No wonder musicians make such strange faces…

“Improvisation — the unique state in which you’re spontaneously generating new ideas and playing them musically — has a kind of characteristic, signature neural state…”

This state is “largely silent when … musicians switch to improvisation. That area, a part of the prefrontal cortex, is known for helping us monitor our behavior and performance”

“One of the things it’s closely involved in is in self-monitoring, and sort of conscious evaluation of what you’re doing. So for example, to judge the appropriateness or correctness of your behavior, this area would be active.”

“What you want is to just generate ideas, and you don’t really want to worry too much about whether they sounded right.”
“You don’t want to be too inhibited by that. And I think that these musicians are so proficient that they’re able to enter this creative state where they’re essentially uninhibited rather easily.”

“For any amateur musicians out there hoping this might lead to some kind of jazz pill, that’s not in the cards.”

[The article]

[The publication]

Automatic plays Hello Timebomb, originally written by Matthew Good & Band c.1999
Performed spring 1999 at some random battle of the bands thing.

Automatic, at 14 years old, is:
Jeff Smith - Vocals, guitar
Julian Walker - Guitar, vocals
Bryan Larock - Bass
Mike St-Jean - Drums

Stay tuned as Automatic performs Apparitions by Matthew Good and Quicksand by Finger 11

Since July 1st I have been spending the majority of my time in a small town north of Vancouver turning an old farm house into a live-in studio where bands from around the country will come to partake in a different kind of recording experience.

Living in the woods for six weeks, secluded from everything and everyone, artists can lock themselves away from the world, emerging with something fresh, new and never before heard- that is of course unless it’s more of the same rehashed shit we’ve been subject to for the past decade.

…I wrote this in notepad hoping to finish it before too much more happened but then there you go… it has been yet another week. The first band, Becoming the Archetype has arrived. After a week of pre-production at Garth Richardson’s hideout, drums are now being tracked at The Factory studio in Vancouver.

Hoping to update more often… pz.

For all the drummer jokes I have experienced, eat your heart out guitarists!

“After an eight-year study of Clem Burke, the veteran Blondie drummer, sports scientists have concluded that drummers are comparable in their physical prowess to world-class sportsmen.”

“He loses up to two litres of fluid in a performance, which is similar to a runner going out and doing 10,000 metres…

…Mr. Burke burned 400-600 calories per hour. His heart rate averaged 140 to 150 beats a minute, though it could rise as high as 190 beats — equalling that of Cristiano Ronaldo in a Premier League soccer match.”

Read the rest here…

Scientists have finally figured out in complex detail the make up of Techno songs the world over…

Dang.