by Colin Fitzpatrick
Web Producer, The Music Instinct: Science and Song
On Wednesday June 24th at 9pm, you will get a chance to view the fantastic, creative, and informative program for PBS, a documentary called The Music Instinct: Science and Song. While you wait for this premiere (check local listings), we’re giving you a chance to interact with this upcoming program though a contest we have created with the good folks over at Indaba Music.
We launched our first contest with Indaba Music back on March 31st, giving their community the first chance to interact with this program. In a contest titled “The Music Instinct: Science and Song – Noise Reinvented!” we provided these musicians with 207 diverse sound effects and environmental noises, such as a running coffee grinder, monkeys hooting in the jungle, crickets chirping, and a babbling brook, and we asked them to take these noises and turn them into music. Indaba’s community had a great response to the contest and we received more than 140 submissions. We even had one Indaba member comment, “This will be my favorite Indaba experience YET,” within days of launching the contest.
Due to an overwhelming number of submissions we will be announcing the winners on June 5th and post them on the on the Music Instinct Web site. While original recorded melodies or other material could be used in generating a composition for the contest, all compositions were judged on the originality and expressiveness of the rhythmic and harmonic use of the sound clips provided. You can also listen to all the submissions at Indaba at the original contest page.
With the great success of the first contest, we’re now giving people a second chance to engage with The Music Instinct. We have launched a second contest where you can mix the Indaba Music Theme with tracks from diverse array of musicians. From The Music Instinct, we have a bass track from Bobby McFerrin, a violin track from Daniel Bernard Roumain, and vocal tracks from world musicians Gino Sitson of Cameroon and Christiane Karam of Lebanon. Additionally we have tracks from contributing musicians Amanda Palmer (best known for her work with the Dresden Dolls, folk musician Ari Hest, and Latin world musicians Tiempo Libre. You can win some cool prizes, including a customized iPod and an online music course from the world-renowned Berklee College of Music. We are accepting submissions until June 19th and you can enter the contest through Indaba Music.
Not interested in entering the contest? The Music Instinct is also part of the World Science Festival for the panel called “Notes and Neurons,” featuring scientist and Music Instinct contributor Daniel Levitin.
In addition to these contests, Indaba and Thirteen have partnered to create interactive tools for education. On June 6th, we will publish 3 comprehensive lesson plans based around national education standards for middle school and elementary school teachers. We have developed some cool tools to demonstrate different facets of music, a keyboard for creating chords, a mixer for exploring frequency, and a sequencer to learn about rhythm. Both the frequency explorer and the sequencer employ sounds found in nature or daily life so that students can understand how musical concepts apply to the world around them. We’re hoping that these lesson plans will become an important resource for teachers long after the broadcast of the program in June.
We also have a wide selection of video and an active blog on the Music Instinct Web site. Be sure to check these out and tune in on June 24th at 9pm for this documentary premiere.
