Oh, boy, yeah, WDMN… we are here and there
There's no truth in this, we're not even here
Welcome to Why Make Music, a podcast
Were we dive into the world of creativity and inspiration
Why Make Music… is hosted by ThinkTimm.We're broadcasting from planet Earth
Now, without further ado, let's embark on a journey to make music
Talk and to explore the world of Why Make Music…
Why Make Music…
Oh
Yeah
Welcome, welcome, welcome
Episode 9 of Why Make Music…
Today's topic is
The Healing Power of Music
My name is ThinkTimm and I'm your host
I am a independent musician slash producer
No affiliation, no association to anything major
I am strictly working out of my home
And I am trying to be the best host
I can be
On today's show, we will talk about
The healing power of music
So tell me what you think about that
But as I do, I would like to welcome
Everyone that is listening to the podcast
I have been looking at the analytics
And I want to thank you all for tuning in
I am very humbled by the fact that people are listening
And it's cool
Like I said, this is a long journey, a long road
And I enjoy putting together a cohesive thought
Of ideas to share with
Do it -yourself musicians like myself
So like I said
I record out of home
I use digital software
I can play traditional instruments
I had a
Basic musical upbringing
No lessons, can't read music
Just a musical household
Musicians in the family
And just the love to create music and art
So, with that being said
Welcome
The question, the title, Why Make Music
Is something that I said before
But if this is your first time listening
I just want to let you know that
If ever you meet a musician or any type of artist
I think the most inquisitive question you can ask them is
Why Make Music…
The reason why I say that is because
That question is a prompt to basically
Open up the person to the fact that you're curious about
Their creative process
And you want to know what causes them to do what they do
Where do the ideas come from?
Do you get ideas from television, life, reading
Conversation with friends, social media, posts
Memories, dreams of the future
When it comes down to music
Do you hear the melodies before you begin to write
Or do you write with a blank canvas
And then make it up as you go along
These are things that musicians like to talk about
Because most of the time it seems like we're kind of on automatic
Like autopilot basically
That you know we do these things
And a lot of times I told you before
The greatest compliment for a musician is basically
If their track can play in the background
And you're not greatly offended or bothered by the sounds that you hear
You know it can blend in and be in your face
But discreet at the same time
Music is basically a soundtrack for our lives and our everyday
You listen to music when you work out
You listen to music while you drive
You listen to music to fall asleep
You listen to music to get yourself hyped
It is something that we as humans take for granted
And shockingly the percentage of people who are creatives
That create the music is so small
Considering the amount of music that there is available in the world
So before we get into our main topic of the healing power of music
I would like to talk to you folks
Now everybody can get in on this conversation
And you let me know how you feel about this
But lately because of the almighty algorithm
So when I say that I'm making reference to those who are familiar with the internet
And there is a thing that basically ties in the synergy of your entire internet search history
Your browsing, your likes, your loves
The things that you are concerned with
That basically allows advertisers to be aware of what you're generally interested in
Where I'm going with this is that now
As a creative, as a producer, as a person who is currently independently putting out his own music
I get a lot of marketing and help build your audience type
Mail spam, inquiries about how are you distributing your music
And how can we help you grow your audience
So my question is when you listen to your streaming platforms
When you go for a playlist
Now I understand greatly that by no means is ThinkTimm a household name
Sure I should not be on anybody's playlist unless you are looking for me
But there are marketing agencies that are putting together scenarios for a price
That say that for X amount of dollars a day
We get your song on to a playlist
Now I understand building your audience, building your community is something that's very very important
It's extremely important, I cannot stress it
But the thing is when you're building your audience by trying to populate a random playlist
Is that really helping you or is it necessarily helping the said company that you're paying X amount of dollars to
Put your or submit, I'm not even really sure how it goes
I've watched a few videos, I've read some information
And I am kind of on the fence with it because I believe like with any product that you create
That eventually the product will then become the major situation
Where you have to basically think about all of the other companies and businesses that are going to profit off of what you're doing
So with that in mind I am saying to you that okay so we have said company that for X amount of dollars will try to help you reach a larger audience
Now they're not taking your entire catalog, they're charging you a fee per song to put your track on a playlist
That they cannot necessarily guarantee that you will get played but you will be placed in a grouping with music that is similar to your own
Which could be a good thing but from what I'm learning and what I'm understanding the amount of money that an artist gets from streaming is very very low
So say for example you spend five dollars a song a day to have your song playlisted, are you making back that five dollars
From that song being played and streaming revenue to quote unquote reach this new audience
Now I do understand that if you have I guess other states in the fire I guess is the best way to say if you are a live performer and you have an audience
If you are out there also marketing yourself in some type of way that in conjunction with what you're doing for your online present is also being compensated by real life
Maybe it wouldn't be a bad scenario but if you are working independently and you are just trying to naturally grow your audience online
I don't know if a person, a group, a musical independent entity is necessarily making the revenue to pay into these get you put on a playlist type thing
So long story short I just wanted to share my little input on the
It seems as though there are businesses set to always be in the pocket of the creative person promising that there will be some type of quicker gratification
Or quicker satisfaction or something quicker than the national, the natural way that people take a liking or people come across one's material
Alright so enough of the quote unquote politics. Let's get into this situation of my main idea and if you can hear in the background I have a special guest
I have a special guest named Jimmy the Cricket that's in here with me and normally I will try to excommunicate the cricket prior to recording
But today I figured I'm a little lonely so why can't I have company? So the cricket is in the background so please excuse the little chirping from time to time
There it is if you can hear it if I don't filter it out but anywho let's get into the main situation and let's talk about the main focus of the episode
I'm exploring the calming and restorative effects of music and how it has on our well being, our mental well being
I say that only because I kid you not this week in my regular life has been very very busy and during that time it kind of pulled me away from my normal everyday thought pattern
Because I was put in positions where I had downtime but I couldn't necessarily call it productive time so with my downtime I found myself more so listening to music as opposed to playing music
Now granted it may have been my music but I also witnessed situations where music was put on for other people with the intent of relaxing them
And it made me come up with the idea to think about let's talk about the effect that music has on a person
It's a very soothing and calming vibe or it could be used to hype you up it could be used to be the background while a story is playing
It could be used I know in elementary school and the elementary music classes one of the great things we're introduced to is the story of Peter and the Wolf
Where each instrument represents a character so as the story is being told the music changes from instrument to instrument as a character enters the story
That conditions you to basically follow along and subconsciously you are relating the sound, the tone, the timbre of that said instrument with the character
So if I'm not mistaken I'm not sure exactly what instrument represented what but I'm sure Peter was more of a light airy probably like a flute scenario
And I'm sure the wolf was a more deeper bellowing more menacing type of maybe brass or rhythm type instrument just to get the heavy effect of the weight of the situation when he entered the scenes
Now we are as humans are basically conditioned without even being aware that this is how we're taking in the music around us
If you think about a lot of times the powers that be when explaining the behavior of people of a mass of people you realize a lot of times they talk about the population like we're somewhat mindless
We are heavily under the influence of the things that surround us and we can't necessarily make decisions on our own but we're greatly influenced by video games, by the sound of music, by the context of music
By the violence in the media, the television, the movie screens, so forth and so on
Never is it that we're influenced by the violence in real life and the things going on around us or the mental stress that you might be under in your day to day and we are ill prepared to deal with it
But that's not my lane so I'm not going to go into that but when it comes to music, music can be used as a catalyst, a jumping off point that will basically be your entrance to common
Your gateway to get hype, your driving music
I have a friend of mine that he used to drive, he would tell me a story when he was driving to work and I think he worked the evening, the night shift so there wasn't a lot of traffic but on his way to work the roads would be clear and he would put on some hype music and he would get his ND500 drive on
I'm like I'm sure you're in a few tickets but he got caught up in the sound of the bump in music and you feel a certain way, your adrenaline is rushing, you're feeling good
Then I have other people who like to listen to jazz, R&B, classic rock, yacht rock, the 70 something mellow laid back and that's reflected in their personality
So it's funny how this week music was put on to lull a person into a sense of comfort, more or less to recall their memories of when they were younger
And the person's favorite artist was put on and
Me personally do I think it worked? I do, but I'm not sure if that's something that works all the time
There's back, I don't know if it's used as much today as it was when I was a little younger because there were more movies like this and there were more cartoons that kind of just had a wide range
And there was a Bugs Bunny episode where Bugs Bunny had to calm down this big gorilla
And it's like it was saying that basically music calms the savage beast
And it was a situation where he had one of those little wind up player devices and the gorilla, first it was a monkey and the monkey he realized that the monkey followed instructions
That he was taught and trained when the music came on and he danced and he collected change. Now granted Bugs Bunny was made in the 50s, 40s, old, old, old time
So there's probably no reference for anyone young who is watching this and the Bugs Bunny they get is different than the generations of Bugs Bunny that I got when I was young
Which was at that point still old, old, old, but I know that they've redesigned and redid the cartoons so I don't think the Looney Tunes of today are the same Looney Tunes of the 70s and 80s
But that little monkey somehow came in connection with a gorilla and Bugs Bunny tried the same technique on the gorilla
And the gorilla basically started shaking down people and climbing up buildings and shaking people out the window and shaking the change out their pockets or whatever
But the gorilla was still under the effects of the said music
Do you get what I'm saying? I'm trying to tie in some type of music has a commenting effect
Psychologically I guess it goes into the situation where I guess music is liking I guess the bell with Pavlov's dog that the study was done that every time the bell rang at one point the dog was given a treat
And it got to a point that even when a treat wasn't given and the bell rang the dog came to attention basically awaiting the treat to a point that I do believe the book says that even the dog's mouth was watering
So signs of anticipation was based upon what was triggered in the animal's mind which I'm sure is the same situation in humans that basically when we hear a song or we hear a beat or we hear a sound
It triggers a memory in our head that then takes us back to said place and if you put it all together you end up with some type of effect that will be utilized somewhere down the line
Now the reason why I say that is that you think about it there's a whole field of studies where you have people who go and get music therapy and if you've ever gone to a spa
They have the light earth music in the background new age sound and it's relaxing you have elevator music you have environmental music
I had to laugh because if you are a Prince fan as I am you would say do you like environmental music birds chirping water rushing both make you horny but kind of makes me want to go to bathroom
Anywho back on track any so
How does it work.
And when these people were putting together the music. What were they thinking so that's where my mind goes when you have calming relaxing music. So like say right now in the background this podcast.
This track is playing.
It's drums, and it's a few string arrangements over top of it.
Now this is lifted from another track from one of my tracks, but there's more to this than the three tracks that are playing, but the three tracks that are playing a very calm.
Very soothing, at least to me, because I like the percussion sounds that are playing. I like the chords that are playing.
There are studies that say that there is a sweet spot with the music frequency that hits your subconscious that lulls you into a peaceful place.
I've looked into it I read into it. I do not attempt to utilize it because, like I said, I am not a professional musician and I try not to get super super deep in all the
technological or all the theory based paths you can go down. Now don't get me wrong, have I played around with it and tweak frequencies and so forth and so on and put, put certain things at certain frequencies to see how it goes.
It does, but I just could not see doing that for all the music that I create because creating music to me is not necessarily a planned destination.
It's not necessarily something that I can say, oh, this is what I plan to do and this is where I plan to go so this whole entire project right here is going to be overlaid with very relaxing earthy strings and whatnot so truthfully I'm sure that if you were to hear this song
in this whole, these parts are not necessarily super prominent all the time given such the mellow feeling that it has right now.
As this other track kicks in with a little bit more of a kick drum a little more uptempo type situation going on. But,
how do you feel when you listen to music what do you, when you put music on what are you looking for.
What do you find to be the,
the reason that you're playing music. Do you put the music on because you like music because I know for a fact that I said it before and I'll continue to say is that I know that listening to instrumentals all the time is not necessarily everyone's cup of tea.
People tend to write off the instrumental part of music as though it's very interchangeable, hence the popularity of remixing a song where some of the better albums I've heard have had very good remixes done where all the original music has been stripped away
and there's another track another more popular more upbeat, a more
popular, whatever's going on so they say if you took a song by the Beatles or by any artists in the past and all of a sudden you repopulate the instrumental track with something that is ultra current.
And if you mix the right blend. It sounds good and then like it can mean a whole new world for a person who likes the old song and likes the new song.
So, it's a strong connection that we have to music.
It goes into, I guess almost the night, night even take other lyrics of a song like back in the day on the gene Kelly singing in the rain and the visual that goes along with it.
Here you have a older black and white maybe early technicolor visual of a dude singing and dancing on a curbside with an umbrella and I'm seeing, you know the song I'm not going to sing it, but that
meant something and it captured a feeling that rain is gloomy, a dark day at dark night.
The light pole I do believe was illuminated so therefore I'm assuming it was nighttime and it's taken from a movie so I can't really tell you what movie was and movie might have been called singing in the rain.
But, um, when putting that together.
What were the writers producer and that day and time going for.
What was the intent.
I asked that because my second example is a song that if you listen to modern music in this year 2024.
There's a song by
Kendrick Lamar.
Not Like Us. It was part of a big bubbling scenario of back and forth of a rap beef with Drake.
Now, the energy of that song tends to pull you in immediately.
And it stirs up feelings emotions memories or something that is that was a spec in time for a hot second.
And it's a very verbal song that paints a picture. And if I'm not mistaken the production was done by DJ mustard, and it was very much so on point.
It seems very spontaneous. When you think about the progression, the creation of the track now, don't get me wrong people take as long or as short amount of time as they want when they're producing something so I don't know how long it took.
But the song has a staying power that has basically engraved itself into our consciousness, because of the time that it came out.
And when I talk about the healing power of music. It became bigger than the beef that created the song.
And when I say bigger than the beef that created the song is that after that song dropped. It was almost like a victory parade, and it basically somewhat not necessarily healed the scenario that they were going back and forth about,
but it brought light to the emotion that every time the song comes on which I'm not gonna lie to you when the song comes on. I prefer to catch the song from beginning when the song comes on and it's kind of I'm flipping through stations.
I listen to radio stations in the car every now and again I do, and it comes on I tend not want to catch the song in the middle or whatever I want to catch it from the opening note and rock with it throughout.
I don't turn off midway through because I have a short attention span and it is what it is but I have a greater chance of completing the song if I listen to it from the beginning because it is such a song that encapsulates a victory lap.
For whatever reason, then I could care less about either point of view I have my favorites for the reasons I have my favorites, but that song, I can't necessarily come along or want to bring back memories of any other song, especially from the other side of the beef.
But anywho, that's another story, and I told you I would never speak negative I rather just not talk about people.
So, with that being said, we're talking about the healing power of music.
What happens when you put on a Steely Dan album, and you listen to it from from the back.
What happens when you put on a Luther Vandross album, a Teddy Pendergrass album.
What happens when you put on a Bob Dylan record. Where does that take you? The Beatles.
Jimi Hendrix gets you hyped. He has some mellow bluesy type guitar playing but the vocals are like fire.
Led Zeppelin the Who.
There's so many great artists that have left their marks with a style of music.
Not every artist has the creativity to bounce from box to box and give you one album that sounds one way, the next album sounds a different way.
This is when I was going through my Sutton Such period and this is when I was going through this, that and other, which those albums themselves are the perfect time capsules that will be or are the healing albums or the healing music that I'm talking to.
It may not necessarily have the grand effect on everyone, but what if you were going through something at that time frame when that song first came out?
What if you were living your best life when an album came out and you basically now recapture those feelings over and over again, 10, 20 years later when you hear that album.
I remember, I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm like I'm going to take a horrible situation in modern times and I'm going to tell you that, oh, I remember 9-11.
I remember the tragic situation. I also remember The Blueprint coming out by Jay-Z, which basically musically put me in a better place than the world was in at the time.
But I don't necessarily relate the album when I'm listening to the album to 9-11 that when since, fortunately, I did not know anyone or lose anyone in the 9-11 situation.
So I remember how the world shut down and how it was a very solemn situation.
But at the same time, I remember while I was traveling from point to point in the car, I was blasting The Blueprint.
You know, so part of my healing and dealing with that situation was a good album.
I told you that I spoke of before that when I came home as a young child after seeing Star Wars, there was an Earth, Wind & Fire song that was playing on the radio.
This Is The Way of the World or something like that. I think that the title is. But every time that song comes on, I think of Star Wars, but I don't watch Star Wars and think of Earth, Wind & Fire.
You understand what I'm saying? So everything is relative when it comes to the way we as humans process our memories and how certain things help you get better and help you get past certain things in life.
Music has the power to heal, to stimulate your brain, to take you to another place and give you solid memories that will last, that will motivate you, that will calm you,
that will put you in a special place that not many things do. I'm like, what other thing you don't walk around looking at pieces of artwork?
You don't walk around necessarily. You can do it with books, I guess. But music is something that you can do other things while indulging in music.
Music has such a subconscious property to it that it allows itself to live within you. So remember, when you meet a musician, ask them Why Make Music…
Why Make Music… Of all the things you could do in the world, you can make music.
The reason why I say of all the things you could do in the world, you can make music, it's because it's something that comes so naturally to those who do it.
It's something that you are willing to share. It's something that touches everyone. Music transcends language.
Think about it. Especially when you make cool instrumental music like I do. You don't need any language. Music could be my language.
I want to thank you for tuning in. And I know that as time is ticking away and I am on my mission to oversaturate the world, today is October 18th, Friday.
Next Friday, October 25th, I will be putting out my third volume of 26 songs. It will be called SuperlaBass… Reality Effect.
Not the reality effect, but just reality effect. SuperlaBass, S-U-P-E-R-L-A-B-A-S-S dot dot dot Reality Affect with an A.
It will be available on all streaming platforms. I hope you guys enjoy. Take a listen to it. Download it. Play it. Do what you got to do.
I hope you enjoy it. I hope you enjoyed emotional, cool feelings. I hope you enjoyed botanicals, booming bouquet.
Right now, I am three months into three projects. Each project has 26 tracks on it. So I am at a cool 78 tracks released.
And I plan to drop two more by year's end and keep this thing going as long as I can. I have music in me, so I will never run out of stuff.
But remember, tune into the podcast, Why Make Music…This is ThinkTimm saying thank you once again for all those who have listened and all those who have tuned in.
Peace. Why Make Music. Enjoy. Live life. Be creative. And listen to whatever it is you love to listen to. Peace.
Thank you.