July - 2014

MICHAEL A. LEVINE

Fear, Failure...and the Twilight Zone

Fear, Failure...and the Twilight Zone

FEAR, FAILURE...AND THE TWILIGHT ZONE Awhile back I did some leadership training. One night we were asked, “What would you do if failure were not an option?” The exercise is designed to heighten our awareness of how we let our fear derail us and how we often unconsciously defeat ourselves before we get started. Instead, I answered by describing…a Twilight Zone episode! In the story, a petty thief dies and goes to the afterworld hosted by a friendly man dressed in white. Anyth

Healing Using Music with Michael A. Levine

Healing Using Music with Michael A. Levine

Since the beginning of time there has been nothing that bridges cultures and brings people together quite like music. It can be used to relax us or to inspire us to move and dance. In the past few decades Neuroscientists have delved deeper into understanding the brain and its association with music. All too often people walk in the door and turn on the TV like it’s a lamp. Now that you know that the healing power of music is rooted in history and science, we challenge you to

Divination By Mirrors: Too Much Fun with Music and Math

Divination By Mirrors: Too Much Fun with Music and Math

DIVINATION BY MIRRORS TOO MUCH FUN WITH MUSIC AND MATH Music Geek Alert! Once upon a time I wrote a piece called Divination By Mirrors for Saw and Strings to feature the virtuosic musical saw playing of Dale Stuckenbruck (who is also a fine violinist). I decided to base it on the concept of a musical mirror - the idea is that if one musical line goes up, another one goes down, or when one is played forward, it later gets played backwards. Not being content with that level of

How Stories and Music Saved the Human Race

HOW STORIES AND MUSIC SAVED THE HUMAN RACE Many anthropologists believe that the human race nearly became extinct about 70,000 years ago. The reasons may have had to do with a thousand year drought or a super volcano or something entirely else we don't know yet. What we think we know is that we were reduced to perhaps 2,000 individuals - maybe as few as forty. Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) were a comparatively unpromising species: physically weak, almost hairless (brr!), w