I hope they paid the royalties...

Rose Cuizon Villazor is a law professor at SMU. She also maintains a blog, called Property Prof Blog. There she admits that she uses singing as a tool to help her students learn future interests.

My students at SMU told me later that I helped decrease the stress (a little bit anyway) of learning life estates. When I taught Kelo v. City of New London, I circulated the words to the "Kelo Song," which was written by a student member of the Harvard Law School Federalist Society.

In comments some other law professors offered "YMCA," "Whiter Shade of Pale," and "Memorandaville." See, even lawyers need to learn about music.

My best friend used to compose songs that illustrated various partwriting rules and techniques. His best was "The Voice Exchange Song." I need to get a copy of that. Anyone else out there with songs used for pedagogical purposes?

[via]

FriPod: Red, White, and Green

No particular reason, I just decided to pick these colors. Viva Italia!

1. "Red and Black" from the Les Miserables original Broadway Cast. By Claude-Michel Schönberg, Alain Boublil, and Herbert Kretzmer. Very spirited, a nice juxtaposition of politics and love, showing the passions that drive both.

2. "Red Clay" by Freddie Hubbard from the eponymous album. A fusion of jazz and Rhythm-n-Blues.

3. "Red Top" by Lional Hampton and Ken Kynard, performed by Erroll Garner. Cool and bouncy at the same time.

4. "The Red Violin" from The Red Violin soundtrack, by John Corigliano, performed by Joshua Bell. Two tracks have the same name, the first is the main melody, and the second is the mini concerto played during the closing credits. It is a beautiful melody, full of very complex emotions.

5. "White as Lillies" by Andreas Scholl, on the Three Countertenors album. Yes, we bought this gimicky CD many years ago. Some of the tracks are quite nice, but I'm not crazy about this composition written by one of the three countertenors. However, my wife likes it, so it stays on the list.

6. "The White Ride" by Howard Shore, on the The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers soundtrack. Full of tension, apocalyptic choirs, and Wagnerian brass, this cue suddenly shifts to harps and women's chorale for a sunshine romp briefly before the tension returns. It ends with some grandeur added to the tension, a passionate nostalgia.

7. "The White Tree" by Howard Shore, on the The Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King soundtrack. Much more nostalgic, as this cue is for the old and great kings who died off. But still nervous as Gandalf and Pippin ride up and up the layers of Minas Tirith.

8. Fantasia on "Greensleeves" by Ralph Vaughan Williams, performed by Rolf Smedvig and Michael Murray. I love this piece, but I do not like the blend between Smedvig's trumpet and Murray's organ registrations. In general I prefer to listen to organ live rather than in recordings, since I feel a large part of the organ's effect is the architecture of its surroundings.

9. "Green Chimneys" by Thelonious Monk, performed by Wynton Marsalis on Live At The House Of Tribes. A nicely angular march, with an extended solo by Wynton.

Pain made pleasant

A study by psychologists at the University of Montreal have found that listening to pleasant music decreases sensations of pain. Emotional valence contributes to music-induced analgesia, by Roy, Peretz, and Rainville, found that when participants listened to music they judged as pleasant, they tolerated high levels of heat (up to 48.5 deg C.) as less painful and more pleasant than the control group that listened to silence. Listening to unpleasant music was not different from listening to silence. So, if you know you are going to experience some pain, bring along music you find to be pleasant.

Music Cognition Online

No, not a new journal, though that would be so cool. Instead, I offer a blog and a research project. First, the blog, by Henkjan Honing. Henkjan belongs to the Dutch study group that runs those online music listening projects I've posted about before, most recently here. He is also a great guy, very smart, with incredibly interesting hair. Music Matters is his new venture, which looks to be a great resource in music cognition. Plus you can see pictures of adorable babies wired up for reactions to Balkan music.

Second, an experiment being run by MIT's Media Lab. They are examining "the universality of various aspects of music perception," with a test called the Music Universals Study. It takes about 15 minutes to complete.

Movie Meme

I'm still a little punch drunk (think Pierrot), so rather than try to write a meaningful post I'll just follow Pattie's lead with the AFI list of top movies. I have bolded those I have seen.

1. "Citizen Kane," 1941.

2. "The Godfather," 1972.

3. "Casablanca," 1942.

4. "Raging Bull," 1980.

5. "Singin' in the Rain," 1952.

6. "Gone With the Wind," 1939.

7. "Lawrence of Arabia," 1962.

8. "Schindler's List," 1993.

9. "Vertigo," 1958.

10. "The Wizard of Oz," 1939.

11. "City Lights," 1931.

12. "The Searchers," 1956.

13. "Star Wars," 1977.

14. "Psycho," 1960.

15. "2001: A Space Odyssey," 1968.

16. "Sunset Blvd.", 1950.

17. "The Graduate," 1967.

18. "The General," 1927.

19. "On the Waterfront," 1954.

20. "It's a Wonderful Life," 1946.

21. "Chinatown," 1974.

22. "Some Like It Hot," 1959.

23. "The Grapes of Wrath," 1940. (I've seen parts)

24. "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial," 1982.

25. "To Kill a Mockingbird," 1962.

26. "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," 1939.

27. "High Noon," 1952.

28. "All About Eve," 1950.

29. "Double Indemnity," 1944.

30. "Apocalypse Now," 1979.

31. "The Maltese Falcon," 1941.

32. "The Godfather Part II," 1974.

33. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," 1975.

34. "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," 1937.

35. "Annie Hall," 1977.

36. "The Bridge on the River Kwai," 1957.

37. "The Best Years of Our Lives," 1946.

38. "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," 1948.

39. "Dr. Strangelove," 1964.

40. "The Sound of Music," 1965.

41. "King Kong," 1933.

42. "Bonnie and Clyde," 1967. (I don't think I have...)

43. "Midnight Cowboy," 1969.

44. "The Philadelphia Story," 1940.

45. "Shane," 1953. (My dad loves this movie, I don't get what is so great about it.)

46. "It Happened One Night," 1934.

47. "A Streetcar Named Desire," 1951.

48. "Rear Window," 1954.

49. "Intolerance," 1916.

50. "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring," 2001.

51. "West Side Story," 1961.

52. "Taxi Driver," 1976.

53. "The Deer Hunter," 1978.

54. "M-A-S-H," 1970.

55. "North by Northwest," 1959.

56. "Jaws," 1975.

57. "Rocky," 1976.

58. "The Gold Rush," 1925.

59. "Nashville," 1975.

60. "Duck Soup," 1933.

61. "Sullivan's Travels," 1941.

62. "American Graffiti," 1973.

63. "Cabaret," 1972.

64. "Network," 1976.

65. "The African Queen," 1951.

66. "Raiders of the Lost Ark," 1981.

67. "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?", 1966.

68. "Unforgiven," 1992.

69. "Tootsie," 1982.

70. "A Clockwork Orange," 1971.

71. "Saving Private Ryan," 1998.

72. "The Shawshank Redemption," 1994.

73. "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid," 1969.

74. "The Silence of the Lambs," 1991.

75. "In the Heat of the Night," 1967. (I've seen parts.)

76. "Forrest Gump," 1994.

77. "All the President's Men," 1976.

78. "Modern Times," 1936.

79. "The Wild Bunch," 1969.

80. "The Apartment, 1960.

81. "Spartacus," 1960.

82. "Sunrise," 1927.

83. "Titanic," 1997.

84. "Easy Rider," 1969.

85. "A Night at the Opera," 1935.

86. "Platoon," 1986.

87. "12 Angry Men," 1957.

88. "Bringing Up Baby," 1938.

89. "The Sixth Sense," 1999.

90. "Swing Time," 1936.

91. "Sophie's Choice," 1982.

92. "Goodfellas," 1990.

93. "The French Connection," 1971.

94. "Pulp Fiction," 1994.

95. "The Last Picture Show," 1971.

96. "Do the Right Thing," 1989.

97. "Blade Runner," 1982.

98. "Yankee Doodle Dandy," 1942.

99. "Toy Story," 1995.

100. "Ben-Hur," 1959.

And here is another list of movies by PopMatter's (50 DVDs every film fan should own), which I'm very disappointed to see so heavily weighted towards exploitation and porn. I can understand getting one representative work of each, but so many?

FriPod: Hello, Goodbye

1. "Hello Babe," by Dickie Wells, performed by Lester Young on Classic Tenors. A good hello, cheery and bouncy with a little grit to the sound that suggests ulterior motives for the babe.

2. "Hello Dolly," by Jerry Herman, performed by Louis Armstrong on All-Time Greatest Hits. I love the chunky banjo that introduces this song. How the hell does Satchmo get that shimmer in such a gravelly voice?

3. "Escape / Chase / Saying Goodbye" by John Williams, on the E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial soundtrack (expanded version).

4. "Everytime We Say Goodbye," by Cole Porter, performed by John Coltrane on My Favorite Things. So suave and smooth, a little sad.

5. "Goodbye Stevie," by Steve Winwood, performed by The Spencer Davis Group on The Best Of The Spencer Davis Group. Stevie wrote this to honor his leaving the group to go solo.

6. "Mama's Gone – Goodbye," by Peter Bocage, performed by Midge Williams & Her Jazz Jesters.

7. "Say Goodbye To Hollywood," by Billy Joel on Turnstiles. A little too over orchestrated.

8. "Saying Goodbye To Those You So Love," by James Horner on the A Beautiful Mind soundtrack.

What about the children?

Apparently you shouldn't let your youngsters read my blog about music:

Mingle²

Why? Because I've used the word "suck" twice (I'm pretty sure I've used it many more times than that) and "gay" once. I'm guessing this "service" only looks at the main page of the blog, not the archives. More to the point, yes, talking about gay marriage is not suitable for children. Idiots!

Via Chad, who has probably managed to up his rating.