Strangely, the thing I listen to 75% of the time, when I'm exercising with my headphones on is English Tudor/Elizabethan music, so music from about 1450 to the early 1600's. Tod Machover More Quotes by Tod Machover More Quotes From Tod Machover After a year, I thought gee I don't really need college anymore, which wasn't correct, but that's what I thought. Tod Machover college years needs You have to train your mind and your ears, but they're more like athletic skills. So, part of music you just have to learn those things or you can't practice the art. Tod Machover skills practice art One of my interests in music has always been what it means, why it affects us the way it does. Tod Machover doe mean way One of the big mysteries of music is, if you take music without words, it means something to us because we know it's about something. It's about something important humanly, but since there are no words, nobody knows what it's about. Tod Machover mystery important mean The way I listen to music goes in waves depending on a lot of things. How busy I am, if I'm in between composition projects, if I'm starting a new project. So, the only time I listen to the radio for music is with my daughter's when I'm driving them to school, or driving them somewhere. Tod Machover radio daughter school I did take composition lessons when I was in high school, so I wrote piano pieces. I wrote some chamber music. I don't think any of that was particularly interesting. Tod Machover piano school thinking When I was done with high school, I knew that music was really important to me and I knew I didn't want to be a cellist, but I wasn't really sure if I wanted to be a composer, or think about - I was just interested in the ideas behind music, I was interested in mathematics. Tod Machover ideas school thinking I think part of the bad thing is that skill is emphasized so much that a lot of people, by the time they get to Juilliard, well I think they kind of forget why they got into music in the first place and if they're performers - this is a simplification, but a lot of them are trying to win a competition and play more accurately, or better, or more beautifully, whatever can be measured, than somebody else. Tod Machover winning play thinking There's just an incredibly rich and interesting relationship between our listening to music and the way our minds engage. Tod Machover listening mind interesting I think in many ways, the texture of technology actually diminishes human beings. It doesn't augment them. Tod Machover texture technology thinking I've done a lot of operas. I've probably done more different kind of operas than anybody. Tod Machover opera different done Over my career, I'd say the last 25 years; we've gone from music and computer being for 10 people in the world to having personal computers, to now being able to do amazing things on your iPhone, or with Rock Band. So, right now there's enormous capability with technology in our devices that everybody has access to. Tod Machover iphone rocks technology The one obvious thing is that the devices are so good now that you can also see their limitations extremely well. Tod Machover obvious-things devices wells I love working with technology because it allows me to follow my imagination and to invent new things. Tod Machover my-imagination technology imagination A piano is a machine, but you've got ivory and there's weight behind the keys and you have this really - you feel the resonance in the instrument, you feel the vibration in the pedal. I mean, these a still very crude. Tod Machover ivory keys mean Why does every society seem to want to make music when it often seems like kind of a frill. Tod Machover kind doe want That's the definition of popularity. Something that literally resonates with many, many people. Tod Machover popularity definitions people All the music we know that's popular is actually commonly shared music that takes things that are similar about all of us. Tod Machover knows Perhaps 25 to 50 years from now, I can design a piece of music, no so that it appeals to something common in millions of people, but I can design the music so that it's exactly right for you and only you at this particular moment for your particular experience, things that have happened to you over 20 years, to you're particular mental state right now. Tod Machover design people years I started realizing that one of the great things about opera is that if you make the right kind of story, you can still have this kind of abstract subliminal quality to take you on a journey, but you can root it just enough in a particular situation, a particular kind of real situation that a person might have, or a particular context in the real world. Tod Machover real journey roots
