Now, given my vintage, and my passion for music, I have been to a lot of gigs. And I mean A LOT! Choosing a favourite live show is a very difficult task. Some gigs are memorable for multiple reasons, and some have a special place in my memory because of the time, place, artist, or even who I was with.

A little while back someone challenged me to list all of the bands I’d ever seen. I spent a great deal of time (perhaps too much, but hey, we were in lockdown) thinking about bands I’d seen, and methodically listing…

April is Parkinson’s disease awareness month. World Parkinson’s Day falls on 11 April. Why that day? It’s the birthday of English physician James Parkinson, who published the first detailed description of the disease in ‘An Essay on the Shaking Palsy’, in 1817.

Raising awareness of Parkinson’s disease (PD) is crucial, given its prevalence. It is the second most common neurological disease in Australia after dementia. The Shake It Up Australia Foundation provides this brief summary:

• The disease affects 100,000 Australians.
• 38 Australians are diagnosed with the disease every day.
• 20 percent of sufferers are under 50 years old and 10…

In recent weeks I have come across a few articles about birdwatching and how it has become somewhat of a go-to activity during periods of lockdown or quarantine during the covid pandemic. You might be familiar with the process; working from home, more time to see what is happening in your yard, you see a bird you’ve not seen before, so what the heck is it???

And so you enter the world of birdwatching, or birding, as it is known amongst the old hands and die-hards.

So, exactly how do you do it?? How do you become a birder?

A…

I recently read a fabulous article about how we discover new music. The article was written by Jeremy D. Larson and featured on Pitchfork.com. Larson’s key premise suggests that for many people there is a certain point in life where most music becomes something to remember rather than something to experience, with the act of discovering new music giving way to routine ‘life’ activities.

Larson described the way our brains work in recognising music, and that we find comfort and joy in recognising music that we are familiar with. He called it “ … a positive-feedback loop … we love the things we know because we know them and therefore we love them”. Larson explained that music we know provides solace, and particularly so in the troubling times the world is currently facing.

This paragraph about discovering new music was perfectly written:

“The act of listening to new music in the midst of a global pandemic is hard, but it’s necessary. The world will…