Celebrating birdsong: The colour and complexity of avian airs - News and features - Scotsman.com

“I doubt that one can find in any human music, however inspired, melodies and rhythms that have the sovereign freedom of bird song,”  Olivier Messiaen

Celebrating birdsong: The colour and complexity of avian airs - News and features - Scotsman.com

The world sends them garbage...

Children from Paraguay are taking the world's garbage and giving back music. Paraguay accepts landfill waste from other nations; a lucrative business deal, but usually detrimental to its own ecology and citizens' well-being. Children from the villages near these garbage sites have fashioned musical instruments from the refuse, turning the world's refuse into music. You can watch a video on their harmonic exploits here:
http://lloydkahn-ongoing.blogspot.com/2013/04/landfill-harmonic-kids-orchestra-of.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+lloydkahn+%28Lloyd%E2%80%99s+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader

Sea Lion Keeps the Beat

A California sea lion names Ronan is now becoming known as the first non-human mammal that can keep the beat while rocking out to music -which is better than some human mammals I know!

http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/45802

Singing Stairs

Here's a wonderful piece on the "Accidental Music of Imperfect Escalators." I have to agree that they sometimes do remind me of a jazz saxophone's squeak.

Sonic Feng Shui

    In an article he wrote for The Atlantic, author Toby Lester details how he has mapped all of the ambient sounds in his day-to-day world. Waking to the unfamiliar silence of his new apartment, Lester describes just how hyper-aware he became to the sounds. He says that "without recourse to radio, tapes, CDs, or television, I suddenly found myself aware of -- no, listening to -- a sort of secondhand music emanating from the machines and appliances nearby." As Cage pointed out with 4:33, we live in a world on constant sounds of some sort. They're inescapable. And in today's world of modern appliances, central heating/air, refrigerators, computers, televisions, etc. we're in the presence of an incessant hum, a drone of electrical appliances and modern conveniences. After Toby Lester began noticing the sounds that he lived with in his home and office, he took to examining, them. What exactly was he listening to day in and day out? "My alarm clock woke me [...], as it does every working day, on a distinctly musical note (B natural, to be precise). I shuffled sleepily to the refrigerator, which kept up a stoic hum (B-flat) as I reached into its guts for a frozen bagel. The bagel I subjected to the resolute drone (E) of the microwave, which concluded its efforts with a ding! (the B-flat an octave above the refrigerator hum) just as my teakettle began to whistle (A). Later that morning my subway train pulled me into town with a weary whine (F), and the office elevator deposited me on my floor with a relieved bleep (C-sharp). I entered the code (C) of the security system with a staccato flourish and was at work." As I read Lester's descriptions of the music he lives with, I muse on the effects of music on mood, of various notes on the emotions, and then can't help but ask: If our appliances contribute a minor chord to our lives, can we subconsciously be put into a depressed mood? If our office sounds hum in a major chord, can we be made more cheerful workers? I see the potential for some sort of harmonic Feng Shui, an analysis and alteration of the sounds that you live with in order to make you a happier/more relaxed/more productive etc. person.

 You can read Toby Lester's article here.

That Song Sounds Delicious!

One Ring Zero: Members Joshua Camp, Ian Riggs, Ben Holmes, Michael Hearst and Timothy Quigley

So if a musician composes music for ice cream trucks, isn't it kind of the logical progression that his next project would be to get together a bunch of famous chefs and put their recipes to music?

Of course it is.

Michael Hearst and his band, One Ring Zero, got together with a bunch of chefs including David Chang, Mario Batali, and Isa Chandra Moskowitz and what they created is the masterpiece that is known as The Recipe Project.

Having often collaborated with authors and worked with dancers Hearst has always been interested in "taking any set of words, even ones that aren't remotely poetic in the slightest, and trying to set them to music." Recipes, therefore, are prime fodder. It also helped that Hearst's brother-in-law was starting to become famous in his own right with Iron Chef and various Food Network shows, so the band decided to start their recipe compositions with him.

Just to make things even more complicated  -er- fun, The band  asked the chefs what style of music they liked and then tried to write the recipe-inspired songs in that style. This meant singing a recipe for Brains and Eggs in a hip-hop style (which I think it lends itself to, don't you?).

You can watch a video of One Ring Zero's musical rendition of a recipe for Peanut Butter Brunettes here.

Music Makes Wine Taste Better

Markus Bachmann, a French horn player from Austria, has created a fermentation system that infuses the music of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Vivaldi and rare orchestra and jazz recordings into wine.

So, I've heard of coconut-infused vodka, and cherry-infused rum, but music-infused wine has got to be the most awesome beverage on the face of the planet.

Managing director of Sonor Wines, Bachman literally puts a speaker into the wine tank that plays music during the fermentation process.The yeast doesn't wear earphones, so the key is in the frequencies and volume. And, according to him, "the yeast starts doing totally different things to wine." Makes sense I guess. Music has been proven to affect plants, and yeast is a bacteria... which is kind of, sort of close to a plant... right?

Anyway, Bachman explains that the speakers he uses have the magnet, but no membrane, so the water directly receives the vibrations. The sound waves help to mix up the yeast, ensuring that they get the sugar they need to respire. Bachman says, "it's the pulse of the rhythm that mixes it. The mixing keeps the yeast much more alive. There is 30 percent more living yeast in the fermentation than in wines without music." The yeast work less and respire more, and the result is a higher alcohol content and richer aroma in the finished product. What does this mean for the wine's taste? It's drier, because more of the sugar is used up. It also tastes much more mature for this reason, meaning that you could make a year old wine taste like a three year old wine.

Now, I have to ask, does the wine have a different personality depending on the music you choose. Say a Led-Zepplin Chardonnay versus a Tchaikovsky Merlot?