| Recorded at | April 24, 2017 |
|---|---|
| Event | TED2017 |
| Duration (min:sec) | 09:03 |
| Video Type | TED Stage Talk |
| Words per minute | 155.05 slow |
| Readability (FK) | 66.11 very easy |
| Speaker | Anika Paulson |
Official TED page for this talk
Synopsis
"Music is everywhere, and it is in everything," says musician, student and TED-Ed Clubs star Anika Paulson. Guitar in hand, she plays through the beats of her life in an exploration of how music connects us and makes us what we are.
| 1 | 00:13 | The philosopher Plato once said, | ||
| 2 | 00:16 | "Music gives a soul to the universe, | ||
| 3 | 00:18 | wings to the mind, | ||
| 4 | 00:20 | flight to the imagination | ||
| 5 | 00:22 | and life to everything." | ||
| 6 | 00:25 | Music has always been a big part of my life. | ||
| 7 | 00:27 | To create and to perform music | ||
| 8 | 00:30 | connects you to people countries and lifetimes away. | ||
| 9 | 00:33 | It connects you to the people you're playing with, | ||
| 10 | 00:35 | to your audience | ||
| 11 | 00:37 | and to yourself. | ||
| 12 | 00:38 | When I'm happy, when I'm sad, | ||
| 13 | 00:41 | when I'm bored, when I'm stressed, | ||
| 14 | 00:43 | I listen to and I create music. | ||
| 15 | 00:47 | When I was younger, I played piano; | ||
| 16 | 00:49 | later, I took up guitar. | ||
| 17 | 00:51 | And as I started high school, | ||
| 18 | 00:53 | music became a part of my identity. | ||
| 19 | 00:55 | I was in every band, | ||
| 20 | 00:56 | I was involved with every musical fine arts event. | ||
| 21 | 00:59 | Music surrounded me. | ||
| 22 | 01:01 | It made me who I was, | ||
| 23 | 01:02 | and it gave me a place to belong. | ||
| 24 | 01:06 | Now, I've always had this thing with rhythms. | ||
| 25 | 01:08 | I remember being young, | ||
| 26 | 01:09 | I would walk down the hallways of my school | ||
| 27 | 01:11 | and I would tap rhythms to myself on my leg with my hands, | ||
| 28 | 01:14 | or tapping my teeth. | ||
| 29 | 01:17 | It was a nervous habit, | ||
| 30 | 01:19 | and I was always nervous. | ||
| 31 | 01:20 | I think I liked the repetition of the rhythm -- | ||
| 32 | 01:22 | it was calming. | ||
| 33 | 01:25 | Then in high school, | ||
| 34 | 01:26 | I started music theory, | ||
| 35 | 01:28 | and it was the best class I've ever taken. | ||
| 36 | 01:30 | We were learning about music -- | ||
| 37 | 01:32 | things I didn't know, like theory and history. | ||
| 38 | 01:35 | It was a class where we basically just listened to a song, | ||
| 39 | 01:39 | talked about what it meant to us | ||
| 40 | 01:40 | and analyzed it, | ||
| 41 | 01:41 | and figured out what made it tick. | ||
| 42 | 01:45 | Every Wednesday, we did something called "rhythmic dictation," | ||
| 43 | 01:48 | and I was pretty good at it. | ||
| 44 | 01:50 | Our teacher would give us an amount of measures | ||
| 45 | 01:52 | and a time signature, | ||
| 46 | 01:54 | and then he would speak a rhythm to us | ||
| 47 | 01:56 | and we would have to write it down with the proper rests and notes. | ||
| 48 | 02:00 | Like this: | ||
| 49 | 02:02 | ta ta tuck-a tuck-a ta, | ||
| 50 | 02:04 | ta tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a, tuck-a. | ||
| 51 | 02:08 | And I loved it. | ||
| 52 | 02:09 | The simplicity of the rhythm -- | ||
| 53 | 02:11 | a basic two- to four- measure line -- | ||
| 54 | 02:13 | and yet each of them almost told a story, | ||
| 55 | 02:17 | like they had so much potential, | ||
| 56 | 02:21 | and all you had to do was add a melody. | ||
| 57 | 02:25 | (Guitar) | ||
| 58 | 02:33 | Rhythms set a foundation for melodies and harmonies to play on top of. | ||
| 59 | 02:37 | It gives structure and stability. | ||
| 60 | 02:41 | Now, music has these parts -- | ||
| 61 | 02:43 | rhythm, melody and harmony -- | ||
| 62 | 02:45 | just like our lives. | ||
| 63 | 02:47 | Where music has rhythm, | ||
| 64 | 02:49 | we have routines and habits -- | ||
| 65 | 02:51 | things that help us to remember what to do and to stay on track, | ||
| 66 | 02:54 | and to just keep going. | ||
| 67 | 02:58 | And you may not notice it, | ||
| 68 | 02:59 | but it's always there. | ||
| 69 | 03:02 | (Guitar) | ||
| 70 | 03:04 | And it may seem simple, | ||
| 71 | 03:06 | it may seem dull by itself, | ||
| 72 | 03:10 | but it gives tempo and heartbeat. | ||
| 73 | 03:15 | And then things in your life add on to it, | ||
| 74 | 03:17 | giving texture -- | ||
| 75 | 03:19 | that's your friends and your family, | ||
| 76 | 03:21 | and anything that creates a harmonic structure in your life | ||
| 77 | 03:25 | and in your song, | ||
| 78 | 03:26 | like harmonies, | ||
| 79 | 03:28 | cadences | ||
| 80 | 03:29 | and anything that makes it polyphonic. | ||
| 81 | 03:34 | And they create beautiful chords and patterns. | ||
| 82 | 03:36 | (Guitar) | ||
| 83 | 03:39 | And then there's you. | ||
| 84 | 03:41 | You play on top of everything else, | ||
| 85 | 03:45 | on top of the rhythms and the beat | ||
| 86 | 03:49 | because you're the melody. | ||
| 87 | 03:52 | And things may change and develop, | ||
| 88 | 03:57 | but no matter what we do, | ||
| 89 | 03:58 | we're still the same people. | ||
| 90 | 04:01 | Throughout a song melodies develop, | ||
| 91 | 04:04 | but it's still the same song. | ||
| 92 | 04:07 | No matter what you do, | ||
| 93 | 04:08 | the rhythms are still there: | ||
| 94 | 04:10 | the tempo and the heartbeat ... | ||
| 95 | 04:16 | until I left, | ||
| 96 | 04:18 | and I went to college | ||
| 97 | 04:20 | and everything disappeared. | ||
| 98 | 04:24 | When I first arrived at university, | ||
| 99 | 04:26 | I felt lost. | ||
| 100 | 04:28 | And don't get me wrong -- sometimes I loved it and it was great, | ||
| 101 | 04:31 | but other times, | ||
| 102 | 04:34 | I felt like I had been left alone | ||
| 103 | 04:37 | to fend for myself. | ||
| 104 | 04:40 | It's like I had been taken out of my natural environment, | ||
| 105 | 04:43 | and put somewhere new, | ||
| 106 | 04:44 | where the rhythms and the harmonies | ||
| 107 | 04:47 | and the form had gone away, | ||
| 108 | 04:51 | and it was just me -- | ||
| 109 | 04:52 | (Guitar) | ||
| 110 | 04:54 | silence and my melody. | ||
| 111 | 04:59 | And even that began to waver, | ||
| 112 | 05:02 | because I didn't know what I was doing. | ||
| 113 | 05:04 | I didn't have any chords to structure myself, | ||
| 114 | 05:08 | or a rhythm | ||
| 115 | 05:10 | or a beat to know the tempo. | ||
| 116 | 05:11 | (Guitar) | ||
| 117 | 05:15 | And then I began to hear all these other sounds. | ||
| 118 | 05:17 | (Guitar) | ||
| 119 | 05:19 | And they were off-time | ||
| 120 | 05:22 | and off-key. | ||
| 121 | 05:26 | And the more I was around them, | ||
| 122 | 05:29 | the more my melody started to sound like theirs. | ||
| 123 | 05:36 | And slowly I began to lose myself, | ||
| 124 | 05:40 | like I was being washed away. | ||
| 125 | 05:45 | But then the next moment -- | ||
| 126 | 05:46 | (Guitar) | ||
| 127 | 05:48 | I could hear it. | ||
| 128 | 05:51 | And I could feel it. | ||
| 129 | 05:55 | And it was me. | ||
| 130 | 05:57 | And I was here. | ||
| 131 | 05:59 | And it was different, | ||
| 132 | 06:02 | but not worse off. | ||
| 133 | 06:06 | Just changed a little. | ||
| 134 | 06:11 | Music is my way of coping with the changes in my life. | ||
| 135 | 06:16 | There's a beautiful connection between music and life. | ||
| 136 | 06:19 | It can bind us to reality | ||
| 137 | 06:20 | at the same time it allows us to escape it. | ||
| 138 | 06:23 | Music is something that lives inside of you. | ||
| 139 | 06:25 | You create it and you're created by it. | ||
| 140 | 06:29 | Our lives are not only conducted by music, | ||
| 141 | 06:32 | they're also composed of it. | ||
| 142 | 06:35 | So this may seem like a bit of a stretch, | ||
| 143 | 06:37 | but hear me out: | ||
| 144 | 06:39 | music is a fundamental part of what we are | ||
| 145 | 06:42 | and of everything around us. | ||
| 146 | 06:45 | Now, music is my passion, | ||
| 147 | 06:46 | but physics also used to be an interest of mine. | ||
| 148 | 06:49 | And the more I learned, | ||
| 149 | 06:50 | the more I saw connections between the two -- | ||
| 150 | 06:53 | especially regarding string theory. | ||
| 151 | 06:57 | I know this is only one of many theories, | ||
| 152 | 06:59 | but it spoke to me. | ||
| 153 | 07:02 | So, one aspect of string theory, at its simplest form, is this: | ||
| 154 | 07:07 | matter is made up of atoms, | ||
| 155 | 07:09 | which are made up of protons and neutrons and electrons, | ||
| 156 | 07:12 | which are made up of quark. | ||
| 157 | 07:14 | And here's where the string part comes in. | ||
| 158 | 07:16 | This quark is supposedly made up of little coiled strings, | ||
| 159 | 07:20 | and it's the vibrations of these strings that make everything what it is. | ||
| 160 | 07:25 | Michio Kaku once explained this | ||
| 161 | 07:27 | in a lecture called, "The Universe in a Nutshell," | ||
| 162 | 07:30 | where he says, | ||
| 163 | 07:32 | "String theory is the simple idea | ||
| 164 | 07:34 | that the four forces of the universe -- | ||
| 165 | 07:36 | gravity, the electromagnetic force, and the two strong forces -- | ||
| 166 | 07:40 | can be viewed as music. | ||
| 167 | 07:42 | The music of tiny little rubber bands." | ||
| 168 | 07:46 | In this lecture, he goes on to explain physics | ||
| 169 | 07:48 | as the laws of harmony between these strings; | ||
| 170 | 07:51 | chemistry, as the melodies you can play on these strings; | ||
| 171 | 07:54 | and he states that the universe is a "symphony of strings." | ||
| 172 | 08:01 | These strings dictate the universe; | ||
| 173 | 08:03 | they make up everything we see and everything we know. | ||
| 174 | 08:06 | They're musical notes, | ||
| 175 | 08:08 | but they make us what we are and they hold us together. | ||
| 176 | 08:12 | So you see, | ||
| 177 | 08:14 | everything is music. | ||
| 178 | 08:16 | (Guitar) | ||
| 179 | 08:17 | When I look at the world, | ||
| 180 | 08:19 | I see music all around us. | ||
| 181 | 08:25 | When I look at myself, | ||
| 182 | 08:27 | I see music. | ||
| 183 | 08:33 | And my life has been defined by music. | ||
| 184 | 08:37 | I found myself through music. | ||
| 185 | 08:41 | Music is everywhere, | ||
| 186 | 08:43 | and it is in everything. | ||
| 187 | 08:48 | And it changes and it builds | ||
| 188 | 08:51 | and it diminishes. | ||
| 189 | 08:54 | But it's always there, | ||
| 190 | 08:56 | supporting us, | ||
| 191 | 08:58 | connecting us to each other | ||
| 192 | 09:00 | and showing us the beauty of the universe. | ||
| 193 | 09:04 | So if you ever feel lost, | ||
| 194 | 09:07 | stop and listen for your song. | ||
| 195 | 09:10 | Thank you. | ||
| 196 | 09:12 | (Applause) |