Music Meets Philosophy: The Happiness Project

Neighborly wisdom, music innovation, and the extraordinariness of ordinary human speech.

We’ve long been fascinated by the concept and origin of happiness. Which is why we love Broken Social Scene multi-instrumentalist Charles Spearin’s The Happiness Project — a series of interviews with Spearin’s neighbors on the subject of happiness, deconstructed into the melodic, sing-song quality of speech. Spearin’s inspiration came from the insight that the movement of our lips and tongue, the rising and falling of our voices as voice our thoughts, isn’t something we normally pay attention to, except in the context of explicit music. And yet this cadence is so rich in implicit melody.

The natural cadence of people’s speech can sometimes carry beautiful melodies.

After each interview, Spearin would listen to the recordings, examining both their meaning and their melody. He then invited a few musician friends to play, as closely as they could, these natural melodies on different instruments — from the tenor saxophone to the harp to Spearin’s own daughter on the violin — and then arranged them just as he would’ve songs.

Meaning seems to be our hunger but we should still try to taste our food. I wanted to see if I could blur the line between speaking and singing — life and art? — and write music based on these accidental melodies.

The result was The Happiness Project album — a fascinating experiment in music innovation, infused with the substance of everyday philosophy.

If you can take a bunch of people and just put them in a situation where they’re kind of comfortable, get them to talk about a nice subject like happiness, and then their wisdom shines a little bit more.

It’s one of our favorite music projects of 2009, so we thought it fitting to feature right before the holidays.

Grab a free download of Anna, the second track from The Happiness Project, and elevate your every conversation by drinking in the simple melodic wisdom of human speech.

Thanks, Michal

Psst, we’ve launched a fancy weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays, offers the week’s articles, and features five more tasty bites of web-wide interestingness. Here’s an example. Like? Sign up.

The Other Happiness Project New York magazine writer Gretchen Rubin tests the multitude of theories about what makes us happy, from ancient philosophies to pop culture prescriptions to the latest scientific studies, and writes about the results....
Music Philosophy: Famous Lyrics as Typographic Art Brilliant typographic posters of famously profound song lyrics by designer Mico Toledo...
Hard-Wiring Happiness Srikumar Rao on our mental traps and how to avoid them en route to happiness....
Sound Meets Image: Visual Tributes to Music Three creative projects that pay visual tribute to everything music stands for, both aesthetically and conceptually....
Indie Music Meets Indie Film: First Days of Spring British pop-folk outfit Noah and the Whale releases the first-ever film/album hybrid, taking creative innovation in music to new heights....

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 9:08 am in art, culture, music, psychology and was tagged art, cool, culture, happiness, innovation, music, philosophy, psychology.

Music Meets Philosophy: The Happiness Project – deconstructing human speech into its natural melodies http://ow.ly/OWFW [Brain Pickings]

This comment was originally posted on Twitter

brainpicker on December 23rd, 2009 at 11:01 am

RT @brainpicker Music Meets Philosophy: The Happiness Project – deconstructing human speech into its natural melodies http://ow.ly/OWFW

rominska on December 23rd, 2009 at 11:02 am

sanjeevn on December 23rd, 2009 at 11:09 am

Charles Spearin turns speech patterns into melodies: http://ow.ly/OWFW (via She Who Never Disappoints- @brainpicker)

Thehoofer on December 23rd, 2009 at 12:17 pm

If you missed it earlier: The Happiness Project – speech deconstruction meets music meets philosophy http://ow.ly/OWFW [Brain Pickings]

brainpicker on December 24th, 2009 at 4:28 am

If you missed it earlier: The Happiness Project

creativetallis on December 24th, 2009 at 4:52 am

RT @creativetallis: The Happiness Project

iamcreative on December 24th, 2009 at 6:31 am

RT @brainpicker: …The Happiness Project – speech deconstruction + music + philosophy http://ow.ly/OWFW [Brain Pickings]

zenboom on December 24th, 2009 at 6:45 am

RT @iamcreative: RT @creativetallis: The Happiness Project

greenape on December 24th, 2009 at 8:20 am

Music Meets Philosophy: The Happiness Project | http://tinyurl.com/yavq29r

Zmija on December 24th, 2009 at 4:47 pm

the happiness project – speech and music – http://ow.ly/OWFW

tazupo on December 25th, 2009 at 10:41 am

RT @brainpicker The Happiness Project: speech deconstruction meets music meets philosophy http://ow.ly/OWFW

slainson on December 25th, 2009 at 11:43 pm

RT @slainson: RT @brainpicker The Happiness Project: speech deconstruction meets music meets philosophy http://ow.ly/OWFW

ip_audio on December 25th, 2009 at 11:49 pm

Music Meets Philosophy: The Happiness Project | Brain Pickings http://bit.ly/7oEy31

bornoutsidebox on December 26th, 2009 at 2:01 am

“Music Meets Philosophy: The Happiness Project” http://tinyurl.com/yavq29r – @brainpicker

verkauffoerdern on December 27th, 2009 at 3:14 pm

Music Meets Philosophy: The Happiness Project http://bit.ly/6G2t7B cool!

LarisaBelliveau on December 27th, 2009 at 3:30 pm

Innovation in music and philosophy via @brainpickings http://bit.ly/6pULFM

inakiescudero on December 27th, 2009 at 10:09 pm

[...] week, we looked at Charles Spearin’s music-meets-philosophy experiment, The Happiness Project. Turns out, perhaps due to the universal relevance of the subject matter, that it has a [...]

The Other Happiness Project | Brain Pickings on December 29th, 2009 at 7:45 am

RT @LarisaBelliveau: Music Meets Philosophy: The Happiness Project http://bit.ly/6G2t7B cool!

WarrenMason on December 29th, 2009 at 8:50 am

RT @LarisaBelliveau: Music Meets Philosophy: The Happiness Project http://bit.ly/6G2t7B cool! http://ff.im/-dunlx

WarrenMason on December 29th, 2009 at 8:51 am

Music Meets Philosophy: The Happiness Project Album [article / video] http://bit.ly/6pULFM

ip_audio on December 29th, 2009 at 11:21 am

The Happiness Project — fascinating experiment in music innovation, infused w/ everyday philosophy http://bit.ly/6pULFM (

averyholden on December 29th, 2009 at 11:57 am

Music Meets Philosophy: The Happiness Project http://ff.im/-dvL1P

shtole on December 29th, 2009 at 5:45 pm

Oh wow! This project is absolutely brilliant. There is nothing more beneficial to an artist than having her eyes opened to a new way of seeing/hearing the world. Great!