Music Appreciation With David Byrne

The very first class on my first day of college was music appreciation. Granted, it was a required class and I took it during my first semester (and first thing in the morning) because it was an easy class. There was arguably not a lot of mental “heavy lifting” to be done there. I mean, I already appreciate music of all kinds anyway, right?

The class turned out to be somewhat interesting and informative but not terribly earth shattering. I think this had something to do with the teacher who, by the way, was an accomplished classical guitarist and all-round nice guy, but not very inspiring.

Well, one night recently I was watching a TED Talk downloaded from TED.com which featured David Byrne of Talking Heads fame giving a talk entitled How Architecture Helped Music Evolve. It was so inspiring (not to mention freaking cool!) I think I shed a tear while watching just thinking back to the early morning music appreciation class and how lame it was in comparison.

I highly recommend that everyone try to watch at least a few TED Talks which are of interest, as there are so many to choose from on so many subjects. To quote one presenter at a recent BarCamp I attended: TED Talks are [his] antidote for all the garbage that is spewed out across the airwaves and enter our homes via television. Kill Your Television indeed!