Borodin

The logo of this blog is the same erlenmeyer flask used on my easternblot blog, but half-morphed into a treble clef. It symbolizes the science/music connection, but could easily have been the personal logo of Alexander Borodin.

The erlenmeyer flask was invented by German chemist Emil Erlenmeyer in 1861. Around this same time, from 1859 to 1862, Erlenmeyer was also supervisor to Alexander Borodin, who did a postdoctoral fellowship in Erlenmeyer’s lab. Borodin was a prolific chemist, who got his name in chemistry textbooks as one of the discoverers of the aldol reaction, but in his spare time he was a composer. He managed to be in touch with prominent people in both fields: Aside from working with Erlenmeyer, Borodin was also friends with Mendeleev – the inventor of the periodic table – and with composer Rimsky-Korsakov. The latter completed Borodin’s opera Prince Igor after he died in 1887, at a fancy dress party, from a burst artery in the heart.

Borodin considered himself mostly a chemist, and didn’t think much of his musical work. He referred to himself as a “Sunday composer”, but these days he is better known for his music than for his science. In 1953 he was posthumously awarded a Tony Award for the musical Kismet, which was based on his original scores. Some of Borodin’s most famous works are the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor and the Nocturne from his String Quartet No. 2 in D.

Mikhail Fokine’s choreography for the Polovtsian Dances by Borodin, as performed by the Kirov Opera and Ballet under Valery Gergiev.

Pacific Strings play Nocturne from String Quartet No. 2 in D

Feynman on Bongos

Richard Feynman playing the bongos:

This clip is part of a documentary by Christopher Sykes, who left the following comment on the YouTube video: “For the record, this scene was recorded by my wife, Lotte, in 1987, as part of a film we made for the BBC Horizon science series, called ‘The Quest for Tannu Tuva’”

Thanks to Mark Tovey for showing me this video

Why this blog?

Einstein was a violinist, Elgar had a home chemistry lab, and many other people are active in music and science.

Both scientists and musicians work long and odd hours for little pay, and have very little chance at reaching the top of their respective fields. Why would anyone pursue either career, let alone both? Why even make one or the other a hobby on top of an already challenging job?

I’ve been thinking about these questions for a few years. Initially, I thought I’d write a book about it. However, books don’t come with sound, and I needed sound to tell the story of people who spend their days in between humming lab apparatus and their nights tuning guitars or violins.

About a year and a half ago I started toying with the idea of making a documentary about people who are both scientists and musicians. Unlike books, documentaries have sound. It would be perfect, I thought, to find some scientists/musicians and follow them around for a bit, to try and tell the story of these busybodies. I was very quiet about the idea at first. After all, I had no experience at all at making documentaries. I had no camera, my laptop wasn’t good enough for editing, I didn’t have a budget, and I certainly didn’t have time to even be thinking about it.

A few months ago I found a little more time to daydream, and while I still didn’t have experience, a camera, editing software, or a budget, I started talking about this documentary more seriously. I mentioned the idea to a few people, and they liked it. I talked to scientists and musicians and those who do neither but like both. Every time I told someone my idea, they came with several suggestions for things I should do and people I should talk to. After only seriously discussing the topic with five people, I already have pages and pages of notes and leads and websites.

In October I took two workshops to learn how to start making a documentary. Here I learned about budgets and the importance of good cameras and the need for a good proposal and the time it takes to do research before you can even start shooting. Lots of things felt far out of my reach for now, but I thought there is no better way to start than to just start. The research part I don’t yet need a camera for, so I plan to start doing research interviews as soon as January 2009. I have some people in mind who I would like to talk to.

Since this is by no means a day job, and I already have several other projects on the go, it’s going to take me a long time to even get ready to actually shoot, and I figured that in that time I might find someone with a camera and/or editing software willing to jump on board. (Or at least I can put off worrying about it for a while…)

I’ll document the progress of my research and my endeavours into the world of documentary making in this blog, and will also put some general thoughts about music and science in here.