Category: Ted Talks

The three Ahn sisters (cellist Maria, pianist Lucia, violinist Angella) breathe new life into the piano trio with their passionate musicmaking. At TEDWomen, they start with the bright and poppy “Skylife,” by David Balakrishnan, then play a gorgeous, slinky version of “Oblivion,” by Astor Piazzolla.

 

When Robert Gupta was caught between a career as a doctor and as a violinist, he realized his place was in the middle, with a bow in his hand and a sense of social justice in his heart. He tells a moving story of society’s marginalized and the power of music therapy, which can succeed where conventional medicine fails.

 

Sting’s early life was dominated by a shipyard—and he dreamed of nothing more than escaping the industrial drudgery. But after a nasty bout of writer’s block that stretched on for years, Sting found himself channeling the stories of the shipyard workers he knew in his youth for song material. In a lyrical, confessional talk, Sting treats us to songs from his upcoming musical, and to an encore of “Message in a Bottle.”

 

A genre unto herself, Kaki King fuses the ancient tradition of working with one’s hands with digital technology, projection-mapping imagery onto her guitar in her groundbreaking multimedia work “The Neck Is a Bridge to the Body.” Using her guitar’s neck like a keyboard, she plays an intricate melody as she takes the audience on a musical journey of light and sound. She calls it “guitar as paintbrush.”

12. Favorite songs are favorites most likely because they’re associated with an intense emotional event in your life.
13. Listening to a happy or sad song not only affects your mood but can also change your perception of the world around you. You may recognize happiness or sadness more in others depending on the song.
14. Leo Fender, who developed the first solid-body electric guitar and electric bass guitar, never learned to play either instrument.
15. For every $1000 in music sold, the average musician makes $23.40.
16. Listening to music has the potential to have a small but significant impact on athletic performance.
17. Metallica is the first and only band to perform on all seven continents after playing a concert in Antarctica called “Freeze ‘Em All”.
18. Revenue from streaming sources like Spotify and Pandora outpaced traditional CD sales in the US for the first time in 2014.
19. Eminem’s “The Real Slim Shady” was written 3 hours before the final cut of the album was due to the record company.
20. A 2015 study revealed that babies remain calm twice as long when listening to a song than when listening to talking.
21. Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield released an album of songs entirely recorded in space.
22. 1 in 10,000 people have perfect pitch, the ability to recognize a pitch without any reference.

 

Singer Rhiannon Giddens joins international music collective Silk Road Ensemble to perform “St. James Infirmary Blues,” spiking the American folk song that Louis Armstrong popularized in the 1920s with Romani influence and mischievous energy.

 

Singer Amanda Palmer pays tribute to the inimitable David Bowie with a cover of “Space Oddity.” She’s joined onstage by Jherek Bischoff, TED Fellow Usman Riaz and, no, your eyes are not deceiving you, none other than former Vice President Al Gore.

David Byrne sings the Talking Heads’ 1988 hit, “(Nothing But) Flowers.” He’s accompanied by Thomas Dolby and string quartet Ethel, who made up the TED2010 house band.

 

Mark Applebaum writes music that breaks the rules in fantastic ways, composing a concerto for a florist and crafting a musical instrument from junk and found objects. This quirky talk might just inspire you to shake up the “rules” of your own creative work.

 

In this epic overview, Michael Tilson Thomas traces the development of classical music through the development of written notation, the record, and the re-mix.