What Can Musicians Teach Us about Imagination?

Scientific American Beautiful Minds blog: 

What is the nature of music? What is imagination in music? What's the role of intuition in music? What motivates musicians? What makes a great musical performance? What creates transcendence in music? What is the role of the audience? What are some recommended approaches for increasing creativity in music teachers and music students? These are some of the fascinating questions that we discussed at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. The participants included: Paul Bryan, Dean of Faculty and Students at the Curtis Institute; conductor; trombonist Dan Lerner, Faculty at New York University Gloria dePasquale, Cellist in the Philadelphia Orchestra Yumi Kendall, Cellist in the Philadelphia Orchestra Georgia Shreve, Composer and writer Gene Scheer, Opera librettist Ashley Robillard, Opera Student at Curtis Institute Elizabeth Hyde, Research Specialist for the Imagination Institute Scott Barry Kaufman, Scientific Director of the Imagination Institute Martin Seligman, Executive Director of the Imagination Institute, Director of the Positive Psychology Center, and Zellerbach Family Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Fascinating Sonic Illusion That Makes Christopher Nolan's Movies So Tense

Why Christopher Nolan is obsessed with Shepard tones. 

The Lifelong Effects of Music and Arts Classes

The Pacific Standard on a recent study that highlights the importance of arts education: 

 New research suggests [arts educators] are creating arts aficionados, and cultivating the next generation of patrons and performers.

“If one aim of music education, as many music educators report, is to engender a lifelong connection with the arts,” writes Kenneth Elpus of the University of Maryland, “the results of this study suggest that music — and arts education more broadly — is achieving this aim for many alumni.”

For his study, published in journal Psychology of Music, Elpus analyzed data from the 2012 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, an ongoing project of the once-again-threatened National Endowment for the Arts. It included data on 9,482 American adults regarding “their childhood experiences with music and arts education.” A larger group of 35,735 were asked about their arts-related experiences over the past year, as an audience member and/or creator.

“Rather than disengage from art-making and arts attendance upon graduation, students of school-based music and arts education were significantly more likely (than their peers) to create art in their own lives, and to patronize arts events,” Elpus reports.

Every Best Visual Effects Winner Ever

Burger Fiction: 

For the 1927/28 Academy awards, the award was for engineering effects. There was no award again until 1938 where it was called a special award "for outstanding achievement in creating special photographic and sound effects. The very next year the award was combined with sound effects and called the Award for Special Effects. It wasn't until 1963 that the award became the Award for Best Visual Effects (which it is still called today). It was given every year from 1963 to present, with the exception of 1973.

Preposterous - A short film about absurdity

In life, these things are certain: If a balloon lands on a cactus, it will pop. If you point a fan at a house of cards, the cards will fall. If you happen to drop a piece of toast, it will inevitably land jam-side down. (OK, so that last one isn’t always a given—but it definitely feels that way.)

These are a few of the inevitabilities that graphic designer Florent Porta subverts in his new film, Preposterous. “I really like old cartoons, humor, and absurd things,” he says. Set against sherbet colored backdrops, his 50-second animated short is full of expectation-defying moments crafted in Cinema 4D. Instead of the balloon popping, the cactus crumbles; instead of the cards falling, the fan blows itself backwards; miraculously, the piece of toast lands on its dry side.