Playing for Change

[cloudy]

From their website:

Playing for change is a multimedia movement created to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music.



Click "enter" and watch the video. Mark Johnson traveled the world to record musicians all performing the same song - Stand By Me.

Really, really cool idea. I hope it takes off.

 

[oggbashan]

There is a youth orchestra in Israel with members from the Israeli and Palestinian communities. They work together to promote peace between the two sides - a dangerous idea in the Middle East.

They have toured Europe as well as playing in Israeli and Palestinian terroritories.

Og

 

[Liar]

That was pretty damn cool.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Very good. If fact very amazing.

 

[Katyusha]

Nice. I like.

 

[jomar]

Pretty cool. They should do a double with that guy who is dancing around the world.

 

[DemoonKatjie]

very cool...

there is promise in the world

 

[voluptuary_manque]

*Yawn*


Another expression of the delusion that Art can actually affect life. Puh-leeze!

 

[cloudy]

*Yawn*


Another expression of the delusion that Art can actually affect life. Puh-leeze!

It must suck to be so cynical that you believe in nothing, or even appreciate the beauty of an expression.

I'm sorry for you.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

It must suck to be so cynical that you believe in nothing, or even appreciate the beauty of an expression.

I'm sorry for you.

I've hung around artists too long.

 

[Boxlicker101]

*Yawn*


Another expression of the delusion that Art can actually affect life. Puh-leeze!

Remember ping-pong diplomacy?

 

[DeeZire]

*Yawn*


Another expression of the delusion that Art can actually affect life. Puh-leeze!

I think the old hippies around here would disagree. The protest music of the 60s was a big part of the momentum behind the anti-war movement, and the integration movement. There's a reason marchers were singing 'We Shall Overcome". It empowered them, and they did.

An example from this century: Several years ago, Steve Seskin wrote a song called "Don't Laugh At Me" which became a hit on the C&W charts. From there it was picked up as the theme song in an anti-bullying campaign which is now running in schools all across the USA. Literally thousands of kids have now avoided black eyes and missing teeth because of that one song.

Never underestimate the power of music.

 

[TE999]

What a nice thing to do...and that's a way cool song.

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast
Man never is, but always to be blest."

Alexander Pope.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I think the old hippies around here would disagree. The protest music of the 60s was a big part of the momentum behind the anti-war movement, and the integration movement. There's a reason marchers were singing 'We Shall Overcome". It empowered them, and they did.

An example from this century: Several years ago, Steve Seskin wrote a song called "Don't Laugh At Me" which became a hit on the C&W charts. From there it was picked up as the theme song in an anti-bullying campaign which is now running in schools all across the USA. Literally thousands of kids have now avoided black eyes and missing teeth because of that one song.

Never underestimate the power of music.

You have it backwards. Art does not cause, it reflects. To believe otherwise is to think that Picasso's Guernica ended the Spanish Civil War or stopped Hitler. Neither happened.

 

[Misty_Morning]

Wow....just ... ... ... wow.

 

[Boxlicker101]

I think the old hippies around here would disagree. The protest music of the 60s was a big part of the momentum behind the anti-war movement, and the integration movement. There's a reason marchers were singing 'We Shall Overcome". It empowered them, and they did.

An example from this century: Several years ago, Steve Seskin wrote a song called "Don't Laugh At Me" which became a hit on the C&W charts. From there it was picked up as the theme song in an anti-bullying campaign which is now running in schools all across the USA. Literally thousands of kids have now avoided black eyes and missing teeth because of that one song.

Never underestimate the power of music.

An even better example might be "Uncle Tom's Cabin" which was such a powerful anti-slavery message in the 19th Century.

ETA: There have probably been many examples of published art influencing society to end wrongs. Certainly there were a good many muck-raking books from the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. You have probably hear of "The Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson. How about this little poem:

The golf course's near the factory,
So that every day,
The laboring children can look out
And see the men at play.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

That's just a beautiful piece of music, and hearing it sung around the world and in the same key really gets you. That's powerful.

As Oscar Wylde said, cynicism is the posture of those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

 

[Chantilyvamp]

That was amazing! I sat here smiling, got hubby to come down and listen and he got goosebumps!