WEBVTT

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The philosopher Plato once said,

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"Music gives a soul to the universe,

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wings to the mind,

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flight to the imagination

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and life to everything."

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Music has always been
a big part of my life.

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To create and to perform music

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connects you to people
countries and lifetimes away.

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It connects you to the people
you're playing with,

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to your audience

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and to yourself.

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When I'm happy, when I'm sad,

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when I'm bored, when I'm stressed,

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I listen to and I create music.

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When I was younger, I played piano;

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later, I took up guitar.

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And as I started high school,

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music became a part of my identity.

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I was in every band,

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I was involved with every
musical fine arts event.

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Music surrounded me.

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It made me who I was,

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and it gave me a place to belong.

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Now, I've always had
this thing with rhythms.

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I remember being young,

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I would walk down
the hallways of my school

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and I would tap rhythms to myself
on my leg with my hands,

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or tapping my teeth.

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It was a nervous habit,

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and I was always nervous.

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I think I liked the repetition
of the rhythm --

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it was calming.

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Then in high school,

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I started music theory,

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and it was the best class I've ever taken.

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We were learning about music --

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things I didn't know,
like theory and history.

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It was a class where we basically
just listened to a song,

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talked about what it meant to us

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and analyzed it,

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and figured out what made it tick.

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Every Wednesday, we did something
called "rhythmic dictation,"

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and I was pretty good at it.

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Our teacher would give us
an amount of measures

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and a time signature,

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and then he would speak a rhythm to us

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and we would have to write it down
with the proper rests and notes.

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Like this:

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ta ta tuck-a tuck-a ta,

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ta tuck-a-tuck-a-tuck-a, tuck-a.

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And I loved it.

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The simplicity of the rhythm --

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a basic two- to four- measure line --

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and yet each of them almost told a story,

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like they had so much potential,

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and all you had to do was add a melody.

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(Guitar)

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Rhythms set a foundation for melodies
and harmonies to play on top of.

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It gives structure and stability.

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Now, music has these parts --

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rhythm, melody and harmony --

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just like our lives.

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Where music has rhythm,

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we have routines and habits --

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things that help us to remember
what to do and to stay on track,

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and to just keep going.

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And you may not notice it,

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but it's always there.

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(Guitar)

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And it may seem simple,

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it may seem dull by itself,

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but it gives tempo and heartbeat.

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And then things in your life add on to it,

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giving texture --

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that's your friends and your family,

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and anything that creates
a harmonic structure in your life

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and in your song,

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like harmonies,

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cadences

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and anything that makes it polyphonic.

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And they create beautiful
chords and patterns.

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(Guitar)

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And then there's you.

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You play on top of everything else,

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on top of the rhythms and the beat

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because you're the melody.

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And things may change and develop,

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but no matter what we do,

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we're still the same people.

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Throughout a song melodies develop,

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but it's still the same song.

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No matter what you do,

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the rhythms are still there:

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the tempo and the heartbeat ...

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until I left,

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and I went to college

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and everything disappeared.

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When I first arrived at university,

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I felt lost.

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And don't get me wrong --
sometimes I loved it and it was great,

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but other times,

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I felt like I had been left alone

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to fend for myself.

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It's like I had been taken out
of my natural environment,

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and put somewhere new,

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where the rhythms and the harmonies

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and the form had gone away,

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and it was just me --

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(Guitar)

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silence and my melody.

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And even that began to waver,

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because I didn't know what I was doing.

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I didn't have any chords
to structure myself,

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or a rhythm

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or a beat to know the tempo.

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(Guitar)

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And then I began to hear
all these other sounds.

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(Guitar)

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And they were off-time

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and off-key.

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And the more I was around them,

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the more my melody started
to sound like theirs.

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And slowly I began to lose myself,

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like I was being washed away.

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But then the next moment --

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(Guitar)

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I could hear it.

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And I could feel it.

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And it was me.

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And I was here.

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And it was different,

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but not worse off.

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Just changed a little.

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Music is my way of coping
with the changes in my life.

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There's a beautiful connection
between music and life.

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It can bind us to reality

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at the same time
it allows us to escape it.

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Music is something
that lives inside of you.

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You create it and you're created by it.

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Our lives are not only conducted by music,

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they're also composed of it.

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So this may seem like a bit of a stretch,

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but hear me out:

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music is a fundamental part of what we are

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and of everything around us.

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Now, music is my passion,

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but physics also used to be
an interest of mine.

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And the more I learned,

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the more I saw connections
between the two --

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especially regarding string theory.

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I know this is only one of many theories,

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but it spoke to me.

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So, one aspect of string theory,
at its simplest form, is this:

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matter is made up of atoms,

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which are made up of protons
and neutrons and electrons,

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which are made up of quark.

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And here's where the string part comes in.

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This quark is supposedly made up
of little coiled strings,

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and it's the vibrations of these strings
that make everything what it is.

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Michio Kaku once explained this

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in a lecture called,
"The Universe in a Nutshell,"

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where he says,

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"String theory is the simple idea

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that the four forces of the universe --

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gravity, the electromagnetic force,
and the two strong forces --

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can be viewed as music.

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The music of tiny little rubber bands."

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In this lecture, he goes on
to explain physics

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as the laws of harmony
between these strings;

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chemistry, as the melodies
you can play on these strings;

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and he states that the universe
is a "symphony of strings."

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These strings dictate the universe;

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they make up everything we see
and everything we know.

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They're musical notes,

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but they make us what we are
and they hold us together.

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So you see,

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everything is music.

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(Guitar)

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When I look at the world,

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I see music all around us.

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When I look at myself,

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I see music.

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And my life has been defined by music.

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I found myself through music.

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Music is everywhere,

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and it is in everything.

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And it changes and it builds

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and it diminishes.

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But it's always there,

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supporting us,

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connecting us to each other

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and showing us the beauty of the universe.

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So if you ever feel lost,

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stop and listen for your song.

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Thank you.

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(Applause)