​

January 30, 3018

​

Hola my friends! I have not received confirmation that you enjoyed or did not enjoy my last mail, please share your thoughts! From my perspective I have greatly enjoyed putting thought into these mails. As I write these lessons for you, by putting these ideas into this form of a "lesson" I deepen my own understanding and relationship with them as well. So thank you! 

 

***

 

Do you remember how many times I've said, "Music is about relationships!" ? The relationship of the notes to each other, and how those relationships form little groups (chords), which also have relationships with each other. 

 

Think about your family: Ke., An., Ki. and Al. Each of you has a unique personality, and together you form a family. Now think of your aunt and uncle and their kids--another family--and how your family has a relationship with that family, and all the individual people have relationships with each other as well. The same thing is happening in music, where each note is like a person, and each chord is like a family. 

 

Sometimes all the members of the family come together, and sometimes only some of them show up, but we still know what family they belong to. This is an important idea for later.

 

For now, that is just a reminder. 

 

***

 

Now let's listen to a new song! "Virtual Insantiy" by Jamiroquai (pronounced jah-MEER-a-koy). Currently Spotfiy has recorded 42,131,576 plays of this song. That's 42 MILLION 131 thousand 576 listens. People LOVE this song. Why? What makes this song so lovable? What makes this song so GOOD?! 

 

Notice how it opens with simple piano, gets complicated with lots of different sounds, different combinations of sounds, returns to simplicity, returns to different things, reorganizes those same ideas, and ends with simplicity. 

 

As an exercise, try listening to the song and, using just a pencil on a clean sheet of people, drawing a line that follows the *intensity* of the song from start to finish. This is a great exercise to do with any song! 

 

After listening to the song once with the blindfold and once more while drawing its "line of intensity," check out the music video! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JkIs37a2JE

 

A music video is the work of video-art that the musician (and usually a team of their friends) create to add even more elements to the work of art that is the song. They add visual, film elements! Jamiroquai made this music video using a giant treadmill in a bare room. A treadmill is something you use to move, without going anywhere. Boring. An empty room? Boring. And here, this artist chooses to dance. Think about that! 

 

Also, please watch this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcWPiHjIExA

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

This is a scene from a movie that was unbelieeeevably popular when I was a teenager. Every teenager in America was obsessed with this movie, Napoleon Dynamite. In this clip the main character of the movie, named Napoleon Dynamite--a huge nerd!--bravely dances in front of his whole school. He dances to another song by Jamiorquai, "Canned Heat." 

 

I've added these two songs and another favorite of mine to your playlist. In a few days I will add more songs without sending more email, so check back for something to listen to without any instructions! Apply what you are hopefully learning: Listening SKILLS. 

 

All of Jamiroquai's music is really FUN and upbeat and makes me smile and want to dance. (We call this genre, generally, "funk.") I love things that make me smile and want to dance, and to me this is the reason why Jamiroquai gets millions of listens and his videos get millions of views, and why he is a great artist! Through his music, I can more easily access a happiness inside of myself, and play with it in my head and in my body (dance!). 

 

I hope you have fun listening! Please send me photos of your exercises. 

 

Love from faraway! 

Cassandra