Kurt Ellenberger Explains Why Music Actually Feels Like Magic

Ever wondered why a song can give you chills… or bring you to tears without a single word?

In this episode of Conversations with Rich Bennett, Rich sits down with music expert Dr. Kurt Ellenberger to uncover the fascinating science behind why music affects us so deeply. From sound waves turning into electrical signals in your brain to the hidden math behind harmony and emotion, this conversation will completely change how you listen to music.

Kurt Ellenberger, a professor of music, Fulbright Scholar, and former professional musician, shares insights that blend science, psychology, and real-world experience in a way that’s both mind-blowing and easy to understand.

What you’ll learn:

•  Why your brain predicts the next note in music 
•  The real reason minor chords feel “sad” 
•  How music can heal and regulate emotions 
•  Why your taste in music changes over time 
•  The surprising connection between math and sound 

Resources mentioned:

•  KurtEllenberger.com 
•  Miles Davis – Kind of Blue
•  Beethoven – Symphony No. 7 

If this episode makes you hear music differently, share it with someone who loves music as much as you do. And don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and join the conversation.

https://www.dajennings.com/events-1

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Transcript

Wendy & Rich 0:01
Coming to you from the Freedom Federal Credit Union Studios, Hartford County Living presents, Conversations with Rich Bennett. 

Rich Bennett 0:30
You have felt it in your chest, even though the lyrics weren't saying anything that deep. Because Aston mystery were cracking today. My guest is Dr. Kurt Omburger, a professor of music at Grand Valley State University, a full-bright scholar, a retired professional pianist and composer, and a writer whose work has reached huge audiences through NPR, Huffington Post, and all about jazz, where he's a contributing editor. Kurt takes something we all experience. Music making us feel thing. And he explains why it happens in a way that'll make you stop and go, "Wait!" That's what's going on in my brain. We're talking about why minor chords are almost universally perceived as sad, how our minds can predict the next note, like the universe has given us a hint, and how music can feel therapeutic even when there isn't a single word being sung. So if you've ever wondered why music can heal, why can wreck you, and why can lift you back up? You're going to love this conversation show. Go ahead and grab your tea, grab your juice, grab your perfume, whatever you're drinking, because you're going to really like this one. Hey, you're doing Kurt. I am looking forward to this. 

Kurt Ellenberger 1:49
Yeah, I've been looking forward to it for a long time. Thanks, Rich. Thanks for 

Rich Bennett 1:52
me. 

Kurt Ellenberger 1:52
having 

Rich Bennett 1:53
I, oh, my pleasure. I just love talking music. And this is ... Usually, when we talk music, you know, I have an artist on, we're talking about their music, and, you know, favorite songs and stuff like this. But this is, well, people will know, find out, but I'm going to say we're going deep into this, 

Kurt Ellenberger 2:17
Oh, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 2:17
if it makes sense. 

Kurt Ellenberger 2:18
Yep. 

Rich Bennett 2:18
So before we actually get into, you know, theory or science, science, why does music hit us emotionally when, you know, even when, well, there are no words. 

Kurt Ellenberger 2:32
Well, to explain that, we kind of got to get into a little bit of the acoustics of it. And 

Rich Bennett 2:38
Mm-hmm. 

Kurt Ellenberger 2:38
what the science behind it is, but I think suffice to say it's pretty amazing that we're, when you think about it, it's just sound waves going into your ear. And what happens in your ear drum is those analog sound waves are converted into an electrical signal. That's what your ear does. And then that travels through the nerve to your brain. And then your brain processes the sound which is now an electrical signal. So when 

Rich Bennett 3:09
Right. 

Kurt Ellenberger 3:09
you put it that way, I think it makes it really kind of amazing that we have these kind of reactions to it. I'm sure you can, as you said in your intro, there's music that you put on, and by the end of it, you're in tears, which is really pretty amazing. 

Rich Bennett 3:30
Mm-hmm. 

Kurt Ellenberger 3:31
How does it do that? Well, it's complicated to some degree, but it's actually, once you know what it's doing, it's actually pretty simple. I've done this. 

Rich Bennett 3:41
Yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 3:41
Or I've talked about this at the beginning of every class that I've ever taught, because I think it's just so amazing. And in every class, the students go, whoa, are you serious? That's what's going on. They literally can't believe it. And I hear back from them days later saying, I told everyone in my dorm, you know, about this. I tried to describe it and everybody's talking about it. So it's quite a, it's quite a tale. But it does need a little bit of, a little bit of physics, a little bit of acoustics to really get to heart of it. 

Rich Bennett 4:15
I think of, I mean, right off the bat, there's two songs whenever I hear it. I'll start tearing up. 

Kurt Ellenberger 4:22
Okay? 

Rich Bennett 4:23
And that's even without the vocals. Amazing grace. Once 

Kurt Ellenberger 4:27
Mm-hmm. 

Rich Bennett 4:27
I hear that, it's like, I just start another one is taps. Taps, 

Kurt Ellenberger 4:31
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 4:31
I will, it just brings me to tears. But yet, if I hear, um, kind of hook, I get the name of the song. It's, I believe it's "Fly to the Valkyries". 

Kurt Ellenberger 4:40
Oh, yeah, the Bogger. 

Rich Bennett 4:42
Yeah. Yeah. I hear that. And it's like, I'm pumped up and ready to go. You know, 

Kurt Ellenberger 4:46
it's, oh, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 4:48
It's wild. I don't, well, 

yes. How can that not pump anybody up? 

Kurt Ellenberger 4:58
Oh, that's, that's just so powerful. 

Rich Bennett 5:01
Yeah. It just, it, oh god, I don't know, I don't know what it is. But with, you're the professor at this, you're the expert. So why does music trigger emotion without language? I mean, what's actually happening in the brain? 

Kurt Ellenberger 5:20
Yeah, so let's 

Rich Bennett 5:21
sound like this of course. 

Kurt Ellenberger 5:22
Yeah, so let's go, let's go it a little bit. So I'll play a, I'm playing a C here. 

And then an octave up if you can imagine the piano keyboard. There's another C. So we do-ray me-faso-lottido, right? And that keeps going all the way up to, up to the end of the keyboard. So we call those notes C, but in reality, they're completely different pitches, 

Rich Bennett 5:50
right, 

Kurt Ellenberger 5:51
right? They're completely different frequencies. They happen to have a certain relationship between those frequencies. That's interesting, but they're completely different pitches, but as humans, there's something about those two notes that we say, wow, the one, the one is a higher version of the lower one, So there's something that we're perceiving there that is really-that they're two different notes. So why do we call them an octave? Or why do we perceive those two as the same note as opposed to like these two notes? We don't perceive that as the same note, right? We perceive 

Rich Bennett 6:29
right? 

Kurt Ellenberger 6:29
that as-that's pretty dissonant. We say, ooh, that's dissonant. Well, why is it dissonant? There's just-it's just two different notes and why is this one so consonant? Well, it has to do with the relationship of the-of the sound waves to each other. So-and I can talk about it in terms of string length too. So if the low C is a string that's six feet long, let's say, then the one above it is three feet and the one above that is one and a half feet and the one above that is three quarters of a foot and it keeps going like that. So the-these-these pitches, these frequencies are in a one to two to four to eight to 16 32 and so on past-where humans. So what-what they exhibit is what's known in math as the binary series? One, two, four, just multiplying by two. And-and the sound waves are-are mapped on each other that way as well. So if the first string length is this long, the second one is here it cuts it directly in half. 

Rich Bennett 7:35
Mm-hmm. 

Kurt Ellenberger 7:36
Right? And the next one cuts that in half but they all share two four eight sixteen. They're going to all share the center spot and the next spot and the next one so on depending on-uh-uh-uh-uh, on how you go. So-so that's what we're hearing there. We're hearing that these two pitches are symmetrical. When they're played together, the one pitch cuts the other one directly in half. So there's symmetry on both sides and the relationship between the two pitches is very simple. Why? Because it's a of two. So we're good with twos, right? So if-if I-if I-if I said grab a eight-and-a-half by 11 piece of paper and fold it in half. Could you do it with relatively good accuracy? 

Rich Bennett 8:19
Hmm. 

Kurt Ellenberger 8:20
For sure. You just fold it in half? 

Rich Bennett 8:21
Yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 8:22
And you say, well, what about folding it into four? Could you do that? Yeah. You just-first 

Rich Bennett 8:27
I am. 

Kurt Ellenberger 8:28
Because you're doing the same process over and over again. You're folding the next one in half, and the next one in half. So that's easy to do. If I ask you however, can you fold it into 13 equal pieces? 

Rich Bennett 8:40
Oh my God. 

Kurt Ellenberger 8:41
Not a chance, right? So that's what you're hearing. So the grimace you just made going, oh, 13. I couldn't do-you couldn't do that without getting a ruler out, right? 

Rich Bennett 8:51
Yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 8:52
So the grimace that you just showed with the 13 is exactly what you're hearing here 

because your brain recognizes that this is a-what would that be? Like 8 to 17 ratio. 

Rich Bennett 9:09
Wow. Okay. 

Kurt Ellenberger 9:12
That's awful. But this is 8 to 16. 

So your brain recognizes that the two that are asymmetrical, that's a complex ratio, your brain recognizes that and it says, I don't like complex stuff. I want twos. I want to have something that divides easily into two or four. You know, can you get rid of that? 

And your brain actually supplies the answer to that, which is just an enormous evolutionary riddle. Well, the whole thing is an enormous evolutionary riddle, right? This whole idea that got the-you've got this binary series that's at the heart of music, but it's also at the heart of the machines that you and I are using to talk right now. Right? The binary series is what fuels it's the engine of our computer technology. So everything 

Rich Bennett 10:09
Right. 

Kurt Ellenberger 10:10
that runs on a computer uses that as it at its foundation. But not only that, at the beginning of life, when life is conceived, a sperm meets an egg, goes inside, and then that egg splits into two, those two split into four, those four split into eight, and we have the binary series showing itself once again, which is just absolutely fascinating. 

Rich Bennett 10:35
Yeah. Hey, I got to ask you this. What got you into music? 

Kurt Ellenberger 10:43
Wow, 

Rich Bennett 10:43
because I mean, be I mean, you I've always loved music, my my son is very good in music. But 

Kurt Ellenberger 10:51
okay, 

Rich Bennett 10:52
I'm the only one that actually can listen to like classical opera. I mean, I just love all types of music. And I just remember as a kid growing up, the records that my father was playing it and were different than what my brother was playing. And yet I could sit there and listen to um, you know, my brother playing like grand fun grail road. 

Kurt Ellenberger 11:18
Oh, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 11:19
My father would be playing Motown, but myself, I could turn around and listen to Madam Butterfly. 

Kurt Ellenberger 11:25
Okay. 

Rich Bennett 11:27
Which is, you know, I guess, kind of strange because I don't even know who taught who turned me on to opera or even classical music, but I love it. 

Kurt Ellenberger 11:35
And to me, 

Rich Bennett 11:38
you hear a lot of people will take like hard rock and they'll crank it up. To me, the music that's most appreciated out of when it's turned up loud is classical music. That's just me because I love to pick out all the different 

Kurt Ellenberger 11:53
everything. 

Rich Bennett 11:53
instruments and 

Kurt Ellenberger 11:53
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 11:54
But what actually got you into music? 

Kurt Ellenberger 11:57
Well, I came from a very musical family. 

Rich Bennett 12:00
Okay. 

Kurt Ellenberger 12:00
Especially, especially on my dad's side. So my grandfather was a good kind of Fiddler violinist. 

Rich Bennett 12:07
Oh, 

Kurt Ellenberger 12:08
yeah. And my dad was always played a little guitar, he played a little piano, but he was really into choirs. So he sang in the church choir. He sang and there was a German club in town and he sang in that choir. And as kids, my sister and I, that's what we did with Dad. It was just singing. We did rounds. We did canons. We did folk songs. And it was just a singing household. That's one of the things 

Rich Bennett 12:35
Right. 

Kurt Ellenberger 12:36
we did together. And then I started lessons when I was about six. Then I started the lessons on the trumpet when I was about eight, I think. And 

Rich Bennett 12:44
Yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 12:44
I didn't like it, but my dad was really like, okay, if you're doing this, you're following this through to your 16 or 17. And I agreed. And he made me practice each instrument 45 minutes a day. So that was. 

Rich Bennett 12:59
Wow. 

Kurt Ellenberger 13:00
So six years old. And I'm, you know, I'm practicing 45 minutes. I didn't like it. But by the time I was 12, I was pretty 

Rich Bennett 13:08
good. 

Kurt Ellenberger 13:09
Yeah. And, and then I had on, I'm from Canada originally across, from across from Detroit, Windsor Ontario. And so I was listening to the PBS station in Detroit on on the TV. And they used to have classical music and jazz on. And I heard Gustav Holst the planets. And I thought, what is? I just never heard anything like 

Rich Bennett 13:32
was. 

Kurt Ellenberger 13:32
it. It 

Rich Bennett 13:32
Yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 13:33
Very movie score ask. In fact, one of the first movement Mars, so it's out. Each movement is, is named after a planet. So the first movement Mars is, is suspiciously close to the Darth Vader theme in the original, original Star Wars. But so that's the level of power that this music had. And it just blew me away. And I just kept thinking, what, what did I just hear? So I went out and bought the record. And I'm listening to it over and over again. And it just grabbed me. And then a few weeks later, I saw Duke Ellington was on. 

Rich Bennett 14:09
Oh, 

Kurt Ellenberger 14:09
it's well. And, and it was the same thing, but from the jazz side of it. 

Rich Bennett 14:14
Yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 14:14
And then I was hooked. After that, they couldn't shut me up. I was practicing three or four hours a day. And by the time I was 16, 17, I was working professionally in the Detroit Windsor area. And it was just, this was my life. That was, there was just no other, no other possibility for me. 

Rich Bennett 14:35
So how many different instruments do you actually play? 

Kurt Ellenberger 14:38
I played trumpet professionally. When I started on early was accordion with a lot of folk music, but I got pretty good at the gypsies. 

Rich Bennett 14:45
Really? 

Kurt Ellenberger 14:46
Yeah. Yep. And then I switched to piano. And so it was really trumpet and piano, but I gave up the trumpet by the time I was 18, 19, because 

Rich Bennett 14:56
took... 

Kurt Ellenberger 14:56
piano kind of 

Rich Bennett 14:56
Okay. 

Kurt Ellenberger 14:57
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 14:58
Alright, so with what you were doing in the beginning when you hit that 'C' note, which 

Kurt Ellenberger 15:03
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 15:03
right away, the first thing that went into my brain was phantom of the opera. 

Kurt Ellenberger 15:08
Oh yeah. 

So it's a love nature, right? It's every sound that is made is governed by, uh, by those laws. There's just no, no way around it. 

Rich Bennett 15:37
Okay, interesting. So it doesn't matter the instrument. 

Kurt Ellenberger 15:40
No. 

Rich Bennett 15:40
It's the or the sound. It's the actual note. 

Kurt Ellenberger 15:44
It's the note and the relationship between the, uh, between the waves. That's what's that's what's happening. So let me play you this. Can you sing, Rich? 

Rich Bennett 15:55
Oh my god, 

Kurt Ellenberger 15:56
no, 

Rich Bennett 15:57
no, I think everybody will turn it off. 

Kurt Ellenberger 15:59
Okay, I'm just going to play this little example, but then I'm going to ask you if you can, if you can hear the next, the note that should come next. 

Rich Bennett 16:06
Okay. 

Kurt Ellenberger 16:06
Okay, so here we go. 

Rich Bennett 16:20
Why don't I feel like I'm getting ready for a wedding? 

Kurt Ellenberger 16:23
It could be. Could you, could you hear what should come next? 

Rich Bennett 16:28
No, I'm not good with the notes. 

Kurt Ellenberger 16:31
Okay, 

Rich Bennett 16:31
I would think 

Kurt Ellenberger 16:32
well, 

Rich Bennett 16:32
a lower note though. 

Kurt Ellenberger 16:33
Yeah, like this note. 

Rich Bennett 16:39
Do that again. 

Yeah, okay. 

Kurt Ellenberger 16:47
Yeah, so when I do this, it doesn't come across as well when we're, you know, doing it over a camera like this, but when I do this in class, and I've done it hundreds of times, the entire class sings that note. 

And they're not musicians. They're not musicians. They're not trained. Right? 

Rich Bennett 17:06
I, right. 

Kurt Ellenberger 17:06
I thought mostly in the honors college. Um, and the weird thing is that I didn't play that note. So in everything I played beforehand. 

I didn't play that note. 

So the students are always just blown away like, how did we do that? Well, what happened there was, I set up some complex waveforms that, there was somewhat asymmetrical. And what happened at the end was there was a nine and a seven against a four. And so the nine and the seven against the four, the closest factor of two is eight. And that's what you heard. That's the note that you wanted to hear because you, the brain wants to resolve the complex waveform, the nine seven against four. And, and resolve it with a factor of two. So what you heard was nine, seven, eight. 

Rich Bennett 18:22
Well, okay, wait 

Kurt Ellenberger 18:24
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 18:24
a minute. So far, brains are predicting the 

Kurt Ellenberger 18:28
that. 

Rich Bennett 18:28
notes like 

Kurt Ellenberger 18:29
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 18:30
And 

Kurt Ellenberger 18:30
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 18:30
responding emotionally. Are we actually hearing math? 

Kurt Ellenberger 18:35
Yes. Your 

Rich Bennett 18:36
brain, what? 

Kurt Ellenberger 18:37
Your brain is doing that mathematical calculation without you thinking about it. It does this automatically and it knows what the, if it's hearing a complex waveform, it, it knows what the next pitch should be. It will pick the closest factor of two, usually going down. So that's what would happen here, the nine and the seven were converging together. And your brain said, no, that's, that's, that's not right. Give us the eight. And that's the solution to the complex waveform. 

Rich Bennett 19:11
Oh my God. Are you still teaching? 

Kurt Ellenberger 19:14
I, you know, I retired a month ago. 

Rich Bennett 19:17
So, oh, man, I was gonna say, I bet your classes are a lot of fun. 

Kurt Ellenberger 19:21
Well, they were fun for me. I hope they were for the students, too. 

Rich Bennett 19:24
I mean, to me, it's just mind boggling. 

Kurt Ellenberger 19:27
It is. So 

Rich Bennett 19:28
who, who would ever think of your math and music together? 

Kurt Ellenberger 19:33
Yeah, yeah. You think it's an art, it is art, but 

Rich Bennett 19:37
it is 

Kurt Ellenberger 19:37
art. 

Rich Bennett 19:37
an 

Kurt Ellenberger 19:37
It, it's art that's manipulating sound that's being processed mathematically by the human brain. 

Rich Bennett 19:45
Is it also a science? 

Kurt Ellenberger 19:46
Oh, absolute, well, there, there is a science to it. So we do have music theory, which kind of explains, you know, how things work. And it's a theory that comes from looking at the music and saying, here's what people did in composing. So it's not a theory that's forced on it. It's a theory that comes from studying what people did and then building a theory on it. So, let's go back to that note, because what's really cool, so you're expecting this, right? I'm going... *Plays piano* Okay, that's cool, but I can also then do this. *Plays piano* So the reaction you had, which was like, 'Whoa', you know, I tricked you. Right? In a good way. I kind of fooled you, you were expecting the sea, I gave you the sea, but I changed everything around the sea, and in doing so, because I foiled your expectations, you were kind of surprised. You said, 'Oh wow, where are we 

Rich Bennett 20:52
surprised then I liked it?' 

Kurt Ellenberger 20:53
Yeah, yeah, 'cause it's fun, you know, like in a movie when there's a plot twist, you're kind of enjoy it. You say, 'Oh, I didn't expect that, and this is how we do that in music'. So, composers are toying with that, that predictive quality, that predictive faculty that humans have to know what the next pitch or chord should be, and then they, they stretch it out and play with it, which gives music its narrative quality. And without that, I don't think we'd have music. Because there would be no reason to go to the next chord. There's no satisfaction in arriving at a certain place, in a tune. Right? You wouldn't, you just wouldn't be able to do everything that we do in music. So, it's a very peculiar faculty that we have, and I looked at that a lot from an evolutionary perspective, and I, 'cause I asked my friends who are evolutionary biologists, why does it do this? They steered me in the right direction, and I did a lot of research, and there's just no answer for it. There's nothing. Like, you, you would have to say, well, there has to be a reason in terms of evolution that being able to predict the next note would allow you to hunt more deer than someone who couldn't, which is ridiculous. This, this really doesn't have a purpose like that, or it could be, well, that you're, because you could predict the next note, you would be able to procreate more, which is ridiculous too. Right? There's no, there's no explanation for it. 

Rich Bennett 22:22
Okay, now, and I don't know if you can answer this or not, but, you know, on a lot of the episodes, when we're talking about music, one of the things that we've always mentioned is throughout the years how a song can change meaning, meaning something different 

Kurt Ellenberger 22:39
just, 

Rich Bennett 22:39
for, not 

Kurt Ellenberger 22:40
yeah, 

Rich Bennett 22:41
listening to it, but even the the person that wrote it. 

Kurt Ellenberger 22:43
Do 

Rich Bennett 22:44
you think that's why it's the notes or, I want to say the math behind it, it's like, it's almost like designed that way to, to change meaning threat the years as you get older. 

Kurt Ellenberger 22:57
Let's see, in terms of changing, changing the meaning of it to you, as we listen to more and more music and yourself with someone who, it seems like quite a baratious multi-genre listener, you get you, you get better at listening and you, you 

Rich Bennett 23:16
Yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 23:16
will hear, you'll hear things that you didn't hear 10 years ago. And also, you get emotionally more mature and more, you know, more nuanced maybe, and certain things that you hear that maybe when you were 20, you didn't like. Now you hear it when you're 50 and you go, I get the psychology 

Rich Bennett 23:37
Right. 

Kurt Ellenberger 23:37
now, I get what this means. So I think you're the one who's changing, right, over 

Rich Bennett 23:43
Okay. 

Kurt Ellenberger 23:43
time. And so you're reacting to that music in a, in a different way, 30 years later, 40 years later. There's also stuff I'm sure you listen to when you were 12 or 16 that you go, I don't listen to, you know, I don't listen to, kiss 

Rich Bennett 23:57
Yeah, 

Kurt Ellenberger 23:57
any. or, you know, 

Rich Bennett 23:58
well, wait a minute. 

Kurt Ellenberger 23:59
hang on. 

Rich Bennett 24:00
Now, 

But now you're right. I mean, and the weird thing is, I'm sorry, I've always been a kiss fan. But 

Kurt Ellenberger 24:09
lot, 

Rich Bennett 24:09
like a 

Kurt Ellenberger 24:09
oh, I love them. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 24:11
Oh, but like Queen, I could not stand. I 

Kurt Ellenberger 24:14
Okay. 

Rich Bennett 24:14
didn't. Queen. 

Kurt Ellenberger 24:15
Uh-huh. 

Rich Bennett 24:16
I got older. I appreciate their music a 

Kurt Ellenberger 24:19
more. 

Rich Bennett 24:19
lot 

Kurt Ellenberger 24:20
I 

Rich Bennett 24:21
mean, it's, I don't, baby. Just give you another example. Like when I mentioned before about how the end, do the instruments mean the same for each note played. If 

Kurt Ellenberger 24:34
yeah, 

Rich Bennett 24:34
I would listen to anything with bagpipes before I would just, it almost like brought sorrow. 

Kurt Ellenberger 24:41
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 24:43
until I saw somebody, and it made you know, and actually kind of think of it. It was ACDC. 

Kurt Ellenberger 24:49
Okay. Yeah. They use some bagpipes. 

Rich Bennett 24:51
Yes. 

Kurt Ellenberger 24:51
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 24:52
And it's like, wait a minute. That. That can't back. No, that can't be right. It's just. I don't know. It's, it blows me. It blows me away. 

Kurt Ellenberger 25:05
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 25:06
And now I cannot wait because when we're done here, I'm going to have you know what I'm going to wait. Okay. Somebody, um, somebody that wants to, I guess, appreciate music more and learn it. You know, and, um, how it can change your. The feelings and, you know, what it does to your brain. Are there any. I don't want anything with words in it. 

Kurt Ellenberger 25:34
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whether 

Rich Bennett 25:36
it be jazz, classical or whatever. 

And if you don't, you should write, if you have anything like this, you should write a book about it. Are there certain songs that you would suggest to people for people to listen to, like, if they want to feel joy. They want to feel sadness. If they want to feel just angry, ones that will change that that'll mess with the mood. 

Kurt Ellenberger 26:03
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Um, yeah. I mean, there's a lot of different, uh, you know, especially in classical music, because it's so 

Rich Bennett 26:10
Yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 26:11
it's, it has such a powerful means of, of, you know, invoking such deep emotion. So, um, one of the ones that I think about is, is Beethoven's, uh, seventh symphony, the second movement. It is just so, it's like a funeral march. It's just, but it's so beautiful. But it's, it also has kind of a driving intensity to it. You know, that, that you don't really get in, you know, in sad music. So it's sad, but it's also got sort of an angry defiance underneath it, 

Rich Bennett 26:47
Okay. 

Kurt Ellenberger 26:47
at least the way I read it. 

Rich Bennett 26:48
Yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 26:49
But, you know, what I always, what I always like to do is what I did with my students is because they came into my class, none of them knew anything really about jazz or classical music. And so, and they were always kind of worried about it. But by the end of the semester, over listening to it repeatedly, they kind of developed, they develop an appreciation for it. And what I heard was all the time, you know, I didn't like this style or that style or that style, but I really like this. And I listened to it now all the time. So I think for people who want to kind of broaden their horizons, like let's say you want to like what's jazz all about. Well, get the Miles Davis album kind of blue. 

Rich Bennett 27:29
Oh, my God. 

Kurt Ellenberger 27:30
And, and, and just put it on and listen to it like once, once a week, just straight through and tell me what you understand about it at the end of a month. So it's, it's the repeated listening that I think really opens up a genre for you. Like the first time you listen to it, you go, I don't really get what's going on here. But if you give it that time, right? It's like, it's like reading a good book. You need to get into the second and the third and the fourth chapter before it pulls you in. You can't just read the first page and say, well, I don't want to read it. So music takes time. It's one of those, one of the arts that, that requires that you spend an x amount of time with it in order to experience it properly, which, which isn't really the case with, you know, reading a book you can, you can read a chapter and put it down for a week, right? But music says, okay, you're starting this at five o'clock. The symphony will be over at six. We need you here for the whole thing, right? 

Rich Bennett 28:32
Right. 

Kurt Ellenberger 28:33
Which 

Rich Bennett 28:33
Wow. 

Kurt Ellenberger 28:33
is, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 28:35
You're listening to the conversations with Rich Bennett. We'll be right back. 

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Kurt Ellenberger 30:10
W- 

Rich Bennett 30:10
think he was your favorite trumpet player. 

Kurt Ellenberger 30:12
Oh, he's he's one of them. Yeah, I mean he was 

Rich Bennett 30:15
Yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 30:15
uh, but but that album in particular. It's the highest selling jazz album of all time. And it gets. Yeah, it is. It still sells. I think it still sells like a hundred thousand or something a year. And it was recorded in 1959. So it gets cited by rock musicians by pop bands. By classical musicians by folk musicians. It's one of those albums that is it's kind of like a it's a key to the jazz world. You get that album. It's got. It's got John Coltrane. It's got Cannonball Addily. It's got a Whitten Kelly. It's got the pianist Bill Evans. And you get into that that album and you can start your jazz journey because one of those pieces or one of those players will appeal to you in some way. And then you can kind of follow that stream outwards. 

Rich Bennett 31:05
hmm. Oh, I always loved listening to Miles 

Kurt Ellenberger 31:08
Mm 

Rich Bennett 31:08
Davis. Satchmo, of course, it was my 

Kurt Ellenberger 31:10
favorite. Mm 

Rich Bennett 31:11
hmm. Dizzy Gillespie. Oh my God. 

Kurt Ellenberger 31:14
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 31:14
I always love to watch in him. 

Kurt Ellenberger 31:16
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 31:17
watching play. And believe it or not, how hurt was another one my favorite? 

Kurt Ellenberger 31:20
Oh, yeah, from New Orleans there. Yeah. He was. 

Rich Bennett 31:22
Yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 31:23
Kind of a modern Dixieland player. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 31:25
Those of you listening, if you have no idea who we're talking about, then I suggest you listen to them because you will be blown away. 

Kurt Ellenberger 31:35
For sure. 

Rich Bennett 31:36
This is I won't really want to get into the the healing part. What do you think makes music so therapeutic? 

Kurt Ellenberger 31:49
Well, I think what makes it therapeutic is the fact that we mimic the gestures, especially rhythmic gestures, but also the mood of the music. So let's say you're going to a party, You walk in there. You maybe you had a long day, you walk into the party. The music is, it's loud. 

Rich Bennett 32:11
right? 

Kurt Ellenberger 32:11
Right. So the tempo of that music is probably going to be somewhere between 120 beats per minute and 130 beats per minute, which is roughly double your heart rate. So when you're 

Rich Bennett 32:22
Yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 32:23
in when you're in that environment, your body starts to mimic the heart speeds up because we mimic the gestures in the music. So that's why when you want to work out, you don't put funeral music on. Right. You put on music that's going to be kind of pump you up. Why? Well, because it's it actually in our body mimics the gestures of the rhythms and the sounds that we're hearing. So let's go the other direction, let's say you're going to a funeral, where you walk into the you walk into the funeral home, there's sad, kind of reflective, very slow, 

Rich Bennett 33:02
Yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 33:02
quiet music, and what that's telling you through that through the gestures of it is that this is not a place to be loud, or to be 

Rich Bennett 33:12
Right. 

Kurt Ellenberger 33:12
boisterous, or to be, you know, to kind of push your personality here, or to even talk loud. This is a place for reflection and to be quiet and to move slowly. And that's what the music's doing. That's how the music sets that mood. So in terms of being being therapeutic, it does the same thing. It can take, you know, the music can can take you from being maybe anxious and nervous. And you put on this slow moving, relaxing, maybe slow core changes soft 

Rich Bennett 33:44
there. 

Kurt Ellenberger 33:44
Slow tempos and your body begins to mimic those gestures. And as a therapy, that's why it works so well. But it works so well, not only as therapy, but in everything else that we do, because we're, we're mimetic creatures. Right. We mimic those the gestures in the music as if they are human gestures. So if the if the tempo is really fast, then that our walking pace is going to slowly meet that fast, that faster tempo, which is why it makes it good for for working out. But if it's really 

Rich Bennett 34:19
Right. 

Kurt Ellenberger 34:19
slow, then that calms us down. It says, hey, your heart rate is at 78. Let's bring that down to 72. Now let's slow the breathing down. Let's be a little more 

Rich Bennett 34:31
the good 

Kurt Ellenberger 34:32
intentional about 

Rich Bennett 34:32
meditation. 

Kurt Ellenberger 34:33
Yes, yes, so it's directly related to music's power, which is, which is in its ability to for us to mimic what it's doing. 

Rich Bennett 34:47
Why does it help actually, and I do believe this, because you, you know, you say you hear people say all the time left, there is the best medicine. But why do you think music also helps people heal? And 

Kurt Ellenberger 34:59
I 

Rich Bennett 34:59
I, 

Kurt Ellenberger 35:00
think it, well, I think there's also, on top of, you know, what we were just saying about mimicking those things. There's 

Rich Bennett 35:06
yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 35:07
also, there's also something in music that, that you're actually commuting in some real way with the person who wrote it. So, when you listen to Wagner, or you listen to Beethoven, you know, you're, you're getting their world view that's been condensed into sound. You know, that they're making decisions on what the next note should be based on what their whole psychology and their philosophy of life. It's music, but it's also encapsulated human spirit and human personality. And I think that's the only way you can explain why, you know, I really like this composer, but I don't like that composer as much. I appreciate that composer, but it doesn't grab me emotionally in a deep way. Why do I like, why do I like Beethoven so much? Why do I like Brahms so much? Because something about their personality and their worldview and their philosophy is resonating with me. I get it. And so, I think that's part of the therapy too, is that you're, you're listening to music that someone wrote for a specific person and or for a specific with a specific personality. And you realize that you can also adopt some of that in your own thinking, right? You can, you can kind of walk into that person's world for a while. And if it's a calm, ordered, relaxing and soothing world, then you're going to feel like, oh, I've almost just kind of had a conversation with a therapist, but it's, but the therapist has been dead for 150 years. 

Rich Bennett 36:47
Do you think, and I want to go to Beethoven here for me, because he was completely deaf, right? 

Kurt Ellenberger 36:54
At the end, yeah. Well, quite a ways in. 

Rich Bennett 36:57
Yeah. Okay. So was he like partially deaf when he started composing? 

Kurt Ellenberger 37:01
No, it started. I think it started in the early 1800s. So he was, it was started to start to just have trouble with hearing. And then it just got worse and worse and worse until he couldn't hear it all. But that didn't stop him composing. 

Rich Bennett 37:15
Well, that's what it gets me, 

Kurt Ellenberger 37:16
I mean, yeah, because 

Rich Bennett 37:17
in the beginning, we mentioned sound waves and 

Kurt Ellenberger 37:20
yeah, 

Rich Bennett 37:20
I think that's how he was able to do it. He was I guess almost like we talked about this with mental health a lot, almost like rewiring his brain to feel the sound waves. 

Kurt Ellenberger 37:33
Well, I think 

Rich Bennett 37:34
such wonderful music. 

Kurt Ellenberger 37:35
Yeah. I think so I think what happens with really good classical musicians and jazz musicians is that they develop really fabulous oral skills. For for a jazz musician, for example, the way we get our skills, yeah, you can go to school and you can take lessons. But really the sine qua non of learning how to how to play jazz is through transcription. So you put that Miles Davis album on and you you say, okay, what's the first note miles played? So be flat. Okay, what's the next one you learn their solos and you and in doing so, you develop ears where you can hear someone play something and you know what it is. 

Rich Bennett 38:19
Right. 

Kurt Ellenberger 38:20
Right. So that's a skill that, you know, normal people don't have even a lot of musicians don't have that. But the professional jazz and classical musicians have that skill to a very high degree. So Beethoven didn't need to hear what he was writing down. All he needed to do was access his ability to hear it in his head. He knew what it sounded like without hearing, 

Rich Bennett 38:45
huh, 

Kurt Ellenberger 38:45
which is incredible. 

Rich Bennett 38:46
Yeah, it is. Actually, I don't have. 

Has there ever I'm sure there has been, but none that I know of another deaf composer. 

Kurt Ellenberger 38:58
Oh, none that I know of Beethoven sort of, you know, just such a terrible terrible blow of fate. 

Rich Bennett 39:06
Yeah, 

Kurt Ellenberger 39:07
I don't remember any others that that that went deaf like that. 

Rich Bennett 39:12
No, either do I his. That's I said his music just always amazed me and then when I found that and I didn't realize he slowly progressed to going completely deaf, but 

Kurt Ellenberger 39:22
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 39:22
still composing after he did, which 

Kurt Ellenberger 39:24
yeah. 

Rich Bennett 39:25
again is simply amazing. I want to I want to talk about your class, especially now that you're retired, because now you can talk about your students and get away with it. 

No, but do you remember like because I love the feel good stories. But I want to say like a moment where maybe just one of your students or even more of them throughout your class, and they they just were so blown away and shocked and almost like a aha moment for you. 

Kurt Ellenberger 40:05
Yeah, I can tell you one from last semester. So this is... 

Rich Bennett 40:08
Okay. 

Kurt Ellenberger 40:09
This is pretty good because it just- I'm kind of friends with this student now. So, uh, I had this student, I was teacher rock history and it's 

Rich Bennett 40:17
Wait, 

Kurt Ellenberger 40:17
in the

Rich Bennett 40:17
what? 

Kurt Ellenberger 40:34
He came in every day wearing a different rock t-shirt, so it was Boston one day. It was Journey the next day, then it was the Thompson twins, like this 80's- 

Rich Bennett 40:44
Wow big switch. 

Kurt Ellenberger 40:45
Then it was Darendra and so I thought, "Man, so I walked out to him and said, "Man, what, you know, what is this?" Like, that's- you've got all these shirts on, and he kept doing it. So, we kind of were talking about these different bands. And I said, "Well, do you have a Wang Chong t-shirt?" And he said, "No, I was going to go- I was going to go see them, but I had to work and, you know, I just couldn't- couldn't make it." And so I said, "Well, do you like them?" He said, "Oh, I love Wang Chong, I've got the- I've got the DVD extended edition of Living Die in LA Soundtrack that they did." And I 

Rich Bennett 41:17
"Wow!" 

Kurt Ellenberger 41:17
said, I said to him, "Well, Jack Hughes, the lead singer and guitar player, he's a good friend of mine." And he's like, "What?" He says, "Could he sign my DVD?" I said, "Well, I don't know. Let me check." So I texted him and he said, "Yeah, I haven't sent it to my house. I'll sign it and send it back." So, this is- you know, this is one of these things that I just developed this really close relationship with him and he was just- wait a minute, you just texted Jack Hughes from Wang Chong. He just 

Rich Bennett 41:45
[laughter] So 

Kurt Ellenberger 41:46
completely blown away by it. So, you know, those kind of things- those kind of things happen and, you know, honestly, the teaching- I just loved every minute of it. I always used to joke, "I'll teach for free, you're paying me to go to the meetings." 

Rich Bennett 42:00
I mean, I- I mean, I didn't know about, you know, your teaching rock history. What else did you teach? 

Kurt Ellenberger 42:05
Yeah, I taught rock history, jazz history, and then I taught a class in- I called it "Music, Aesthetics, and Culture." And we looked at classical music for five weeks, jazz for five weeks, and pop music for five weeks. And just kind of went into, "What are the aesthetics? Like, what is it that you're listening to in each of these different styles?" And it was a really popular class and really one of my favorites. 

Rich Bennett 42:29
All right, now that you're retired, any plans on like doing any webinars or anything? 

Kurt Ellenberger 42:34
I haven't thought about it, but I've got a good friend who's- who does a lot of that stuff and has done really well with it, so maybe I should consider it. 

Rich Bennett 42:43
Yeah, you should, and I'd probably be one of the first students. I'm serious. I just- and especially, you know, when it comes to the history part, 

Kurt Ellenberger 42:53
whether it 

Rich Bennett 42:53
be Beethoven, whether it be, you know, I keep thinking of- Damn, why am I thinking, thinking of Ken Burns? I think you ought to teach Ken Burns, so he can do some more documentation for this. 

Kurt Ellenberger 43:04
Hey, 

Rich Bennett 43:04
he 

Kurt Ellenberger 43:05
well, 

Rich Bennett 43:05
did one on jazz, right? 

Kurt Ellenberger 43:07
Yeah, he did. Yeah, quite a controversial one. 

Rich Bennett 43:10
Oh, okay, and I don't think he did anything on rock. 

Kurt Ellenberger 43:13
No, he hasn't done anything on rock. 

Rich Bennett 43:15
Okay. 

Kurt Ellenberger 43:16
Yeah, but it's- 

Rich Bennett 43:17
So, 

Kurt Ellenberger 43:17
be- 

Rich Bennett 43:18
you could Ken Burns are even better. 

Kurt Ellenberger 43:20
Hey, if you're talking to Ken, tell him I'm available. I 

Rich Bennett 43:26
just- you blew me away there with the rock history part, and- and he plans on actually doing a book? 

Kurt Ellenberger 43:34
I- you know, I've- I've written about around 50 different articles, 

Rich Bennett 43:40
Yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 43:40
and- and you know, there's themes going through them, but I haven't really thought about doing a book. So, since I'm retired, I've been doing podcasts, which kind of- it kind of scratches my teaching itch. You know, I get to 

Rich Bennett 43:51
share- Yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 43:52
This information, and- and for now, that feels pretty good. So, we'll- we'll kind of see where it goes from there, but- 

Rich Bennett 43:59
Well, I actually have you thought about starting your own podcast. 

Kurt Ellenberger 44:03
I don't know if I'd be good at it. 

Rich Bennett 44:05
Why not? Music history with Dr. Kurt Obert- 

Kurt Ellenberger 44:09
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 44:09
I- I mean, I would listen? 

Kurt Ellenberger 44:10
Alright, you're giving me some good ideas here. [Laughter] 

Rich Bennett 44:15
I- here's the- their music podcast are a big thing, believe it or not. 

Kurt Ellenberger 44:19
Seriously. 

Rich Bennett 44:20
And that's why I wanted to- one of the reasons that- my podcast is all over the place, we talk about all kinds of things, but when we talk about music, I love it. I think you should- actually, look into that. 

Kurt Ellenberger 44:33
I 

Rich Bennett 44:33
You already 

Kurt Ellenberger 44:33
will- 

Rich Bennett 44:34
have the equipment. 

Kurt Ellenberger 44:35
I- I will consider it. Yeah. It could be kind of like what I did in class, right? Just- Yeah! Okay, here's a podcast on- or two or three podcasts on Beethoven. 

Rich Bennett 44:45
And- and the thing is, you could even do audio only. 

Kurt Ellenberger 44:48
Yeah. Yeah, you don't 

Rich Bennett 44:50
There's 

Kurt Ellenberger 44:50
have to 

Rich Bennett 44:50
really 

Kurt Ellenberger 44:50
do the 

Rich Bennett 44:50
don't 

Kurt Ellenberger 44:50
video. 

Rich Bennett 44:50
need the visual for it. Let the- let the- Ah, man. 

Kurt Ellenberger 44:54
Yeah! 

Not bad. 

Rich Bennett 44:57
I- I- I am- I'm all- I'm already pumped up for you to start this podcast. 

Kurt Ellenberger 45:01
[Laughter] 

Rich Bennett 45:03
What--what, what actually got you into writing for like, huffing-- huffing them, huffing them posts, and all, especially all about jazz, how did that come around? 

Kurt Ellenberger 45:12
Well, I had always done a little bit of writing, uh, even when I 

Rich Bennett 45:16
Okay. 

Kurt Ellenberger 45:16
was, when I was performing a lot, but around 2006 or 2007, I started to notice some problems with my hands. And I went to the, I went to the doctor and he said, yeah, you've got this genetic condition, it's just gonna get worse. And what was happening was my, my span of my hand was, my fingers were drawing in closer to each other. And I 

Rich Bennett 45:39
Oh, 

Kurt Ellenberger 45:39
was unable to play, I was just making mistakes that I never would have made prior to that. So I 

Rich Bennett 45:44
right. 

Kurt Ellenberger 45:44
kinda, I kinda knew the gig was up. So I did a, I was commissioned by the Grand Rapids Symphony here in West Michigan to, uh, for a commission to, 

Rich Bennett 45:55
Mm-hmm. 

Kurt Ellenberger 45:56
um, arrange Bivaldi's Four Seasons for Jazz Quartet Symphony in Ballet. And so I did that, and it was, I think it was three nights sold out, great concerts, and I thought that's a high point, I'm out, you know, I don't wanna kind of fizzle out here and get worse. 

Rich Bennett 46:12
Right. 

Kurt Ellenberger 46:12
So I, I quit playing professionally, and I wrote this article on, kind of, kind of on jazz culture, just for fun, and I, I put it up on a blog. I didn't even know what a blog was. And, and a month after that, I got this notification that, oh, you're, you've been quoted in the Minneapolis Free Press or whatever the paper is up there, and I thought, 

Rich Bennett 46:34
what? Right. 

Kurt Ellenberger 46:34
Weird. How does that happen? So, so I kept writing, and then I entered a, uh, Carnegie Arts blogger contest through Carnegie Hall. 

Rich Bennett 46:44
Mm-hmm. 

Kurt Ellenberger 46:44
And so I, I kind of rose up through that, and up to the, about the semifinals or so, and then they kicked out all the professional writers, they've just, we were done. But then I got a call from Huffington Post and said, hey, we've seen your Carnegie Hall blog post, um, we'd like to publish all your stuff. And I said, great. So I signed on with them, and I published all kinds of stuff with them for about seven years, I think that was 2010. 

Rich Bennett 47:09
Wow. 

Kurt Ellenberger 47:10
2017, and then they closed that part of their, their, uh, publication down. And so then I, I contacted all about jazz, and I said, hey, here's all these articles that have written, a lot of them are about jazz, and I got on board there. After a few years, they said, hey, do you want to be an, an editor here, too? And I said, sure. So it just kind of, you know, just kind of came out of that, you know, kind of a tragedy for me. 

Rich Bennett 47:33
One blog, 

Kurt Ellenberger 47:34
to lose my my playing career, but you know, I look at it now really as a blessing. I think 

Rich Bennett 47:40
yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 47:40
this is just 

Rich Bennett 47:40
Yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 47:41
opened up a whole other world for me that I would not have had if I just kept performing. 

Rich Bennett 47:47
Now, you were playing professionally. Is anything recorded where people can go and listen to it? 

Kurt Ellenberger 47:52
Oh yeah, on my website, I have all the recordings. I mean, I played professionally and in Windsor Detroit all over and all over the United States with various artists. I played with Jack Jones. I was I was on tour with Joey Bishop. I 

Rich Bennett 48:09
with 

Kurt Ellenberger 48:09
played 

Rich Bennett 48:09
what? 

Kurt Ellenberger 48:10
Yeah, with Joey Bishop with the temptations, did he go lesbians? I did one I did one gig with, what's it then, Steve Smith from Journey, the drummer from Journey. 

Rich Bennett 48:23
Yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 48:24
Yeah. So I did I played with Kenny Wheeler, the great jazz trumpet player. I played with him several times. Yeah, I mean, that's all I did, right? I backed Frank Gorshin once for a week. 

Rich Bennett 48:36
Get out of 

Kurt Ellenberger 48:37
here. Yup. Yup. Yup. He was 

Rich Bennett 48:40
wow. 

Kurt Ellenberger 48:41
Yeah, he was hilarious. Peter Marshall from The Hollywood Squares. I 

Rich Bennett 48:45
Yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 48:46
mean, all these all these people, yeah, I said temptations, a couple other Motown groups, forget who that was. But yeah, I thought, you know, that's what I did for a living. 

Rich Bennett 48:57
Plus you composed music. 

Kurt Ellenberger 48:59
Yeah, yeah, and it's 

Rich Bennett 49:00
Now 

Kurt Ellenberger 49:00
it's all up. 

Rich Bennett 49:00
we're. 

Kurt Ellenberger 49:01
It's all up on 

Rich Bennett 49:02
website. 

Kurt Ellenberger 49:02
my 

Rich Bennett 49:02
Let's say, okay, so people can listen to the opposite. 

Kurt Ellenberger 49:05
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 49:05
There as well. 

Kurt Ellenberger 49:06
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 49:06
You mentioned something I haven't heard in a long, long time. And it used to be every musician's dream to play there. Carnegie Hall. 

Kurt Ellenberger 49:16
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 49:17
Is that still around? 

Kurt Ellenberger 49:18
he? Oh, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 49:20
Is 

Kurt Ellenberger 49:20
Oh, yeah. It's it's oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It's still a still a thing. Just the acoustics there. So amazing. I never played there. I just did that blog that blog contest. But a group from our our school who I did play with did a concert there. And I just heard like, wow, what a what a place to play just incredible. 

Rich Bennett 49:40
That's oh, God. I didn't realize it was it was still around. But that's one another thing too when it comes to music, depending on life. Going 

Kurt Ellenberger 49:52
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 49:52
to cease up to live. It's funny how. 

Two different venues can... I wouldn't say almost like more or less make or break. 

Kurt Ellenberger 50:04
Oh, for sure, for sure. Yup. And also the instrument there too, right? I mean, as a 

Rich Bennett 50:10
Yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 50:11
pianist, as a pianist, you don't travel with your own instrument. You show up and okay. 

Rich Bennett 50:15
Well, I never thought about that. 

Kurt Ellenberger 50:17
You know, what am I playing today? That's one of the, it's one of the most tricky things for pianists to... to get a... to get a handle on because they're all different. Could be a nine-foot Steinway. Could be a seven-foot shimble. Could be, uh, you know, 

Rich Bennett 50:29
Oh... 

Kurt Ellenberger 50:30
six-foot Yamaha, and you just don't know what you're walking into. 

Rich Bennett 50:35
Oh my god. Any bad experiences with that? 

Kurt Ellenberger 50:38
Oh, always, always. You get pianos that you go, oh my gosh, this thing is so bright. How do I... How do I tame it and get a... 

Rich Bennett 50:46
Yeah, 

Kurt Ellenberger 50:46
Toned out of it, you know. And it's just has to do with how it's tuned, how it's maintained, what it's kind of going for, right? If it's going for a brighter sound or a richer sound, darker sound. I always really like the Steinways because they were, they just were a rich, deep sound that you could really 

Rich Bennett 51:04
right. 

Kurt Ellenberger 51:04
get a lot out of. Whereas, you know, a lot of the Yamaha's were a little more rock and roll, right? They're a little 

Rich Bennett 51:09
Yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 51:09
meant, to cut through the noise and be a little brighter, which I didn't like as much. 

Rich Bennett 51:15
Wow. 

Kurt Ellenberger 51:16
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 51:16
Is there anybody that you always wanted to play with, and never had the opportunity to yet? 

Kurt Ellenberger 51:22
Oh boy. Um, you know, for me, the dream was playing with Kenny Wheeler, which I did, which I did several 

Rich Bennett 51:29
times. Yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 51:30
And there's a recording of me playing with him on my website, if anyone's interested. Um, that to me, that was a high point, uh, where I, 

Rich Bennett 51:38
yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 51:38
You know, this is, this doesn't get any better than this. So that, that was my hero. 

Rich Bennett 51:45
So the very important, what's the website? 

Kurt Ellenberger 51:47
Oh, it's, uh, my name, Kurt Ellinberger.com. Easy to find. 

Rich Bennett 51:51
Which I'll have in the show notes as well. My god, Kurt, I could talk to you for hours. 

Kurt Ellenberger 51:56
I'm 

Rich Bennett 51:57
serious. I think you really should look into starting a podcast. 

Kurt Ellenberger 52:01
I will just 

Rich Bennett 52:01
talk about music because your knowledge and all the different genres of music that you know, and just the, the, the math and the science behind it. It's your classroom is about to get bigger if you do that. 

Kurt Ellenberger 52:22
Well, I, you know, I will definitely consider it. Um, and I, I really appreciate the encouragement, especially being retired. You know, you're kind of looking around and say, what are am I doing? 

Rich Bennett 52:31
Oh, come on, Kurt, you know, once, you know, once you're, you're retired, you really don't retire. 

Kurt Ellenberger 52:36
That's what I'm finding. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 52:39
Yeah. I've been saying the same thing. It's like, now, I'll keep doing this to all my 100. So, and it's funny. Friends of mine. Um, a lot of them have retired and they're busier now than when they retired. You know, whether the, and most of them doing volunteer work. 

Kurt Ellenberger 52:55
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 52:56
Yeah. You know, uh, but having a blast 

Kurt Ellenberger 52:59
Yeah. Yeah. That's great. 

Rich Bennett 53:00
out. 

Kurt Ellenberger 53:00
You gotta love it. 

Rich Bennett 53:01
Yeah. It helps you. It helps you stay young because we're all young at heart. 

Kurt Ellenberger 53:06
Yep. Exactly. 

Rich Bennett 53:08
All right. So before I actually get to my last question, is there any, in there, I know there's a lot more we can talk about, but is there anything in particular you would like to add? 

Kurt Ellenberger 53:18
Um, just that I kind of maybe reiterate, you know, just realizing how remarkable this music faculty or oral faculty is that allows us to, to have music. Um, I guess I would just say, you know, just consider that when you're listening to any piece of music that you like and realize that there's this process going on in your brain that is an absolute miracle. So to me, it's a neverending source of wonderment. You know, I hear a 

Rich Bennett 53:47
Yeah. 

Kurt Ellenberger 53:47
tune and I just think I know how, I know what's going on, but I'm also just stunned by it. And, and I just think it's a miracle. So I think I would just say, you know, let's everyone be grateful and appreciative of, of, of what we have, and that ability to, to have this beautiful art in our, in our lives. 

Rich Bennett 54:08
Mhm. And actually, all you listen, I'm going challenge you as well. So I want you to pay attention this week. Notice what your brain is doing and notice what your heart is doing when you listen to the music and then let me know what you discover. And I, in turn, will, of course let Kurt know. All right. So Kurt, this is something I really love to do. And a lot of people when they pick this, pick whatever question they do, somehow, the lines of what we've been talking about. So pick a number between one and five, 

Kurt Ellenberger 54:45
three, 

Rich Bennett 54:47
three. All right. Now pick a number between 41 and 60, 

Kurt Ellenberger 54:55
47, 

Rich Bennett 54:57
47, 

Ehm, well, it doesn't know, ehm, I don't know, I guess in a way this could align with what we're talking about. 

Kurt Ellenberger 55:06
Okay. 

When you're, when you're authentic about it, when you love something and you share it with other people, there's something infectious about it that just draws people in. That's what I felt in my classes all of these years was, you know, I'm passionate about this. And I think that's coming across and students react to it that way and you build community by sharing passions. And, you know, that's what you do as friends, that's what you do with family, but I think just in general being open enough and vulnerable enough to share the things that you love, honestly, I think that that just pulls people in. 

Rich Bennett 56:06
Yeah. Well, Kurt, I want to thank you so much. I have to go listen to some guy named Kurt Wheeler and Kurt Ellenberger now. I don't know where I can find it. I guess I'm going to have to go to Kurt Ellenberger.com. 

Kurt Ellenberger 56:23
I think you, I think you could find both of those gentlemen there. 

Rich Bennett 56:28
I can, seriously, I cannot wait to listen to this and I'm going to, it's funny now. I'm going to listen to music. I think completely different now. 

Kurt Ellenberger 56:38
Because that's fantastic. 

Rich Bennett 56:42
Well, I think everybody should, it's, music is, it's amazing. I love the meditate. I know before when I would lay down, I usually I would put on like rock or whatever and listen to it and try to go to sleep with it be classics or whatever. Now, no, I need to hear it in type benton bowls. 

Kurt Ellenberger 57:05
Okay. 

Rich Bennett 57:06
To 

Kurt Ellenberger 57:06
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 57:06
me he's music, you know, or even some nice soft meditation is something to relax you 

Kurt Ellenberger 57:13
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 57:13
and I found out I can actually meditate or go to sleep a lot faster than if I was listening to the classic stuff and you know, I'm not singing in my head. 

Kurt Ellenberger 57:24
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 57:26
Kurt, thanks so much. It's been a true honor. 

Kurt Ellenberger 57:29
Oh, thank you for having me. It's just been great. I've been really looking forward to it and it's just been a lot of fun. 

Rich Bennett 57:35
You know, this is one of those conversations that sticks with you. Because the next time you hear a song, whether it gives you chills, makes you smile or hits you right into gut. You're probably not going to hear it the same way again. You might catch yourself thinking about what your brain is doing. And then when you think about what's going to come out of your brain, you know, it's just going to be. And you're not going to hear it any more. It's just something that you can hear from what you hear from what comes next. Why certain sounds feel resolved while others feel tense and why something as simple as a minor chord can carry so much emotion. And to me that just makes music even more powerful. It's not just something we listen to in the background. It's something we experience. 

And sometimes without us even realizing it. So maybe after this episode, you don't just press play like you normally do. Maybe you slow down for a second and really listen. And I'd love to hear from you. What's a song that moves you? And now that you've heard this conversation, why do you think it does reach out, leave a comment or connect with me directly. And if you guys something out of this episode, do me a huge favor. And it was someone who loves music as much as you do. Until next time, keep listening, keep learning and keep the conversations going.