The Wise Mind Happy Hour
Two therapists musing about the idea of an inner wise mind and how to connect with this psychic space in different contexts.
The Wise Mind Happy Hour
the healing power of 🎵 MUSIC 🎵 (feat. Dr. Barbara Minton)
Music is literally older than language itself...so why does the medical community scoff at the idea that it can impact our mental health? Neuroscientist / pipe organist Barbara Minton, PhD explores the power that music can have on our psyche. Having recently released "Calm the Storm," a groundbreaking album with world-renowned guitarist Peppino D’Agostino, Dr. Minton walks us through music's ability to relieve stress, support healing, and help listeners reconnect with themselves (reaching places that words often can’t.)
- episodic music by Dr. Barbara Minton & Peppino D’Agostino
- end music by blanket forts
Welcome to the Wise Mind Happy Hour. I'm Kelly.
SPEAKER_03:And I'm John.
SPEAKER_01:And welcome everyone to this week's episode. We're so excited. We have an amazing guest.
SPEAKER_03:I'm very excited about our guests.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, it's gonna be absolutely incredible. Um, but first, as always, we'll we'll check in a little bit here.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, why don't you start? Because I don't know when I'm checking in out.
SPEAKER_01:John's having temporary amnesia.
SPEAKER_03:I'm having memory difficulties.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Um, okay. So I feel like weirdly, it's like I had a weekend at home, which like we've been ha traveling a lot, and I am traveling this weekend. But um, we did a lot of things, I think, but I guess we like saw a couple movies. And actually, Josh and I have this idea, John. I'm gonna bring this up on air. We saw one battle after another, the new Paul Thomas Anderson movie with Leo.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, yeah. I do want to see that movie.
SPEAKER_01:I think the three of us should go see it and we should see it a second time and do an episode on it. Oh, because spoiler alert's amazing, and honestly, very powerful and like prescient for this moment and not in a preachy way, not in an annoying way, in an incredibly entertaining and incisive way. I think we should go when we're back from our trips. We should find a time to go. Let's do it. Would you be down? Okay, let's do it. So maybe I'll hold off talking about that. But Josh and I were like glowing after we saw that, right? Yeah, I'm not I'm not gonna talk about it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Um, I loved it. It could be my favorite movie of the decade so far.
SPEAKER_01:It's great. It's truly so great. Josh had to remind me before we went that I like Paul Thomas Anderson movies. Because at first I was like, I don't think I like him, and I was just thinking about licorice pizza, which I didn't really like. Um There Will Be Blood, go right Incredible, um thinking thread, Magnolia, Punch Trunk Love, Punch Trunk Love, I love The Master. I love all these movies.
SPEAKER_03:So I'm like, oh yeah, I guess I you like Magnolia?
SPEAKER_01:I liked Magnolia now. Did Josh like spike my Kool-Aid with something when I watched it? Potentially.
SPEAKER_02:I think I did actually, because it was New Year's Eve. Yeah. So I had roofied you.
SPEAKER_01:But honestly, I I I basically, I mean, the Tom Cruise performance. Yeah, that's pretty is out of control. He's also so alarmingly attractive in that movie. It's outlandish. Yeah, it's outlandish. But yeah, what is he? What's the line that I love?
SPEAKER_02:Oh my god. Well, can we say it? Oh, give me that cherry pas, sweet mama baby.
SPEAKER_01:He's so unhinged. Was that the one? Yeah, he's very unplugged. Give me that cherry pass.
SPEAKER_03:And now, and and he's in the mana. And that's just not off-putting.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, it's deep, like he this is.
SPEAKER_03:I understand the point, but also like it's off-putting, it's like everything.
SPEAKER_01:It's his whole brand. It's like he's so intense. You're both like completely off-put by it and completely magnetized to it.
SPEAKER_03:Like so over the top.
SPEAKER_01:You're so impressed. You're like, this guy is on another planet.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_01:I I was listening to a podcast where they were describing him and they were like, people don't understand. Like, when he is gone, there will not be another. And I was like, so true. Yes. Like he's one of a kind. Yeah. And I agree. So yeah, I do. I do I like Magnolia?
SPEAKER_03:Maybe. I remember somebody once asking me, would you rather only be able to re-watch or watch in the future Tom Hanks movies or Tom Cruise movies?
SPEAKER_01:Tom Cruise movies for me, 100%.
SPEAKER_03:Tom Cruise for you.
SPEAKER_01:I think Tom Hanks is a little boring, to be honest. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You're gonna give up big.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You're fine with that.
SPEAKER_01:I actually don't like big famously. Interesting. Yeah. But I like it.
SPEAKER_03:But you love you'll die for all the mission impossibles. You love those.
SPEAKER_01:I find them really fun.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Like I'm trying to think of a Tom Cruise movie that I don't like.
SPEAKER_03:You see Vanilla Sky.
SPEAKER_01:I liked that even though it was like that.
SPEAKER_03:That movie's awesome. I like Vanilla Sky.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I thought it was good. A remake?
SPEAKER_03:Wait, was it problematic? You explained this to me with Abre Los Ojos?
SPEAKER_01:I don't even know if it's problematic. I think it's just like bad. Some people think it's dumb.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, it's not problematic. Yeah. It was a remake of a Spanish-speaking movie and Abre Los Ojos. Right. Which I then saw after, and I probably liked Vanilla Sky more. So shoot me. Tom Cruise. Shoot me in those ass. Penelope Cruz played a shame. She's in both. She's in both. Right. So then she played the opposite.
SPEAKER_01:So survey says the difference is not great.
SPEAKER_02:It's Cameron Crow, too, who's like a pretty solid director. Almost famous director, favorite Kelly movie director.
SPEAKER_01:Almost famous, my favorite movie. Almost famous as Kelly.
SPEAKER_02:You know, they're making a musical.
SPEAKER_01:Of almost famous movies.
SPEAKER_02:Wait, are they? For some reason I wanted to like say to us or yourself.
SPEAKER_01:Do you need a mirror?
SPEAKER_02:For some reason I wanted to say that lie, and then I realized maybe I'm not lying. Yeah. But I don't know.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe they are making I mean, where would you pull that out of?
SPEAKER_02:Should I look it up?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, look it up. But yeah, I I just like I you like Tom Cruise.
SPEAKER_03:This is like you really like Tom Cruise.
SPEAKER_01:I I really feel uncomfortable saying those words because of the Scientology of it all. Yeah. Which honestly, we should do a Scientology episode. Yeah. Definitely. Right. Let's mark that down. I'm gonna do that afterwards. Write it down. Scientology. Um but you're a Tom Cruise. I must stand. I think he is incredibly magnetic on screen. He's a movie star, you know, he's the movie star. And Tom Hanks, like honestly, I don't totally buy it. Especially with Chet Hanks out there in the mix.
SPEAKER_03:Especially with his offspring.
SPEAKER_01:Chet Hanks is a deep red flag for all of us to like pay attention to. Well, he's his dad. I mean, not that like parents can be entirely responsible for how their kids turn out, but it's definitely not looking good.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:You ever seen the movie The Color of Money? No. So that's actually like one of my favorite Martin Scorsese films. And Tom Cruise is in it.
SPEAKER_01:He is. I gotta watch that one, Color of Money. Yeah. I feel like maybe I was at a bar once and they were like playing it with no sound, and I was like, what is this? And someone's like, Color of Money, and it did look good. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I really liked it. Yeah. And I always take flag for that because of obviously Martin Scorsese's films and how much people love every other of his films other than that one.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, people don't like that one.
SPEAKER_03:It's not that they don't like it, it's just when they look at his whole, you know, resume. Yeah, they're not your favorite. And I wouldn't say it's my true favorite, probably Goodfellas is like every most people's. But I just feel like that's a gem of a movie. I really liked it.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. We've got to put that on the list. Have you seen it?
SPEAKER_02:No, I've never seen it, but I had a lot of things. It's a remake of The Hustler.
SPEAKER_03:So it's not a remake, a sequel. Exactly. See, and that's why I like it so much, is because you follow you follow Paul Newman's character. Like this amount of time has passed because he was so young in the hustler, and now he's he doesn't play pool anymore, and he's still the same character, Fast Eddie Felsen. So he was nominated, I think. He won an Academy Award for the Color of Money, but he played the same character just at different like times. Oh my god.
SPEAKER_01:Just like I honestly feel like maybe the hustler was playing at this bar and not the color of money. Probably. That's a great movie. Because it was black and white.
SPEAKER_03:Is it black and white? It's not black and white. The hustler is. The color of money? It's got color in the title.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, okay. So I was wrong. But maybe someone, someone must have been like, oh, this is the hustler, the prequel to the that's probably not the song.
SPEAKER_03:I'm trying to think of the last Tom Cruise movie I saw.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Was it Live Dodge?
SPEAKER_01:Did you see the one, the Top Gun 2?
SPEAKER_03:No, I didn't, but I know people were obsessed with that one.
SPEAKER_01:That was pretty good.
SPEAKER_03:And people really do love the Mission Impossible movies.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I kind of love them.
SPEAKER_03:Is this the last one that came out, the last one that he's in? I mean, of course, he's they're saying that he's got to be close to 70, right?
SPEAKER_01:Or 65.
SPEAKER_03:No, you'd think, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:He's been doing it for a long time.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, he really has.
SPEAKER_02:Well, most famous is a musical. Oh my god, really? 2019. Wow. So sue me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Oh, Jerry Maguire. Jerry Magic.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I wonder if that's a musical.
SPEAKER_03:Absolutely incredible. So powerful.
SPEAKER_01:He's so good in that movie.
SPEAKER_03:So popular too.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my god. So good.
SPEAKER_03:Love it. Anyway, so okay, so we've gotten off on a tangent, but we're gonna see that movie.
SPEAKER_01:We're gonna see that movie, and that will be great. I can't wait for us to give our takes on it. And everybody who's listening, try to go see it. It's so good. See it in theater. It's so important for this time. It's intense, but it's like I I really do think it's a movie people should see because of its subject matter. It's like, and like to have like I was saying to Josh, to have a director like that take on a subject like that is like you don't get that a lot. Yeah, you know. So anyway. Wait, okay. So what was I gonna? Oh, we posted a cooking video, which you wouldn't know this because you don't have social media. Josh and I cooked a recipe on Sunday and we posted it.
SPEAKER_00:Whoa.
SPEAKER_01:And so basically our caption was is it wise to cook Nina Parker's lasagna? This is uh this woman's lasagna recipe. Shout out to Antonia Parker on Instagram. We made it and it was so fun to film because we were we're kind of like, what do we want to put out there with the pod? I watch so many cooking videos, literally rot my brain on cooking videos. And I'm like, why don't I just get in the game and make one? Yeah. So we did it, and you know, like I think I'm gonna do it again. I think we're gonna do it again. I'm gonna like refine the technique, maybe even a Sunday cooking video regular.
SPEAKER_02:Sunday. It's Kelly's cooking corner, actually.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, or the wise my cooking corner. It has a nice ring to it. Yeah. Do you ever want to cook a recipe and send us the guest? Yes, a guest, or come over and do one, have your kids do one. Could be so fun.
SPEAKER_03:My youngest one is he's the culinary.
SPEAKER_01:Wow. Oh my god. He likes it.
SPEAKER_03:I would love to have him over.
SPEAKER_01:That would be amazing. So yeah, like getting into cooking. I also made pumpkin pancakes. Well, part of this is also Josh and I are trying so broke. Well, we're trying to like scoop less. We're trying to go out to eat less.
SPEAKER_03:We're just trying to do less of everything. You're doing more domesticated type uh things. That's great. I baked banana bread over the weekends. You did.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my god, how was it?
SPEAKER_03:It was good.
SPEAKER_01:Uh, did you look?
SPEAKER_03:Shane said it was too chocolatey, which I didn't know that that existed.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, I'm kind of like a Shane. I like chocolate, but like a refined amount of it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. I think I went a little overboard on it. But uh no, I did not bring it to work. I actually gave some to our neighbor who she is one of my older son's classmates, and she loves it. She's had it before, and so I like texted her mom and was like, hey. I was like, I got banana bread. And literally her mom was like, She's running over right now.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah. Like to get it. So it was great. God, I love that moment. Yeah, baking.
SPEAKER_03:I feel like now is even though the weather hasn't quite turned a little bit cooler. Yeah, I feel like now is like get into the baking. Like, do get in the kitchen. Baking. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, okay. Can I ask about the banana bread? If you put chocolate, do you always put chocolate in your banana bread?
SPEAKER_03:Usually chocolate chips, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Now, if you go that route, would you cut a slice? Like, let's say it's a day-old slice. Would you like toast it, put butter on it? No. Or you would just eat it.
SPEAKER_03:Just eat it. As is. And it's moist. It's moist.
unknown:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:The recipe is a good thing. The recipe I use, you use a half, or no, I'm sorry, I believe a quarter cup of plain yogurt.
SPEAKER_01:Yogurt is the secret slice.
SPEAKER_03:Which I believe helps keep it so that it does not dry out.
SPEAKER_01:I just saw the super moist vanilla cake recipe where that Greek yogurt was like the secret.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's like you don't even have to add a lot. It's like literally like a half a cup, and I think that's what does it.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe that's our next endeavor. Something moist. A baking item with yogurt.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Yeah. Next on Kelly's cooking corner. Ooh. A moist cake. A moist cake.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. We also we went to this place. Have you been to Mindy's? It's in Bucktown. It's like a bakery.
SPEAKER_03:No, but that sounds really familiar.
SPEAKER_01:Well, Mindy's Hot Chocolate was a restaurant.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, Mindy's Hot Chocolate. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. That I I don't know if that was a pandemic closure.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Or what? Or if she just closed it because Mindy got into like the marijuana game and she has gummies and stuff. Oh, okay. And then she shifted over to instead of a restaurant, a bakery. Okay. So we got a couple baked goods. We did go out once and got those baked goods. Yeah, we gotta. We gotta go once at least. But we used to go out multiple times. Um, and so we're trying to do a little bit less of that, but we got oh my god, this like brown butter cake. Incredible. Oh, then a coffee cake, a marbled coffee cake. Not as good. No, I would skip that.
SPEAKER_02:The honestly, the highlight of the the afternoon was the chive cream cheese.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my god. So I think I was trying to like figure out, trying to like what do they call it? Memento this cream cheese. I think it was cream cheese, tons and tons of chives blended into the cream cheese and then a bunch folded in.
SPEAKER_03:Oh wow.
SPEAKER_01:It's because it was bright green, the actual cream cheese. And it the flavor was like eyes popping out of your head. Good. Yeah, we can show it cheese. You like chives? I do. Oh my god, we should give you a taste of it.
SPEAKER_03:It's in the frig.
SPEAKER_01:Would your kids eat it?
SPEAKER_03:I like a strong flavor.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, so so good. I usually actually kind of like butter on a bagel, and this changed me. I was like, I would use this over butter for sure. So good. And they had a banana latte. And they were like, I was like, can I get the banana latte, ice banana latte with oat milk? And they were like, no. We make it one way with whole milk and heavy cream.
SPEAKER_03:Well, you gotta respect that.
SPEAKER_01:And totally, I was I literally was just like with it. Okay. I was like, bud, load me up.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I'm here.
SPEAKER_03:See, I like I like when there's a strong take on like, this is the best way to have it. I'm sorry, I want to accommodate you. This is the way you got it.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I appreciate. I felt the exact way you did where I was like, all right, let's just like let go.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, let it rip.
SPEAKER_01:I don't have to be like princess oat milk today. Like, just let it rip. Just go with it. Go with it. And it was really good.
SPEAKER_03:Tasty.
SPEAKER_01:Do I think it would have been better without milk? Maybe. But but I did it pretty. I did it better.
SPEAKER_02:Healthier. Tell me now.
SPEAKER_01:I think I have truly gotten to the place where like I prefer the taste of oat milk. I know you don't believe that. That's fair.
SPEAKER_02:You are a Saban, an intellectual Saban.
SPEAKER_01:Josh, if we says Saban instead of Saban.
SPEAKER_02:I can't. I've this is from come town. I can't, I can't. I it seems every episode I need to talk about.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, Josh has to quote this canceled podcast episode.
SPEAKER_02:It was the one podcast I listened to before I met you. Yeah. That's all right.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's fair.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Um, but yeah, so that was like like food was a big part of it. Making two recipes, then going to that place. Yeah, we we really got into that. I also had this realization this week, and we will get to you. Like, I nothing to get to I need to close. I'm like, need to close shop a little bit for a couple fall things, and then for my friend's wedding, I need a pair of earrings.
SPEAKER_03:And shit has gotten so expensive. So expensive.
SPEAKER_01:Like, I'm looking at like a top that would have been at most 75 bucks and it's 150 bucks. I'm like double in price from items that are already expensive. Yeah. I mean, forget about like if you even go close to like designer stuff for like a wedding. Sometimes I'm looking at that stuff, whatever. Crazy. I'm like, I like can't shop. I have to like get everything secondhand or just like dig into my closet.
SPEAKER_03:Everything's expensive.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, it was bumming me out big time. Like, yeah, I don't know. I think I mean, obviously, these tariffs have something to do with it. Yeah. It's horrible. It's horrible. So I love clothes shopping.
SPEAKER_03:Checking out at the grocery store. It's like I know.
SPEAKER_01:Well, we have started to do Trader Joe's, which is like a little bit of a bummer to us because like everything a Trader Joe's is like kind of nearly expired. And we used to do whole.
SPEAKER_02:Sometimes it's literally expired.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. We got a couple things that were literally expired. Yeah. So it's like it's dire, it's bleak. But you know, we're trying to be positive. We're trying to get excited about cooking at home. Some Trader Joe's stuff is incredible. The whole recipe Sunday was Trader Joe's shout-out. The what you saw on Instagram stories and TikTok, that was all Trader Joe's.
SPEAKER_03:You're gonna have to share that with me somehow.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Should we show it to you now?
SPEAKER_03:Send it to him. Get a reaction.
SPEAKER_01:We can send it to him after.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Send it to me either way. Yeah, send it. You know what I did spend money on this weekend? What? That we haven't gotten yet, but I'm excited. Um, have you heard of uh the phone tin can? No. These tin cans? So basically the whole premise behind it is it's literally a landline, but you don't go through a provider, you just hook it up with your Wi-Fi, and it's a phone that you can have in your house. Um, and it's kind of geared towards anybody, but specifically for kids. We heard about it from another parent.
SPEAKER_01:Like if they're in the basement.
SPEAKER_03:So the phone, you can put it anywhere in your house, yeah, right? And it hooks up to your Wi-Fi, and then you get a number and it's free. You just buy the phone, you don't need a service or anything like that. And anybody who has that phone can call each other. So kids are literally like calling each other on landlines. They have a cord, they look exactly like you would have had the phone on the wall, right? And if you pay for a subscription, you can give the number out to people and approve it, and then people can call. It just rings, you don't know who it is.
SPEAKER_01:Can you text?
SPEAKER_03:No, no, it's a phone, it's a phone, it is literally with a cord, it's a phone, and so I'm really excited to get it. One of my younger son's um parents, the mom was like talking to Sarah about it, and I was like, Oh, we gotta look into this. This is great. And, you know, I actually ended up seeing that mom, and I was like, we bought it, we got it shipped to us. I can't wait for Shane and your son to be talking on the phone. And she was like, you know, whenever they're on the phone, all they're doing with my parents is well, one, it's FaceTime, so they don't even know how to talk on a phone. I was like, great point. And number two, all they're doing is like messing with the filters. They're not even like having a conversation. And I was like, oh, I was like, I can't wait to get this thing. Yeah. And she was like, you should see their reaction when it rings because they don't know who it is. Wow. Like when we were young, like when we were kids. So I'm like super excited. I don't want to get like too excited about it, but like I could give like I could approve for your phone numbers, and you could just call my house, and like they wouldn't know who it is, and they could pick up and be like, hello, and you could be like, Hey, it's Kelly. I was just calling to say hi, she's like, Oh my god, we should do it. Yeah, I would love to. Isn't that crazy? So I'm really excited about it. And I think it was another thing where my my oldest son is working on a project, and of course, he wants to FaceTime with the kid he's doing a project with.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:But like when he calls, he like immediately handed me the phone and was like, I don't know what to say. And I was like, Okay, this is a problem. Like, we need to know how to like make a phone call, right? You know, and also where he holds the phone, he's like holding it up here, he's like not knowing. Because this is how they think you talk on a phone, is like this holding it on the top, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02:Like, hello, he's got to get my nice pair of AirPods.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, literally, kids don't know the idea of like holding a phone too crazy. It's that is crazy, but it makes sense.
SPEAKER_03:So you should, because your brother's got little ones, yeah, if he would be interested, and it's great because again, you have to pay like a monthly fee if you want to share the number with people. Like if you wanted to call from a cell phone, right? You'd have to pay the fee. But if you get or we could get a tin can. Or you could get a tin can and then you could just use that to call each other and it's free through your through your Wi-Fi. Does it look like in the playroom? So they have designs that are on back order right now that kind of look like can shape, but I got the one that's literally like the one that you would have like on your wall. You take it off. It's like that's just that little like. But it's not plugged into the wall. I'm it's not plugged into the wall. I'm sure you have to plug it in somewhere so it gets juice, but you don't have to have like a um a phone cord.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. So it's it's basically a cell phone, but with like a closed contact list.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, because you have the app and then you you cultivate the app and you get you get a number with it to call other tin cans, but apparently you can also choose like a classic phone number for the people outside.
SPEAKER_02:So this episode's much. Should I tell everyone my phone number? On the pod. Well, it's good for my practice, but um No, but I I'm excited.
SPEAKER_03:Anyway, so that's what I spent, that's what I spent some money on. Um, we're excited to get the tin can. Wow.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I'm excited for you to get it and tell us about how it goes. Like how many little munchkins are like ringing down. Calling in the house. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And also it's like, yeah, like don't text each other, like talk to one another. Like, I think there's a social about that. There's just a social component to it that I think is really beneficial that I had never really thought of. Totally.
SPEAKER_01:That's a big divide with me and Josh because I love to just gab away on the phone. Yeah. As you can imagine, I have a fucking podcast, but you don't love that.
SPEAKER_02:I can get in. I I don't create like I'll crave more time with music, which we'll get into with our guest. But yeah, um, it's like once I'm on the phone, I can really thoroughly enjoy it and be like, oh my god, I'm so glad I did this. This is so nice and easy, and I don't know why I dread this so much. And then other times I'm on the phone and I'm like, ugh, like I love I wish I was hanging out with this person in person. I have so much stuff to do. I like I'll start getting a little OCD of like how are we gonna wrap this up? Like, yeah, yeah, you're perfectionists an hour, like, wow, this is a hard anecdote to stop. Yeah. Um, and then I'm like not even listening to the other person.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I'm a really bad listener.
SPEAKER_03:But I wonder if this phone is gonna excite me to talk on the phone.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah. I think it will. I mean, it's like it's like it's gonna reignite storm.
SPEAKER_03:It's gonna like reignite this. Yeah, you know.
SPEAKER_01:Uh definitely. I love it. I want to. I'm gonna go to Cleveland this weekend to see my nieces, and I'm gonna be pushing the tin can.
SPEAKER_03:Go on the website, look it up. Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And if it's I'll tell my brother right in the playroom so I can just direct line contact. Direct line. Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_03:And then they could literally, they don't even have to answer. They would love to get a phone. It'd be like they have their own phone in their room. Remember that? I mean, that would like that would be so great. Well, I never And then if they had a little community of friends, if your brother spreads the word, then the the little girls can call Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Their little friends school friends, Ezra.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think she's got new friends now, too.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, she does have a new friend at Kenya.
SPEAKER_03:And if you can't do the play date because you're like, we're just too busy or whatever. Why well you need to you want to talk to somebody? Why don't you call them? And just say hi.
SPEAKER_01:Calm up. I love obsessed with this.
SPEAKER_03:I know. I can't wait to get it. I'll take a picture of it. I'll call you from it. Why would I take a picture of it? John, we're gonna be talking nightly. We're talking nightly. All right. Y'all ready for this? Did you ever fall asleep? Did you ever fall asleep with your cordless phone next to you?
SPEAKER_01:A hundred percent. While you were on the phone and just like hours and hours of phone conversation. Yeah. I can picture in my old house like where the phone was, this like corner spot where the like desktop computer was.
SPEAKER_03:I love it. I'm also wondering if like, because you can put it on like quiet hours, obviously. You can, you know, so it's uh yeah, but I was thinking, I was like, man, I wonder if like sleepovers kids are gonna get back into like crank calling other people.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my god, crank calling.
SPEAKER_02:What's the difference between crank calling and prank calling?
SPEAKER_01:I think it's like a regional affectation.
SPEAKER_02:Like, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I think it's like crank anchors, but right. I think it's all the same.
SPEAKER_01:Prank anchors.
SPEAKER_03:A crank and a crank. I'm a prank gangster.
SPEAKER_01:I'm a private. Oh my god, crank calling. I hope.
SPEAKER_03:But other than that's all I did. I was just research this phone the whole weekend, bake banana bread. Actually, a how wise is it question I thought of, which maybe we'll tease it and then we can do it. Was as I was making the the bread, I was like, how wise is it to put nuts in your banana bread?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I yes, we must save that.
SPEAKER_02:How wise is it to put nuts in your banana bread? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, yeah, because people have feelings.
SPEAKER_03:People do have feelings about it.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I even have feelings about the Wait, are we doing this question? No. No.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:I started doing it.
SPEAKER_03:I I was about to, but instead I just a good one. I was making it and I was like, ooh, people do have takes on this.
SPEAKER_01:This is exactly why I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_03:Because even I had a reaction to the recipe. Because the recipe said whatever amount of nuts, and then it said optional. Optional. And I was kind of I even I had I won't tell you what my reaction was, but I even had a reaction to it because some people might be like, oh no, that's not optional. Right. Or some people are like, uh, thank god, don't even put it on the ring, or they're like, get it out of here.
SPEAKER_01:Get it out. Yeah, it's anyway. Wow. I mean, this is exactly why we filmed the cooking video. I'm like, I think about food so much and cooking and recipes, and this is who I am.
SPEAKER_02:You can go into a store and get so much food.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I was just laughing at that line from from Robbie. Our last podcast. You can go into a store and get so much food.
SPEAKER_02:I'm obsessed.
SPEAKER_01:I'm obsessed. Shout out to Ruby.
SPEAKER_02:Shout out to Ruby. Ruby loved me, and we loved having.
SPEAKER_01:He said that on the pod in our clip. You can go to the store and get so much food.
SPEAKER_02:Just kind of talking about the modern amenities and like how well we all have it, and yet we like choose to find ways to stress, and it's like hard to be present. And so we're probably butchering his philosophy. No, not at all. You can go into a store and get so much food.
SPEAKER_01:It's true, it's true.
SPEAKER_03:And we take it for granted. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, well, this is maybe the perfect.
SPEAKER_03:Let's get into our real Hawaii's.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Okay, and welcome to our guest.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_02:Whoops.
SPEAKER_01:We'll stop there.
SPEAKER_02:Well, whatever. You'll cut out. I can edit that, or it's funny.
SPEAKER_01:You'll edit it perfectly.
SPEAKER_03:Let's go into two different segments.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. No, edit it, so it sounds so professional.
SPEAKER_02:Don't I always?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you do.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Don't I always?
SPEAKER_01:You definitely do.
SPEAKER_02:You can never tell the transition, right?
SPEAKER_01:Okay. No, you really can't.
SPEAKER_02:Oh no.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, so everyone, welcome our guest today. Um, she's a psychologist and an applied neuroscientist hailing from the Berkeley, California area. Welcome, Dr. Barbara Minton.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Thank you. So fun to be here. Can hardly wait. Oh, we can't wait either.
SPEAKER_01:I'm so excited since our call. I've been so excited to talk to you about music and finding the wise mind through music. But first, yeah, tell us a little bit about your journey to music as this mechanism of healing and change and all this stuff in your work. Tell us about that.
SPEAKER_04:Like life. It's just so weird how this stuff comes around. And, you know, as a teenager, I really found music like a lot of people do, and a lot of teenagers do, as a way of creating solace for myself, sort of feeling like an outlier. And of course, I chose the very trendy instrument, a pipe organ. Oh, I love it. Pipe organ. Which probably made me even more of an outlier. But you know, I look back now and I think there was something about the vast array of sounds a pipe organ could make, clear from these very celestial, sort of transcendent tones to this very deep, heavy, powerful sound. And I think about like a teenage girl being able to have that kind of agency and power and to express the broad range of emotions that I was feeling and to have access to that. I think it just it just meant everything to me. And I remember sitting in school all day just thinking, oh man, when can I get over to practice the pipe organs? So, you know, you talk about wise mind, and I I think there was something at that time that it was accessing something in me that wasn't yet fully expressed.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And I actually went to college as a music major for three years, and then I burnt out on music, and I was so lucky to find psychology because I just love psychology, and I've been a psychologist for 40 years and had a wonderful career, gotten to work in rural mental health in Alaska and worked with severely emotionally disturbed kids and gifted and highly gifted kids and fly my own little float plane out to remote lakes. I mean, it was just the coolest life.
unknown:I love it.
SPEAKER_04:And then um a few years ago, a colleague of mine who was writing a book called me up and said, Oh, I know you're a musician. And of course, I hadn't been a musician in a long time, but he said, I know you're a musician. Can you write a chapter for this book on music in the brain? And I started just immersing myself in this literature. Hundreds and hundreds of articles. And I was just like, holy cow, this stuff is so powerful. Like it decreases depression. If you know an effect size, the effect size for music in depression is 1.33. That's a very strong effect size. It reduces symptoms of depression like by 50%. It helps people get through hospital procedures. It helps people with stroke recovery. It helps kids with ADHD have higher reading comprehension. I'm just reading all this stuff and I'm like, why are we using this? You know, it's all sitting in academic journals and none of us out in the real world. And I just started thinking, man, I really, I gotta start doing something about this. And about at the same time, I kind of got this, I don't know what to call it, but this passion for uh learning how to play finger style guitar, which is a certain type of sort of complicated percussive guitar, finger style percussive guitar. And then I started thinking further, and I was like, you know, I know about EEG, I know about the brain, I know about music, I can cross these fields, and wouldn't it be cool to actually compose music that helped normalize the brain? Because we know the effect of music on EEG. And and the music that they're choosing in these research studies is kind of semi-random, right? It's like one study they played Beethoven, and another study they play Enya, and another study they played. Yeah. So I think I'm like, wow, this is kind of what like some researcher just picked a piece of music they liked. What if we actually used our knowledge of neuroscience and our knowledge of the brain and composed music to lead the brain into the state that is more regulated? And so this is actually the Call in the Storm album that I did with Peppino D'Agostino, uh, who's just the guy's an incredible musician, um, is actually the second album I've done. And this is the one where we've actually tried to look at particular networks in the brain and see if we could normalize those networks. And to just bring this back to the wise mind thing, what one of the things that's really interesting to me is as we've gotten some initial feedback on this from people, is they're talking about being able to access knowledge and information or spiritual experiences that the music engendered in them. And I think that is so amazing and really speaks to the powerful, powerful effect that music can have on some people. And when it's moving your brain into its more optimal state, yeah, all of a sudden you can access all this information and all this wisdom and all this power and all this agency that otherwise you couldn't access. And I'm not saying the music is transforming everybody's life, but I think for some people that are maybe on that threshold, it is just enough input to push them over. So it's been just such a ride, I can't even tell you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So I'm curious, is it that the music is when people are in a dysregulated state only? Or is this like we're introducing this music to people who have you know long-standing maybe depression and we're seeing a reduction in symptoms the more they listen to it, or on a regular basis, or is it both? Like what I don't know, obviously.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I wish you knew the answer to that. I mean, I've I all this is all self-funded stuff, so I don't have money to do like vetted studies, like here's people with depression. I mean, the the studies that I drew from from to get this initial information what were vetted studies. Um what I'm hearing is more from people who have bought downloaded the album or bought the CD and listened to it and then have emailed me about their response. We did do um when we composed the album, uh, we took 10 people who had chronic pain, insomnia, or migraine. And that's that's what the album was. I was targeting those three networks because they overlap in the brain. And so we took 10 people who had that, had them did pre-brain imaging, had them listen to the music, imaged while they were listening to the music and did post-imaging with EEG and um saw those networks normalized. And if you go to my, I don't know if you went to my website, but if you go to the website, musicandhealing.net, on the tab that says new album, you can scroll down to the bottom. And you I posted a couple of yeah, you put the images.
SPEAKER_03:I saw those, yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yes, yeah. And you know, when I first saw this, I was I was stunned because I thought it should work, but then to actually see that it worked and we could actually see data that showed these networks getting better. It was just, and I mean, these songs are like four minutes long, and I was shocked at how much the brain changed in that time. I know now I'm not saying it'll maintain, I have no idea. We had one person who actually one brave person who came in with a migraine, which you can imagine. If you have migraines, you know this is an act of sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And uh her migraine actually on two, well, several songs, her migraine pain went down a little bit, and then on one song it actually went away, and it went away for several hours. Now that's one person, but still, if that happened to be me, I'd be like, I'm paying$19.99 for that album because even if it takes the edge off my pain, you know, yeah, it's worth it. And this, these are the things that uh we need to become more aware of, both in our own personal use of music, how to use music for ourselves and listen to the right kind of music for ourselves. We don't always do that. But also for people that are therapists. I mean, if you're a counselor, a psychologist, a social worker, an occupational therapist or physical therapist, like we should be using music. Yeah, it's so easy, it's so accessible, it's so cheap. Like, why are we not using music in the interventions that we're doing with our clients? Totally. We really need to be doing that.
SPEAKER_01:Totally. You know, this makes me I always draw off parallels to EMDR because I do EMDR, but it does, you know, like getting the the mind in that optimal state, it's uh it's so great thinking of like obviously sometimes using the bilateral, but using music could be such a nice, I almost could see that as almost being a little more natural in a clinical setting, you know, like and I guess my instinct, I'm curious what you think about this. My instinct as not an expert in this with the music, would be kind of considering like what music a client finds kind of aligned with them, maybe soothing, but even like you're saying and you were describing when you were young, like music that kind of speaks to you a bit as a way to like help them. Like they could even like process out loud with that sort of softly in the background, kind of like lifting up that. I mean, this is what EMDR does, right? It's like lifts up that they call it the adaptive information processing network, but that that wiser mind, so you can look at the same situation with this like strength within. I could totally see music.
SPEAKER_04:This gives me so many ideas of using it, you know, like with no, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's such a ripe area to explore. And I I'll tell you just a few interesting things about it. I Pippino and I do um a workshop called Music the Brain and Healing, and it goes through all this research, and it also um I've originally I originally oriented towards CEUs for therapists, and we talked about how to use it with clients. So, of course, then I got these stories back afterwards. And you know, one woman said, I had a client I just couldn't get to open up a teenager, and um I started asking them about music and it changed everything. So even at that level of like, like, why do we not have on our intakes what music do you like to listen to? Right. And if somebody says heavy metal or somebody says, you know, and yeah, right, that gives you information about that. It it's it opens a door of rich information about your clients. So even at that level, we should all be doing this, and then we can think about is this music good or bad? So, for example, I had a client who was very anxious that loved rap music, and I which I happen to like a lot of rap music myself, and so I was like, well, you're you have anxiety, you're listening to rap music. Let's look map your brain before and after. And in fact, the anxiety networks were getting worse after you listen to rap music. So, you know, not all music we listen to is good for us, and totally we need to be so there's sort of that level of it. Yes, um, but some music, like uh heavy metal, I want to is is so interesting because many people with trauma and PTSD love heavy metal. Well, you can kind of see why, right? Because the intensity of this music drives everything else out of your mind.
SPEAKER_03:So if you're swirling around, yeah, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_04:And then a lot of heavy metal actually has pretty inspirational lyrics, and so everything gets driven out of your mind, and yet you have these sort of powerful inspirational lyrics, you know, and yet we're completely unaware of what this stuff is happening. So, even at that level, there's an incredible richness to what we could be doing. Yeah. Um the EMDR connection is really interesting, and it's something I need to think more about. It's really about how music could help both access and in a way disentrain these networks. So help free these networks up. Yeah. And this particular album that we just did is a very calming album. And we also wanted the music to stand alone, you know, that it just would be nice to listen to, right? So you don't have to have a have insomnia to listen to the album. If you happen to like beautiful lyrical guitar music, you'll enjoy listening to it. It's gorgeous. I mean, Peppino's playing is just so masterful. And in fact, several of the A-list guitar magazines put articles about this and just said uh talked about the sensitivity of his playing and the gorgeousness of this. And he is considered one of the 50 transcendent guitarists of all time. Wow. So to like have him on there, it's just I can't believe I'm so lucky to have him working on this. Yeah. Um, but I almost think of this if your brain is hyperactivated, then it's almost as if for some people this opens a portal. And I think that's a little bit like EMDR, right? It gets you out of the stuck state. So you can open this portal into this different way of looking at the world. Now, if you're under aroused, then you need a different type of music. And the first album I did, who I did with and also an amazing guitarist named Callum Graham, we did a range of music. So some of it's a lot more activating. It'd be like uh what would create beta waves, which are those bright-eyed, bushy-tailed waves in your brain. Yeah. And so, you know, that's more like, oh gosh, you know, I don't want to work this morning. I'm so where's my coffee? You know, put these songs on. And because the brain entrains to music, it wants to copy the frequencies and the music that are coming into your brain. And so it'll start to pace itself faster to copy those frequencies. And so if you get really good at this, um, you can start to create the types of music that put you in the state that you're where you're wanting to go. Yeah, that's interesting.
SPEAKER_03:I think it makes me think of a lot of times, even in my own experience with music, I want I sometimes just want to listen to the music of where I'm at versus where not thinking about what would be more effective for me to go. Yeah. Right. So, like that example of I'm anxious, I'm I kind of have like frenetic energy, then I I want I want to listen to some rap or some frenetic like music right now, right? Versus it, it's not my first thought to think about how could I bring this down, or if I'm really in a sad place, it's like I'm gonna put on the saddest album and I'm gonna double down on this mood state right now. And I think it is an interesting thing and it's a good reminder of like activating versus calming, right? And like where where do you want to go with the music? And I think that's a wise-minded thing to think about. It's not maybe my first thought in my experience, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_04:Man, I'm so glad you brought that up because I'm gonna say this if you're in that kind of high agitated state or totally depressed state, you first of all, you need to play those songs where you're at. So it's like a breakup song, right? Like we we need to be validated for where we're at, and music itself is an expression of that. So you want to, I think you do want to if I mean, what do I know? I I don't have any data on this. This is just my opinion. I'm like, yeah, you should start there because it's expressing how you feel. And this is where we start in therapy with people, right? We want them to be able to tell their story and express how they feel, and we want to be there with them and say, wow, that that really is depressing or anxiety-provoking. Like, I get your experience and I validate your experience is real and important, and then you move on, right? Yeah, so you start down there, so you play the breakup song for I don't know, three weeks. But if you're playing it a year later, like maybe that's not so switch it up a little bit. Yeah, right. You want to kind of move up just a little bit from that breakup song and to the song that's like, yeah, it sucked, but life moves on and there's hope, right? And then you want to move up the next level, like, yeah, that's in the past now. I survived, life is opening up. And so um I think thinking about music in this way, you know, there's nothing more frustrating than if you're all amped up in somebody place calming music. You're like, right, right. Yeah, totally. Or the opposite, right? If I'm feeling too far. So you're up here in my the way I think about it, you're up here in high beta. Uh, you know, your neurons are firing 30 times a second. Somebody plays something where your neurons are supposed to be firing four times a second. That distance is too large. Right. Yeah. You need to come down to something that is a little less activating, but still very engaging, has a big beat, you know. Yeah. And we had that happen actually on this first album. There's a couple songs. There's a song named Resilience, and these were songs, and um, another one I'm blanking on the name now, but these were songs that we constructed to be activating. But we had several people, we collected data on 27 people in that data set, and we had several of them say, Oh, that song was so calming. And I'm like, oh man, that's amazing. Because he's playing electric guitar. We have electric guitar, acoustic guitar, we have riffs in them, we have this drum beat and all this stuff. And I'm like, I'm gonna go back and look at these images, you know, this brain stuff. And I went back, and those, in fact, were the people that started way, way activating. So they found that music calming. So you might find music with a faster beat actually calming. Do you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yeah, yeah, because there is, like you said, there's this like validation that creates ease. You know, like I've noticed that so much with my clients when we really stay with a part or something that's agitated and give it full permission. There's a lot of release in that. So yeah, it's like meeting yourself where you are can be so easing.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, it's like meeting yourself where you are and then just coming down a little bit, yeah. And not not be like, oh, now we've talked about that. Or like I remember my dad saying when I was a little kid, it's like I'd be crying and he'd be like, put a smile on your face. It's like right. How does that work? Yeah, yes. Yeah, here's some upbeat music. You have to come down like this, and so the music you choose, you want to choose music that leads you down.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I'm so curious about um how you met Peppino D'Agostino and and that, how that came about, and if he's like into you know, neuroscience and all that.
SPEAKER_04:This is kind of a funny story. So um, you know, I was watching a YouTube video about music, and I and I was like, I have to learn to play. I, you know, I don't know, you know, I'm so old, but whatever. I have to learn to play this finger style, percussive finger style guitar, and I couldn't find anybody locally in Boise, where I'm from and uh Idaho. And so I start looking online and I found Callum Graham, who's uh from Victoria, BC, and he was my first teacher. And then Callum went off to go on tour, like these guys do. And uh I was like, oh man, I just barely got started and I lost my teacher. And so I got online. Yes. And this guy popped up, and I'm like, oh, I've never heard of this guy. And I email him, I'm like, I'm a beginner, I heard you give online lessons. And he emailed me back and he was said, Oh, I'd be glad to take you on. And I was mentioning this to a woman that I was having coffee with one way as a guitarist, and her eyes just got like huge. She was like, Peppino D'Agostino, and she said, Uh, you did, you're not going to the priest, you're going to God.
SPEAKER_00:Wow, that line.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, right. It's so good. I was totally intimidated, you know. And he's the nicest, warmest guy, but it's sort of like taking it lessons as a beginning cellist from Yo-Yo Ma or something. It's like, you're like, what am I doing in this room with this guy? But yeah, but then um after about six months, I said, Hey, I got this project in mind. Would you be willing to work on it with me? And he's he said, Yeah. So I came to, he's from the California. So I came to California and we spent a week working together. And it just, you know, sitting in a room with somebody of that caliber and watching them compose. And and then I'm telling him, well, we can't go above this note because it's going to make the brain do this, and we have to, you know, have these timbers and we have to have this kind of phrasing. And he was so kind and nice, and that's how it happened. And and then we've just kind of gone on from there trying to actually develop this so that we can get the information out there, which is very hard to do. You know, the music business is brutal.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And it's it's also just a big challenge to get new information out to people. So that's why I'm so grateful to you guys. Oh, yeah. We're so grateful on the podcast. Absolutely. But yeah, that's the story with Papino, and we since became friends, and nice. That makes it a little easier because we get to tease each other. That's always fun. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. Love that. And it's, you know, it's I like that there's this, like, he's a real musician. So it's like obviously gonna have, like you said, be like melodic and you know, like draw you in in a normal way and in or in a traditional way. And then also like you're you're aware of these like brain waves and how how different songs can kind of activate different things. Um, I love that. That's so cool. Because I almost think I could see someone like using AI for something like this. And I think there's such a different touch to have a real composer doing it.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I mean, it there totally is. And we're now working on an album for PTSD, and we have a third musician joining us. And, you know, even me, I I listen to I listen to uh, you know, some of the rough drafts of some of this stuff, and I'm just like, oh man, just as music alone, this is just so beautiful. And when you have that, you know, there's something about that emotional evocation that music brings that just not I don't know anything else that touches that. Maybe there's something, but wow. Yeah, yeah. It's almost like a couple people I was like, can you listen to this rough drap? And they were just like, oh man, you know. So I can hardly wait to get that out and have people listen, but it'll be a while because I have to collect data, blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, totally. Well, it's interesting. This is making me think about how I probably underutilize music myself, even in my own life. Like, I love music, and Josh, my husband, um, is I mean, what would you say, Josh? Like music obsessed, music obsessed, audiophile, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Audio OCD pro music person.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, like would be listening every single second of the day if you could. We had to work on it as a as a couple. Yeah, sometimes we have to turn it off.
SPEAKER_04:But I've got a music addiction going on totally.
SPEAKER_01:So sad. Yeah, so sad. Yeah. But he's like really like helped me like invite like more music into my life and see so much live music. And it's incredible. You're so right, that like there's nothing that's so like awe-inspiring. I mean, maybe sometimes certain like moments with nature, but like it's a very similar feeling where totally really yeah, like, and I I probably like also I have a podcast, but I I listen to a lot of podcasts, and I'm like, I should really make time in the morning for exactly what you're saying that because I do often wake up with that sort of like, I just don't want to do anything kind of feeling. And I really should like go both go with that and then invite in like a little bit of a different vibe through music. I'm definitely gonna look at the website and kind of see if I can get into that. What about you, John?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, no, I mean, the this makes me think a couple, I don't know, months ago, because I'm mostly a group therapist, and sometimes we do icebreaker questions. And one of the questions was, what's something you could totally live without, but you can't live without? And I said my Spotify account. Yeah. I was like, I I could totally live without it, and I like I can't live without music. Like that's just so um, and I feel like I even cherish him more because I have two kids. And when I put on my music, they're like, What are you can you turn that off? Like, why are we listening to that? Like, you know, because the so we'll put on something that they like, which is fine. They've introduced me to some things that I like. Um you know, no judgment there, but and I just remember it also evokes like my parents always had like a record on, and then it turned into like tapes, and then it like they always had something in the background, and so there's very it just elicits and I think music there's just something you can't describe about it sometimes. It's almost like there's not human language sometimes to describe the emotional impact or feelings that you you get from it. Um so I could wax and wane about how important you know music is to me.
SPEAKER_04:Um yeah, and you know, it's interesting if you look at the history of music, some people believe, and I see why, is that music predated language. Right. Yeah, you you can you can see why, because you can drum and you can make you can hum and you can make sounds maybe before you articulate a language. And um different genres of music activate different parts of the brain, which is what's so cool when you think about stroke or sort of others of these PTSD or these other things. And so music and memory are very closely related. So because music activates the emotional centers of the brain, and the emotional centers of the brain drive in memories, that is why if you use music to sing, I don't know, something that multiplication tables or something you have to memorize, you'll memorize them better. Uh, but also why music is so evocative when you play a song from your junior high sock hop or whatever, you know, you're like it just takes you back there. Right. Because that music encodes these memories very, very powerfully, which maybe makes me wonder about the EMDR, as long as we're going off into speculation, right?
SPEAKER_01:Like, yeah, well, you know what's funny? I we should talk about this even offline because I'm getting all these ideas of being someone who does it. Because I I even had my own EMDR therapy today, which is funny. And I my um I was trained with a little more of a classic technique around it, but my own therapist is a little more um experimental with it. And sometimes it's like we won't do these um discrete like sets, but we'll sometimes even on certain days, like I'll hold the bilateral stimulation buzzers and we'll just talk. And then, you know, which is nice. And that that kind of I almost think of like music could definitely have that role where like what she'll do is like we'll start talking and then she'll say, you know, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna give you these and I'm gonna turn them on and let's keep talking. And it kind of like you could say, I'm gonna turn on a little soft music in the background, you know, which could come from, you know, uh checking in in some way at the beginning of a session in terms of like current state and emotional attunement. But yeah, like seeing, and in I love the EEG. That's so amazing. But I even think if you didn't have access to that, you could take like a sudden score, you know, totally before and after and kind of get a sense like, did this offer something?
SPEAKER_04:I you can also look like, are the muscles around their eyes relaxing? Are they, you know, what's happening with their face? Well, all this stuff that you're trained as therapists to pay attention to is totally because we're the music is getting encoded physiologically, and so you see it in that outward physiology. You know, um when we debuted this album, we had a concert and we had people come up. So I will I'm playing the pipe organ in the background, and he's playing the guitar. So you have like the deep, if you listen to the album, if you listen through headphones, you'll get have a better experience. So we have these deep, kind of resonant sounds of the pipe organ, and then this sort of warmth and intimacy of the guitar. And people just close. We said, look, don't clap between the songs, just like have your experience. And people like closed their eyes and just sort of went into a trance state. Um, some people you could see tears running down their face, and of course, if I were doing therapy with them, I mean, these are the moments of so rich times of therapy, which you're not gonna do in a concert. But we got so many comments, and I think uh I want to come back to what you said about live music. I want to give a pitch for everybody to go to live music. And if you have a song you really like with a somebody, a musician that you really like, please go to their website and buy it from them because I have an ethical issue with Spotify. I know everybody uses Spotify, uh, but you know, artists get paid nothing, most indie artists get paid like maybe 0.00 one two cents for a play on Spotify, and that you can't support yourself off of that. So if you can go to their website and download their music and pay 20 bucks just as a way of supporting live music, and I'm gonna tell you from a psychological perspective why I think like live music is important. When you when you're listening through your headset. Or even headphones or earbuds, the frequencies are truncated because there's only so much that these little speakers can pick up. So people can hear from about 20 hertz to about 20,000 Hertz. Interestingly enough, pipe organs go down below the range of hearing, but we have these things called mechanoreceptors in our body that pick up the music that we can't hear. So you're actually hearing music when with your body. And when you're in a live venue, you get all those frequencies. Yeah. They're not truncated by the internet or your headphones or whatever it is. And you will have a much more profound experience. And we also know that, and I mean, this is a whole nother conversation, but people in train to each other. So you have the audience, which is in training to the music, but they're also in training to the musicians and to each other. And it is the beauty. I mean, I love that you do group therapy because it's the beauty of I did a retreat with Fapino in June, and it was on finding your authentic self through using the arts, basically. But man, there was something in that group, and you know this as a group therapist, some groups, they there was such they held each other with such safety and respect. And by the end of the first half day, you could almost feel this sort of entunment that people had towards each other. It's very much like music. Yeah. It was just so having that live music and that live human experience, I think, can just be so, so powerful.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. We used to, John and I met doing group therapy, and we used to always say that like when when someone will get like feedback or support or validation from a group member, it means like a trillion times more than coming from one of us. There is this like because that there's nothing on that person, like there's no responsibility they have to say that if they're moved to say it. And it's like so it's so beautiful to watch. It does when I watch like a group therapy group run, I feel almost like I'm watching music. You know, there is like a music to the rhythm. Exactly. And yeah, the organism of the group therapy space. Yeah, it's incredible. I'm curious, what are your thoughts of like encouraging people to make music? I don't, I don't make music, but like I've always like wished I did and regretted not like getting into like an instrument more. But what do you think about that? Do you like ever encourage your clients or people to to get into that?
SPEAKER_04:So I'm gonna say uh yes and no. So if you can make music or make art or write and do it in a non-performance-based way, then it can be super therapeutic. So if you can be like, I'm gonna hum this song, doo-dee-doo-doo, doo doo-doo, and you don't worry about if it sounds good or anything like that. Um the thing about doing becoming a musician, though, is becoming a musician is actually very tedious and very, it takes a lot of discipline. It, you know, so if your expectation is, wow, I want to pick up this guitar and in six months I'm gonna sound like Papino or like your favorite, or I'm gonna sound like Taylor Swift, it's like, yeah, no, that isn't gonna happen. These people spend, they sacrifice their whole lives in order to create this music. So I wouldn't necessarily encourage people to learn an instrument, but I would encourage them to use music and their capacity to make music. So interestingly enough, like humming calms the vegan nerve. So like why wouldn't you hum? You're in the car, hum. Right.
SPEAKER_01:Sing along or like hum or like, yeah, yes.
SPEAKER_04:Make music this way, or like make a scribble drawing where you just scribble out how you're feeling, like make a scribble of how you're feeling. The minute we try to turn this into a beautiful work of art or the perfect paragraph, then we're bringing in, I think, all this other stuff that might not be that helpful to us.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Does that answer your question? Oh, totally, totally. Well, yeah, I think about this with like, because I I do a lot of EMDR. I also do a lot of like parts work. And often, like, when there is this like pressure, usually from a part to like perform that wise mind gets a little buried by the part or kind of like overprotected by the part. So exactly what we're talking about, the music bringing out the wise mind, it can get a little interrupted when there's this pressure to make it something specific rather than just like let go and be moved by it. Which you can, like to your point, like you can hum, or I think you could like sing in a choir at church or something or whatever. Yeah, sing right, exactly. Sing in the choir.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah, join the community chorus. And then they where they don't, you don't even have to read, you know, audition, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, something where it's just about like engaging with the thing and less performance based. That totally makes sense. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. And you know, I've had trouble, I still have trouble playing guitar in front of Pepino, and it it's really interesting. I was like, Pepino, I I'm gonna have to desensitize myself to play in front of you. And he was like, Barb, don't do that. And I was like, okay. And he said, now just listen to the music, just focus on the music. And you know, that it gives me chills just saying that because when you can just focus on the beauty of the sound that you're making, pluck one guitar string and listen to that beautiful sound, you know, hum one note and listen, just listen to that note. It'll change, it'll change you.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I love that. Like even as you're making it, just listen to the music. That's incredible. One question I did have, and I'm just curious your opinion on this. What do you make of the fact that all that research you looked at showed this like correlation between music and well-being and healing from depression? That research and the fact that you're not seeing it really anywhere in practice or clinically. What do you make of that?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, I mean, I find it surprising and not surprising. I mean, there's even data there that um music activates the immune system. So I'm like, if I'm in the hospital, I'm the one that's calling in the musician to come and play for me. At least I'm taking my headphones and playing music to myself. I think that we all, you know, unfortunately, the way we've designed our health and mental health systems is we all are a little guild system and we all have our little, you know, path that we go down. Yeah. Right. So psychiatrists prescribe medication, but psychologists don't, or psychologists do therapy and testing, but counselors don't, and OTs do this. So we're very, very segmented. And we actually have now a music therapy thing where okay, you have music therapists, you have to take music therapy class, you get certified as a music therapist. And many of us give lip service to this idea that we really need integrative services, yeah, right. Like we'd all love to see that, but we're not doing it. It's like if you said to somebody, well, we need to introduce in your counseling program a class on music, and they'd say, Well, we don't have, you know, all this stuff is taken up. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And so I think it's up to us when we find discoveries like this to say, you know, we have to let other people know and um get ourselves out of our little ruts that we're in, yeah, and start looking outside. And that's hard to do when we ourselves have blinders on. So I think that's what it is. And I had talked to uh some physicians down at Stanford actually, and they were like all over this, and they were like, you'll never get this in the medical system, it's just too traditional. And I'm like, wow, like it's so untraditional to play music, really. Yeah, yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01:Music being predating language, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Predating the medical system, right?
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, music predating music, predating most things. Think of all the chanting and shamans and all the stuff that we did to help heal people early on.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:I mean, wow.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:And that we threw all that out because we got excited about pharmaceuticals and surgery and all this stuff. And I love, I think that stuff is great. I wouldn't be alive, I'm sure, if it weren't for antibiotics. Yeah. So I'm grateful for that. Right. But we kind of threw the baby out with the bathwater, I think, when it comes to some of these things. Totally. So we need to help people rediscover it. So I if you have ideas, I want to hear. Yeah. Totally. And every time I do that workshop, that continuing ed workshop, we I mean, people are we've never gotten anything lower than a five-star out of five-star rating on it. Wow. Because it's stuff you can use the next day, it's easy, it's powerful. Yeah. But no one knows. So how do we do this? How do we get it out there?
SPEAKER_01:I I don't really know the answer. The one, um, the one, of course, I'm like harping on this EMDR piece, but I it actually has a sounds like a similar history to EMDR. My um supervisor in EMDR has like been doing it for 30 years, and and I asked her, I was like, what was it like doing it 30 years ago? And and she was like, oh, people thought it was crazy. People thought it like made no sense and was like too woo-woo and like kind of made up, and and now it's like very legitimized. So I'd be curious, like the process of marketing. I'm almost going to look into that a little bit because I do think this is such an amazing idea. And I do even think like it makes sense that the medical system has that almost like more masculine kind of bend. And there is like a femininity and like a poetry, obviously, to music. And there's such an such a splitting of those things unnecessarily. Like that's not as legitimate, that's not as you know, concrete.
SPEAKER_04:That's such an interesting idea. So you're saying these sort of patriarchal systems that we've set up are a little bit shut off from that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think so. I think these ideas can be threatening to like come to show John. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:It's definitely my fault. For sure. Definitely, yeah. Absolutely. Listen, well, right, patriarchy, that's the smog we all breathe, right? Totally.
SPEAKER_01:You even breathe it. I breathe it too. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, you're a victim to it. Totally. But I mean, that's why we we're we're so glad you came on, is that we do believe this is something that can be really effective and useful. And I I appreciate the creativity, not just of music, obviously, but also like the way we could use it in so many different ways that we haven't explored. Like it's like a vast, exciting new like realm, I guess.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and so accessible.
SPEAKER_04:It totally is. And we just scratch the surface. I mean, there's so much more I could say. Um it just it's such a deep well of for healing and for accessing wisdom and strength and help. It's just really stunningly amazing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, maybe we'll end on um, like, and this may be hard to answer or easy to answer, but like, what do you think? Like, for a listener of this podcast, what would you recommend as like a starting place? Would it be go to the website, look into these Peppino um different tracks? What do you think?
SPEAKER_04:Go to the website. Um, and you know, the this is a very calmly album, and that's that's great if you need that, because a lot of us do. There's lots of stuff going on right now for a lot of us in this world. And if that album brings you down, I mean, I had a guy say he listened to it while I was taking a test to help him focus, you know, it's all that's all good. That's not gonna be the album for everybody, but uh I would say go to the website, listen to that music. If that isn't for you, but you're like, oh man, I want to learn more about this, or I want to, what about for this issue? Um, yeah, email me. Okay, great. Through the website, and I'll be glad to do the best I can to answer questions or put you in contact with the right people, or give you, you know, orient you to a live review or something like that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, okay. Oh, I love that. That's maybe the perfect segue to our plug. So yeah, tell us tell us your email and how people can reach you.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, so the website is just musicandhealing.net all spelled out, M-U-S-I-C-A-M-D-A-E-A-L-I-N-G.com.net. Um, and then you can email me through the website, it might be the easiest, but my regular business email is D-R-B for Doctor for Doctor, but it's just D-R D R B for Barb, M-I-N-T-O-N at gmail.com. So D-R-B, M-I-N-T-O-N at Gmail. And if people are interested in workshops, concerts, I love to do workshops and then have a concert at the end. Um workshops, concerts, or anything like that, just let me know and we can see if we can put something together. Love to do that.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I would love to. So I even I can think of even clients I would maybe send your way. So yeah, definitely. Yeah, I would go your way. I would totally. I know I want to do one of these workshops. So come on. We're gonna be there. Yeah, Josh said same.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and I do have uh, if you want to get on the mailing list, put your name in there. And I just like I just emailed out, we're doing a workshop here in a few weeks in California. So I email out that, and then you'll have that information too.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, perfect. Well, thank you so much for joining us. This was so interesting.
SPEAKER_02:I have I have one question before we before we log off. I well, I have many questions, but I'm gonna limit myself to one because of time. Uh do you Barb, do you have a favorite rapper?
SPEAKER_04:Oh my gosh, I do. And I got I'm blanking on his name. What's that really young guy? He's like 20. He has this song. I have to think about that. He's a current, he's a current rap. He's like in a song where he's like in an airplane and then he's on the streets, and then he does that ring a bell.
SPEAKER_02:I should know this.
SPEAKER_04:Trying to think someone young, 20s. He's really young. I hate that when that happens. Anyway, I love his stuff.
SPEAKER_03:It's so interesting because this like whole conversation. I'm like, I can't wait until the end when I can ask Barb a music question. Because I was like thinking to myself, I was like, just give us a quick top five albums that you're listening to right now that we should all be listening to.
SPEAKER_04:I know, and like I'm so weird. Like, my latest thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna do Metallica. Have you ever listened to Metallica? I have a little bit.
SPEAKER_03:I reported the album. I think I had the album either like was it fuel or something like that? Or like load or reload. Maybe those were the albums.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah, reload. Yeah. So they had a song called Nothing Else Matters. And it's and I'm gonna do that pipe organ, electric guitar. I'm gonna do pipe organ. I'm doing gonna do a pipe organ arrangement. Pipe organ, electric guitar drums, and uh voice. It's gonna be killer. Wow because pipe organ just blasts everybody out in the room. So it's really good for heavy metal music because it you can make those really dark sounds with that. Oh, I love that. And I've had a bunch of, I think I've had I got into the heavy metal thing because I had a client who had horrible um developmental trauma, and she kept going to down in the mosh pit and getting whacked around. And I was like, man, why is she going to all this stuff? And then I realized that like it drives everything else out. So you, you know, it's almost like cutting, right? It drives everything else out. Yeah. And then um, then I've been I got a couple emails from um these ex CIA combat vet type guys, and they all listen to this incredibly intense music, like surprise.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, totally. It has that that like pushing everything out and almost like helping them be present, probably. Yeah, I think that's what's happening.
SPEAKER_04:But anyway, I like I like a lot of that stuff, but I like all kinds of music. I love a lot of classical music. I love so the guy that got me off onto the guitars, a guy named Mike Dawes. You can look him up on YouTube uh from England. He's an amazing guitar player. Okay, you know him, Josh.
SPEAKER_02:No, but I'm gonna look into him now. Not literally now, but tonight. Yeah, yeah. It was Mike Dawes.
SPEAKER_03:It was also interesting when you were talking about like the memory piece of music, and the the thing that popped into my mind was um an album that has a very strong association with just like my home and like my mom. And I was thinking of immediately I thought of Carol King Tapestry was like the album that I was like every song on there is just like so like I tear up every time I like hear that album. It's just so warm and so many feelings that I can't describe. So when you were talking about the memory piece, I was like, oh, that was like the immediate album that came to mind.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, and that warmth. You know, so many of those songs, like uh like Carol King wrote or played, and she didn't write all of them, but um, you know, to me, these are and and then these other songs like Let It Be, you know, the Beatles have some of them too. Imagine. Yeah, like there's something, yeah, Amazing Grace, I think would be another one that's lasted, you know, hundreds of years. There's something about these songs that access something so deep for people. Yeah. I mean, you've got a friend. Come on. Yeah, yeah. Wow.
SPEAKER_01:Totally incredible. Oh, I love it. Okay, well, thank you so much. This was amazing. This like blew my expectations out of the water. Thank you so much for coming. Did you find that rapper?
SPEAKER_02:Is it Lil Teka?
SPEAKER_04:I'll I'll look it up and I'll look him up and email him to you. I mean, he's got one song I just love. I used to have it totally memorized, but I've been so, you know, what happens is like I've been composing this other music and it's like driven everything out of my brain, everything else out of my brain. Yeah, it's like my brain can only hold so much music at once.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, it wants to go. Like you said, your brain wants to match where you are. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah. Yeah. X amount of bandwidth. I'll look it up though, and he I'll email you the link.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, thank you. Okay, so perfect. Okay, thank you so much. Welcome.
SPEAKER_03:Okay, so now we're moving into our how wise is it question.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. So today, our question is how eyes is it to judge someone by their Spotify rapt?
SPEAKER_03:Ugh. Yeah. Well, for people who might be listening that don't know what a Spotify wrapped is, what is a Spotify rapped?
SPEAKER_01:Is a Spotify rapt?
SPEAKER_03:How would you describe it?
SPEAKER_01:I could describe it, but I almost feel like Josh is the perfect.
SPEAKER_03:It's basically like your year in review, right?
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Yes. Spotify takes the data of all your listening over the year and tells you what are your top five most played tracks.
SPEAKER_02:Top five most played artists. Top five most played genres. Oh, that's oh, and here's the best part. They give you a playlist of your most listened to songs.
SPEAKER_01:And they also like name, they name your rap. Like mine was like indie, sad girl, cool girl, you know, temptress, empress, whatever. Where I'm like, what the hell? Like it was like they named it that? They named it like 12 different things altogether.
SPEAKER_02:Mainly Taylor Swift.
SPEAKER_01:It was literally like four Taylor Swift songs. Well, no, it wasn't. Was Taylor Swift even my top song? Wait, can I look mine up?
SPEAKER_02:Sure.
SPEAKER_03:I'm going into mine. Yeah, tell us Tell Us John. Wait, then it was just the list. How do I get the could you actually can you can I get my actual wrapped thing again? Maybe you gotta go on your account online.
SPEAKER_02:No. Spotify rap. Oh, maybe it like goes off of the Maybe you just have the list and but you don't have to. You can definitely get the list.
SPEAKER_03:I I the they have like a slideshow. Got it. Um well to your original question, I think it's very easy to judge somebody. It's like judging a book by its cover, Kelly. Let's be for real here. Because there have been years where white noise is in my top five like tracks of the year.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And wait, white noise.
SPEAKER_03:Exactly. And then not not the book.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, oh, literal white noise.
SPEAKER_03:Literal white noise. And so you could be like, well, what is wrong with this guy? Yeah. What is wrong with this guy? And serial killer. That was because there was a period of time where it was like I would leave my white noise on my phone to help my kid. You know, so yeah. But that's like hours at night every night consistently. So then it's getting the statistics of, well, this guy just loves it. It's his top five tracks. Like this guy loves white noise.
SPEAKER_01:I definitely thought white noise was like a deep track radio head song. Yeah, let's sound like one. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Let's just feed him more white noise. Yeah. You know, so totally I think it's easy to judge somebody, and there's probably layers to it also when you have kids. Your kids will sometimes use your account and just be playing songs. So I have friends. Exactly. I have friends who have shared with me, you know, their their rap because that's always a fun thing to do with your friends. And you can't judge them if you got kids because you're gonna have a lot of, you know. I think I had One Direction as one of my top five artists. Love it. Um, which I like a lot of One Direction songs, but it's up there because my kids love it. So I think it's it's wise. It's tempting. I think it's wise for the joke initially, yeah, of it, but then it's kind of like I get it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. A lot of people take a good amount of stock in it.
SPEAKER_03:Sure.
SPEAKER_01:Like for me, okay. I'm looking at mine. Now, I guess that the first five songs what people listen to is important.
SPEAKER_03:Now, I'm quoting high fidelity here, right? But it's like this shit matters. This stuff matters. Like what people are like.
SPEAKER_01:What you are like, it's more what you like.
SPEAKER_03:What you like.
SPEAKER_01:Um, okay, so mine, the first one from last year, which is so funny because I haven't.
SPEAKER_03:Is this a song or is this an artist?
SPEAKER_01:This is a song. The song Kingston by the artist Faye Webster. You love that song. I love that song, but I I haven't listened to it at all recently, so it's kind of funny. And then Crimes of the Heart by Wax Ahatchie. I love that song. Okay.
SPEAKER_02:This is pretty representative.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I could judge you from this.
SPEAKER_01:Okay. Then Danger by Olivia Dean. I do like that song. Right back to it, Wax Ahatchie and MJ Lenderman. And then Okay Love You By by Olivia Dean. So to Olivia Dean, to Waxahatchie. Let's also keep in mind that twist of MJ Lenderman.
SPEAKER_02:A lot of our music listening is done on my phone. You'll DJ on my phone a good amount.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, sure.
SPEAKER_02:So there you go. Kelly's always like putting Peppa Pig on my phone, and it's it's influencing my rap, Louie. Yeah. My year-end rap. Baby shark. Peppa may step into Baby Shark, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But I do feel like it's so fun to dodge someone on it.
SPEAKER_03:Like two of my top five songs are Harry Styles. Love Harry. Which track? As It Was is four, and Adore You is Five. Oh, I don't know. And then it goes into De La Soul, I Know, which is a great song. It's off an old album, but I I already know why this is on here is because my kids saw the Ninja Turtles movie. This was in it.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my god.
SPEAKER_03:And then they got obsessed with it. Like, so there's certain songs here where I'm just like, oh yeah, now it takes me back to why. It's like, whoa, how did I get to and I love De La Soul, but Stakes Are High is my favorite album, not Three Feet High and Rising. So I was like, why would this be?
SPEAKER_02:Why would this but now we're nitpicking? Because I I see I'm outside the situation as your friend and um partner. And I I think I I feel like De La Soul is a very John band. Like, don't don't you kind of love old school hip hop? Oh, for sure, yeah. Like you have a tribe called Questure. Yep. Um, for instance. Why aren't they in your rapt? But no, I guess, yeah. Let me let me check. Hey, uh I think here's I think let's not get too hung up on the word judged. I think it's totally wise to look at someone's rapt, whether you know them or not, and kind of like a detective almost like piece together the clues of like how that fits their personality. Maybe like this is just like a year in their life thinking about that versus like the music you know they listen to, or if you don't, it's like I'm curious to know more. But yeah, I think you're getting a piece of the puzzle. It's not the if if you look at mine, it's like like I'm still obsessed with listening to whatever comes out on a given year.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So it's always like 80% stuff from that year. And I will listen to other stuff, but less obsessively.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So and and yeah, everything on my rapped, I like binged hardcore. So it is stuff I'm into, but there's like so much uh like often radiohead's not on there at all.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:But if you were to look like over the years, I bet they're high in my like overall plays. Right. Um or maybe not, because I listened to them so much before Spotify.
SPEAKER_01:This year for me, Perfuming Genius has to be number one. Probably or Father John Misty. Probably.
SPEAKER_03:I can't wait for Rapped. I know. Well, you're really gonna pound through the last three months of this year because Tame and Paula has an album coming out this month.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, I know we just listened to.
SPEAKER_03:So you're probably gonna like that's gonna make a whole late year run into your life. I I bet you're right.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, because not only the album is, but not only do I love them, but Josh likes them a lot too.
SPEAKER_02:We're probably gonna be bumping that hard.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_02:But then I also feel so bad for the albums that come out at the end of the year. It's like a lot of the time it will favor an album that came out in January, because I'll be like really bumping that all year. You've had that all year, exactly. I've had that all year, and then the year changes and I can't listen to anything from the previous year. Interesting.
SPEAKER_03:It's I'm joking. Um they should do a rapt every month.
SPEAKER_04:Totally.
SPEAKER_03:A monthly rap. Even if it's not a full thing, even if it's not the full thing. You can get your statistics though, somewhere. I feel like you have to call Spotify. Something like that. My friend Tom, who I do want to have on the podcast, um he sometimes will send me statistics, and I think there's a way to do it. If you pay for the full subscription, but you have to go on the website, you can't get it on your phone. Okay, there's some way to like do it. Do it. Where you could get like, here are the artists I'm listening to.
SPEAKER_01:Because he sends them to him. Oh we definitely should have them on the podcast.
SPEAKER_03:Tommy just sent me a Spotify playlist that he wants me to listen to. Wow. Oh, wow, and he made them called Biscuits and Gravy.
SPEAKER_01:We should maybe say, our guest did bring up the good point that there are some questionable ethics with Spotify, which definitely like they're they've been, you know, noted for underpaying artists, you know, and I think like really over favoring kind of more famous artist groups, things like that. Um, there's definitely it's definitely not an unproblematic space. Now we all both consume it and host our podcasts on the platform.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_01:So it's a tricky thing.
SPEAKER_03:Um and it's a platform that we can put our podcasts out and we don't, you know, they don't pay us. So, you know, we're not getting any money from Spotify, right? Not yet.
SPEAKER_01:Not yet.
SPEAKER_03:And so we're trying to, you know, build an audience.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Exactly.
SPEAKER_03:So it can serve an artist as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, definitely.
SPEAKER_02:I'd say go see live music. Yes. That helps me with my life. It helps the artist. Yeah. Spend your money mainly on live music.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Or vinyl records. Or vinyls. Or vinyl. That's how I will spend my money on artists that I really want to support, is buy their vinyl album.
SPEAKER_02:I know. It's funny. I've bought more vinyl for others than for myself. But I love to go into the record store. I love seeing the album art big. It's great.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's so cool.
SPEAKER_02:So huge.
SPEAKER_01:So cool. Those records, John got us, I love. Yeah. I wanna, I'm thinking of a display for them, like kind of above the TV, but anyway, that's way interesting.
SPEAKER_03:I need to be more prone to judge somebody. Have you ever had a Podcast? Wait, where do you listen? Have you ever had a podcast? Have you ever had a podcast? Have you ever do you listen to podcasts on Spotify? Because I really don't. I feel like the amount of podcasts you listen to, I feel like one would sneak into your top five. Top five.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. If I listened, wait, I wonder if they include podcasts. I wonder.
SPEAKER_02:That's what all podcasts though. Right. That's what I'm wondering.
SPEAKER_01:I really would. And so I'm wondering.
SPEAKER_02:But would you have to listen to the same episode like 20 times? Oh. Or would it be per show?
SPEAKER_03:Oh, you're right, because it's I don't know. You might calculate it as an artist, your top artist art. Top artist wise mine happy hour.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. I know. I'm such a podcast.
SPEAKER_03:Like because I was thinking, would you judge would you be more prone to judge somebody if their rapt had like audiobooks in it or podcasts in it? Or would you be more likely to judge that?
SPEAKER_01:I mean, no, I would judge them like positively. Positively. Yeah. I'd say my brethren. You know, like I would feel like, okay, this is someone I can like hang with, especially if they had similar podcasts. Oh my God. If I met someone who listened to some of my favorite podcasts, it would feel like coming home. Because I spend so many hours with them.
SPEAKER_03:I one time I got a really big head when I opened up my wrapped for like 10 minutes because somehow this artist, and I love this artist, but I never thought I listened to them this much, snuck into my top five. I forget what year it was. It must have been two years ago. It was John Coltrane. And I was like, I'm awesome.
SPEAKER_02:You're intellectual. I am you're an intellectual somebody.
SPEAKER_03:I am incredible. Awesome.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And I knew my friends were going to be like, share your. I was like, I am sharing this before you even complete that sentence because I want you to all see. And my friend Tom was the first one to be like, Coltrane, well done. Like, and I was like, perfect. Thank you, Coltrane. But I had such a big head for like literally like a half hour. I was like, man, I'm for literally a half hour.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you know what's amazing about that, actually, which makes me think you can judge someone by their Spotify wrapped. You have to put the hours in. You can't be like, what are your John Five albums of the year? And just write John Coltrane and be like a pretentious poser. You can't.
SPEAKER_03:Right.
SPEAKER_01:You literally have to log the hours. You gotta log them. So it's not performative in that way. Right.
SPEAKER_03:Or just let it be. I mean, unless someone's to go in for the long time.
SPEAKER_01:Like, I mean, if someone's that committed, it's like, do you? But yeah, like I do think you can almost can judge them. Like it almost is accurate because it's like literally hours lost. I mean, totally.
SPEAKER_02:Which is the second most honest thing.
SPEAKER_01:Well, don't they say like anything where it's like you're trying to be autobiographical is instantly like less autobiographical because it's like you're not just being, you're like kind of over observing yourself.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You know, it's like Yeah.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I have nothing to add, but I get what you're saying.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So maybe we're, I don't know, maybe I do think it's wise. I don't think but don't be too harsh of a judge, but like you can pay attention to it as a data point.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. To muse over.
SPEAKER_01:To muse over.
SPEAKER_03:To muse over wise. Right. Yeah. Fun. It is nice too that it only comes out the one time of year for many reasons, but also I never think about it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Until it's out. Right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:So you can't even, even if you tried to like cultivate it and be like, oh, you know what? Like, I'm going to start listening to all this avant-garde, like, yeah, whatever, because I want my rap to look. You're mental German yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Still want my rap to look sweet. Like you're going to forget about it in a week. Right. You know, if it's February.
SPEAKER_01:And you're going to be able to bump in. Yeah. You're going to be bumping to their sweet.
SPEAKER_03:Like, fine, I'll go back to Berry Manile. Whatever.
SPEAKER_01:Totally.
SPEAKER_02:Sometimes I will have a thought if I'm bumping something really hard. Like wet the wet new Wednesday album. Yeah. I've been bumping so hard. Could be my favorite album of the year. I was like, ooh, bet you're going to show up in my rapt.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. But I'm not like listening to it. It's like after the fact. Right. I'm like, wow, you might get you might get rapped.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, Josh, you should mention what were you going to say?
SPEAKER_03:No, I was just going to say, for something to get into your rap, though, the amount you consume, it they really got to be something like that.
SPEAKER_02:There's so much too obsessively that doesn't even because a lot of the time, like, I'll put out my top 50 at the end of the year. And sometimes people will email me crying that this album wasn't on my list. And I'll be like, you didn't listen to that one. And I'll be like, oh no, I did. It's like number 61. Right. And they'll be like, So you hate it? I'll be like, no, I I love it. I love there's probably like a hundred albums every year that I like basically love.
SPEAKER_01:Well, but you haven't mentioned yet what you're talking about, which is your own year-end list that you make every year.
SPEAKER_02:Have I never mentioned that on pod?
SPEAKER_01:I don't think you've mentioned it today.
SPEAKER_02:Well, today I'll mention it. I make a year-end list. Some would say it's my life's work. Yeah. Others would say it's not my life's work. Um, I put I I put together a Spotify playlist. Love it. I select a song from every album if it's on Spotify and put it all together. Is it my favorite song from the album? Sure. It's sometimes I consider how they're all like flowing together. Sometimes I kind of pick one that I feel like is like maybe more of a crowd pleaser, whatever. And like, uh yeah, I love to make it. And I'm already I well, all year I kind of am.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, when I tell you Josh is thinking about his year endless from January first. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I it's so exciting. When I start the first like album I love of the year, I'm like, ugh.
SPEAKER_01:And he talks you talk about it at least several times a week for the entire year. He'll listen to an album and be like, mirror endless. He'd be like, it's not going on my year-end list. Almost like it's gonna be published in the New York Times.
SPEAKER_02:Even before, because like Jeff Tweety, who I love, uh Wilco Frontman, yeah, Chicago local, gotta get him on the pod. He just came out with a triple album.
SPEAKER_00:Oh really?
SPEAKER_02:And it's really good. But even before it came out, I was like, you know, I bet you I'm gonna listen to this obsessively and then like not put it on my year-end list.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Uh I've only listened to it once because it's quite long, but yeah, we'll see. I get a little like affirmative action-y. I'm like, gotta like depromote the white men, because like that's my original. Like, if you go into my CD collection in my childhood bedroom, I think literally every CD on the shelf is like white man. And since then I've you know opened up my I was into rep. Um, where are those CDs? I was almost into rep like in middle school more.
SPEAKER_03:Well, you had to hide them, probably, parental advisor. You don't want the parents finding him in the room. I don't want the parents finding in your room. No.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, you want them to see your counting crows. Yeah, I want my mom to think I looked. Oh though, wait, is that him durit's white? I don't even think he's white.
SPEAKER_02:No, but he's not white? I don't know. Tom Petty's not white.
SPEAKER_01:No, he is.
SPEAKER_03:Uh oh. Tom Petty's white for sure. Yeah. We don't need to speculate on people's up this yeah. No, let's not.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Okay, so we're saying Yep.
SPEAKER_03:That's kind of why. That's what we're saying. Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:We're saying nothing.
SPEAKER_03:What are we saying?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think I think I think context is important. Context is important, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I think that was a good point though about somebody's gotta put in the work. Yeah. So you can't really cultivate it too much. So I think it is an honest represent representation of the last year.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And I think it's wise to just fucking own your Spotify wrap. Like, hey, this is what I enjoy in my private moments or public moments, and it's all it's all good.
SPEAKER_02:It's all good. This was another one we're not gonna do today, which what you just said is goes to exactly that is how wise is it to have a guilty pleasure? Yeah. The question being, why feel guilty? But we'll leave that for another link.
SPEAKER_01:Let's yeah, let's dig into that at another juncture. But maybe we'll pause for now because great episode.
SPEAKER_03:Love our guests. Love darkest. I hope you love her too.
SPEAKER_01:I'm sure you will.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you, Dr. Barbara Mint.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, so great. And John, any plugs?
SPEAKER_03:Uh no. No, music, Spotify. Spotify. And support live music for sure. Yes. You can always reach me at butts, butz. Jonathan at gmail.com.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, and I'm gonna plug again one battle after another. See it with us because we're gonna in in the coming weeks do an episode on it. So go see it so you can listen along. And um my if you want to reach me, you want to work with me, you have questions, you have pod topics, anything, um, you can reach me at kkpsychotherapy.com and check out my um Instagram, Kelly Kilgal, um, because I'm gonna be putting up more of those cooking videos and my stories, and then on my TikTok, the wise mind h pod TikTok. Um yeah, check it out. I have a couple a couple videos from the pod, and then we're gonna be adding some other just in vivo videos, and hopefully we'll get John one day to film one and we'll put it up. Any for you, Josh? Any plugs?
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I'm gonna plug the Wednesday album. Uh just did a first car listen to it yesterday and moved it up on my URL list from number 12 to number one.
SPEAKER_00:Wednesday rules.
SPEAKER_02:Wednesday rules. Um, it's kind of well, I'm why can't I why I I need to know the front person's name because I'm gonna go to the phone.
SPEAKER_01:I know, I genuinely think of her name as Wednesday, which it's not.
SPEAKER_02:It's not Wednesday, but she is she's become one of my favorite lyricists in the music game. MJ Lenderman's lead guitar. He's he doesn't even really do he'll sing backup vocals, but it's like crazy guitar, really funny lyrics. You know, it's not like reinventing the wheel, but I love just a good uh indie rock album. And as I was listening to it last night, I was like, really nothing is making me feel better than this this year. Probably what's the album? Wednesday Oh, Bleeds. Bleeds by Wednesday. Their last album is great too. Um and they're great lines.
SPEAKER_01:Sometimes it's kind of heavy, but then some of them are kind of twangy. It's so good.
SPEAKER_02:Someone described it as like shoe gaze country, which it's like it's neither, but uh I think they're like doing interesting. But that's fun. Yeah, it's but it's fun to say.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Uh yeah, love it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, okay.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, joshbearfilms.com. You can't listen to the Wednesday album there, but you can hire me to edit all of your things. And even film all of your things too, and direct all of your things or things could be movies, etc.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, we love you.
SPEAKER_02:Bear as an asper. Thank you, Blanket Forts, for the music.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yes, thank you so much, Blanket Forts.
SPEAKER_03:Thank you, everybody, for listening. And we'll see you all next week.
SPEAKER_01:We'll see y'all next week. Take care. Bye. Bye. The Wisemind Happy Hour podcast is for entertainment purposes only, not to be treated as medical advice. If you are struggling with your mental health, please seek medical attention or counseling.