About the Virtual Choir – Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir
The Virtual Choir is a global phenomenon, creating a user-generated choir that brings together singers from around the world and their love of music in a new way through the use of technology. Singers record and upload their videos from locations all over the world. Each one of the videos is then synchronised and combined into one single performance to create the Virtual Choir. It began in 2009 as a simple experiment in social media when one young woman – a fan of Eric’s music – recorded a video of herself singing “Sleep” and shared it on YouTube. Moved by the video, Eric responded by sending a call out to his online fans to purchase Polyphony’s recording, record themselves singing along to it, and upload the result.
A comeback for the humble cassette? - Features - Music - The Independent
His nonplussed response was delightful. We were witnessing the obsolescence of technology at first hand, right there; as we explained how it worked it almost felt like we were experts on an episode of Antiques Roadshow. (Although sadly in the item in question was worth almost nothing.) Two brothers, Benny and Rafi Fine, have seen the viral potential of this kind of thing, and have recently started a series on YouTube called Kids React To Technology.
International Society of Musicians for Artwhistling
Performed whistling is not a new idea, but its role has been rather limited. Since the days of music hall & vaudeville, it has rarely ventured beyond imitating singing or birds, while appreciated chiefly in terms of novelty. Finally in the 1990s, a few individuals began to coalesce around a different model — one based on the music community at large and how all instruments are approached. By adapting the same attitude toward our own whistling, many have discovered much broader possibilities. This includes the repertoires of multiple instruments, of different cultures, of different centuries, new music for whistling, and different musical traditions. And, while not all of us take to the stage, some have achieved convincing results (hear samples).
The National Museum of Computing
The sounds and ecology of 70 years of computing is the focus of a new Arts Council funded project at The National Museum of Computing (TNMOC). The public will be able to listen in as the project unfolds and later in the year a series of extraordinary new musical compositions will be published. Award-winning sound artist and composer Matt Parker will start his project, The Imitation Archive, this week and he will produce a permanent sound archive of the restored and recreated working machines at the Museum.
Thai Elephant Conservation Center - Art & Culture - Thai Elephant Orchestra
The Thai Elephant Orchestra began with a simple question: "If elephants can make beautiful paintings, why can't they make music?" (And by the word 'music' was meant not a circus elephant playing a huge toy piano but rather serious, beautiful music worthy of the attention given to human music.) Trying to answer this question led Dave Soldier and Richard Lair to embark on designing, making and buying the massive musical instruments needed. The Orchestra's first recording was made in 1997 with five elephants at the Thai Elephant Conservation Center.
Soundscapes of the Nile valley: ‘Rock music’ in the Fourth Cataract region
mances in ritual and other contexts . On the onehand, the sound properties of rock art localitiesand their use in the placement of pictographs andpetroglyphs are investigated ; one the other hand,sound-making is studied that accompanies the cre-ation of rock art imagery when using subtractivetechniques, in particular pecking or pounding
Iran: ‘Half Moon’ – film about women’s right to sing
They jump into an orange mini bus and begin the search for a female singer who will join their company – which is not easy in a country where women are not allowed to sing in front of men. “I must say it pains me that in 2006 we were celebrating the 250-years birthday of Mozart while in my country it is still forbidden for women to sing,” said the Kurdish film director Bahman Ghobadi. His fourth film, ‘Half Moon’ (‘Niwemang’), touches on the issue of religious music restriction in Iran, and it is a film in praise of music and freedom of expression. It is also magnificently shot in the Iraqi-Kurdish landscapes.
The Benefits of Cold Coffee: A Music Review
“I cannot stop to comfort them/I’m busy chasing up my demon…” Concept: Kate Bush tells madly macabre stories with a whimsical bent in between enthusing over such unrelated topics as Egyptian splendour and the music of Delius. Musically, I want to dub this thing “feminine psychedelia.” Deliciously weird. Cover Critique: Memorable.
A Young Person's Guide to the Avant-Garde [LTMCD 2569] Various Artists
Sleevenote: Disc 1: 1. Erik Satie Vexations [detail] 3.09
First notes for 639-year composition
The first notes in the longest and slowest piece of music in history, designed to go on for 639 years, are being played on a German church organ on Wednesday. The three notes, which will last for a year-and-a-half, are just the start of the piece, called As Slow As Possible. Composed by late avant-garde composer John Cage, who died in 1992, the performance has already been going for 17 months - although all that has been heard so far is the sound of the organ's bellows being inflated. The music will be played in Halberstadt, a small town renowned for its ancient organs in central Germany.
Hospital radio
Typical hospital radio studio Hospital radio is a form of audio broadcasting produced specifically for the in-patients of hospitals. It is primarily found in the United Kingdom, hospital radio has been found to be beneficial to patients lifting their mood and aiding recovery. There are hundreds of hospital radio stations in the UK, almost all are members of the Hospital Broadcasting Association (HBA), which was set up by stations for their mutual benefit and does not govern or run them.
Drones in Indian Music (Tanpura, Surpeti, etc.)
The drone is an essential part of traditional Indian music. It is found in classical music (both North and South), folk music, and even many film songs. Sometimes, it is provided by special instruments and instrumentalists; at other times, it is provided by special parts of the melodic instruments. Even many of the percussion instruments are tuned in such a way as to reinforce the drone.
Listed: Hauschka's Abandoned Cities
Hauschka is a musician and composer from Düsseldorf, performing in what has been dubbed a "post-classical" vein, although he also has many fans in the electronica scene. His new album Abandoned City, written and performed almost entirely on a treated piano, was inspired by the idea of cities that are no longer, or never were, inhabited. It is full of approriately elegiac beauty. Here he introduces the different cities with a paragraph about each. Elizabeth Bay A mining town in southern Namibia.
Converse Music
New York City psychedelia aficionados Whitewash have a knack for working within constraints. The project began in 2012 when Jon (bass) and Sam (guitar) met at NYU and started playing along to Ween songs together. When Jon met Evan (drums) in jazz auditions, he convinced him to join them, and they started playing around with their sound with covers of Led Zeppelin, Mac Demarco, and Thee Oh Sees. Then Evan’s roommate Aram joined them, adding rhythm guitar to round out their sound, and they started composing and making demos as their sound matured into complex bedroom psych inflected with everything from bossa nova to noise rock. These experimentations eventually became their debut EP Fraud in Lisbon, a masterful piece of bedroom psych whose whole is greater than the sum of its minimal parts. Their project took a pause when three members scattered to different corners of the world for study abroad, but then came back in full force.
