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Jon Gatrell

Music, Emotion and Shared Experiences

photo by you.

Education and Research – Facebook productivity.

So Alexis, you don’t know her – so I’ll tell you about her – wicked intelligent and apparently a lecturer/professor. Not much more I can be reasonably sure about, since I haven’t spoken to her since 1990, but have connected via Facebook and randomly interacted and those are my impressions. A recent Facebook note I caught from my news feed represents an interesting way to engage the network and leverage the value of the relationships. Normally I would have missed the note, but the title required a click – “music as mood-altering”. So Alexis used Facebook as a follow up/drill down on input she received in her class as an educator – kinda cool social media use case. Connectivity and access to a network can produce some interesting stuff and I think her topic/question should definitely have a response. So with that baseline, Alexis asked her network the following in the Facebook note:

This semester I’m teaching a lower-division undergrad class on language and music. The topic for the past week has been music and emotion, and we’ve looked at a couple of attempts to somehow make concrete our understanding of the mechanisms through which music can pack such an emotional wallop. Some of the mechanisms people have proposed:

  • mimicking or alluding to emotional signals of the world, e.g. fast tempos convey excitement, echo the way our hearts pound when we’re excited
  • invoking personal associations
  • connecting with the responses we have to structures changing and unfolding over time

I’ve heard a lot now about my students and their emotional experiences with music, but what about you, my friends? Does it even makes sense to seek specific musical correlates to specific emotions? How universal (or individual) are emotional responses to music?

What an interesting way to leverage social media from an educational perspective. Not sure if this was the goal, but ultimately this event could be loosely or not-so loosely defined as primary research. Sampling could be an issue. Dewy Wins!

Music and Emotions

This question makes for a timely thing having just got back from spending a weekend with friends watching live music all weekend which was accompanied by shared emotional responses with say 8,000 other folk. I have the habit lately of keeping my own setlist mainly because I can’t get out as much with 4 kids to see live music and to refer to in meetings, at airports or with friends. For me the setlist represents not just the songs, but also the experience which definitely invokes emotions. The setlits conjures up items about the event/evening, a given song’s association, the people and what I’ve actually documented about a given line item. Below are two examples from this week’s venture out to see Widespread Panic, it also represents my answer to the question posed. Typically I would edit before I post, but in the name of research/content analysis….verbatim below:

10/17 – WP – ATL -Lakewood
Set 1
Worry
Drum thing into. Hatfield
Ribs n whiskey
Glory.
Sleepy monkey.
Going out west
Morning dew
Rebirtha slow.
Red beans

Set 2 9:34
Airplane.
Long jam> vacation jimmy killed it
Bears gone fishin
Pigeons
Randall bramlett?. Mega blasters old neighborhood

Chest fever.
Arlene
Bust it big.
Weight of the world.

Encore.
Walking

10/18 Atl 7:29

Set 1

Mr soul

OAS

Drum thing. Into Fishwater big

Last straw

Alg

up all night bramblett mega blasters

New tune/ dance needs no body. Long and boring

You should be glad

Ophelia.

8:35

Set 2 9:16

Chilly

You got yours

Blight huge

Rhm

Angels on high. Lame

Momma told me not to come.3dg

Superstition mega blaster

Tall boy mega

10:22

Encore

Randall. Jb is late

Picking up pieces

North

Pilgrims

Wondering

10:57

The funny thing about reading your setlist later, no matter what I’m doing or where I’m at it — even thought of music is mood altering.

Random proof-point: In the Fox News clip below you can clearly see music alters the Anchors’ moods.   I’m not so sure about the chunk of coal reference, but they could turn Jimmy down a little.

October 22, 2008 by
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Common Thought, a brilliant day and giving back!

I clearly meant to write this earlier, but been busy trying to figure out what the status of the day is with Heuer. I still kinda don’t know what’s up, but it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t honor the good work Creative Commons is doing. So while it is Blog Action Day and the kick off of the fund raising campaign for CC, I’m going to focus Fabiana Zonca’s photo below which I found via a “Thought” tag on Flickr.

Thinking of you by Fabiana Zonca.

Thinking of you

Also you can create a video on WHY it is important/you like it, you could also put up a widget up like I have or just donate via the widget on the right to Creative Commons.

October 15, 2008 by
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Creative Commons? Be aware and support on 10/15

The momentum continues, a couple folks along with myself have just completed an effort with Social Media Club and Creative Commons to increase visibility for the groups and the creators which leverage Creative Commons licensing. This is one of the first deliverables in the Social Media Club’s 4 projects, increasing awareness and adoption for industry standards is central to the mission of the group. To that end, October 15, 2008 – TOMORROW – represents the first opportunity to evangelize the importance of standards and move this mission forward in partnership with Creative Commons.

So what can YOU do to help create more awareness around the important service Creative Commons provides? There are 3 ideas which certainly would help which have been bantered around, but I suspect the community can come up with more by October 15th. The key theme is just to identify a way to let folks know about the best practices around the sharing/creating of creative works leveraging a Creative Commons License. So which one of the below are you going to do?

  1. Post an article describing the services Creative Commons provides to content creators and why YOU think that is important.
  2. Add a widget to your blog to encourage financial support.
  3. Create and/or focus a creative commons licensed work via your preferred social media channel (Twitter, blog, facebook…)

So what are you going to do tomorrow? Doesn’t really matter, it only matters that you do SOMETHING.

October 14, 2008 by
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A real-time voice: Hack the Debate and Where’s my Gas?

Two really interested things have happened of late around Twitter which has had me discussing Twitter in odd situations. With references in the AJC on a fairly creative use, Twitter may become an inventory management system for the CONSUMER.  Consumer based demand management might be another way to look at it – regardless it could change market the landscape.   The other interesting Twitter advance is the real-time insight into political feedback, not online but integrated with TV for your Mom to see.   Sure Twitter has broken news, provided updates from natural disasters, and even has resulted in the occasional “brand jacking”, but recently it transitioned to being more of an interesting app, now that it has empowered the community to take action, rather than listen to stories, share ideas or just chatting.  Twitter sometimes has been thought of as a built to flip entity, but it may have just found a problem solving niche – not just reducing latency of communication but reducing transactional friction and opportunity costs for consumers and voters alike.

The Consumer Has Access

I recently suffered through the Atlanta gas crisis and had used Twitter to aid in finding out where gas was. This use of Twitter solved a critical need for consumers – where and when can I find fuel for my car.   The real odd thing, is the use of Twitter came up multiple times when I was New York, merely because I was from Atlanta and specifically because of this pragmatic use of the platform.   I spent more time talking about the gas crunch and explaining Twitter with one editor than one would have thought for a guy that blogs, but it made for a nice segue into a community concept which I was there to speak on.

Essentially for many, Twitter has become their main social network or at least more folks are using it now and getting comfortable using it.  Whatever the reality – it’s now main stream stream media and successfully connecting people to solve problems.  With continuous updates and shared experiences some folks were able to get gas just a little quicker and avoid the opportunity costs of trying to find it yourself.   On that concept alone, Twitter appears to be able to produce an ROI.  Not only is there now a way to frame a value prop around that use, it allows consumers to rally around opportunities in the marketplace whatever it may be.  So I wonder what other use cases folks are going to think of.  Could Twitter be used to find out where the latest supply of a cool video game/toy is for Christmas?

Twitter seems well positioned to solve other real consumer problems involving not just presence, but place as it relates to goods or the supply of goods.  People already use Twitter for place for a long time for place – think conferences, but introducing access to goods is a new take.  So if consumers share information on the ability to access services or goods it could significantly influence consumers choices at a local level.

Where do I go tonight for drinks is already being answered by #happyhour so what else could be solved for in the Twitter community?  Perhaps Twitter can effectively manage place, supply/access, precense and quality of experience/managing of opportunity costs.

I wonder what the people are thinking?

I could never see a presidential debate live, not sure I couldn’t react one way or another.   Knowing this about me, I was certainly excited to see the integration of Twitter and TV around the debate.  Twitter’s 140 characters has become an interesting cross channel feedback for not only users, but non-users.  Feedback on a story which just happened for Rick Sanchez or sharing real-time impressions of the debate is no longer visible just to those on Twitter, but also the viewing audience.  The integration of Twitter for Hack the Debate is the most recent melding of community and communication which most folks don’t know about.  Current TV has integrated Twitter into the debate with real-time streaming of tweets on the broadcast of the debate.  Yup what people think in real time about the candidates and their answers.  This integration means that users can actively participate in the debate in a way that even those AT the debate can’t.  Odd concept – people 10 feet away from the candidates can’t influence, but people 1000’s of miles away can.  Below is an example what you might see should you watch the next debate on Current.

It never ceases to amaze me how technology developed for one use can quickly morph to deliver on new/emerging needs with the existing capabilities.  Do you think Twitter could help coordinate aid relief,  donations and needs for natural disasters?  FEMA should maybe get a Twitter account.

October 10, 2008 by
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