Episode 110: Music and Language

Episode 110: Music and Language
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster
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We talk about the origins of music, its connection (both etymological and scientific) with the mind, how language is used to describe and teach music, the Muses, and the Museum of Alexandria. Also featuring brief cameos from music YouTuber 12Tone.

Monk’s Muse Cocktail

12Tone’s video “Why Do Notes Have Names?”

Ghost Notes Podcast

“Future” video

Murdoch Mysteries episode “The Dominion of New South Mimico”

Language: The Cultural Tool by Daniel Everett

Erskine, Andrew. “Culture and Power in Ptolemaic Egypt: The Museum and Library of Alexandria.” Greece & Rome, vol. 42, no. 1, 1995, pp. 38–48. JSTOR.

Hardie, Alex. “Etymologising the Muse.” Materiali e Discussioni per l’analisi Dei Testi Classici, no. 62, 2009, pp. 9–57. JSTOR.

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Bonus: Karaoke April Fools!

Logo: image of an old-fashioned microphone surrounded by a black circle with the words The Greatest Song Ever Sung (Poorly)
Karaoke April Fools!
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster
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It’s April Fool’s Day, and time for the annual Podcast Switcheroo, where podcasters trade episodes to give their audience something a little different and introduce them to a new show.

This year we’ve got an episode from “The Greatest Song Ever Sung (Poorly)”, all about the joys and embarrassments of singing karaoke. In this episode hosts Adam Wainwright and Ed Cunard discuss questions like is a karaoke performance a cover song? What do musicians have to say about karaoke? What are the barriers to making music, and creativity in general? They also talk to punk and folk singer-songwriter Frank Turner about some of his most memorable karaoke experiences and about how he feels about cover songs, singalongs at concerts, and karaoke versions of his songs. After you’ve listened to this, why not add them to your subscriptions?

Thanks to Moxie from “Your Brain on Facts” for organizing this event, and happy April Fool’s Day to everyone!

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Episode 99: Heavy Metal Music and Antiquity, with Jeremy Swist

Episode 99: Heavy Metal Music and Antiquity, with Jeremy Swist
Mark Sundaram and Aven McMaster
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We talked to Jeremy Swist about his work on the reception of antiquity in heavy metal music. He discussed the ways the genre looks to the past for stories and imagery, and the many fantastic songs and albums that have been produced from this mix. We also talked about the problems with racism and white nationalism that can plague the intersection of the ancient world and metal music.

Playlist of the songs Jeremy mentioned

Pour Forth Surquidous track

@MetalClassicist

Heavy Metal and the Ancient World on Facebook

Jeremy’s blog

Metal-archives.com

Thank you to Emma Pauly for editing and transcribing this episode.

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This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

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Episode 30: Baba Brinkman & Peer-Reviewed Rap
Episode 030: Baba Brinkman & Peer-Reviewed Rap
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster
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We have the immense pleasure of interviewing Baba Brinkman, a Canadian rap artist & award-winning playwright best known for his “Rap Guide” series of plays and albums, with which he has toured the world; these cover topics like evolution, religion, medicine, and most recently climate change. He’s also pioneered the genre of ‘lit-hop’ with his adaptations of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Gilgamesh, Beowulf & more. Our conversation ranges through tree-planting; the connections between Homer, Chaucer, & rap; Horace, Lucretius, & Erasmus Darwin as science communicators; the comedy of neuroscience; Trump; language & dictionaries; and more.

At the end of the interview we play a couple of tracks by Baba: his newest single "Erosion", and the first two tracks from his Rap Canterbury Tales album, "General Prologue" & "The Knight's Tale (scene 1)".

Show Notes

Baba Brinkman's website

A brief history of rhyme | Baba Brinkman | TEDxNavesink

Professor Elemental

Baba Brinkman & Professor Elemental - What's Your English?

 

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Episode 25: Twelve Days

Episode 025: Twelve Days
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster
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Episode 10: James Andean

Episode 010: James Andean
Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster
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We chat to musician and sound artist James Andean about acousmatic music, interdisciplinary improvisation, the role of narrative in music, and, inevitably, Star Wars. And make sure you listen to the piece by James that he graciously allowed us to include at the end!

We found this conversation fascinating, as it explores areas of music we didn't know much about, but also showed us some unforeseen overlaps between our own interests and the seemingly very different areas that James works in. A great example of unexpected connections around us!

Also, although we don't mention it on the podcast, we've just launched a Patreon campaign, to help us support our podcasting and the videos we make, so please take a moment to check that out. Thanks.

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Show Notes

James Andean's website

James on Twitter

James on Facebook

The picture of Mars in various seasons drawn by our 5-year-old while listening to "Maledetta" 

The picture of Mars in various seasons drawn by our 5-year-old while listening to "Maledetta"