In February, Amanda Palmer did a TED talk. Have you seen it yet? Check it out at the bottom of this post. For the tl;dw version, Amanda Palmer (she of Dresden Dolls and $1.2 million Kickstarter and asking musicians to play for “hugs and beer” fame) begins by explaining the job she had before she was making money from music. She was a human statue, which involved giving passersby a flow... »
Some insane genius in the Ukraine (Oleg Berg, to be precise) has been spending his free time digitally adjusting songs written in a minor key to sound like they’re in major, and vice versa. It’s delightful and hilarious. If you’re not very familiar with music theory, check it out: To Westerners, major keys are traditionally associated with happy emotions, while minor keys are ass... »
Sometimes, there’s a post where I have to jump around my apartment for a bit to get rid of my excess excitement long enough to sit down and write about it. This is one of those. Imogen Heap is a British artist known for creating dramatically produced electronica/rock/pop music (here’s one of her best-known tracks). Like many musicians who rely heavily on computers for their final produ... »
Last week on a trip to Washington, D.C, I took a little excursion up to Baltimore. Once I was done claiming everything I saw was from The Wire, I visited the American Visionary Art Museum. I highly recommend visiting if you find yourself nearby — the museum was inspired by art-therapy work the founder did with patients in a mental hospital and solely features art created by non-professionals... »
I think I’ve discovered something about myself: Put skepticism in a rap song and I am SOLD. Science words don’t work so well in pretty, lyrical songs, but twist them up in some freestyle and it’s like they were made for it. And with that, I give you today’s lab track, courtesy of labber Charles. MC Frontalot, who calls his genre “nerdcore hip hop,” performs this... »
Though we all know that our senses don’t see the world as it is — what we perceive as an image is a bunch of photons bouncing off of an object, what we perceive as sound is a series of pressure waves hitting our eardrums — we live mostly separated from this fact. We can’t actually perceive the differences between the real world and our perception of it, so it’s an eas... »
If you haven’t heard of Garfunkel and Oates, boy, have I just opened up your world. They’re a comedy music duo from LA who I first heard on Savage Love singing Dan’s favorite of their songs, Pregnant Women are Smug. Just explore their Youtube library. You won’t be sorry. Today’s lab track (suggested by Ryan who saw it on Victor’s Facebook wall) is decidedly not ... »
In honor of Ryan’s post today about Professor Brian Cox’s new series on BBC, and because watching that video last night put this song in my head for the next 12 hours, I give you the song that that video’s biology-centric theme song was based on — same singer (and lyricist) and all. I don’t need to introduce it much more than that, since if you haven’t seen Mont... »
