The rizz of music (from a-n)

 

Firstly, England vs Heatwave 0:1 (sorry, bad joke)

 

The webinar with Dr Bronwyn Tarr about musical congregation across cultures, time and species was a fascinating event to listen to. Bronwyn spoke about music and dance as rituals of tribes, and she talked about this contributing to the social glue, which holds the group together and feel connected as part of the group.

My favourite part was the social experiment we did in the webinar, which was to move our index finger in a steady rhythm, and then it ended up syncing with each other. What was interesting to me was that psychologically, it changed how I behaved in the webinar. Before the experiment, I wasn’t engaging in the chat or interacting with the group. I was passively watching like it was a Youtube video, but after the experiment, I was writing in the chat and giving thumbs up in responding to Bronwyn. Strange isn’t it? And I can see how it’s self-reinforcing either way.

I was surface researching mirror neurons and mirroring several years ago. Maybe that’s one factor, but I’m not sure.

She also spoke about the rubber hand experiment, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxwn1w7MJvk (I watched that video when I was in sixth form, and got ASMR from it).

I was surprised how it was applied to music concerts, and got a hint of existentialism in it being seen philosophically as a very isolating experience, and we potentially could be tricked by our brain that we share this experience with everyone around us in the concert (because we don’t know what these other people are experiencing, we just know by what their body language tells us in this context. I’m using ‘we’ as a subject pronoun so it feels less lonely). It hints at the problem of the other minds.

It inspired me to post this video of my guitar practice and preview of new work on Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1Q0JZIdXfg

The reiterated work is called Playthings I. I noticed that I like my work more if there’s some internal logic to it, rather than random boxes and diagrams that doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s almost like I make up codes. I think the resistor symbol is in the right place in this diagram as it inhibits energy.

I don’t define myself as a musician, but as someone who plays music because I define a musician as someone who plays music regularly to a group of people or in gigs. It’s similar to art, where I see artist as someone who regularly makes artwork and shows it to people. But there’s a lot of flaws in that. Maybe I’m just someone who makes artwork, but it doesn’t feel that way (I know too many in-group rules to be someone who makes artwork casually). Sometimes, maybe definition is just a feeling but there’s a fascination with legitimacy. It raises the concern that if you’re not confident to project the ‘I’m an artist’ status, then it puts you in a disadvantaged situation in applying for things, which drives a fake it til you make it ocracy. In politics you’ve seen a situation play out where the people who are capable of leading usually don’t end up leading.

Interestingly, I’ve noticed that legitimacy seems to be marked based on whether the activity is known to or approved by a group.

later on:

I noticed this happen at the gym, when I was on the rowing machine, I started syncing my row patterns to the person next to me. I was in my own world listening to music and then looked and realised. My thoughts wondered during cardio and then I randomly remembered that I read about the McClintock study about women’s menstrual cycle being in sync in close proximity to each other.