IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD
By Graeme Hague
5 August 2013
Mickey Hart was an original member of the Grateful Dead for three decades. In the years following it’s hard to categorise his enormous catalogue of music, studies and collaborative projects since it’s all so diverse. For example, with his own Mickey Hart Band, Hart has “sonified” the Universe, the Golden Gate Bridge and the America’s Cup – which means what? Go to www.mickeyhart.net and please let us know, too. On his new record Superorganism, Hart is breaking new ground again by combining music with science and the human body. Hart journeys into the hidden worlds of rhythm within us, his brain wave signals re-imagined in sound using an EEG cap with electrodes that can read the throbs and signals of the brain. Hart has also sonified the sounds of stem cells and heart rhythms. To prove it, each night of his upcoming Superorganism tour, Hart will perform a piece featuring the sounds of his own brain while wearing the EEG cap, the images projected onto a screen, so the audience can visualize his brain activity in real time. There is a deeper purpose – Hart strongly believes in the healing value of drumming and rhythm on afflictions associated with aging, in particular Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, and is a long-time supporter of medical research in that field.
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