Contemporary composer, conductor and TED talker Eric Whitacre is well-known for creating choral works and scores, but recently his work sprung to vira...
The Internet did not invent social networking -- it didn't even invent the term. We are social animals and we pursue connection with others no matter what.
Boomers tend to be instinctively apprehensive about modern technology -- people texting instead of talking, phones buzzing mid-conversation, tweets a twittering in ways that make little sense to a generation still trying to conquer the TV remote
The psychological phenomena underlying such amazing virtual collective action are worthy to be addressed. I hypothesized the following: in order to achieve this kind of performance, the vocalists must call upon something called by psychologists: the affective theory of mind (AToM).
If we want to experience the profundity that being and creating together can offer, we must actually be and create together. Everything else is just an idea.
One thread that unites individuals across this ether; one thread that bonds individuals despite the fact they've never really connected or known about each other. Sometimes, you don't need more than one thread to truly care about someone.
Our virtual family celebrates together, we mourn together, but through it all we are singing, connecting with each other in a way that only singing allows. And the community has begun spilling over into "real life" as well.
In a TED talk, Eric Whitacre told an audience how a young women sang a portion of one of his works on YouTube. It inspired him to try an experiment -- he would assemble a choir of YouTube videos of people singing from all over the world.