Hi There,

Now before You and I get to the nuts….

You’ve probably noticed a few posts over the last few days, and Yes I do have a specific point of view regarding the importance of Meaningfull Music making.

But I want to be clear, that Yes I do have opinions – though I don’t claim to have all the answers – yes I may have some ideas pointing to answer, I believe I do – but ultimately I probably have more questions than answers – hopefully some different questions that might point to new, options, new answers, and eventually to a new, deeper, broader perspective about Music Making that goes even beyond the health challenge of Dementia/Alzheimers.

Yes You might want to play a little bit of Led Zeppelin, a bit of a blues solo, or perhaps You are happiest playing along to some Hendrix, or maybe even Your own solos, your own music, on Guitar, or whatever Your preferred instrument happens to be, but it’s more important than that.

I define Meaningfull Music Making as that which has a huge impact on You, when You fully engage as best as You can, in the right way – that You can sense.

I believe we can see this clearly with advanced Alzheimer sufferers who, are able to temporarily re-animate, regain the ability to speak, for a time and even sometimes other capabilities as well. If there is one positive thing to come out of the current Alzheimers Challenge – I believe it is that we are starting to get a deeper understanding of the Power of Meaningfull Music Making, something I call the Meaningfull Music Making Effect (Not the Mozart Effect) -, NeuroScience has made great strides, though we are still at an early stage – compared to what I call neck down health – around diet and exercise. Everyone has heard about diet and exercise – apart from a few hardly anyone knows about the power of Meaningfull Music Making – most people get stuck thinking either about Music Making as therapy, or caught up in the idea of passively listening to Music.

Yes I do have opinions, however I want to point out I’m more observational, and never judgmental – People are entitled to hold whatever opinions they have about Music.

That said – I’m now going to make the link between Chewing Gum and Cheesecake… and later on Monkey Nuts, which I’ll come back to.

Ofcourse You wouldn’t think of trying to eat Chewing Gum and Cheese Cake at the same time would You ? If you had a piece of gum in your mouth you would at least get rid of it before chomping through that chesse cake right.

And yet I do remember someone once saying …. ” After all we all know that Music is Chewing Gum for the Brain ” – By the Way if You’re interested, my answer to that is errr no actually No Music, especially meaningfull Music Making is lubrication for life.

But this mindset I believe is the predominant world view.
The same with Cheese cake – I remember over 20 years ago reading something that said, (and I’m paraphrasing) Music is to the Brain what cheesecake is to food – and if cheesecake disappeared tomorrow, that would be no big deal.

Well try telling that to the Alzheimer sufferers, and to one of the most high profile Glen Campbell’s family – because Country star Glen, once diagnosed with Alzheimers was advised not to go on tour – he did, and the film documentary I’ll Be Me – suggests that it was his Playing Guitar, on tour – that actually helped him past an advanced stage of the disease for a time – this will be a more detailed topic for another time – I believe raises perhaps two questions.

Again remember I’m not being judgemental at all about the chewing gum, nor the cheesecake analogy – these are my opinions that these are in some way the majority view, about Music, and I believe that they are massively mistaken – though I believe right now this is the mindset of most people; this is what represents most peoples beliefs about Music – though as people get to discover how powerfull Music Making actually is, this will change.

But right now, I believe it is these beliefs that Music isn’t really that important, is at least partly why I believe there is a huge challenge with mid scale Live Music venues closing across the country, because people don;t go out and watch and immerse in the experience of live music – with 40% shut over the last 10 years in London alone – which I covered yesterday.

I do believe that this view will change, I do believe that Meaningfull Music Making will Play a bigger role in more people’s lives although that will only be only a small minority of people to start with.

Okay – So You get That, I hear You thinking – what About The Monkey Nuts Then

So Back to the Nuts….

Well this is one of the old Fables of Aesop (remember Hare & Tortoise – that was his really famous one).

But in this story the monkey gdets his hand caught in the nuts jar and can’t take it out – until he drops a few of the nuts.

So what has this got to do with anything – well I have been posting a lot recently – just to say, sometimes the posts will be long, other times they may be quite short – sometimes I’ll be trying to make what seems like a lot of points, with lots of examples – other times I may drop a few of the points I’m trying to make – this post was really all about two points Cheesecake and Chewing gum – examples of the beliefs most people I believe wrongly, yet unwittingly hold about Meaningfull Music Making.

I do believe that overtime, and it will take quite some time, the majority will come to know about ? the Power of Meaningfull Music Making – most people will at least know of Music being for the Brain what we all know that diet and exercise is for the Body.