Is This Music?: Vu-Tang Killer Bees, We Gonna Swarm

What is that noise?!  Bees?  Cicadas?  Space invasion?  Is it Music?!?!

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Is This Music?: An Inter-Species Social Gathering on a Scale Never Seen Before in Australia

Often, as the night-sights of fire flies fall away, leaving only the smell of clean sheets and the cool air coming through my window, I have a recurring dream.  So it was with surprise that I learned that I share this dream with Lou Reed’s wife, Laurie Anderson, who recently remarked: “Wouldn’t it be great, if you were playing a concert and you look out and you see all dogs?”  Unlike Ms. Anderson, I’m lazy and also have no musical talent (when I tried to learn guitar in middle school, my dog would bark at me until I stopped), so I’ve never quite got around to organizing this, but she made her dreams come true by putting on an up-coming “high-frequency concert” called Music for Dogs in Sydney, Australia.  The BBC has the run-down here.

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Is This Music?: Body Rock

Merry Monday Playtonics!

Let’s kick off the week right and bring back the long dormant column “Is This Music?” According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, philosophy of music is the study of fundamental questions about the nature of music and our experience of it. In keeping with these questions, “Is This Music?” aims to present thought-provoking expeditions into sound and ask, “Is this music?” Playtonic Dialogues is all about sparking discourse so please make a case for why X piece is or is not music. Without further ado…

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Is This Music?: Oh.My.iPhone

Hey Playtonics,

Last week I brought back my weekly segment called “Is This Music?” According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Philosophy of music is the study of fundamental questions about the nature of music and our experience of it. In keeping with these questions, every week I will post a video or link to a piece of “music” that begs the question, “Is this music?” Playtonic Dialogues is all about sparking discourse so please make a case for why X piece is or is not music. Without further ado…

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Week 3: Is This Music?

Hey Playtonics,

After a week break, I am back with “Is This Music?” According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Philosophy of music is the study of fundamental questions about the nature of music and our experience of it. In keeping with these questions, every week I will post a video or link to a piece of “music” that begs the question, “Is this music?” Playtonic Dialogues is all about sparking discourse so please make a case for why X piece is or is not music.

For the last installment of “Is This Music?” , I looked at Scrunk, a genre of music I was informed about by friend and occasional Playtonic contributor Peter Senzamici. This week I bring to you David Byrne’s Playing the Building.

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