Maybe. But the rumor is that users would expect to pay a high price when they buy iPods and iPhones in order to get the free pass to the iTunes library.
So how high are we talking about? How will other companies compete?
The inner workings of songs from Arctic Monkeys, Radiohead, John Lennon, Queen and Amy Winehouse, among others.
Using chord variations to manipulate listeners’ emotions is also discussed at length in This is Your Brain on Music: the Science of a Human Obsession, by Daniel J. Levitin, which I got for Christmas. Thanks, Chris!
The list includes Tim Burton, Robin Williams, Buzz Aldrin, Robert Downey, Jr., Francis Ford Coppola, Ted Turner and many musicians. Nina Simone is not listed here, but there is mention in her wikipedia entry that her diagnosis was kept a secret.
A scholarly discussion (with tongue firmly in cheek) published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. The site has a bit of a problem displaying text via Firefox on a Mac, your experience might be better.
Bands such as Arcade Fire and RyanDan are letting fans control the movement on their videos, and embedding links to further info and shopping.
The neurologist who wrote Awakenings and The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat examines how music played a role in some of his patients’ disorders (including his experience with his own leg). A review from Slate.
Up at the jr. high field, the high school band is performing during lunch. On a very windy day, all that drifts over is drums.
This must be from last year’s show. I still get a little misted up watching this stuff. Six years as a band parent will do that.
Do I miss it? Um, no.
In this corner of Cupertino is Apple and iTunes (80% market share), and over here in another corner of Cupertino is gBox. Google is involved, but only via their ads, they say.
Outside of Silicon Valley, Amazon enters the fray, with Wal-Mart and Best Buy stepping up efforts to topple iTunes’ dominance.
Will the price of a song go down?
So what are the elements of music that sends shivers up and down your spine? Shrieking violins are common, as are menacing horns. Spectral voices, especially those chanting Latin, can be found in many pieces. Sounds that mimic alarms. Percussive panting that conjures up rabid beasts hot on your trail.
The unnamed anime piece mentioned in the previous post has all these (minus the Latin), punctuated with the pure and innocent wind chimes.
From Rolling Stone, a report on the how and why, with grim statistics.
Working with a software engineer and a mathematician, Townshend’s brainchild creates music from your personal data.
I’ve been re-reading Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho on my train ride to work, and to liven things up (not that the book needs anything additional to entertain me) I decided to keep tabs on the music Bateman listens to and is exposed to in the book. So far, aside from the obvious artists Bateman spends full chapters expressing his opinions of (Genesis, Huey Lewis and the News, Whitney Huston), he also listens to the Talking Heads, Stephen Bishop, and Christopher Cross, and is also exposed at various times to several other 80’s artists: The Crystals, The Ronettes, The Shirelles, INXS, and Belinda Carlisle, to name a few. Some of them I have never heard of, but I guess that’s not surprising.
A couple of other music-related experiences I’ve had related to the book - first, I happened listening to The Axis of Perdition during one of the more gruesome parts while reading the book for the first time. The song contained a sample from the horror movie Event Horizon, and I felt that the sample along with the violent nature of the music was a pretty good complement for the book. More recently, I was reading it while listening to random Melt-Banana songs, which was an awesome experience.. the frenetic, bizarre music and Yasuko’s chipmunk-on-speed vocals went well with the book’s dark humor and Bateman’s occaisional hallucinations. It is kind of hard to concentrate for very long when listening to them though.
According to a new study out of Canada, kids who take music lessons do better on memory tests than their nonmusical peers. The research was performed on children ages four to six, duration of the lessons was one year.
In a new report, researchers find that iPod users seldom buy from iTunes. Where does all that music come from then?
According to the study, most of it hails from the owner’s CD collection or from file-sharing. File-sharing?
The Independent takes a look at Mercora, last.fm, MyStrands, Pandora and others.
While messing around on last.fm, I learned of a horrifying European character called Crazy Frog. People in the US don’t seem to be too familiar with Crazy Frog, but apparently there is a song by Crazy Frog which people generally agree is one of the most irritating songs ever made by man. A search for ‘crazy frog’ on YouTube will get you a taste of what this sounds like.
From last.fm:
The success of this album along with the “Axel F” single has irritated and baffled many critics and musicians. This is mostly due to the Frog’s constant chart domination despite the hatred of so many, and the frustration of legitimate musicians selling well below him.
Anyway, through Crazy Frog I discovered many of the more negative tags on last.fm, such as “the worst thing ever to happen to music” (Crazy Frog is by far the top artist), “kill me now,” and “rapes my ears”. I made sure to tag my musical nemesis Kelly Clarkson with all these tags.
Cows seem to appreciate music. And why shouldn’t they?
The article includes a link to kulning, a method of herd calling that contains elements of fear, that is, screaming.
Listen to algorithmic music based on a word of your choosing. I picked ‘precipitation’ because we had some, unexpectedly, this afternoon.
So who uses algorithmic composition? Brian Eno, for one.
Surrounded by metal fans in a small Scottish town, a 15-year old Alan Warner discovers music that he can relate to in Can.
In a child born with Williams, there are about 20 genes missing in the brain. IQ will always be low, and the simplest act can be profoundly difficult.
However, many have extremely outgoing personalities, a very cheerful attitude, and a stunning ability with music.
We all respond to music in our own way, even if we can’t sing a note in tune. Few, if any, cultures exist that don’t have some form of sound that can be interpreted as a kind of music.
People handicapped by medical disabilities that severely hamper their senses relate that they can still appreciate music.
Some studies show that infants might be born with perfect pitch, but lose this ability as they mature.
Why is music so important to mankind? Theories abound, including one from Darwin, who thought music had a role in the mating process. Other scientists think music could have been a non-threatening way to bond with fellow humans for survival purposes.
