Team Ricky

As studies suggest, music is often linked to increased brain performance. But is it also linked to, as the title asks, success? This New York Times article explains one of the secrets behind very successful people today, of billionaires, bankers, and others. Each person admits that they’ve been a professional musician in the past. They explain that music helps them collaborate, see patterns, and focus on current and future goals simultaneously. The billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen, says that music “reinforces one’s ability to create”. Often, people are successful because they’ve made an innovation, or renovate an existing idea, due to their creativity. Many of today’s most successful people can agree that music helps reinforce their creativity.

Read the full article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/opinion/sunday/is-music-the-key-to-success.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1382153422-ALAECKjQagW7lbOoS87bGw

Okay so it was September 29, 2013. I was with my bros, Angel, Crystal, and Zhuohua Mai.  Sadly, Crystal had to leave early. Anyways, class had just ended and we desperately needed a good time, especially since it was Thursday, the beginning of our weekend. We decided to go to UCLA’s Moon Festival after class. It was a good time all around, waiting on line for at least about half an hour and whatnot. But it’s okay when we got past the metal detector we we’re especially in Asia.

We were greeted by a familiar face, his name was “Guy” he was a member of UCLA and i remember how me and Zhuo talk to him earlier on his birthday; what a nice guy. Anyways back to the event. We walked in and saw a crowd of people and a bunch of activities happening. I we saw some fine looking Asian girls in traditional silk dresses, I knew Zhuo must have been pretty excited. Amongst the pandemonium I saw the most handsome guy at Baruch College, yeah it was Kevin Damri and he looked stunning in his tee shirt. Unfortunately we didn’t get the opportunity to take pictures at the photo area with all the props and whatnot but we did take advantage of the free food! I got myself some sting beans, chicken and broccoli, and some of that delicious moon cake. We went into the multi-purpose room and I was thinking one thing, “Damn, no f***ing seats.” So we just stood in the back, eating our Asian food, and covering the entrances until people told us to move. That food was so salty, but that didn’t stop Angel and Zhuohua Mai from turning back to grim some more. Anyways, I eventually abandoned my bros to sit with some of the ladies of LC 07. This included Anna Chen, Patricia Valguna, and Judy Li. We got a nice view of the three Polaris girls dancing. But an awful view when the guys stepped up, just kidding they were pretty skilled. I thought that Austin Luu did a pretty nice job with his singing of Colorblind, his voice just so wonderful.

Some other cool things that happened included the old Asian people guys that came in and enlightened us with classical music through their ancient Chinese instruments. All joking aside that was a really appropriate performance that really made “the asian community”, appreciate our origins. Another thing that made the entire experience feel authentic was the fact that they introduced us to some Asian mythology, with the one guy shooting down seven suns. All the little games were pretty fun to watch as well such as the guys trying to blow the ping pong balls from one filled cup to the end, and the one where couples had to do each other’s make up.

Overall the event was very fun and an exciting way for the school to really give off a better college feel. However, it was unfortunate that neither Zhuo, Angel, Trish, Anna, Judy, or I won the Beats headset by Dr.Dre. We closed the night with some more moon cake and went to KyoChon in Korea Town after. Everything went smoothly.

 These ladies are very energetic. 🙂

This New York Times article is about how an individual person was able to make a Chinese instrument popular around the world. One of the instruments that is making a comeback is the pipa, a Chinese lute that has dated back from ancient times. The reason the pipa is making a comeback in America is because of an incident in June. The incident involved a lady named Ms. Wu and her pipa. When Ms. Wu was on the airplane. By accident, the flight attendant dropped the pipa and it broke off completely. Ms. Wu was devastated because that was her instrument for seventeen years and it was very hard to replace because of how rare it is. Her instrument was valued at $50,000 because of how it was an ancient instrument and how it was so old. The employee on US Airways was able to supply Ms. Wu with a brand new pipa created by the same master who sculpted her old one. Now that her pipa is fixed she will be able to display it proudly on Fridays and Saturday nights because she got a job in Hartford performing Lou Harrison’s Concerto for Pipa with String instruments. Ms. Wu has been able to make the instrument popular by playing traditional and modern Chinese music also she has been able to work with Yo-Yo Ma, a famous Chinese chelloist. On the day that the instrument broke, the flight attendant took the instrument to the front after Ms. Wu strapped it into a seat like a little child. When the flight attendant took it to the front, the accident happened. Now Ms. Wu has a beautiful new pipa made of bamboo.

sadness is an undesirable emotion yet we still choose to listen to sad music. this has puzzled philosophers and musicologists alike and they’ve presented different theories in that respect. this article explores the fact, through a psychological experiment, that how is sadness in artistic appreciation different from sadness in practical life.

the writer and his colleagues test their subjects on ‘felt’ emotion and ‘perceived’ emotion. they were given different pieces of music to listen to; both sad and happy. after listening to different excerpts of different songs they were asked to record their ‘felt’ emotions and ‘perceived’ and emotions on a different scales

the result was as expected; perceived emotion of the songs was stronger than the felt emotion and then a theory is suggested to answer these questions that when we listen to music it gives rise to an emotion that we feel on usual days and it gives rise to those feelings that we have already felt.

the writer then suggests some deep philosophical crap that I hardly understood. its something about emotions that are substitute of some real and direct emotions that arise after listening to sad songs. (there’s a line ‘..while still drawing force from the similarity between the two.’ this line really messes up the paragraph. makes it impossible to understand)

all in all, when we weep at gloomy music and it has a profound effect on us, it all shows our artistic appreciation and the human side of us. yet the question remains unanswered, why we like sad music?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/22/opinion/sunday/why-we-like-sad-music.html?_r=0

Throughout the past when times were different many different types of music and songs were banned and unbanned for different reasons. Maybe for promoting activities that were looked down upon. This post speaks about musical bans on an entirely different scale however. The bans spoken about in the post are bans on all music. The thought of that is suffocating. An entire country, Mali, in silence. The exact reasons why Mali has ordered a ban on all music is unclear at this moment. Perhaps the reasons were religious, perhaps they were to cease expression, but the impact of the ban, if not reversed or ceased soon can be catastrophic to following generations of the country. In most parts of the world music is a form of expression. It brings happiness to some people and to others it brings sadness for the beauty of the tunes. In Mali however music serves another purpose as well: It is a form of keeping history. Certain people called Griots in the country have served as storytellers and mediators since they know the truths of the countries history the best. They were the oral historians of the country, passing down the knowledge of the countries past through song. If the musical ban that the article talks about continues, the country will end up losing a lot of its past. A thought could arise as to whether or not the people could forgo the ban and attempt to continue living with music, but that is not a possible scenario. The armed militant in charge of exacting the ban are a violent lot and have threatened musicians throughout the country. They have shut down music shows and taken it upon themselves to burn down guitars and instruments after the ban was passed. This is a dark day for Mali. One can only surmise that from this the country will become darker and less lively. In the end it shows us the importance of something we take for granted in our day to day lives, and inevitably should bring us a greater appreciation for the music we hear constantly almost every day.

This New York Times article speaks out to this day and age, where music has changed drastically from the art that it used to be revered as. Today music is acquirable anywhere. Youtube, pirating websites, recordings; anything is possible. With this said the speaker of the New York Times article’s qualm comes from how difficult it is for artists to make money with these conditions. When music is obtainable at every turn of a corner for free, who would want to buy music? And if anyone did, do they do it often enough to endorse their favorite artists and make a living for them? The speaker starts the article optimistic wondering why anyone would not want to be their own entrepreneur, but after a serious loss when the label that produced her music went bankrupt. From that point on, the prospective artist that she was, the speaker decides to be her own entrepreneur and self-promote her own music. How hard can this be? Like all the millions of other hip-hop artists that take innovative methods of production such as selling their own clothing line, the speaker tries to join their ranks. This proves to be a greater problem than she could have imagined, however, since self-promoting is almost like selling yourself out and begging for funding. To do this, it is almost a requirement to be loud, ready to be public.

The problem with this is that now a days artist have to go to extreme methods to publicize themselves. The speaker of the New York Times article at the end is asked to write a book and she does so, changing her career from music to literature. This brought up the question: Why are some arts more respected than others? As a writer she was more successful not having to self promote herself and having all her works sold and bought. Why is this not the same for music? Why don’t educational, governmental, and cultural institutions extend the same kind of support to arts like music the same way they do for other kinds of expression. To this end, to be successful as a musician in todays world there is no other truth; you have to be big, you have to be loud.

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