March 7, 2017
A picture is worth a thousand words. How many words is worth a video then? In under five minutes this animated movie from TED-Ed explains many benefits of playing a musical instrument. They compare playing to the brain’s equivalent of a full body workout. The reason […]
March 8, 2017
A second video for starters. With the previous post these two videos highlight what Musicably is about – Mindful Music Making. Renowned Harvard University psychology professor Ellen Langer, known as the “mother of mindfulness”, explains the topic of her career-long research: “Mindfulness is the simple process […]
June 7, 2017
Two interesting and seemingly unrelated writings crossed their paths recently on my computer screen. The first is a book The Zen Of Listening: Mindful Communication In The Age Of Distraction, written by Rebecca Shafir. The second is a Medium article The Rise of Audio & Voice, […]
June 22, 2017
Making and playing music, or musicking, has become activity almost exclusive to properly educated specialists, also known as professional musicians. To prove the point, let me ask you a question: When was the last time you made a completely free choice to listen to some amateur […]
July 6, 2017
You may remember those times, when music and movie stars were the only celebrities you could encounter in the news. Yes, it was a while ago. At that time I was working as a music journalist and always got surprised by the amount of people interested […]
September 7, 2017
A handful of interesting articles inspired me to give some thought to the future of music and musicking. The first was a video The Fourth Industrial Revolution published by the World Economic Forum. A number of scientists, academics and other professionals are talking there about the […]
September 29, 2017
Last weekend I attended the Music Expo in the nearby city of Mississauga. Advertised as ‘Connecting & Inspiring Music Lovers in the GTA’ – the Greater Toronto Area, where I live. I expected this to be and event on a rather larger scale. The reality proved […]
October 16, 2017
I have been writing about mindful music making with Musicably.com for quite a while. Throughout this time I have been working and preparing the other side of the business idea – the active music making, or musicking. What I want to do is to have people […]
November 10, 2017
It was about five years ago. A member of my wider family, a young man and a freshly minted father came to me with challenging questions. Could I critique his new music compositions and possibly give him some advice? This young man (let’s call him Brian) […]