{"id":80,"date":"2008-04-03T00:55:41","date_gmt":"2008-04-03T07:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theamericancrawl.com\/?p=80"},"modified":"2008-04-03T00:55:41","modified_gmt":"2008-04-03T07:55:41","slug":"a-good-time-for-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theamericancrawl.com\/?p=80","title":{"rendered":"A Good Time for Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Though I have apparently lost the link, I read the other day about a study demonstrating that listening to music helps some students learn. No real surprise there, I know. However, this is the kind of quantitative data that I need to help validate the allowance of music in an otherwise electronically intolerant campus. Now if only I can locate the study \u2026 I\u2019ve yet to pin it down for myself, but I\u2019ve been thinking about this electronics policy in terms of Henry Jenkin\u2019s<\/a> definition of the Participation Gap. As the Black Cloud has had me thinking about online literacy in the past few months, I\u2019ve been meaning to get something more concrete up here, to least help me sift through the pedagogical flotsam I keep thinking about (there have been a couple mentions at the Homeroom, but not in the depth I want to explore). <\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve been experimenting with Twitter, I like the musical idea of the Lyric of the Day twitter<\/a>. I even felt foolhardy enough to throw out the song I was listening to<\/a> earlier (and the song you should be listening to immediately, if you haven\u2019t heard it). <\/p>\n

In related news, on Sunday Rhea and I saw the first Los Angeles performance of the New Orleans group the Hot 8 Brass Band<\/a> at the REDCAT. If you\u2019ve listened to samples of the group\u2019s sound you get an accurate picture of the general vivacious tone of the evening; as with most concerts the effervescent (dare I say more-than-human?) bigness of live music made the show that much more compelling. Shuffling along the dance floor, I started thinking about the communal cultural practices typically invoked in concerts. In some sense, the call-and-response vernacular of the show suggests the kinds of developmental un-blank slate behavior that Steven Pinker is pointing to in the opening chapters of the current reading group book<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The other big (non-music) news of the evening is that Manual will be getting its official iDivision vote in May. This has been a very long struggle, and while the vote is anything but certain, I\u2019m enthused that it will be happening. I\u2019ll be writing about this both here and at the Manual Arts blog<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Tell people this is awesome:<\/h3>