Vince Patton and the Oregon Art Beat crew goes behind the scenes for “the making of” Brain Chemistry For Lovers with Valerie Day, Darrell Grant, Jim Blashfield, John Smith, Dr. Larry Sherman, and the Portland Chamber Orchestra. (for those who can’t see the OPB widget and would like to see the show – click HERE)
Here’s an audio clip of the recent conversation that John and Valerie had with Andrea Murray from All Classical 89.9. In it you’ll hear about the man behind the orchestrations for Brain Chemistry for Lovers, the collaboration with the Portland Chamber Orchestra, and…..how Jimi Hendrix thwarted one medical career!
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Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Valerie Day and Darrell Grant go in the 1190 KEX studios to talk with Paul Linnman about their upcoming Brain Chemistry For Lovers performances this coming Valentine’s weekend with the Portland Chamber Orchestra. It’s an action packed three minutes of fun…and you don’t even have to get up early in the past to hear it!
One of the reasons music is so powerful is how it makes us feel. In spite of myself, I have an emotional reaction to some of the most inane and psychologically manipulative movies or even commercials because of the background music that’s used in conjunction with the images. My husband John Smith, who has composed and produced the music for 1000’s of commercials, talks about the psychology of chords and how easy it is to manipulate an audience to feel what you want them to feel. For instance, let’s imagine that we’re being shown a scene in a film where little Johnny is about to blow out the candles on his birthday cake. His loving family is around him, but the camera moves to a figure smiling in the background – Johnny’s uncle perhaps. If the chords being played underneath the Happy Birthday song are in a major key (the ones we usually hear) we experience a sense of happiness and that all is well. If the film composer instead uses some disturbing sounding minor chords – or a violin section playing a rhythmic figure that we associate with the soundtrack to horror movies we’re familiar with – we feel discomfort. “Oh no! Something horrible is about to happen to little Johnny! Maybe his uncle is about to go mad and smash his little head to bits!”
You get the idea. Continue reading ‘The SOUND of Brain Chemistry For Lovers’
I was just about to write a blog about Darrell and why he’s so great to work with. Then I saw a repeat of a piece that Oregon Art Beat did on him a few years ago and realized my work was done! The interview with Darrell is great – it captures his essence perfectly. You’ll see why I’m so grateful to be playing music with him and why he’s the perfect person to be musical director for the Brain Chemistry For Lovers show. There’s also some footage from Darrell’s “Spirit” CD release concert that shows his deeper spiritual leanings. It was a beautiful concert – and our first one together.
Just click on the arrow below to see some of the images from Brain Chemistry For Lovers created by Jim Blashfield.
My son Malcolm thinks I’ve become a science nerd. He teases me because I can’t stop reading books about the brain and I talk about neuroscience all the time. But I can’t help it! Because of the research I’ve done for the Brain Chemistry For Lovers show, I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole into the rapidly evolving world of neuroscience.
And what a world it is! Because of the latest advances in brain scanning technology, scientists can now look inside the brain and get a more complete picture of who we are and what makes us tick. Discoveries are being made every day that help to answer some of the questions that we humans have been asking for centuries. Questions like…
Who are we? Why are we the same yet different? Is it nature or nurture that ultimately shapes us as humans? And then there are the more pressing questions like….why doesn’t he ever put the toilet seat down? Why does she always nag about the dishes? and…why oh why can’t he find stuff in the refrigerator when it’s staring him in the face?
Ok – maybe those last few questions aren’t exactly earth shattering, but they do end up leading us to THE all encompassing question…what makes women and men so different from each other?
One book that helped to answer some of those questions for me (and that I still think about when faced with that open toilet seat) is called:
The Female Brain
by Louann Brizendine, M.D.
Continue reading ‘Sex in the Brain – Part One’
Peace On Earth 2009 (photo by Tasha Miller)
Happy Holidays and best wishes for a New Year filled with Peace, Love and Hope…..
A couple of weeks ago, Darrell Grant and I took Brain Chemistry For Lovers to Wilf’s for a preview show. We were joined for the first time by the “Brain Chemistry Band” – the professors of jazz – Kevin Deitz on bass, Gary Hobbs on drums, and Mike Horsfall on vibes. Also appearing for the first time was the video part of the show created by filmmaker Jim Blashfield. In it, our imaginary lovers, Alice and Bob, come to life, and our “science guy” (and real life science advisor for the script), Dr. Larry Sherman, converses with us through the miracle of modern technology about the science of Romantic Love.
I was insanely nervous. Darrell and I had been “workshopping” the show for a little over a year at Wilf’s – reading from the latest version of the script – trying out new songs or a new order of existing songs. We felt like this was the perfect setting to try out the video, launch the band, and to make an attempt at doing the show from memory. Before we knew it, our little home turf “preview” (read rehearsal in front of live audience) had morphed into a performance in front of OPB’s Art Beat crew, VH1 (who had come to town to videotape an interview with John and I about NU SHOOZ for a show to air March 09), and Marty Hughley from the Oregonian. Continue reading ‘Brain Chemistry For Lovers – the Oregonian Review’
Of all the books I have read while doing research for the Brain Chemistry For Lovers show, my absolute hands down favorite is “A General Theory of Love” by Thomas Lewis, M.D., Fari Amini, M.D., and Richard Lannon, M.D. I don’t know how these three M.D.’s managed it, but somehow they were able to collaborate and come up with a book that turns scientific prose into poetry.
Here’s a paragraph from the forward:
“From birth to death, love is not just the focus of human experience but also the life force of the mind, determining our moods, stabilizing our bodily rhythms, and changing the structure of our brains. The body’s physiology ensures that relationships determine and fix our identities. Love makes us who we are, and who we can become. In these pages we explain how and why this is so.”
Continue reading ‘“A General Theory of Love”’
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