Hey Friends,
As if I needed a new thing, but I’ve started a new thing. Couldn’t be helped. I’ve had a YouTube channel since (it says, to my disbelief) October of 2006, but it’s been basically static for a decade, since I stopped producing video as part of my living. But I appreciate YouTube content quite a lot in the fields of music, hi-fi, science and motorsports. I think it’s honestly one of the most impressive apps in the history of the internet, and somehow, the Google doesn’t try to meddle with it. Anyway, as I work on my book-in-progress, Musicality For The Modern Human, I felt the desire to share some of its ideas in video form. This might help me work out concepts and get feedback. I hope it will contribute to an internet conversation about what we ask of music and how we can embrace its untapped potential for growth, mental health and human coexistence.
I’ve changed the name of my channel from String Theory Media (my erstwhile “company”) to Craig Havighurst, and the series is The Musicality Agenda, dialogues and monologues about being a more informed, sensitive listener. I realized one day that I do have an agenda, and that’s to reach anyone I can with the message that music takes understanding and that learning some basic principles (that the general media never talks about) will expand one’s feeling for music and love of it exponentially.
Here’s the introductory video.
So far, I’m pleased to offer a multi-part conversation with Roy “Futureman” Wooten, a composer, instrument inventor, sound theorist and longtime member of Bela Fleck and the Flecktones. Here’s part one of that Zoom talk:
Also up in the first round of videos is a talk with my friend Danny Holt, a pianist, percussionist and composer based outside of Los Angeles. He works at high levels of new classical/composed music and has a deeply informed enthusiasm about contemporary music. So we try to make it all less intimidating. There will be three of these parts with Danny and here’s part one:
I have posted one monologue about the musicality of the historic Will The Circle Be Unbroken album, which I wrote about for WMOT. But this video is more central to the methodology of my book, introducing the chapter Sound Not Songs.
There’s more to come, including two dialogues with Nashville-based jazz drummer and composer Sophia Goodman. I’ll try to be a frequent poster and game that algorithm! Obviously a new YouTube series is a dust mote in the solar system, so I need your shares, recommendations and subscriptions at this time. I’m not aspiring to be a “YouTuber” but I am on YouTube, so smash that “like” button peeps.