open heart, you will be placing yourself in a position to listen to your own intuition. Do not keep yourself in our current standard of only following the latest trend or relying on the experts. Our world is not going to end. It is changing and moving in directions that allow all of us a much more desirable experience should we choose. You are not as far away from knowing how to listen to those intuitive thoughts and feelings as you might think. This book is delivered directly from such a place. You will find clarity in these chapters that will cause you to gain understanding and control unlike anything you have known.
The best-known and most sensational event in Vincent van Gogh’s life is also the least understood. For more than a century, biographers and historians seeking definitive facts about what happened on a December night in Arles have unearthed more questions than answers. Why would an artist at the height of his powers commit such a brutal act? Who was the mysterious “Rachel” to whom he presented his macabre gift? Did he use a razor or a knife? Was it just a segment—or did Van Gogh really lop off his entire ear? In Van Gogh’s Ear, Bernadette Murphy reveals, for the first time, the true story of this long-misunderstood incident, sweeping away decades of myth and giving us a glimpse of a troubled but brilliant artist at his breaking point. Murphy’s detective work takes her from Europe to the United States and back, from the holdings of major museums to the moldering contents of forgotten archives. She braids together her own thrilling journey of discovery with a narrative of Van Gogh’s life in Arles, the sleepy Provençal town where he created his finest work, and vividly reconstructs the world in which he moved—the madams and prostitutes, café patrons and police inspectors, shepherds and bohemian artists. We encounter Van Gogh’s brother and benefactor Theo, his guest and fellow painter Paul Gauguin, and many local subjects of Van Gogh’s paintings, some of whom Murphy identifies for the first time. Strikingly, Murphy uncovers previously unknown information about “Rachel”—and uses it to propose a bold new hypothesis about what was occurring in Van Gogh’s heart and mind as he made a mysterious delivery to her doorstep. As it reopens one of art history’s most famous cold cases, Van Gogh’s Ear becomes a fascinating work of detection. It is also a study of a painter creating his most iconic and revolutionary work, pushing himself ever closer to greatness even as he edged toward madness—and one fateful sweep of the blade that would resonate through the ages.
William Safire's invaluable and immensely entertaining Lend Me Your Ears established itself instantly as a classic treasury of the greatest speeches in human history. Selected with the instincts of a great speechwriter and language maven, arranged by theme and occasion, each deftly introduced and placed in context, the more than two hundred speeches in this compilation demonstrate the enduring power of human eloquence to inspire, to uplift, and to motivate. For this expanded edition Safire has selected more than twenty new speeches by such figures as President Bill Clinton, Senator Robert Dole, General Colin Powell, Microsoft's Bill Gates, the Dalai Lama, Edward R. Murrow, Alistair Cooke, the Buddha, and the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. They prove that even in a digital age the most forceful medium of communication is still the human voice speaking directly to the mind, heart, and soul.