Ninaada: The Waves of Music

As this year ends, I want to take a moment to say, with all the chaos this year brought, it also brought the beginning of this podcast. I'm so glad that I was able to talk to wonderful musicians and scientists this year, and hope to continue this over the next year.

Thank you for listening to the content and supporting this idea! My stats tells me that we've had audiences in over 13 countries!

May this new year be filled with happiness, good health, and music! 🧡

Emily Kuhn's debut album Sky Stories is out! She talks to us about the places and moments in Chicago that are all their own stories. Listen to her amazing music at emilykuhntrumpet.bandcamp.com, or on any other platform you usually stream music on! You can follow her music on Instagram! To follow Ninaada on Instagram, find us ! More power to Emily on her musical journey!

https://open.spotify.com/show/15cjgIoOmleEIbWygBS1hb

Ninaada - The Waves of Music - Ninaada This podcast is envisioned as a platform to create a dialogue between the arts and science. In particular, we are here to explore the confluence of music, culture and cognition.

I have to say that the three musicians I spoke to are very different people, and very different musicans, from very different places, with very different experiences. They all chose music, but they chose it in different ways. What was similar was their musical experiences. It was all about vibrations this time folks! It was lovely to see it come together.

"To some people, certain forms of music do not register as music, or is rejected as music, and often that has to do with whether or not you see the other person as a human being. The category of music is this category of the human being" Vijay Iyer, on Ninaada.
Tune in to listen to Vijay Iyer's thoughts on culture, musical cognition, his experiences of being a Jazz pianist, and part of the Indian diaspora. Listen for his thoughts on the Abolition movement and the brimming revoltuion!

"The act of improvisation itself is a radical, political stance" - Michael Zerang on Ninaada

Tune in to listen to unique experineces of a brilliant improviser percussionist, who turned a coffin into an instrument for a play (well, you'll know more when you listen)!

The episodes are out!! And there's a surprise Rapid Fire Round to boot!

"The ultimate goal of music is enjoyment" - JT Jeyaraaj Krishnan

"As a listener, don't judge; as an artist give it your best; as a teacher, give it your all!" - Jaysri Jeyaraaj Krishnan on Ninaada

In the third episode, which is in two parts, we talk at length about the instrument I adore - the Veena ❤️ We talk about the traditions of Carnatic music. In the second part, we talk about the more abstract and technical aspects of carnatic music with VeenaJJ!

I finally got around to editing the episodes I recorded with Jaysri and Jeyaraaj Krishnan, Michael Zerang, and Vijay Iyer!! One of the things I have been striving for with this podcast, is to provide a wide range of perspectives on the subjects of Music, Cultures and their confluences. This editing process has amazed me with the range of spectrum of views and values that very traditional performers have, all the way to the values that more avant-garde musicians hold close to their hearts. Stay tuned to hear from the amazing musicians, who have found thier own ways to music! Will be releasing three episodes by the weekend :)

Incredibly excited to have the great Vijay Iyer on my podcast tomorrow! A genius in contemporary Jazz, hip hop, and many other genres, he's not only a professor of music at Harvard, but also one of the few McArthur Fellows in the world!

I'll be talking to him about his creating process, his journey through Physics, Music Cognition, his dissertation which beautifully presents his findings about music cognition and rhythm perception in African musics! Tune in to hear our conversation and his insights in a couple of weeks! And tell me about questions you'd like to ask Vijay, and I'll see if I can slip them in!

The fourth episode of the podcast is a converstaion with the amazing Michael Zerang! He is a Chicago based international music artist. He is primarily a drummer, but plays over 40 different percussion instruments, and sings too! He also invented the instrument Queequeg’s coffin for a musical on Moby Dick!

An Assyrian artist by descent, a first generation American and a brilliant musician - listen to his perspectives on the music scene in Chicago and all over the world, and his story of musical and cultural transcendence! Follow his own unique brand of music at http://michaelzerang.com!

The third episode of the podcast is a converstaion with the delightful Veena couple Jaysri and Jeyaraaj Krishnan! We talk about the traditional Carnatic music system, the ancient instrument Veena, and learn about holding on to some the traditions in an ever-changing world. Listen to the full conversation on your favorite podcast platform soon! In the meantime, go to www.veenajj.com to listen to their wonderful music!

The second episode of the podcast is a converstaion with Dana Boebinger, a neuroscience PhD at Harvard and MIT. We talk to her about aspects of music perception, theories about evolution of music, and how our brains perceive it. Listen here for the full episode https://open.spotify.com/episode/0dsq8iMDgoRQPywCDNzFJM

You can follow more of her work on Twitter (), or Google Scholar. Go to our webpage to hear and read more about the music of the Tsimane tribe and related research!

Episode 1 of Ninaada is a converstaion with Kitt Lyles - a Chicago based jazz musician who primarily plays bass, but also plays the piano, darbuka, guitar and also sings! We talk about his mixed cultural heritage from Lebanon and the American South and how that has shaped his musical landscape.

Listen on https://open.spotify.com/episode/5bWlGVi65icgshNgBoAQo5 to hear more about his work, and follow his music on https://www.kittlylesmusic.com

Welcome to Ninaada: The Waves of Music. This is a podcast about how cultures, music and cognition interact with each other. I interview people with a wide range of backgrounds - ranging from full-time musicians to scientists who study music cognition to ethnomusicologists and everyone in between who fit in this venn diagram.

To listen to our conversations, follow us on Spotify, Google Podcast, i-tunes, or any other podcast platform!

Ninaada - The Waves of Music Listen to Ninaada - The Waves of Music on Spotify. This podcast is envisioned as a platform to create a dialogue between the arts and science. In particular, we are here to explore the confluence of music, culture and cognition.

Ninaada: The Waves of Music updated their website address.