The Secret Language of Words

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What’s in a Word?

A word is a thought, a vocal utterance, and a linguistic symbol representing the thought and utterance. Thought is a mental construct derived from a perceptual impression obtained from the physical environment. Therefore, a thought is a symbol of action in the physical universe.

A morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that represents action with semantic meaning. The word ‘action’ is used here to describe either the existence of a person or thing, an action or activity, or the ability to reach for a thing and take possession of it. 

English examples of a morpheme:

The word ‘unbreakable’ has three morphemes: ‘un-‘, ‘break’, and ‘-able’. ‘Un-‘ meaning ‘not,’ ‘break’ as in ‘split or cracked into pieces,’ and ‘-able’ meaning ‘able, liable, or fit to be ______ed, able to _______, or giving or inclined to _______.’ 

Therefore, the idea conveyed by the word ‘unbreakable’ denotes the action of not able to be split or cracked into pieces.

Here’s another example. The morpheme ‘-s’ as in cats, or ‘-es’ as in dishes both indicate plurality (more than one of something).

Classification of morphemes

Free morphemes:

“Town” can appear with other free morphemes (as in town hall) or they can stand alone. The term "root word" is synonymous (the same as or similar to) with "free morpheme".

Bound morphemes:

“Un-” appear only together with other morphemes to form a word. Bound morphemes in general tend to be prefixes and suffixes. Unproductive, non-affix morphemes that exist only in bound form are known as "cranberry" morphemes, from the "cran" in that very word.

Derivational morphemes:

Concepts that can be added to a word to create another word: the addition of "-ness" to "happy" as in to give "happiness" carries additional semantic information.

Inflectional morphemes:

These modify a word's tense, number, aspect, and so on, without deriving a new word or a word in a new grammatical category (as in the "dog" morpheme if written with the plural marker morpheme "-s" becomes "dogs"). They also carry grammatical information.

The Construction of Speech

A syllable is a unit of organization and meaning formed to be used in a combination of speech sounds to create words. Frequently, a syllable is a morpheme, which can be verified by studying the origin of words (derivations). A syllable is typically made up of a vowel and a consonant or consonants.

For example, the word water is composed of two syllables (or morphemes): wa and ter. Syllables are the phonological "building blocks" of words. They can influence the rhythm of a language, its prosody, its poetic meter, its stress patterns, etc. This little piece of information is extremely useful for the writers of books, advertisements, and songs.

In contrast, a word is composed of singular or multiple syllables, which in turn are types of morphemes. Some singular words can also be morphemes, specifically those classed as a free morpheme.

In writing, there is a creative process available to the artist which consists of a 3-stage process.

Step 1 consists of specifying meaning.

Step 2 consists of specifying the sounds which will represent that meaning and designating that word’s usage in the particular language it was invented.

Step 3 establish the word in the language of the culture. When we produce (or invent) a word, we are essentially turning the sense impression of an experience into a thought and expressing or communicating that thought through sounds (a process known as lexicalization).

Therefore, you should think of the action of creating words as the process of uniting units of sound with units of meaning. Similarly, you could conceive of the writer's creative process as a series of efforts to fill a reader's imagination with meaning.

All languages can be analyzed in this manner and in each case you'll find that every word in all languages are simply meanings combined with other meanings that describe objects or events in the physical universe. Think about the words you use every now and then to increase your understanding of the words you use and how you use them. All sorts of dictionaries are available to assist you in unraveling the mysteries contained in words.

For artists who use words to create works of art an extensive vocabulary, a good command of grammar, and a mastery over the meanings of words are all necessary and important accomplishments to attain.

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Related Music:

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Related Article:

Words in Songwriting and their Power as Emotional Triggers (Part 1)

The Human Voice: The World's First Musical Instrument
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Marc

http://stereothesis.com/



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3 Types of Artist / Music Income

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As an musician, do you dream of a big record deal, acclaim, or fame and fortune? Or are you more interested in a career with music and an income level sufficient to earn a comfortable living? As a painter, do you want to be able to sell enough of your pieces to earn steady income or do you want to license your pieces to catalogues, calendars, and film makers for a fee? As a chef, do you want to open your own restaurant or chain of restaurants, sell books of your recipes, and make appearances on television food channels?

Whatever financial rewards you seek with your career as an artist or musician, there are 3 types of income you should be aware of and know what their sources are. The 3 types of income are passive, portfolio, an earned. Some of these incomes can bleed away your ability to become wealthy, while others can make you rich. What differentiates these 3 types of income is their source and tax rate.
 
Income Sources and Tax rates

Earned income is the highest taxed of all the incomes (50%) and is generally earned as an employee. This type of income can be made as a musician by working for a studio and playing with the bands and musicians that need back-up personnel to fill in their arrangements. You might be paid by the hour or earning a fixed salary, but either way you'll taxed 50% of what you earn. As a chef, you'd earn this type of income by working in a restaurant, making dishes every night, coming up with new recipes, and dealing with food suppliers. As an illustrator, you might work for a company like Disney or Pixar generating new characters and backgrounds for animated movies and T.V. shows. In each of these cases, the work may be very rewarding but the pay will probably be horrible, if only because of the deductions for taxes.

Portfolio income is the second highest taxed of the incomes (20%) and is generate from paper assets such as stocks, bonds, ETF's, and mutual funds. Usually this type of income is created by individuals through a 401K, IRA, or brokerage account through the appreciation (increased value) of their investments in paper assets. If you're an employee at Capitol Records or run a small record label, you are able to contribute a certain amount of your earnings to a 401K, IRA, or brokerage account in an effort to save and grow enough money for retirement. Different tax rules apply for different situations in regard to the amount of contribution, but in general gains in paper assets are taxed within this bracket.

As an artist it is possible to generate portfolio income from your artwork but it'll require financial savvy, creative thinking, and an extensive use of contracts to be able to discover how. For example, look up celebrity bonds, specifically Bowie Bonds, and find out how David Bowie was able to take himself public by leveraging his royalty money and create an asset for investors to profit from.

Passive income is almost always generated from investment real estate and in the form of rental money. If planned properly passive income taxes can get as low as 0%. A competent tax attorney or tax accountant should be able to educate you about lowering your passive income taxes to 0% legally through the purchase, sale, or acquisition of additional real estate properties. Using part of your earned and portfolio income to buy real estate is a wonderful tactic for an artist to use in eventually becoming financially free.

Another source of portfolio income an artist can produce is from licensing their work for uses other than what was originally intended. For musicians, this might mean having your music used in T.V. shows, movies, and remixes. You could also investigate the publishing side of songwriting and write songs for singers and bands who need new or more material, while you take a small cut from every CD they sell or performance they give. Some songs can live forever by living many lives in the recordings and performances of other musicians, but as long as the songwriter was able to retain creative control over the music, then he can profit from every CD, concert, radio play, and re-release that ever gets made.

Now imagine how much income you could pull in if you had several or dozens of songs working for you, like an employee, essentially freeing you from having to work ever again. This way you can focus on composing new songs and performing.

To get a thorough and in-depth education about taxes, artist income, and contracts, get in touch with a competent music or intellectual property attorney, tax accountant, and music publisher.

To learn more about the 3 types of income, click here.


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The Cash Flow Quadrant - What Is It? And What Should It Mean to Musicians and other Artists
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Marc

http://stereothesis.com/


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The Pythagorean Theory of Color and Music

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The Pythagorean Theory of Color

"There are numerous arbitrary arrangements setting forth the mutual relationships of the planets, the colors, and the musical notes. The most satisfactory system is that based upon the law of the octave. The sense of hearing has a much wider scope than that of sight, for whereas the ear can register from nine to eleven octaves of sound the eye is restricted to the cognition of but seven fundamental color tones, or one tone short of the octave."

The Pythagorean Theory of Music  

"To Pythagoras music was one of the dependencies of the divine science of mathematics, and its harmonies were inflexibly controlled by mathematical proportions."

"The lyre was regarded as the secret symbol of the human constitution, the body of the instrument representing the physical form, the strings the nerves, and the musician the spirit."

"Every element in Nature has its individual keynote. If these elements are combined in a composite structure the result is a chord that, if sounded, will disintegrate the compound into its integral parts. Likewise each individual has a keynote that, if sounded, will destroy him."


This essay is from Manly P. Hall’s book "The Secret Teaching of All Ages,” which can be read for FREE or purchased here through Amazon. 

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Marc

http://stereothesis.com/

 

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To support Stereo Thesis with a financial donation securely through PayPal, click here.

 

Ashtanga Yoga – Primary & Intermediate Series, Supplementary Videos

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In my article “Smart Moves for Musicians” and in all subsequent posts related to exercise, health, food and water my intent has been to help educate you on how to incorporate a powerful food and exercise program into your artist lifestyle. The reason it's important to have such a program aligned with an artist lifestyle is to overcome and prevent the types of physical problems which commonly ail sedentary professionals. Typically, the issues range from carpal tunnels, back aches, headaches, lower back pain, cramps, stiff joints, poor posture, obesity, low metabolism, and much more. There's nothing less sexy than an old rock star who's put on 50 - 100 lbs. of weight and trying to make a comeback.
problems that afflict musicians and artists in general.

To further encourage you to start or maintain your current exercise regimen here's a series of video demonstrations for Ashtanga Yoga, one of the most challenging of all forms of yoga. The beauty of these videos is that it shows an approach to working out which allows you to do it anywhere, anytime, and in any weather, with or without equipment.

The instructor in these videos is the founder of the Ashtanga branch of yoga himself, Sri Pattabhi Jois. These 2 videos are intended for beginners and intermediate students of yoga.

Primary Series

Intermediate Series

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Smart Moves for Musicians: Exercise Without Weights Anytime, Anywhere

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Marc

http://stereothesis.com/

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Words in Songwriting and their Power as Emotional Triggers

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Richard: Everything is hypnosis.

John: There’s a profound disagreement between us. There is no such thing as hypnosis. I would really prefer that you didn’t use such terms, since they don’t refer to anything. We believe that all communication is hypnosis. That’s the function of every conversation. Let’s say I sit down for dinner with you and begin to communicate about some experience. If I tell you about some time when I took a vacation, my intent is to induce in you the state of having some experience about that vacation. Whenever anyone communicates, they’re trying to induce states in one another by using sound sequences called “words.”

…you will discover that somnambulistic trance is the rule rather than the exception in people’s everyday “waking activity.”

-          Richard Bandler and John Grinder, Frogs Into Princes

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Walls and Bars of Words

The unique power that words possess is by having influence over the way we perceive and interpret our experiences. How? When we produce a word in language we are in fact turning a perception about something in reality into a thought, then assigning sounds that transmit the idea as meaning to others. Writing is only slightly different, in that, writing is simply transforming the sound into a symbol (letters or glyphs) that conveys, we hope, the same meaning as the sound. The word, whether written or spoken, becomes the symbolic carrier of the idea. One of the wonders of the mind of man is in conceiving of an efficient method of communication about some aspect of life. In many ways for us communication is life and everything that relates to communication is connected with an idea about reality, or things in the physical universe.

The process of transmission goes even further than just the creation of language. Not only are we turning actions into thoughts, and then turning our thoughts into sounds, and finally turning the sounds into language (symbols), we are also choosing the words that will describe our experience of reality into an interpretation (a sense or feeling) of our experience. In other words, we also choose how we will perceive and act in the world we live in by our use of language. We will train ourselves and allow others to train us to see the world in a habitual manner which over time can become a mental prison – with walls and bars of words.

 

By our words we are also choosing how to “feel” about our lives. So it’s the words we choose and the way we choose to use them to describe our actions and the actions of those who act with us in the world that in turn shapes our thoughts about existence, which to a lesser or greater degree creates our reality. Oddly enough though, reality never changes and our thoughts are only subject to reality or our choice of words where the words are a medium and not the substance of our thoughts or reality.

Emotional states are largely determined by the way we perceive our experiences or by our quality of thinking about our experiences and our relating them to our values. What we emote about and in what manner is set by our thoughts about reality and our values.

 

Values are those things in life which we require and pursue for our personal survival. Words play a major, although not exclusive, role in the process of creating our emotional states and our understanding of reality. Emotions are like words in that they are a sort of barometer for our interpretations of existence. They are important, but they do not set the tone of existence.

 

Emotions are automatically generated within us as we experience reality over the course of our lifetime. Once we set our values in life or when they are set for us by others, our minds constantly compute a sum total of our existence, which produces an emotion such as anger, grief, boredom, or joy.

We have arrived at a point in human evolution where we are no longer able to differentiate these facts about human culture, learning, existence, and the mind very well. So it’s no wonder we aren’t even aware of the fact that now we are turning the sounds and symbols of words into our thoughts and making the mistake of confusing our words (as sounds and symbols) with our thoughts. We are confusing the symbols with the actions.

 

This is what makes words so powerful today and in so many industries. The professionals in these industries have mastered the use of words to such a degree that we are spurred to action in many instances not by our own determinism, but by theirs. This unfortunately places us at the mercy of symbols and makes us slaves to language. This is what also makes words so powerful in music and why songwriters too are among those professionals who use words to emotionally move us, thereby converting us into fans and consumers.

 

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 Related Music:

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Related Article:

The Skillful Use of Questions in Songwriting

 

Metaphors as a Songwriting Tool

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Marc

http://stereothesis.com/

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Musical Influences: Producer, Mark Ellis, a.k.a. Flood

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Recording Approach

The best way I think to get a sense of what the studio experience is like with Flood is to hear about it from someone has first-hand knowledge. In an interview with the Guitar Center newsletter Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins talks about his experience working with Flood. After years of listening to Flood’s work with some of my favorite bands and their best work partly due to his contribution, I found Corgan’s comments extremely illuminating especially for me as a Flood fan.

In “Capturing the Truth,” Corgan says:

“He [Flood, the producer] would really kind of push us to say there’s another vibe here that you can get to…you can see that when he’s worked with U2...he kind of pushed them to get to a little bit of a tougher vibe…he really pushed us to make it darker and prettier and more atmospheric…and more nighttime-ish. The song was the same. He didn’t change anything about the song. He really pushed us to a higher level with the way that we thought about our music…What I mean by that is, people fix the atmospheric or emotional problems in a song with production. Flood wouldn’t save the song with production. He would force us to save the song with our playing and then we would produce it. Essentially…if you don’t have the right emotional base in a song, you can never produce it right. And THAT’S what he really taught us, was spend the time getting that exact right feeling so that, even when you play it on acoustic guitar, that feeling comes through…Once you have that feeling in your body, then you know what to do. Then the production is easy.”

Mainstream commercial success

Flood's first mainstream commercial break came in 1987 when he engineered U2's The Joshua Tree alongside Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois. Shortly thereafter he co-produced Nine Inch Nails on debut Pretty Hate Machine. He also worked with Depeche Mode on their most commercially successful album to date, Violator. In 1991 he returned to work again with U2 on Achtung Baby along with Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois and Steve Lillywhite. The following year, he also returned to work with Depeche Mode to record the album Songs of Faith and Devotion and co-produced three tracks of Nine Inch Nails' Broken EP.

To gain a small view into his work with Depeche Mode, one of my favorite bands, here he demonstrates the making of the song “Enjoy the Silence” by Depeche Mode from their Violator album. He begins with the drum sequence and fills in his talk with some of the dialogue that went on between him and the band about what should go on the next track for the piece. Eventually, after trying many effects, the decision was made to add a guitar and then you begin to see how all the pieces start coming together.

“Suddenly, everybody’s engaged.”

 

In 1993, Flood shifted from engineering U2's albums to producing them, sharing duties with Brian Eno on Zooropa. In 1994, he worked again with Nine Inch Nails, this time on The Downward Spiral. In 1995, Flood co-produced The Smashing Pumpkins' album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness with longtime collaborator Alan Moulder, and also PJ Harvey's album To Bring You My Love. In 1996, Flood teamed up with U2 once again to produce Pop, released the next year. The following year, he assisted Billy Corgan and Brad Wood on The Smashing Pumpkins's 1998 album Adore and co-produced PJ Harvey's album Is This Desire?

All of these bands and their albums from this short period of time have been extremely influential on my work and even on my decision to begin and persist as a musician and composer.

To learn more about Flood biographical information, click here.

Incidently, Ellis got the name “Flood” from the time he was a runner at Morgan Studios. Apparently, he was responsible for responding to numerous requests from the recording artists and staff for tea and bacon sandwiches. Ellis kept up with the numerous requests for tea while the other runner remained largely unavailable, leading to the nicknames "Flood" and "Drought” for each runner.

Video Interviews

Now for those of you who may be Flood fans, but have never even known it, or who know it, but who have never really seen him live. Here are two rare interviews with Flood I thought you would enjoy. In each interview he talks about his production style, some of the work he’s done with particular bands, why he uses analog and digital equipment to produce, and much more.

 

 

   

Marc

http://stereothesis.bandcamp.com/

 

Misophonia and the Healing Power of Music

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Does Music Make You Crazy? Yes, I know the music we love to listen to can sometimes drive us wild, but no, I mean in a bad way. Watch this video featuring Kelly Ripa of the popular morning T.V. show Live! With Kelly to get a sense of how misophonia, a mental disorder, affects the people who suffer from it. Then let’s see if we can discover an answer to the question about whether music harms or helps to heal.

 

Misophonia literally means “hatred of sound.” But as I’ve pointed out this “hatred” doesn’t always include a hatred of music. It is characterized by negative emotional and somatic (unwanted physical sensations) experiences resulting from specific sounds whether soft or loud. People who have misophonia are most commonly annoyed or even enraged by common sounds such as other people eating, breathing, sniffing, or coughing; certain consonants; repetitive sounds; other people's repetitive movements, such as leg-tapping, nail-biting, the rising and falling of the belly, and typing.

People with misophonia may be diagnosed with mood or anxiety disorders as well as obsessive-compulsive disorder. Though a few sufferers are bothered by sounds they make themselves, most are not. The reactions are completely involuntary.

Sensitivity to these sounds tends to be exacerbated by anger, stress, hunger, or fatigue. The onset of the symptoms appears to have a characteristic pattern, often in childhood just prior to or during puberty. Often there is a single initial trigger (such as a parent's or sibling's noises), after which the triggers expand over time to include both, auditory or visual elements.

[Note: Here’s Josh’s video on YouTube, you saw a sample of it on the show segment earlier. This is the full version.]

People with misophonia use various coping methods. Most will simply avoid the offending sound by leaving the area where the trigger is perceived, while others will try to block it with earplugs or MUSIC. Often the compulsion to mimic what they hear occurs. In more extreme cases, sufferers will not socialize out of fear for hearing the sounds. It is important to note that sensitivity to the offending sounds is often far more severe when the origin of the sound comes from a person emotionally connected to the sufferer. 

As you were watching the video did you notice what was said about how certain kinds of music act as a trigger for those who suffer from misophonia? No, that’s because it wasn’t said rather the young man, Josh, who suffered from this disorder used music as an agent to block anything he might hear which would trigger his rage. Interestingly, here’s another example of how music can help as part of a broad range of therapies. 

Let’s cheer for music! And let’s also hope that those who suffer will be able to one day free themselves from this condition with a cure.

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The Brain, the Ear, and the Sense of Hearing

Musical Warfare: How to Use Music as a Form of Torture and Assault

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Marc

http://stereothesis.com/

Remember to join our mailing list.

To support Stereo Thesis with a financial donation securely through PayPal, click here.





 

The Hypnotic Music of Andy Summers

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Here a few pieces by Andy Summers that blew me away. They're from older albums, Mysterious Barricades and World Gone Strange, but they illustrate the timelessness of strong compositions and their ability to speak to the emotions from a distance. All of these pieces are simple and yet they make a deep impression with their haunting melodic structures and repetitive rhythms. With that said after many listenings I realized that there was so much in each piece to learn and mirror in my own work just in terms of composition, musicianship, and recording techniques for the electric guitar.

It’s a pretty awesome event when a piece of music, like these 3 tracks, transcends time and changes with a person as they mature and grow in experience. This is how you when an artwork has served its purpose because it reaches deeply into another person and connects with the essence of their being. This is the unique bond an artist is able to produce through their art with another human being. No other bond is quite like this.

Luna

  

Mysterious Barricades

In “Passion of the Shadow” the simplicity remains but the piece achieves grandeur with the distinguishing features of the parts. This track is from the album Charming Snakes, which features several jazz legends. This is one of those works of art that again transcends time and lasts as a companion song throughout life. All on its own it can sound like success after a long road of hard labor, deep loneliness, an erotic experience, concentrated focus, and grief.

 

Passion of the Shadow

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Hooks and Earworms

Music and Trance States of Mind

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Marc

http://stereothesis.com/
 
 

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