Interesting article on why the brain holds onto music so well. [link]

For his first experiment he came up with an elegant concept: He stopped people on the street and asked them to sing, entirely from memory, one of their favorite hit songs. The results were astonishingly accurate. Most people could hit the tempo of the original song within a four-percent margin of error, and two-thirds sang within a semitone of the original pitch, a level of accuracy that wouldn’t embarrass a pro.

"When you played the recording of them singing alongside the actual recording of the original song, it sounded like they were singing along," Dr. Levitin said.

Cool... but note that the participation was voluntary in that study -- all the people who would run away if you asked them to sing presumably ran away.

Interesting article. Actually, I've read a number of articles on the subject in the last year or so....

A friend of mine (who is some sort of mathematical/chess genius) could play any pop song on the piano, even if he'd only heard it once. And even if that was years ago. Sadly, he was schizophrenic, and at one point went from college calculus professor to grocery store bag boy....

I seem to have been nominated for Best DJ in "The Noise Poll", conducted by a long-running Boston music zine. You can vote for me here. Go ahead... stuff the ballot box... I won't mind.

I voted!

Very cool, Jon. One of my x-mas presents to myself was to get the poster you bought for me framed. It looks soooo great!

Hope all the musicistas had a great holiday. I had a very restful stay in KS. Got to sit in a combine and watch the sunset over empty peaceful farm fields. Much needed.

From the WFMU blog:

Ever wonder what a grown man playing four homemade Pikachu theremins would sound like? Yeah, me too.

[link]

Direct link to the Pikaremin video: [link]

I don't know if this should go in Music or Tech, but are the songs from iTunes playable in anything other than Apple format stuff?

Nope. Not to my knowledge.

Well, that means I save some money.

I don't know if this should go in Music or Tech, but are the songs from iTunes playable in anything other than Apple format stuff?

You mean songs downloaded from iTunes? Because if you burn them to CD and rip them again as mp3s, then... yes.