NIRVANA UNPLUGGED

NIRVANA UNPLUGGED

Nirvana unplugged in New York, often known as MTV unplugged is first and foremost a high moment in music history to me.

For our very first chat here on the blog, almost five years ago now, I told you about the cardigan Kurt Cobain wore during the recording of this live show.

Then over time we talked a lot about music but never came back to what is really one of the most important memories for me.

First of all it is the memory of an emotion: the first time I listened to Come as you are without even getting to the end I was convinced that I would never like another song again.

Come as you are is perhaps the only one of Nirvana’s most popular songs, performed even during unplugged, I think precisely because of its characteristic intense intimacy.

But every single song performed during MTV unplugged is beautiful.

The cover of The Man Who Sold the World in my opinion beats even the White Duke.

Where did you sleep last night is poignant to the point of almost materialising Kurt’s suffering.

And then Dumb, About a Girl, Pennyroyal Tea … which is your favourite?

Sadly released posthumously Unplugged in New York with every listen reminds us of the pain and loss of an artist who would now be a grandfather, as his Frances Bean became mother to Ronin at the end of September.

Many tales and anecdotes about 18 November 1993 chase each other all over the place, but what we can all still see is Kurt arriving, and after a simple ‘Good evening’ he introduces About a girl by attacking his guitar ride.

The rest is magic, atmosphere, white flowers, candles, drapes and soft lights, like metaphorical arms that welcome us into an immersion of music and sensations, simplicity and depth at the same time, where everything else is stripped away, the whole world is outside, where all that counts is the lightness of a faint breath destined to fade away but which in reality can only remain engraved in the memory forever.

Extreme vulnerability yet disruptive power.

Nirvana Unplugged is one of the gifts I cherish, it is 30 years old today and yet I’m never tired of listening to it again.

I treasure it along with Kurt Cobain Diaries

Nirvana unplugged

and Montage of Heck, which I saw at the cinema earlier anyway.

Nirvana unplugged

On the off chance that you’ve missed something, I recommend catching up: I find it indispensable to understand the deep torment of a Soul torn between the love of music and the pain of life.

I wish I was like you
Easily amused
Find my nest of salt
Everything is my fault

I’ll take all the blame
Aqua seafoam shame

MEMORY OF WATER

MEMORY OF WATER

If vibration is energy, than resonance is the reverberation of energy, and resonance is thus capable of relaying energy.”

These words of Masaru Emoto contain the essence of his studies on the memory of water.

Did you already know this theory?
When Massimo told me about it, I was literally enchanted.

Music, as I have already written, for me is energy and constitutes an essential component.

Even water is a a very important element that in my case takes the form of the link with the sea.

But how do they combine?

Masaru Emoto undertook extensive research of water around the planet, not so much as a scientific researcher, but more from the perspective of an original thinker. At length, he realized that it was in the frozen crystal form, that water showed us its true nature.

How? By freezing water samples previously exposed to music of various kinds and subsequently observing the crystals.

It even sounds like a fairy tale right?
It strikes with all the delicacy of the Japanese universe and their attitude, which I sincerely envy.

Listening to this interview I have been impressed by some passages, for example when he declares: “I feel I have a lot in common with Don Quixote.”

Or when he speaks of Japanese spiritual tradition and HADO: literally the crest of the wave, which represents precisely the energetic vibration that is transformed into the memory of water.

Wonderful.

However, I must also say that personally, considering Japan and water, my thoughts cannot help but run on the dramatic situation in Fukushima  and the imminent running out of time left for the tanks.

Also for this reason, Dr. Emoto’s intent to dedicate himself to children, who do not have the negative imprinting of adults, is even more precious through his Peace Project.

How to blame him?

And it seems we can not be wrong even with regard to his studies on which a double-blind test was carried out to reconfirm.

What do you think about it?

On the emotional wave of this way of music materializing into crystals, I then found myself reflecting on another wonderful moment in which music impresses the memory: pregnancy.

In this regard, I would be SO happy if someone wanted to tell me their experience.

I have always made our son listen to music: before he was born and also after. On the type of music, perhaps I was not very orthodox …

In this regard, I found Dr. Alexandra Lamont‘s thesis: senior lecturer in music psychology at Keele University, according to which children can remember things from the uterus much longer than we thought.

The University of Leicester research study reported by NewScientist explains that:

Psychologist Alexandra Lamont found that year-old babies still recognised and had a preference for musical pieces that were played to them before being born. Previous studies have only shown babies being familiar with pre-birth experiences when they were a few days old.
Lamont had thought the children might develop a taste for the style of music played by their mothers, but this was not true. Instead, she was surprised to find that the babies could discriminate and remember individual songs.

By Alexandra Lamont I also found a World Café participatory discussion “coincidences? I do not think so …”

A part from jokes, what music would you like to crystallize in your memory?

Archives

Pin It on Pinterest