Andrew Bird - 'Noble Beast' preview on NPR

It's one of those things about people knowing you're a violinist, that anything vaguely having to do with violin should automatically be your favorite. "Man, you should TOTALLY listen to Bond! Those girls play violin, right?"

I'd also heard quite a bit about Andrew Bird, but hadn't had a chance to listen for myself to see if this was a listen-by-association or a real deal...but NPR solved my problem by putting his new album up for free preview.

Yes, that's right, listen to the whole thing for free. NPR - I hate you for firing my friends, but you do still have good ideas sometime. Rah rah rah digital media!

From my first blush listen, this is an album with much to recommend it beyond his unusual instrumentation. It vacillates between an indie-spaciness and rooted folkyness, listenable and sweet. "Natural Disaster" is my favorite of this second, the pointillist layers of banjo, violin, and vibraphone backing Birds slightly muffled tenor.

Go. Listen.

Do your homework

This article in the Guardian: Book now to enjoy later addresses a problem in all of what we consider to be the "high" arts - how much study and foreknowledge should we expect an audience to have coming in? If you can only appreciate a play with an encyclopedic knowledge of Russian thinkers, or a piece of music with complete comprehension of set theory and atonality, is it just that the audience is too dumb, or is the piece poorly written?

With all the talk of art being a "universal" language, it seems that the answer would automatically be that anyone should be able to comprehend it, at least on some level. I have no problem with making people think, but creating a work of art that is totally inaccessible to 99% of the population seems to be beside the point - it's about the communication of an idea, however abstract. You'll never get EVERYONE, but trying to get more than just the people who have a PhD in your particular brand of geekish knowledge can only spread a good idea further.

Then again, maybe we don't WANT to get what they're saying...