表裡不一

人地封面故事講一個外表呃晒人既疑犯，寓意睇野唔好睇外表咁無知；成班人就為左呢個封面鬧爆人，係咪對號入座呢？

Music app and channels

I have got a new Android device (more on that later.) This gave me a great opportunity to try out new music apps. The first one that I'd like to recommend is the TuneIn Radio App, which you have probably heard of, even before reading this, because of its advertisement. In fact, I went by their office location on U Ave in Palo Alto the other day! It's actually quite similar to XiiaLive, which I have been using to listen to ShoutCast stations (Shoutcast is a technology for serving audio streams and also a directory of internet radio) Like XiiaLive, it also has timer and alarm features, which I use quite often. It seems to offer different stations than ShoutCast though. From TuneIn Radio, I've found a few good channels:
1) Blue Rock from ROCKRADIO.com plays the likes of Buddy Guy, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Freddie King... etc. That's my favourite Blues sub-genre

2) Thrash Metal from ROCKRADIO.com plays my favourite Metal sub-genre. Death Angel, Testament, Slayer all played thrash. I've also heard Shadows Fall on it! And I "discovered" the German Thrash band Cripper featuring female vocalist Britta Görtz (another metal goddess after Angela Gossow)

3) Hair Bands from ROCKRADIO.com plays my guilty-pleasure Metal sub-genre. One of the first songs I heard was "Every Rose has its Thorn." Hard to not like it!

4) Radio Web Guitar Warrior seems to be European and played quite a bit of Power Metal. Not really my cup of tea except it usually features good guitar solo!

5) CLASSIC METAL RADIO plays a lot of mainstream/pop metal. I heard Aerosmith's Angel on it. Love that ballad! Also heard "Don't Look Back" from the "new" Queensryche (the one without original singer Geoff Tate but the vocal still sounds like him)

6) Guitar Jazz from JAZZRADIO.com. Jazz guitarists gotta love it!

7) Sax4Love (Smooth Jazz.) Another guilty-pleasure sub-genre :P

8) Jazz Radio Network

BTW, TuneIn listed both JAZZRADIO.com and ROCKRADIO.com with a Palo Alto address! Maybe it's the epicenter of internet radio.

Italian CamJazz

I consider myself a jazz lover that listened to a great variety of jazz, including European jazz musicians who record for the ECM label, like the Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stanko, whom I saw live at a SFJAZZ concert with Charles Lloyd (each with their own group) Well, I just learned that I should pay attention to Italian musicians when it comes to European jazz. The Italian label CamJazz has released quite a few good gems. For example, I am listening to House of Card by Fulvio Sigurta, another trumpeter. Check out this review. I like the playing of the guitarist Federico Casagrande on this disc a lot.

Sports highlight: auto racing

Can't believe I missed Tim Lincecum's no-hitter for the Giants vs the Padres last Saturday. He might never be a dominating pitcher again but this is another highlight (after 2 World Series rings and Cy Young) on his already outstanding resume. With many other sports being in the offseason, the main thing for the Summer weekends to me was auto racing. First, I watched both NASCAR races, with the Sprint Cup one won by Brian Vickers, who had to endure a few unlucky events: his health issue (blood clot) forced him out of NASCAR for a while. Then the team he raced for, Red Bull, decided to withdraw from NASCAR. I understand it's a business decision, with Spring Cup television ratings no good in the 18-to-34 age group (as of 2011) Even though Red Bull's NASCAR team is far less successful than their Formula 1 team with multiple-time champion Sebastian Vettel, it seemed competitive enough and got good exposures alongside other energy drink brands like Monster (sponsoring Kyle Busch in Nationwide) and 5-Hour (sponsoring Clint Bowyer in Spring Cup) Oh well, I don't drink much Red Bull with or without their presence in NASCAR. Anyway, Vickers doing well and finally winning a race was a feel-good story for sure.

Another interesting story has to do with Danica Patrick, again. I wrote about her current boyfriend, Ricky Stenhouse Jr caused a big crash that collected Danica at Talledega 2 months ago and the story was not mentioned a lot in the media. Well, it's the other way around this race: Danica wrecked Stenhouse. And it caught a lot of attentions! Sexism? This time most reports mentioned the Talledega crash and I found out Danica was actually not happy with Stenhouse last time (Well, she tended to be angry with anyone involved after every crash from her IndyCar days) This time she apologized on TV and admitting her fault. Nice! BTW, the third car involved in the crash was #93 Travis Kvapil, who was so mad with Danica after the crash. Guess what team he was with? BK Racing, a team formed with some remaining personnel and equipments from the now-defunct Red Bull team!

There were also 2 IndyCar races, at Toronto. As I mentioned before, I have been rooting for Verizon/Penske driver Will Power for the past few years. He lost his road course qualification magic for the first race and didn't start from the pole. And once again, when his car finally got to the front and started looking promising to win the race, it faded and he finished outside the podium.

香港房屋政策

林本利是一位我覺得頗有見地的經濟學者，從這篇分析香港政府的房屋需求評估如何脫離現實的文章可見一班；原來他有一個blog貼了他在各大報章發表的文章。

The Galileo affair

This post has nothing to do with the heavily promoted TV series starring 福山雅治 in Hong Kong but the scientist instead. For some forgotten reasons I brought up Galileo vs the church during a family conversation even though I have pretty much lost my interest in science after college. It was my favorite subject when I was a kid. (I guess it's abandoned because chicks found artists more cool than scientists) I barely even read "soft-core" science these days but I gradually started doing that again because of the kids. First, it's a known fact that girls in the American education system tended to be uninterested or even discouraged in this area so I gotta do something to counter balance that. Second, I wanna find some heroes that my kids could look up to. Apparently they are not too interested in great composers even though they play. I guess scientists who made discovery and contributions to our world would be easier to understand and be admired. A recent article that is related to science (and also history) and I found interesting was from Quora: the Galileo Affair was voted as the top most misunderstood historical event. (Linking to Wikipedia because you have to become a member of the latter to read its article and I still couldn't figure out how to unsubscribe) Here's the gist: Galileo's contribution to heliocentricism (i.e., the Earth going around the Sun instead of the other way around) was exaggerated. His punishment by the church because of his advocacy of heliocentricism was also exaggerated (the punishment was house arrest for the last 9 years of his life but he was not tortured. And the church didn't exactly oppose heliocentricism but rather Galileo's presentation of it)

愛民族及民俗

今天六四，一早見到香港傳來的良心照片，心情多欣慰少沉重。無獨有偶，也過了愛國愛民的半天。話說每逢星期二三藩市唐人街旁的舊聖瑪利堂都有午間古典音樂會，今天的表演者是自小從台灣移民美國的鋼琴家Tien Hsieh。老實說，我對古典鋼琴獨奏熱愛程度只屬中等，但直覺告訴我這可能是一個不同凡響的音樂會，再加上曲目包括華格納及李斯特這兩位我欣賞的作曲家的作品。果然，很慶幸沒有錯過！第一首是李斯特改編華格納歌劇，也是無人不識的Bridal Chorus（即「成個老襯從此被困」，好在這幾天沒有這種感覺！）Hsieh的彈奏抑揚頓挫，老掉牙的旋律也感新鮮。最後一首唐璜幻想曲更是大顯功架之作：快及大聲得來粒粒音清清楚楚，當然贏得全場熱烈掌聲！作為中國人也沾了一點光，很久不太有這種感覺了。沒有浮誇，只靠實力，實屬可貴。接著順道循例到金門餅家看看，幾個月沒開門做生意，經已沒有期望，但見門外有一條短短的隊，實在喜出望外！金門也可以「只靠實力」來形容，做出好東西，自然得到中外人士欣賞。回到office，沖壼鐵觀音。飲啖茶，食個包；香港人的生活情趣實在可愛！

Jazz playlist

I have been listening these few CDs:
- Todd Marcus: Inheriance
The current issue of JazzTime magazine has a special on bass clarinet: its history in jazz and its players, Todd Marcus being one of them. He led a group that included guests Don Bryon (another famous jazz clarinetist) and Warren Wolf on Inheriance. 

- Bob James and David Sanborn: Quartette Humaine
David Sanborn is probably more well-known for his "smooth jazz" efforts like his album "Close-Up" from 1988. Indeed, I picked it up because it's supposed to sound like Kenny G from around the same time. Of course, in the music circle, Sanborn is much higher regarded than Mr. G. In fact, Sanborn isn't a smooth jazzer. His more mainstream stuff sounded that way because of the R&B elements. He could play "real" jazz too. You could hear that from "Another Hand", the 1991 album he released after "Close-Up." It has my favorite version of Charlie Haden's composition, "First Song." Bob James was another musician(pianist) known for his smooth jazz work. He was an original member of the smooth jazz supergroup Fourplay. He collaborated with David Sanborn before and produced a smooth jazz classic, Double Vision, that included popular tunes like Maputo. Again, he played more than smooth jazz, as evident on this latest (2nd) collaboration with Sanborn, which is an acoustic tribute to Brubeck and Desmond. 

- Wayne Krantz: Two Drink Minimum
This was recommended by my teacher at Berklee for the interesting stuff he did with rhythms.

Last but not least, it's a sad sad day for jazz fans as pianist Mulgrew Miller passed away today because of a stroke. I still remember my first time visiting Yoshi's (in the old Oakland Claremont location) was to see him perform. The DJs at KCSM have been playing many of his works as a tribute. RIP.

ExtJS tips

My boss always joked about being impressed by my front-end skills listed on my resume (of course I was hired to do back-end work primarily) It seems that I'm considered to be more of a back-end guy throughout my IT career even though I have built UI for every job I had, including those used by engineers in manufacturing and IT, B2B buyers and sellers, etc. I have even built a tutorial/demo of using that B2B site in Flash! After a few years of hiatus from building UI, I'm finally back in the game, "fast-forwarding" from Weblogic/NetUI (yes, that's ancient technology I used last time) to ExtJS by Sencha. I visited them earlier this year. The offices and the atmosphere was so dot-com! The web UI created with ExtJS looks very slick with tons of eye-candies (which a lot of people like) You could build a good-looking basic web app with it quickly and easily. However, there are quite a few gotchas that have to do with its association model. Let's say you are a publisher who sells magazines to your subscribers. You have a one-to-many relationship between your customer and your magazines. So you created a class for the magazine model and another for the customer model. Then specify in the customer model a hasMany relationship with magazine. This is to be used with a REST-ful webservice for CRUD of customer (along with magazine relationships)

1)  You cannot create a separate store class in which you define a REST proxy with the URL of the aforementioned webservice. Instead, the proxy must be defined within the model class. Stores for customers and magazines are implicitly created. To load these stores, call Ext.ModelManager.getModel to obtain the model object and call load(<id>) on it.

2) Query of your customer REST-ful webservice could return magazines subscribed by the customer as a JSON array, named the same as the hasMany relationship. The implicitly created store for magazines associated with the customer will be populated properly. However, when you call customer.save(), the payload to the REST proxy's URL will not include the array of subscribed magazine. To make this happen, you have to override the default JSON writer of the proxy. See the second part of this post for a generic implementation that works for all associations. Alternatively, you could just implement a customer JSON writer that handles your customer/magazine relationship only, which is much simpler: basically you implement the getRecordData function. Add the fields of customer to the data object to be returned. Also loop through the associated magazine stores and add the fields to an array inside that data object.

3) Let's say you implement a drag-and-drop UI that allows user to drag magazines between the 'subscribed' and 'not subscribed' lists. Check out this example from Sencha. Each of such list is actually an ExtJS grid panel defined with its store. However, you want the 'subscribed' grid to use the implicitly created associated magazine store at run time. The name of the method to use is not that obvious. It is 'reconfigure.' I learned that from this post.

Implementing RESTful Webservice using Wicket

Wicket alone might not be the ideal framework (check out this project that extends Wicket for such purpose) but this could be done. Simply write a class that extends WebPage. Override the renderPage method and write to the response. Finally, mount that page in Application.init() to a URL for its client. Here is the syntax for specifying the id in the URL with mountPage. (For example, a typical RESTful query looks like this: http://youraddress/order/<order id> )

  mountPage("/order/${orderId}", Order.class);

More tips:
1) PUT and POST
One of the key features of REST is using the "verb" (i.e., the method of the servlet request) to determine which of the CRUD (create, read, update, destroy) action is to be performed. It took me a while to figure out how to extract this "method" value:

        HttpServletRequest servletReq = (HttpServletRequest) getRequest().getContainerRequest();
        String method = servletReq.getMethod();
        if ("GET".equals(method))
        {
            // logic to read the object
            ...
        }

2) the payload
To create or update an object via RESTful Webservice, the payload includes a serialized form of the object (e.g., in JSON format) Again, it took me a while to figure out how to extract the payload:

        HttpServletRequest servletReq = (HttpServletRequest) getRequest().getContainerRequest();
        BufferedReader br = servletReq.getReader();
        String payload = null;
        if ((payload = br.readLine()) != null)
        {
            // process payload
            ...
        }

3) HTTP Status code
The page should return a meaningful code to the user. I found this table quite useful. Set it in renderPage() like this:

    public final void renderPage()
    {
        WebResponse response = (WebResponse) getResponse();
        response.setStatus(200); // for OK
    }

4) Return a download file
This is not RESTful but I just want to mention it here. Sometimes you want to provide a URL that would serve the browser content not in a browser window but in a download file. HTTP actually supports this using the Content-Disposition value (set to 'attachment') in the header. Let's say my page/class that extends WebPage create a zip file to be downloaded by the browser. Implement renderPage() like this:

    public final void renderPage()
    {
        WebResponse response = (WebResponse) getResponse();
        response.setHeader("Content-Type", "application/zip");
        response.setAttachmentHeader(fileName);
    }

BTW, don't rely on overriding the getMarkupType() method to set Content-Type in the header. It doesn't work that way for some reason. Set it explicitly like the above.

The Amazingly Flexible Jackson

Continuing my praises for Jackson, the JSON processor. I have a fairly unusual requirement for JSON generation: for a certain class of object in the hierarchy, the JSON representation needs to be all on one line. I have been using JsonGenerator instead of the ObjectMapper to generate my JSON and I knew injecting my own newlines could be done by simply JsonGenerator.writeRaw("\n") However, I rely on writeObject for that class of object, which is in an array, and writeObject is responsible for writing the commas before every elements after the 1st element in the array. So there are commas after the newlines but before the { of the object. I need to have these commas on their own line.

What I ended up doing is "hacking" the pretty printing support of Jackson. Jackson allows you to set a pretty printer to the JsonGenerator (or perform no pretty printing by setting it to null) Jackson also provided a full-blown pretty printer (the default) and a minimal one (that basically print as if no pretty printing and expect you to override some of its method to customize its behavior) I needed the JsonGenerator to add newlines surrounding the comma when writing array separators. However, this should only happen before the first { of the object, i.e., for the arrays nested within the object, it must not add newlines. Otherwise it violates the requirement of getting everything on one line! My subclass that inherits the minimal pretty printer has a boolean flag to control adding newlines so that it only adds the first time. Sounds tricky, right? Yes, it is.   

Jackson and polymorphism

Believe it or not, I have been manually adding {[': ......etc to generate my JSON for a while, until I discovered the open-source library Jackson, which I should have been using all along. It is very easy to turn a Java POJO into JSON and vice versa (i.e., serialization and deserialization) Check out the simple examples provided by this fellow. The only hiccup I had was related to deserialization and polymorphism. Imagine you are Jackson and parsing a block of JSON. According to the class definition, that block belongs to an abstract class or interface. Which subclass would you choose to deserialize this? Obviously you need some hints. Jackson actually includes mechanism to handle this. It's easy if you have something like 'dog' and 'cat' extending 'animal' and there is a type variable in the classes that could be used to tell whether the object is a dog or a cat. (See example 4 from this post) However, I have 2 subclasses of an abstract class that could only be distinguished by the class variables (i.e., unique attributes.) Fortunately I've found a way to solve this (See example 6 from the same post as above) Basically I wrote a custom deserializer for my abstract class. This deserializer looks for the unique attribute and find the corresponding subclass for deserialization.

Running a daemon using Tomcat

From Wikipedia:

a daemon is a computer program that runs as a background process, rather than being under the direct control of an interactive user.

Anyone who know Java could write a standalone one easily. My main concern is ease of management and deployment. Since I am using Tomcat as app server already, I decided to find out how to have a daemon running inside and managed by Tomcat. It turns out to be a popular choice. I've found quite a few links (1, 2) about it. Basically the daemon class needs to implement ServletContextListener. Then mention the class in web.xml like this:

<listener>
    <listener-class>MyDaemonServletContextListener</listener-class>
</listener>

For deployment, I use the Maven tomcat plugin and simply specify the server URL in the pom.xml.

Open another browser from a hyperlink using Javascript

This sounds like a trivial and common task but I just learned how to write that. First, include a function like this:

Then use it in the A HREF like this:

<a href="javascript:void(0)" onclick="javascript:openInNewTab('blog.00zine.com'); return false;">00zine</a>

BTW, I have also just learned the above way of publishing code on Blogger from this post, which is linked to the useful HTML encoder (turns your angle brackets to < and >)

Phil Humber's perfect game from 2012

Just realized I drafted this post last year but have never finished it. I still remember when I found out his perfect game: on my drive back from Monterey after finishing the Sea Otter Gran Fondo ride. (None of our friends did it this year. Neither did I) This was THE topic of those sports talk radio shows (the host debated whether or when he would root for the opposing pitcher pitching a perfect game against his home team) Here is a link to the video. The White Sox ended up having a decent season under 1st year manager Robin Ventura (they had a strong 1st half but faded and passed by eventual AL champ Detroit Tigers) Another interesting comment about the game was the comparison to former White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle's perfect game:

If Buehrle throws one, everybody can throw one — with respect to Buehrle. I say that about Buehrle because Buehrle is a contact pitcher. That’s what I think is one of the most amazing things I ever see – he has both, he has a no hitter and perfect game. That’s hard to come from Buehrle because Buehrle’s game is (pitching to) contact.

Fast forward one year though, Humber ended the 2012 season with a 5-5 record. The Sox put him on the waiver and he was claimed by the Houston Astros (which switched from NL Central to AL West!) He started the season in the Astros' rotation and lost all 7 games he started. Then he was moved to the bullpen, appeared as reliever twice and lost 1 more game (overall record: 0-8 record after less than 1.5 month into the season) Houston has designated him for assignment. It's sad sad sad to see him falling from glory so fast, just like a one-hit wonder in music. Still, he is in the record book for good for one game in which he did not give up any hit. (How ironic!) Not something a lot of great pitchers had achieved in their careers! I don't mind being a one-hit wonder. (I think I kinda qualified already with our band's song being kinda popular in the HK indie scene)

雨中的浪漫

出車最不喜下雨天，踏入2013年以來上班踩車卻竟然未試過要穿雨衣！今早駕車經南三藩市路段時，見小雨點落在擋風玻璃也不以為然，通常進入三藩市便會消失，今天卻是例外。從停車場踩到公司短短數分鐘，絲絲雨線反而加添了點點浪漫，想起你和這首歌：
...心只好　只好恨透絲絲雨線
微雨的天　總像是個謊言
靜靜地　垂淚 漸漸地　別去
忘掉當天不再追

垂著頭暗暗對我說清楚
曾說過愛我卻不可
像火的心窩心裡是痛楚
從未忘妳最愛聽那些歌
微雨裡暖透妳心窩
怎麼不是我

之前剛好見到阿Miu的母親節post，記得她喜歡哼落雨擔遮想起媽媽:)跟著想到雨夜的浪漫和Rainy Days and Monday都不應景（雖然是星期一但雨不夠大:P)想起有首雨中的浪漫但不記得誰唱，還是留待FB朋友解答吧。

Sports highlight: auto racing

I watched a bit cricket and rugby during the weekend but the main thing was auto racing. First, it was Aussie V8 Supercar, which I had never watched before. Marcos Ambrose raced there and won before he came to US to race NASCAR so I knew they've got pretty good drivers for sure. It was indeed competitive with cars nudging each other for position on a road course, just like the NASCAR road races. What I found most interesting though was the manufacturers and models raced in that series: there are Mercedes AMG as well as Nissan Altima. It seems to me it's a bad idea for the former because they are supposed to be much better than the other "lowly" brands/models (e.g. Ford and the aforementioned Nissan) but they did not actually finish higher in the races!
Back to the States, both NASCAR series were racing at Talladega, which I considered one of the tracks with most exciting races. To be honest, they are exciting for the "wrong" reason: the "big one", i.e., a big crash that almost always happened, once or more, especially near the end of the race. Both the Nationwide and Sprint Cup race ended with last lap passes (also multiple crashes though) The former was enough to make the races interesting. I was happy to see "underdog" drivers on lower-budget teams did well: Regan Smith won the Nationwide race while David Ragan did it at the Sprint Cup race (with his teammate finished 2nd)
More drama from Talladega: During her career Danica Patrick usually did better on longer tracks like Talladega but her day was ruined by none other than her current boyfriend, Ricky Stenhouse Jr, who is a talented driver but with few experience at the Sprint Cup level. He drove too aggressively and caused a big crash that collected Danica. I was surprised this story was not mentioned a lot in the media.
I was so glad I didn't miss the IndyCar race at Sao Paulo because it featured yet another exciting finish! I have been rooting for Verizon/Penske driver Will Power for the past few years. He was almost invincible at road races but seemed to have lost his magic this year. He didn't qualify well but was making his way through the field. Just when things started looking promising, his car was on fire and forced him out of the race. There were a ton of cautions but the last dozen laps were really close with 3 drivers fighting it out. Takuma Sato, the winner of the previous race, was leading but challenged by Joseph Newgarden and James Hinchcliffe. He was accused of violating IndyCar's rule by blocking both. It didn't matter much though 'coz he was eventually passed by Hinchcliffe. The young guns are doing well in this series (Will Power and former champ Dario Franchitti are 18th and 15th in the current standing, respectively) For a sports that couldn't gain enough fan support here due to lack of success of American drivers, it's moving in the right direction.

The 19 inning game and Loyalty

Can't believe I am writing two posts about baseball in a row, and about fans from two teams opposite to each other across the bay and with almost opposite behavior! I'm talking about the Giants and the A's. The latter played against the Anaheim Angels on Monday night. I was busy watching other stuff late at night and realized I didn't find out who won. It was midnight and I'm surprised the game was still going on, in extra inning. Another 1.5 hr passed by. I was almost done with the video I was watching and about to go to sleep. Checked the result again. OMG it was still tied! Finally the game ended ~1:45am. The A's have just played the longest game, a 6.5 hr one, in team history! I listened to the highlights while I was in bed. What a great game! The A's trailed the Angels 2-7 in middle of the 8th. I definitely won't blame the fans for leaving at that point. But they scored 4 in the bottom of the 8th and 1 more in the 9th (down to their last out. Cespedes hit a long single to the outfield for the RBI) to tie! Both team scored again in the 15th (again, the A's were down to the last out and tied) Brandon Moss hit a 2-run walk-off homer to win the game for the A's in the 19th inning. The sports talk radio show host talked about this game, of course, and he estimated around 1000 or less fans stayed till the end to support their team. Those fans were as loyal as you can get. (They and the Giants fan who left in the 7th inning around 3pm in the afternoon in a tied game were beyond comparable)

"Breaking up" with the SF Giants

This has nothing to do with their players and the recent slump, and of course not the management (which could do no wrong because they did a great job building a team that won 2 world series in 3 years) I just don't want to be associated with this fanbase and deal with the greedy bloodsucking businesses near the ball park (or I should say remotely close to) I have been driving to SF to work for years. My office building is ~1 mile from the ballpark and in the past the parking lots here do not charge extra on game day. I guess most people went to the games chose to park closer to the ball park. Well, things started to get crazy last season. The parking lots and garages near the ball park started to charge >$50 and it has a ripple effect: the not-so-close-by parking lots were jacking up the price to ~$30 as well, including the ones near work. Only 1 parking lot sticks with the regular $15 and of course that one got full quite fast (I arrived at 9:45 the other day and almost couldn't get in. They still need to reserve a few spaces for the monthly parker, which I am not)  And it's not just parking. The traffic near the park got busy at that time already but the game wasn't started until 12:30 (or later?) My co-worker who took CalTrain to the city told me the train was jam packed when he was getting to work! That's why I still glad that I drove instead. It would have been crowded on the train back home too. Some riders who left the games were drunk, high or loud (or all of the above) and I wanted to avoid them at all cost. Still, driving away from the city at 3pm could only help so much: the streets outside the ball park was already filled with people leaving the game, less than 3 hours after the game started, in the 7th inning with a 1-1 tie! No way I would call these people true supporters of the team. Why do they even bother to come to the game? Just stay home next time, OK? BTW, it was a really exciting game: the Giants fell behind soon but came back in the bottom of the 9th. Too bad they couldn't win in the end. More home fan support might have helped. Who knows? 

Free Your Mind!

"Free Your Mind" is the title of a series of lectures about improvisation presented by the Institute for Diversity in the Arts and The Department of Theater and Performance Studies at Stanford University. It includes a wide variety of topics such as food, comedy, dance, visual art and of course music(jazz) which I'm most interested in. The lectures are actually open to public (also streaming online) and I attended the one with jazz pianist Vijay Iyer as the guest.

Dr. Iyer has a very interesting background. Check out this well-written article on him. His parents were immigrated from India. He double-majored in Math and Physics at Yale and then got accepted to the PhD program at UC Berkeley. He also started learning violin at 3. So, that sounds like your typical Asian American kid, right? Wrong! He studied violin 'til he entered college, when he realized he did not have enough time for the highly demanding classical violin training. (The amount of time high-level violinists put into practicing was incredible!) After he came to Berkeley, he got involved in the big musician community in the Bay Area but playing jazz piano (which he taught himself mostly) instead. At the same time, his research focus had also switched from physic to music and technology and eventually earned a PhD in such an interdisciplinary program.

Enough about his background, there were quite a few things they pointed out during the lecture: they talked about improvising during a performance as taking risk, which makes a lot of sense. As a performer, you could always "play it safe" but then if you played something different (e.g. musical or comedy ideas) that worked for the audiences, it would be even more rewarding. Of course it might not work so that's the element of risk.

They also talked about improvisation occurs more often then we think. In fact people improvise all the time during daily routine instead of planning/thinking ahead. Again, it makes sense. Just that most people won't think of that.

They pointed out music is highly related to motions of human. Musical beats mimic human movement (our pulses, our walking paces) In face, the same area in our brain is activated when we hear music or when we move. Finally, they mentioned empathy when hearing music, i.e., the player and listeners would fire similar nerves in the brain. When it comes to our brain and music, there are still a whole lot of unknowns (see the books "This is Your Brain on Music" and "Guitar Zero")