A scientific study made some news recently declaring that, when playing blindfolded, even professional violinists cannot tell a Stradivarius from a modern instrument.
Except it didn’t. As often happens when a ‘finding’ jumps from a journal to the news, the nuance was lost. Laurie Niles, a violinist and blogger who participated in the study, explains how it was done and what conclusions were actually drawn. Essentially, they were only asked their personal preferences and not to identify instruments.
In their coverage, NPR has side by side audio samples of a Strad and a modern instrument. Who knew they had that kind of budget.
For a couple of years in my early twenties, I was a die-hard believer in the Sapir-Whorf, though I had never encountered the term, or even read a description of it, which begins to hint at what’s wrong with it as a theory.
Samuel R. Delany in a recent interview with the Paris Review. I’m reading his novel Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand — and it’s something else.
Art blog BOOOOOOOM asked readers to submit classic art remakes using only a camera. While the most literal ones are admirable, I like the oblique approach to some others, like the Mondrian above. Click through for many, many more.
I’m looking forward to checking out Andrew Bird and Ian Schneller’s “Sonic Arboretum” at the MCA this month. More info from AV Club.
This fan-made credit sequence for the new Tintin movie got its creator, animator James Curran, a job directly from Spielberg on a future film. Apparently there are references to all 24 Tintin books in the piece. HD on vimeo. Who’s Tintin?
This automated guitar can play in ways impossible for a two-handed, ten-fingered human. The folks at RagtimeWest build automated instruments and even entire automated bands. The results are fascinating and eerily soulless. A couple more guitar tracks:
The same group built some musicbots for Pat Metheny’s project Orchestrion.
