I have been a musician since childhood. I love music. I love writing music. I have a website with a few of my compositions located here.

A friend of mine sent me seasons greetings and mentioned that she had a new instrument, a Pythagorean Harp. That got my attention and I found this great article on this instrument. Here is the article.

A music educator thought that if he could just control his study for the myriad factors that might have influenced previous ones - race, income, education, etc. -- he could disprove the notion of a link between students' musical and mathematical achievement. Nope. His new study showed statistically significant associations between the two at both the individual and the school-district levels. Here is the link.

This is a fascinating music machine. It wouldn't be easy to explain it so just watch the video.

It turns out that while listening to music engages the brain in some pretty interesting activities, playing music is the brain’s equivalent of a full-body workout. Here is The Link

Your Brain and Singing: Why Singing in a Choir Makes YOu Happier:The Link

I love the story of Joey Alexander and was going to link to a CBS 60 Minutes segment on him but they have put the segment behind a paywall that isn't accessible unless you subscribe. So here is a video of him at about seven.   Watch

The Typewriter for Orchestra was composed by Leroy Anderson who completed the work on October 9, 1950. It has been performed many times by different people. Watch

Steve Reich mixed together his classical training with his love of African drumming, jazz and pop music, and helped to invent a whole new form of music: minimalism. His music strips away long, unfolding melodies and complex harmonies and focuses instead on a very few, or minimal, parts: beats, rhythms and pulses, and slowly changing and repeating patterns.

The result is a shimmering, rippling musical tapestry, with instruments, including voices, keyboards, tuned percussion instruments and maracas, creating layers of sound. I had the pleasure of sitting on the stage for a performance. Close you eyes and lean back because this is a one hour wild trip. Watch

Visualizing Sound with Cymatics

Here is an excerpt from an article titled: 432 Hz - The Truth Behind Hature's Healing Frequency

"... Okay, so now we understand that 432 Hz is better aligned with Mother Nature, why isn't all music tuned this way? Well, interestingly, during some periods it was. And a number of great composers have lobbied for it. But it didn't become the standard music. And here's why.

The A=432 Hz is known as Verdi’s ‘A’ – named after Giuseppe Verdi, the famous Italian composer. Verdi and many other musicians, like Mozart, tuned their music to this frequency because they said it contained “feel good” properties that resonated with the audience. In fact, Verdi wrote to the Congress of Italian Musicians to have 432 Hz approved as the standard tuning".     Here is the link to read the whole article.

A new study has found that dopamine — a neurotransmitter that plays an important role in our cognitive, emotional, and behavioral functioning — plays a direct role in the reward experience induced by music. “This study shows for the first time a causal role of dopamine in musical pleasure and motivation: enjoying a piece of music, deriving pleasure from it, wanting to listen to it again, being willing to spend money for it, strongly depend on the dopamine released in our synapses,”The Link

Rick Beato is a fine musician and producer who has turned his focus to Everything Music on his Youtube channel. He has so many diverse videos about music that I am not able to give you a worthwhile summary. I will suggest you listen to two recent videos (I wrote this on 9/21/2020). The first one to watch is "I just listened to the Top 10 on Spotify...WTF?"  and the second one  "Why BOOMERS Hate Pop Music" "    is based on the comments he received on the first one. His general video page is located here.

Perhaps this story belongs in a section on near death experiences as well as here in the music section. The story is about a man struck by lightning who develops skill and passion for composing classical piano It is an interesting read and has been reported on in many publications. This link is to a indepth story from The New Yorker.