780-789 Music

Initially I thought of perhaps going through the DDC systematically from 000 to 999 and writing about some of the books I’ve loved / used / displayed, but then I spent the day yesterday re-reading Zen by Shabnam Minwalla and decided randomness, chaos and interest was infinitely preferable to order and sensibility.

There’s something amazing about books that manage to evoke a sense of time and place both through words and cultural references to music, poetry, quotes etc. And the books I’ve been reading and promoting for our middle school have been great at this. How many others sit with a book in one hand (or audio in one ear) and youtube open in the other to look up the songs you don’t know or listen to old favourites while reading?

I remember back when I first started out as an intern under KD at UWCSEA East making a libguide page (see “other interesting stuff” in the tabbed box) to support John Green’s amazing “The Fault in our Stars“. (cringe moment at how bad I was at that time in making good looking libguides!). When I introduce books with musical elements now to my students, I like to have some music playing in the background when they enter. Some more great ones include Ready player one, Red White and Whole, The thing about Jellyfish and Wink .

And here is a list of more from “Middle Grade Carousel” many of which ended up in one of the displays this year. Another display that worked really well for my “Swifties” was to match the song names in her latest album to other “related” titles (in the broadest sense of the word). There were chocolates on offer!

nonfiction music

Getting back to the nonfiction side of things – besides my all time favourites ever (Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks, To Learn with Love by William and Constance Starr, The Art of Possibility by Roasmund and Benjamin Zander, Pablo Cassals by Robert Baldock and The Art of Cello Playing by Louis Potter Jr) here are a few newer titles in our collection:

And that’s all for today. Please reply with your favourite fiction or nonfiction books on music!

PS

Two things I meant to put in and then forgot about:

uplifting music

According to a study conducted by cognitive neuroscientist Jacob Jolij of the University of Groningen, Don’t Stop Me Now’ by Queen is the most encouraging track in the world.

The research analyzed various factors, including the beats per minute, the key, and the chords of the song. Here are the top 10 songs that put you in a good mood (and the youtube versions):

• Queen, “Don’t Stop Me Now”
• ABBA, “Dancing Queen”
• Beach Boys, “Good Vibrations”
• Billy Joel, “Uptown Girl”
• Survivor, “Eye of the Tiger”
• The Monkees, “I’m a Believer”
• Cyndi Lauper, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”
• Bon Jovi, “Livin’ on a Prayer”
• Gloria Gaynor, “I Will Survive”
• Katrina & the Waves, “Walking on Sunshine”

seismic music

Something that combines a bit of geoscience and music – according to seismologists at the British Geological Survey (BGS) earthquake activity was clocked during the Taylor Swift Eras Tour in Edinburgh and the most seismic activity was caused by the song “… Ready for It?” .