Week 8: Blue Hair

And I guess I’ll just miss her

Even though she isn’t even really gone

But things are just different

Ever since she cut her blue hair off – TV Girl

Personal Musings

I have a mildly unhealthy habit of discovering a song and listening to it over and over again until I hate it. This week, that song was Blue Hair by TV Girl. As I was sitting in my room making corsages for Prom, this song was playing on loop. The meaning behind this song is pretty clear; it’s about someone changing. I interpret it as a metaphor for adulthood, but that might just be me projecting. 

Some other songs playing on repeat recently have been Judas by Lady Gaga, Heroes by David Bowie, and FEEL by Måneskin. I hope I don’t get tired of these (or Blue Hair) anytime soon. 

Whenever I’m alone at home, or sure that I won’t disturb anyone, I love playing music aloud. While I’m usually content listening to my favorite albums on my blue wired earphones, playing it aloud has its charm. I recently bought a record player, which sounds much better than my phone. My extensive record collection consists of two vinyls: “The Dark Side of the Moon” by Pink Floyd, and “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars” by David Bowie. Both albums were gifts from friends but I have hope that my anthology will grow. 

Surprisingly, as much as I love playing music aloud, I can’t listen while studying. Working on projects is another matter, but I need silence while studying. The main issue is that I end up focusing too much on the song rather than whatever I need to be learning. Rather than understand rotational motion, I think to myself, “woah, that was an interesting choice for the background guitar. How did I not notice that before?” So maybe it was a good idea to grind for AP exams in silence. 

Another habit I have developed is walking my dog with a different playlist in my ears every day. No matter the mood, I tend to walk on beat with the songs, which might just be the musician in me. In fact, some studies have shown that rhythm might be ingrained in the brain. 

And Now, Research

I read an extremely interesting article on NPR (linked below) which examined differences in the brains of musicians and non-musicians relating to rhythm. Two specific findings intrigued me. First of all, our brain waves essentially sync up with the beats of some songs we listen to. And there was one main difference between musicians’ and non-musicians’ brains. Musicians had more of a tolerance to slower songs, and had more accurate synchronization of brain waves to slower songs than non-musicians did. 

Now, this is mainly attributed to many years of musical training, which allow musicians to group slower rhythms into a coherent pattern. This, however, can expand to many different scenarios, including a higher sensitivity to specific voices in a crowd, or a natural preference of slower songs. As a musician with varying preferences in song tempo, this is food for thought. When picking out piano pieces to learn, I do gravitate to slower, romantic period songs. But I can still enjoy the faster tempo of songs such as Blue Hair. 

Here is the link to the aforementioned article: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2015/12/19/460191654/the-neuroscience-of-musical-perception-bass-guitars-and-drake

Next week, I hope to release some songs and my artists will continue scheduling times to rehearse. I just received some cover art for our first recorded song, and plan to have a YouTube channel up and running soon. Tune in next week!