Where’s the Beat?

Steven Halpern: You have many people breathing, inspiring each other, with brain waves linking in and synchronising together.

Dread Scott: But in fact, it was capitalism that was threatening the world with war and nuclear destruction.

Halpern: It had been going on for thousands of years.

Scott: The form follows the idea, and it is back and forth.

Halpern: Where’s the beat? (Laughs) Where are the words?

•••

Scott: There is a lot of potential right now.

Halpern: It means that people are thinking about the same question that I am, and this sort of raw engagement is rare in society.

Scott: It doesn’t matter whether the answers are short or long, it is unmediated, unvarnished, and unedited.

Halpern: This was before cassettes were invented.

Scott: I keep thinking about and re-reading them.

•••

Halpern: You can change the way an audience responds by playing chords that aren’t in the traditional blues pattern or rock pattern.

Scott: For example, it was very compelling to see how people reacted to prop muskets in the reenactment in New Orleans.

Halpern: The way that the rainbow is set up relates energetically to the seven tones of the major scale, relates to the seven major energy centres or chakras.

Scott: So, my advice is the following: you should create things that matter.

Halpern: Did you hear that missing note in your head even though I didn’t play it?