WMFU's Kenny G devoted 3 hours on Christmas day to a partial rendition of Eric Satie's Vexations, a 18 hour repetitive piece reported to induce hallucinations and amnesia in its performers.
To play this motif 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities.
[via Scribbler]
An Æolian harp is an ancient Greek instrument played by the winds (or Æolus). At the The Æolian Interface Project researchers attempted to create a MIDI interface to such a harp. The design team discovered that wind did not move strings enough for a pickup to detect. Instead, they used sensors to detect wind speed and direction and translate that input into music. There, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be any sound clips.
Studio 360's theme this week is Numbers, Theorems, Truth. I haven't heard the whole thing, but this piece with Eve Beglarian on the application of math to composing was interesting.
Icestock: The album is now downloadable. The concert was held December 30th at McMurdo Base in Antarctica.
Farmer arrested in 'rave rage' standoff: Apparently a loophole in a British law prevents farmers from keeping ravers off their land. "We had one police sergeant, 70 ravers and one unhappy landowner."
Also found in wandering through some of these Somalian sites: a collection of music in RealAudio from the region.
Dialtones: Golan Levin, Scott Gibbons, and Gregory Shakar perform symphonies using the audience's cell phones. [via gammatron]
The Messiah Violin is supposed to be the most valuable in the world, but its authenticity has been called into question using both paper trails and a 1998 analysis, initiated by Stewart Pollens and carried out by Peter Klein, of closeup photos of the tree rings, which suggested the tree was cut down after Antonio Stradivari died. A microscopic study by John Topham and Derek McCormick in 2000 compared the instrument to other verified Stradivari and found it was from the right time period. Now a second study, led by Henri Grissino-Mayer, who stepped into the rather heated controversy last year, verifies that work.
