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If you could make a modification, what would that modification be? See also the gallery of bizarre instruments
Well, isn’t this clever? An app that plays a special soundtrack for you as you tour the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
Indie band Bluebrain is behind this “location-aware album,” as it’s called, which will sync up with your iPhone’s GPS capabilities to play certain music at certain tempos as you move around the National Mall. Hundreds of zones on the mall will be tagged, according to the band’s Web site, and the sounds that hit your ears will change as your proximity to those zones changes.
It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does happen it is spectacular. A video goes up on YouTube and it takes off like a rocket with tens of millions of views. It happened to Susan Boyle: Susan Boyle, the overnight sensation It happened with the wedding video: How to have a fun wedding It [...]
Julie and I will be joining the Stuff Mom Never Told You podcastrixs in Austin, TX this Friday for South By Southwest! Show up at Driskill Hotel at 3:30 P.M. on March 11 with an Interactive badge and you’ll get to meet us, greet us and watch us do this podcasting thing. Sadly, we will be long gone from Austin before most of the awesome music starts happening, so I won’t be witness to the amazing beatbox/DJ virtuoso Beardyman on the 19th.
Funny…. How to write a hit song, with Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters
by Marshall Brain | February 18, 2011
How do you write a hit song? According to Dave Grohl, “Here’s what you’ve got to do… think about it like it’s a bumper sticker”: After you watch that, you may want to listen to a little Aerosmith: Love in an elevator Janie’s got a gun Livin’ on the edge You may also want to [...]
To put it mildly, I’m not a good flyer. The phobic kind. It’s pretty tedious.But like I’ve talked about before, in January I went on a really spectacular vacation. While there I made some really spectacular friends. And seeing all their tweets reporting safe landings at home (or, worse, arriving at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport for connecting flights) while I still had 6 hours of waiting and 13 hours of bus time ahead of me was a tipping point. I decided to face my fear and get on a plane. And those same friends helped me make a playlist for the flight. See it after the jump.
Space Music: Did Walkmans kill manned space exploration?
by Robert Lamb | February 16, 2011
I’ve been thinking about this since a fellow traveler mentioned it over vacation. “No one wants to go into space anymore,” he said. “It all started with the Walkman. The kids all slipped on headphones and retreated inward.” I’m paraphrasing a little there and I should stress that no one’s implying that the rise in headphone usage directly links to the public’s decreased interest in space exploration. But the notion still keeps kicking around my skull. What changed in us when the Walkman swept across the world?
Behold, the Diskette Organ: According to the video’s description: As it can produce only four simultaneous notes, and each drive has a different range and tonal characteristics, best results are obtained by arranging compositions by hand. However, it features two modes of operation: in one mode, MIDI channels 1 through 4 are played directly on [...]
There are percussion instruments that play notes, for example the xylophone. This is a percussion instrument made of PVC pipe that plays notes: The advantage of using PVC pipe is that anyone can make one of these instruments simply by buying the parts at a home improvement store. If you would like to build a [...]
There’s nothing like a good infectious beat, especially if you’re Carl Jung in Africa, fearful that an atmosphere thick with shamanistic African drumming will literally drive you insane. This little chapter from the famous psychiatrist’s life also inspired this excellent Peter Gabriel track, “The Rhythm of the Heat.” This is exactly some of the ground Julie and I tackle in this week’s episodes of the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast.
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