Music is Good Stuff...

Here's a story about a cardiologist who says music does good things for us....helps your heart, helps your mood, slows the aging process (really?). Roy likes music and he's young at heart. I like music, especially when I exercise--the boppy stuff that keeps me from falling asleep in my tracks. CNN's Val Wilmingham writes:
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"If you didn't catch the white coat and the stethoscope, you might take Dr. Mike Miller for a middle-aged rocker, roaming the halls of the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore.

Playing or listening to music can create a feeling of well being, which affects the vascular system.

For years, Miller, a research cardiologist, has been studying the effects of happiness -- or things that make people happy -- on our hearts. He began his research with laughter, and found watching funny movies and laughing at them could actually open up blood vessels, allowing blood to circulate more freely.

Miller thought, if laughter can do that, why not music? So, he tested the effects of music on the cardiovascular system. "Turns out music may be one of the best de-stressors -- either by playing or even listening to music," said Miller.

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Oh, so Dr. Miller's real claim to fame is that I'm Facebook (and real life, too) friends with his wife and she linked to this story, so here's my Shrink Rap plug!

Great Minds, Great Music

Richard Kogan is a psychiatrist who is also a Julliard-trained concert pianist. He does a series of captivating biographical presentations on the lives of composers, and punctuates his talks by stopping to play music by the composer that illustrates a given point. The presentations take a great deal of research, and they have a psychiatric bent-- all the composers Dr. Kogan chooses had colorful lives filled with tragedy, drama, complicated relationships and yes, psychiatric disorders. He notes, "It's hard enough to make a psychiatric diagnosis in my office with a live patient..." He's produced five such psychological perspectives on Schumann, Beethoven, Gershwin, Tchaikovsky, and most recently, Leonard Bernstein. I've heard four of them in the last six years (with my tone deaf ears); I think this makes me a groupie.

"I have a passion for the interface between my two professions of psychiatry and music, and I'm intrigued by the mysteries of the mind and the nature of the creative process." Kogan says.



Wanna listen?



So I'd like to throw Richard Kogan in a room with Oliver Sacks , the neurologist/author of Musicophilia, Tales of Music and the Brain, and just sit and listen for a while.

TMBG Mesopotamians

And now, for this musical interlude from They Might Be Giants (click picture).
(note the emotional support goat at the end)
[iTunes]

We've been driving around
From one end of this town to the other and back
But no one's ever seen us (No one's ever seen us)
Driving our Econoline van (And no one's ever heard of our band)
And no one's ever heard of our band

We're the Mesopotamians
Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh

Then they wouldn't understand a word we say
So we'll scratch it all down into the clay
Half believing there will sometime come a day
Someone gives a damn
Maybe when the concrete has crumbled to sand

We're the Mesopotamians
Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh

The Mesopotamish sun is beating down
And making cracks in the ground
But there's nowhere else to stand
In Mesopotamia (No one's ever seen us)
The kingdom where we secretly reign (And no one's ever heard of our band)
The land where we invisibly rule

As the Mesopotamians
Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh

This is my last stick of gum
I'm going to cut it up so everybody else gets some
Except for Ashurbanipal, who says my haircut makes me look like a Mohenjo-Daren

Hey, Ashurbanipal
I'm a Mesopotamian
Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh

We're the Mesopotamians
Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh

"Hey, man, I thought that you were dead
I thought you crashed your car"
"No, man, I've been right here this whole time playing bass guitar
For the Mesopotamians"

We're the Mesopotamians
Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal
Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh

We're the Mesopotamians
Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh