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Early morning view out of a hotel room window, last week. I like this photo because it seems part of a story, like a still image from a movie. There is tension and I can almost hear the music informing us that something is about to happen.

Listening

It’s like an early Christmas for me… took a walk and listened to podcasts with film music composer Hans Zimmer and with Jaron Lanier, the godfather of virtual reality. You can find the two excellent podcasts here:

Why Hans Zimmer Won’t Be Making Music for the Metaverse

The Metaverse: Expectations vs Reality (w Jaron Lanier)


I loved the first podcast, with Hans Zimmer. He is very smart and quite charming. Thoroughly enjoyable interview. That second podcast with Jaron Lanier is brilliant. I was nodding my head a lot. Deserves repeated listening.

What’s that – Answer

We found the mysterious Y sign on the asphalt right outside of the Lensic Theater, on Tuesday evening. It looks like a music stand wasn’t up to orchestra standards anymore and someone gave the legs a fresh coat of black.

Link Dump

Boris sent me this link to an article about some of the worst album covers. Especially the first image is amazing. Who thought that was a good idea??

Reading the tea leaves (Monocle Video) “Vancouver Island might not be famous for growing tea but its lush soil has proved perfect for starting an idyllic farm.”
What a great story that is.

Language + Pitch

After I wrote that last post about language and gender I thought about how language not only shapes how we think but actually shapes who we are. They say babies make every kind of possible sound and only when they learn one particular language do they forget the sounds they no longer need.

Speaking a language changes the pitch of your vocal cords. Listen to a woman speaking Arabic, then to a woman speaking Japanese. The Arabic speaker’s voice will always be lower, the Japanese speaker’s voice will be higher.

In 2009 I did solo concerts is Europe and when I played in Germany, I spoke to the audience in German, of course. Jon Gagan traveled with me and engineered the sound in every venue. One day he asked me whether I knew that my German voice was pitched lower than my English voice. At first I thought he was joking, but he wasn’t. It was definitely NOT something I was aware of or did knowingly. I started to pay attention and noticed that he was right. I like the pitch of my German voice better, but it is quite difficult to maintain it when I speak English.