Guitar Wizard is an education-focused video game that teaches kids of all ages to read and play music. Guitar Wizard will be available for both PC and Mac and will come with a real Washburn guitar and a MIDI pickup. The game’s unique, patented, 4-step learning method allows anyone to learn to play a real guitar and read music in minutes! The software is also compatible with any MIDI guitar.
This is one of the many booths being publicized for the upcoming CES convention in Las Vegas, NV from January 7-10, 2008.
One of the reasons Usenet was singled out in this lawsuit is because of some of their advertising language to potential subscribers: Usenet.com boasts that signing up for an account "gives you access to millions of MP3 files and also enables you to post your own files the same way and share them with the whole world."The Recording Industry Association of America has found a new legal target for a copyright lawsuit: Usenet.
In a lawsuit filed on October 12, the RIAA says that Usenet newsgroups contain "millions of copyrighted sound recordings" in violation of federal law.
Only Usenet.com is named as a defendant for now, but the same logic would let the RIAA sue hundreds of universities, Internet service providers, and other newsgroup archives. AT&T offers Usenet, as does Verizon, Stanford University and other companies including Giganews.
That's what makes this lawsuit important. If the RIAA can win against Usenet.com, other Usenet providers are at legal risk, too.
In a study comparing amusics to people with normal musical ability, researchers used a brain imaging and statistical technique to measure the density of the white matter (which consists of connecting nerve fibers) between the right frontal lobe, where higher thinking occurs, and the right temporal lobes, where basic processing of sound occurs. The white matter of the amusics was thinner, which suggests a weaker connection. Moreover, the worse the tone deafness, the thinner the white matter.
The research team showed that music engages the areas of the brain involved with paying attention, making predictions and updating the event in memory. Peak brain activity occurred during a short period of silence between musical movements - when seemingly nothing was happening.Here's what they observed:
An event change - the movement transition signaled by the termination of one movement, a brief pause, followed by the initiation of a new movement - activates the first network, called the ventral fronto-temporal network. Then a second network, the dorsal fronto-parietal network, turns the spotlight of attention to the change and, upon the next event beginning, updates working memory. "The study suggests one possible adaptive evolutionary purpose of music," said Jonathan Berger, PhD, professor of music and a musician who is another co-author of the study. Music engages the brain over a period of time, he said, and the process of listening to music could be a way that the brain sharpens its ability to anticipate events and sustain attention.Makes for a great argument that people who like to sit and stare at the wall might actually be doing a whole lot of brain processing in those moments of silence and seeming inactivity.
Better than a singing telegram, http://www.tailoredmusic.com/ lets you 'give a gift of custom tailored music'.
Proteins are created by sequences of amino acids. Molecular biologists at UCLA have assigned each of the 20 amino acids a different musical chord.
Pic: The user positions him/herself in front of the camera and chooses a tracking point (usually the tip of the nose). (Credit: Rensselaer/Zane Van Dusen)This is just the beginning. They hope to use this interface for a variety of tasks.
"Beyond musical communication, Van Dusen sees potential for the device to allow users to create verbal exchanges: “The interface could be adapted to create speech software, allowing those who suffer from CP to form full sentences, rather than just yes or no responses.”"
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070513074258.htm
Would be fun for my next party.Much easier than having the audience learn a musical instrument. Makes me really want to get that theremin now though. What other instruments can you play without actually touching it?"...Freeman is creating a work in which a restless audience is very literally part of the music. Listeners and musicians are encouraged to wander around the performance space during the concert, while digital cameras track their motion.
Those movements are fed into a software simulation, and Freeman's algorithms, using parameters such as distance from performers, speed and "sheepiness," use the data to dynamically create a score on Pocket PCs attached to the musicians' instruments. Wave a hand, or run around the room, and you'll almost immediately hear the results.
"It's part inspired by a cocktail party, and part by a dance club environment," Freeman said. "Even in part by a multiplayer game, where people are in competition to influence the music by convincing people to follow them."
"A father and son who became fascinated by symbols carved into the chapel's arches say they have deciphered a musical score encrypted in them. Thomas Mitchell, a 75-year-old musician and ex-Royal Air Force code breaker, and his composer and pianist son Stuart, described the piece as "frozen music."
Stuart Mitchell said he and his father were intrigued by 13 intricately carved angel musicians on the arches of the chapel and by 213 carved cubes depicting geometric-type patterns.
Years of research led the Mitchells to an ancient musical system called cymatics, or Chladni patterns, which are formed by sound waves at specific pitches.
The two men matched each of the patterns on the carved cubes to a Chladni pitch, and were able finally to unlock the melody."
Pic: Coronal loops are generated by the Sun's magnetic field"Solar explosions called micro-flares generate sound booms which are then propagated along the coronal loops....The coronal loops arch hundreds of thousands of kilometres above the Sun's surface like huge fiery fountains, and are generated by the Sun's magnetic field...As solar plasma travels from the photosphere into the loops, it is heated from about 6,000 Kelvin (5,700C) to upwards of one million Kelvin.Solar explosions called micro-flares can release energy equivalent to millions of hydrogen bombs.These blasts can send immensely powerful acoustic waves hurtling through the loops at tens of kilometres per second, creating cosmic "organ music". "These loops can be up to 100 million kilometres long and guide waves and oscillations in a similar way to a pipe organ"http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6574059.stm
Most repetitive aerobic activities usually go better with music: jogging, cycling, and others that your imagination may drift to as you read this. ;-)
