As I drove to my VFD training, I listened to this interview with Oliver Sacks, Clinical Professor of Neurology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
When I remebered it this morning, I found this article.
Anthony Storr, in his excellent book Music and the Mind, stresses that in all societies, a primary function of music is collective and communal, to bring and bind people together. People sing together, dance together, in every culture, and one can imagine them doing so, around the first fires, a hundred thousand years ago. This primal role of music is to some extent lost today, when we have a special class of composers and performers, and the rest of us are often reduced to passive listening. One has to go to a concert, or a church or a musical festival, to recapture the collective excitement and bonding of music. In such a situation, there seems to be an actual binding of nervous systems, the unification of an audience by a veritable "neurogamy" (to use a word favoured by early Mesmerists).
Please sing, drum, or play an instrument if you can do so at all. I dislike American Idol not for itself, but for the cultural value it embodies: Only the best singers should sing, and everyone else shouldn't. (full disclosure: I really enjoyed the WB show, American Superstar)
I remember WSB saying something like: I've heard that if something is worth doing it's worth doing well, but if something is truly worth doing, then it is worth doing, even badly.
I also wish to give dancers the credit due them. The dancers start moving to the music, then drummers start drumming to the dancers, and soon all that remains is the neurogamy.
I am addicted to nasal spray! I've been using that for like 10 years, just started using the saline version recently but I still use the Vicks one on a daily basis
Thanks for the compliment on my cat, I am a proud mommy.