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Made in New York

Business Week has a cool photo essay on the making of a Steinway. The accompanying article is worth reading, too, but the pix are primo.

Where else are you going to learn stuff like: "During the 'voicing' process, a master 'voicer' makes adjustments to the hammer's resiliency by sticking the felt with a small row of needles to reduce its stiffness, thereby mellowing its tone. To increase the brilliance of the sound, the voicer hardens the felt by applying a small amount of lacquer."

BTW, I'm going to Steinway Hall tonight to hear this. If you're free (and in town), you might want…

Music and the Brain

Greg Stepanich watches House. It seems like he got more out of the recent episode featuring Dave Matthews than I did.

Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction

Especially when it comes to Nikola Tesla.

Via Boing-Boing.

As She Climbed Across the Audiophile

"Nice blogging," says JA.

"Thanks."

"Who's the kid?"

"Which kid?"

"The kid you wrote about on Friday."

"Hmm?"

"Is it the same kid who sent the letter?"

"Which? Who? Wait, what are you talking about?"

"Hmm?"

"'My mind is a sieve.' Pip used to say that."

"Who?"

"Pip."

"What?"

"My mind is a sieve."

"Who said that?"

"Pip."

"What did she say?"

"My mind is a sieve."

"Who?"

"Pip."

"What did she say?"

"My mind is a sieve."

"…

Touchstone

It's a good thing for us that Jeremy Denk got restless at a concert recently. One thought led to another, he rushed home to check out a CD he thought linked to his thoughts, and the next thing we know, he's deep into an analysis of the chorale in Beethoven's "Spring" sonata (No. 5 in F, Op. 24).

What a great trip it is.

Everything We Thought We Knew About the Sun Is Now Out of Date

The Japanese orbiting solar observatory Hinode has captured startling images of the Sun's outer limb and giant magnetic field loops crashing down into its surface. "Where astronomers expected to see a calm region called the chromosphere, they saw a seething mass of swaying spikes."

You've got to watch the video.

Roll Over Beethoven

"Intelligent teenagers often listen to heavy metal music to cope with the pressures associated with being talented, according to research."

The Peculiar Pleasure of Ear Plugs

Thomas Beller meditates on the pleasures of taking an aural time out. At Tyll Hertsens' urging, I began doing this about 10 years ago—it's amazing how much it makes you hear what you normally tune out. Of course, that's not always a good thing, as Beller points out.

Audiophile, with Occasional Music

(all you ever have to know about life is that little girls are taught to dance and little boys are taught to kick it's all over from there my son is going to get a whole bunch of garbage for his birthday and i'll say here boy play music)
&#151lines from an old poem, "the green water rocks / make me cry," by me

I'm not sure, exactly, what the hell I was talking about. I know that it had something to do with the band I was in. We banged on garbage cans, you know, and many of our "instruments" were things we'd simply found around campus, and especially along the Hackensack River,…

SXSW Part 3

SXSW Part 3 So it was definitely the year of the female singer at SXSW 2007. Lily Allen was sassy and backed by a horn section. White dudes hooting on tenors, always a good time. The person I was with turned to me about halfway through and said, "I like this but I can’t tell you why." I took that to be a good sign.

Then there was Amy Winehouse. A total throwback, kind of a modern day version of Ronnie Spector, she's a deep&#150voiced, tough chick with a keen retro sense, a well developed sense of humor and a killer live act. While the music is a dead ringer for girl group fare from…