Vpr Classical Timeline

August 6, 1945, was a clear, blue Monday morning in the city of Hiroshima. At 7:09 air raid sirens shattered the morning air as allied weather planes flew over, driving a city of around 345,000 people indoors and into shelters. About 15 minutes later, the planes left, the skies emptied and the all-clear sounded; Hiroshima woke back up and started their Monday over again.

Over the past few episodes we’ve been telling the stories of hibaku-pianos and violins, musical instruments that survived the atomic blasts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 75 years ago. In our last episode we were telling the tale of Sergei Palchikoff and his violin.

We’re listening to violinist, Soichi Sakuma performing at a school in 2017 on a hibaku-violin, an instrument that survived the atomic blast of Hiroshima in 1945. On Timeline we’ve been telling the stories of instruments just like this, relics of a time of great suffering and how they have been rescued, restored and are now being used to play songs of peace. This violin that we are hearing right now, has a history of violence and conflict spanning well over a hundred years. The story of this instrument is really the story of its original owner, Sergei Palchikoff and his family.

This year marks the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the past few episodes we’ve been looking at musical instruments that have been rescued from the ashes and rumble of those explosions. They’ve been reclaimed and are now being used to promote peace and to bring understanding of the real human cost of war.

World War II was the bloodiest conflict in recorded history. It’s estimated that somewhere between, 70-85 million people died, about 3% of the global population at the time. That number is too big to comprehend. I don’t think anyone can truly grasp or understand that level of loss and suffering. So today we’ll talk about just one young woman and her piano.

We’ve been discussing the ways that music has changed the world, exploring how art and music has affected us as a species and as a society. In this episode, we’ll discover one piano tuner’s passion to change hearts and minds through restored instruments.

We’ve been exploring all the ways that music has changed the world and us. In this episode we’ll discover that music might belong to more than just humanity. So many creatures on our shared planet also have a voice.

“In the beginning was the voice. Voice is sounding breath, the audible sign of life.” Those beautiful words were written by Otto Jespersen, an early 20th century Danish linguist, in the book Language, Its Nature, Development and Origin. Jespersen was on to something with that statement, voice as “the audible sign of life.” It reminds me of another popular quote by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Music is the universal language of mankind.”

You’re at a wedding reception, this song starts to play and suddenly the dance floor is full of people moving together in rhythm. The crowd intuits the pulse of the music, corporately agrees on where the beat is and starts to move together. That’s how group dance works. This ability is something we share as humans and with other members of the animal kingdom. But do we ever think about what it takes to make this happen? How do we dance together and why?

Which came first, language or music? It’s not just a “chicken or the egg” type of question. Many linguists and theorists have debated this subject. For a long time the accepted norm stated that music appears “to be derived from language,” meaning that music is a subset of verbal communication. But modern research is painting a different picture. There’s an earlier episode of Timeline called “Baby Talk” that dives into that research regarding the development of human communication.

Do you remember the opening scene of Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”? The director starts a movie about space by first showing us early humanity. We are introduced to two warring factions of hairy proto-humans, yelling and grunting at one another over some unknown conflict. That night one of the tribes wakes up at sunrise to a strange, black, rectangular object. In the shadow of this monolith, one of the members of the tribe picks up a bone and examines it. After a moment, it begins to beat the ground with this first “tool.”

Over the years we’ve talked about a lot different subjects and explored the development of music throughout history. We’ve had deep discussions about where music comes from and what music is. We’ve looked at the ways music touches our lives and influences our health and behavior. We’ve explored the ancient past and modern practice. However, over the past few months I’ve been asking a question, “so what?” What does all of this mean? Maybe a better question is, for what? What is this exploration for?

originally aired December 10, 2018 Art is everywhere and always has been. It lines the walls of museums, buildings and caves. It fills our halls and ears with sound and music. It captures the eye with beautiful movement and imagery. Art doesn’t just express our passions and history; it defines, influences and shapes culture and civilization.

On Timeline we’ve asked a lot of questions; what is music? How was music created? Why is music written? Here’s another interesting question I’d love for us to ponder, where is music?

Another favorite episode of Timeline... Musical labels are useful. The title of a genre or style comes in handy in the record store, on the radio or for streaming services, because when you click on or tune into a station it’s helpful to know what programming to expect. But these labels can also be problematic and divisive. Today there are many labels that separate the musical landscape but none are more controversial then the terms, popular music and classical music.

Originally aired April 10, 2017... In the 20th century no medium affected culture more than film. The music written to accompany the images, story and dialogue has become a huge part of the movie-going experience. In many cases it’s impossible to separate the musical theme from the film itself; the two become one in our minds.

Join VPR Classical host James Stewart as we listen to a special Timeline podcast presentation “Music and the Mind.” We’ll explore the connections between the how the mind works and how we process music.

Here is another favorite episode of Timeline... Today, music is everywhere. Invisible signals are flying through the air carrying every possible genre or style that a person could ever want. We can access them from our homes, cars and phones enjoying content from around the world. In the 19th century this type of technology was just a dream in the minds of scientists and inventors, but the 20th century saw an explosion of communication and the rise of a device we call the radio.

Here is another favorite episode of Timeline from the vault... It was her first piano lesson with me, but she wasn’t new to the instrument. She had learned from YouTube tutorials and her own explorations to play some of her favorite songs. After a good first lesson her mother came over and said, “She is very talented”. I smiled and agreed. Then her mother said, “It’s surprising to me because I’m not musical at all.”

Here is another favorite episode of Timeline... Picture yourself at the beach watching the waves rise and break over the sand. You can see the water gather and rise as each waves comes in. Once a wave breaks the water level drops again. You watch the peaks and valleys rolls onto the beach. These waves transfer huge amounts of energy from one place to another traveling through the water and displacing it. We call this a mechanical wave because it needs to travel through a medium, in this case water. The number of waves that crash during a specific period of time is called the frequency.