My personal chocolate + peanut butter is human psychodynamics + the lives of musicians. The hope is to create an exciting new confection by juxtaposing these two areas of concern.

This will take the form of discussing the psychological stress and peculiarities of musical life; the ways that music and music-making illuminate the human condition at large; and the occasional glimpse into the effect music has upon us, which is a wonderfully deep and abiding mystery.

In concrete terms, what I intend is to post links and articles along with brief comments or editorializing, Kottke-style. In addition, I have things of my own to say.

My exciting original-content contribution to the ravenous maw of the Internet will be  a series of short videos featuring my big ol’ face talking about the psychology of musicianship and performing. The focus will be on things that will help, educate, inform and inflame musicians themselves. The usual topics will be stage fright and striving for the best performance possible; the group dynamics of bands and performing groups of all stripes; and the long-term creative challenges of inventing a life in music. Stuff like that.

I expect to be moved to editorialize and rant, episodically, on things I don’t really know topics adjacent to my strict areas of expertise, such as the economics and social conditions of music-makers, the fashionable excess of crap popular neuroscience, and the unfortunate balkanization of the music world. If any of this offends you, your money will be courteously refunded.

Mike J