If you’re reading this you probably already believe that music is good for you, but in case you needed further proof, I’d like to introduce you to Melody Gardot.

At age 19, she was knocked off her bike by an SUV. Injuries to her head, spine, and pelvis left her in a hospital bed for a year. She could barely move. She couldn’t talk. She suffered short and long-term memory loss. She was overly sensitive to light and sound.

With time, some of the physical injuries began to heal, but there were neural pathways in her brain that needed re-building, and she was struggling to piece together sentences in ways more commonly associated with Alzheimer’s, or soldiers returning from war.

In 2007, a doctor recommended music therapy. The result was completely life-altering. As she told Numéro:

“After the accident, I had to reconstruct myself completely. I was taught to see again and to hear with hearing aids. My body had to be completely reprogrammed. And music therapy was at the core of the healing process.” 

Learning to play guitar helped rebuild fine motor skills, singing helped her form words, and by 2008 – five years after the accident – she had released her first album.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The lyrics are simple but extremely thoughtful. She asks the stars why she’s compelled to look at them, who else might look at them, who else might offer them love. The kind of thoughts you could imagine yourself having if you were laid up in bed for a long while.

2. She sings in French. Moody, soft jazz always sounds better in French. It just does. Despite her French last name, Gardot is not French herself; it’s just one of the five languages she speaks. Not bad for someone who once lost her ability to speak at all.

3. Because of her aversion to loud noises post-accident, all Gardot’s music has a toned-down, intimate quality. Here, the percussion sounds like barely more than someone tapping on a drum, just to check if it works.

Recommended listening activity:

Lying still for long enough that you start to ask yourself important questions.

Buy it here,

The post Week 794: “Les Étoiles” by Melody Gardot appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week.

Of all the equipment on the playground, I would argue that nothing compares to the swing.

Everything that is great about playgrounds can all be found in this classic design, which has remained basically unchanged since its invention. The joy of movement. The connection between a parent and a young child giggling for another push. The rush of independence an older child gets from learning they can make it move on their own. The freedom of experimenting with new ways to swing; standing, lying flat, twisting the chains and then letting go for a dizzying spin.

There might not be anything more evocative of childhood play than the humble swing.

And yet you’re never too old to swing either. If ever I’m walking past a playground late at night and an adult is in there, they’re never going down the slide or climbing the monkey bars. They’re on the swing, enjoying a late-night return to a childhood feeling.

And I know Dante Bucci probably wasn’t imagining a playground swing when he titled this lovely little piece, but the two definitely pair well together.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. More than anything, the instrument makes it beautiful. Played on a piano, it would still be pretty, but not quite beautiful. The instrument is called the Hang, and you can learn more about it by rewinding to week 169.

2. It’s got a nice back-and-forth rhythm to it.

3. Every once in a while, he’ll play a couple of notes noticeably louder, before bringing the volume back down again. It’s like a sudden power boost that brings your swinging momentum back up.

Recommended listening activity:

Checking to see if the swing you remember from childhood is still there.

Buy it here.

The post Week 793: “Swing” by Dante Bucci appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week.

This week’s song is dedicated to anyone who’s ever wondered what jazz would sound like if it were sent through a filter of traditional Scottish music.

Or at least it would be, if anyone had ever wondered what jazz would sound like if it were sent through a filter of traditional Scottish music. But since nobody has ever wondered that, I guess I’ll try opening this post in a different way:

This week’s song is dedicated to you, because you didn’t know how beautiful jazz can sound when sent through a filter of traditional Scottish music. And I didn’t either, until I heard the wonderful record Dancing With Embers by Scottish saxophonist and composer Matt Carmichael.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The slowly-bowed fiddle, played by Charlie Stewart, drones quietly in the background like a distant set of bagpipes.

2. The melody played by Carmichael’s sax is simple and gorgeous, somewhere between a folk hymn and a lullaby.

3. The double bass, played by Ali Watson, joins for the final 30 seconds or so, grounding the song while providing some subtle harmony for the melody in the sax.

Recommended listening activity:

Looking out across a rugged landscape.

Buy it here.

The post Week 792: “Restful Sky” by Matt Carmichael appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week.

Sometimes when you hear a song, you’re not quite sure whether it’s the first time you’ve heard it. You might be minding your own business, washing dishes or browsing unimaginative greeting cards at the local pharmacy, when the song floats into the edges of your conscious.

You listen for a moment before slipping back into whichever activity it interrupted. But something about it won’t let you go. The song becomes a child in need of attention, tugging at your sleeve until you finally squat down and ask it what it wants.

That’s the way it was for me with “Shona” by Jake Chudnow.

While he has a minimal, almost coy web presence, the one thing of note I found out about Jake Chudnow is that he’s the musician behind the music for the popular YouTube channel Vsauce.

Vsauce specializes in science videos with eye-grabbing titles: “How to Count Past Infinity,” “This is Not Yellow” and “Which Way is Down?” Always fascinating and always delivered with an enthusiastic intensity that is almost off-putting, I’ve enjoyed Vsauce’s content off and on over the past decade.

While “Shona” never appeared in any of the channel’s videos, I’ve watched enough of them that the vibe of Chudnow’s music must have been recognizable to me. Something about it evokes curiosity.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. It fades in with the EQ tilted heavily towards the low frequencies, giving the impression of music coming from inside a passing car.

2. As it cycles through its three chords, layers of percussion and synths keep piling on, but somehow it’s never enough.

3. At 2:30, the three-chord cycle is briefly broken, but only long enough for you to be happy when it returns.

Recommended listening activity:

Learning.

Spotify.

The post Week 791: “Shona” by Jake Chudnow appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week.

A checklist for a successful cottage stay:

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. When his fingers slide along the guitar’s fret board, it kind of sounds like a screen door creaking open.

2. The synth pads in the background are like watching distant weather come closer.

3. The little plinky-plinks at 1:44 are like drips of water falling from a bathing suit.

Recommended listening activity:

Any or all of the above.

Spotify.

The post Week 790: “Wolfe’s End” by Alsever Lake appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week.

When a vacation stretches out ahead of you farther than you can see and your to-do list stretches down to your feet, it’s sometimes best to take a moment, put the list aside, and stare into the distance for a while.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. Usually a tambourine makes the listener want to get up and dance. Somehow this tambourine makes the listener want recline and slip a hat down over their eyes.

2. The melody played by the reverb-laden tremolo guitar is so nonchalant you can just about hear it singing “dee-doo, dee-doo, dee-doo, dee-doo, deet-do-dooo” like it’s walking around in Crocs.

3. The drums are so free of reverb they almost suck up some of the reverb of the guitar.

Recommended listening activity:

Forgetting what it was you were meaning to do today.

Spotify.

The post Week 789: “Point Being” by Ryan McCaffrey appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week.

When I think of music between the two World Wars my mind immediately goes to jazz, which is understandable, but does a bit of a disservice to the classical composers of that time. I haven’t featured nearly enough composers from the interwar period yet; even the big ones like Stravinsky and Prokoviev. All in good time. But a lesser-known (to me at least) voice from between the wars was Paul Hindemith.

Born in Germany, Hindemith was a teenager when World War 1 broke out, and his father died in battle in 1915. Three years later, Paul himself joined the army, and narrowly escaped death a couple of times. The end of the war began a prolific period for Hindemith; the 1920s saw him produce eight operas, four ballets, four orchestral works and countless concertos and choral works as well.

His music was not atonal like some other composers of the time, but it also didn’t rely on a diatonic scale; his stated goal was to free up all twelve notes of the chromatic scale. As a result, much of his music was written without a specified key signature, and it wanders from one tonal centre to another in surprising ways.

As the Nazis came to power in Germany, Hindemith’s music was eventually condemned as “degenerate” and was banned. He fled to Switzerland, and eventually to the US, where he taught at Yale and lived out the rest of his days.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. I love that he wrote specifically for the viola. I’ve already written about the underappreciated viola before; Hindemith really does it justice here.

2. The way the melody is passed between the viola and the piano.

3. That melodic line is so darned catchy and low-key epic. Feels like it could be from a John Williams film score.

Recommended listening activity:

Looking into the whereabouts of your direct ancestors during the 1920s.

Spotify.

The post Week 788: “Fantasie” by Paul Hindemith appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week.

There are plenty of good Father’s Day gifts out there, and many of them require minimal effort.

Most dads are so easy to please that you can literally (speaking for myself here, but I bet I’m not alone) buy them a couple dozen pairs of socks and they will be genuinely happy.

If you can afford a bit more, the perfect gift is usually not hard to identify. Dad is a sports fan? Tickets to a game. More of a theatre buff? Take him to a show. Got a foodie father? Head to the restaurant he loves but is too cheap to pay for himself.

But what gift do you go for if your dad was an avant-garde musician who created a musical project inspired by a hallucination he had as a result of food poisoning but who died before age fifty?

Well, if you’re Arthur Jeffes, you create a new band committed to playing – and extending – his musical repertoire. I mean, there’s no Hall of Fame dedicated to Father’s Day gifts, but that’s gotta be right up there.

The dad in question is Simon Jeffes, and the hallucination was of a dystopian city in which humanity lived disconnected from each other. Arthur described his dad’s vision like this:

“…there were these blocks of flats where everyone lived and it was a very bleak and grey place. You could look into these different rooms and see all these different examples of a dehumanized existence. So in one room there was a couple making love, soundlessly and lovelessly. In another room there was a musician with an array of musical equipment but he had headphones on and there was no music in the room. And in another room there was just someone looking at a screen, immobile and inactive. In the top corner of all these rooms there was a big malevolent camera, fundamentally a big eye spying on all of them.”

Down the road from this bleak setting was a café that was full of life and music; a beacon of hope that must have seemed to the hallucinating Jeffes like the only logical choice for a meaningful life. It was called the Penguin Café, and he named his band The Penguin Café Orchestra, writing music that he imagined this band would play.

Following the elder Jeffes’ premature death, his son Arthur played a series of concerts featuring his dad’s music. The only difference was that Arthur dropped the “Orchestra” from the band’s original name, going instead by simply, “Penguin Café”.

The Penguin Café grew beyond a tribute or cover band into a project of his own, but the new music he composed remained true to his father’s vision: music of hope and life.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The way it fades in already in full stride, like an idea that was there before you even knew it.

2. The way it oscillates between the first and augmented second degree of the scale. There’s something mystical about an augmented second.

3. The steady tempo and looping eighth notes in the background lend a comforting feeling of infinity.

Recommended listening activity:

Doing something special with your dad. Or even better, something completely normal.

Buy it here.

The post Week 787: “Ricercar” by Penguin Cafe appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week.

In my opinion, marzipan is a bit underrated in the world of sweets.

It’s not a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer like chocolate, or a Halloween icon like gummy bears, or an after-dinner favourite like mint. Marzipan occupies the same tier as, say, licorice. Those who love it, live for it. Those who don’t…find it disgusting.

Furthermore, it’s rare to find folks who like both marzipan and licorice. It’s like Messi and Ronaldo. You’ve gotta pick a side.

I’m in the pro-marzipan, anti-licorice camp, and I’ll tell you why.

First, there’s the holiday connection. Marzipan is the secret superpower in Christmas cake, right between the layer of icing and the cake itself. Licorice has no holiday connections that I’m aware of, and frankly, I’d rather get a stocking full of coal than a stocking full of Licorice All-Sorts.

Second, marzipan isn’t a spotlight hog. Licorice is so full of itself it thinks you’d be happy to have it on its own. Marzipan is modest. It’s a helper, a key ingredient in many chocolates and the aforementioned Christmas cake.

Finally, licorice comes from a plant called Glycyrrhiza glabra which, first of all: ridiculous name. Completely off the rails. But more to the point, doctors have advised that black licorice can cause complications that are “acutely life-threatening” according to heart.org. Marzipan meanwhile comes from the honourable almond, jam-packed with vitamin E, protein, and calcium among much else.

So eat your marzipan. And while you’re at it, listen to Marsipan by Swedish lofi artist Onyx Value.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The guitar and horns are delicious natural ingredients.

2. The bossa flavour is as sweet as sugar.

3. A modest little piano solo in the second minute.

Recommended listening activity:

Splitting something sweet with someone sweet.

Spotify.

The post Week 786: “Marsipan” by Onyx Value appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week.

I know this isn’t “make out song of the week” but I just have to share this track because it’s too good. And making out is beautiful in its own way, right? Right.

Seriously- this song by Philadelphia duo Marian Hill is seething with make-out anticipation energy, regardless of your life stage. Remember the beautiful innocence of heading over to a high school sweetheart’s house? Or, twenty years later, the sudden realization that you and your spouse have a weekend without the kids?

That’s a beautiful thing, and let’s never forget it.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The lazy, laid-back approach to the vocals, especially the sultry delivery on lines like, “I got this thiiiiiing.”

2. The unexpected layering of harmonies heading into the chorus.

3. The horniest saxophone in the history of music.

Recommended listening activity:

That’s your business.

Spotify.

The post Week 785: “Got It” by Marian Hill appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week.