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MIT Media Lab has posted a survey seeking to discover "what words people use to describe sounds—and whether everyone uses a common vocabulary, or whether the choice of words is related to a person's musical or cultural background—and how the chosen words relate to a sound's timbral characteristics."
Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! Tonight, John Atkinson is going to give me an honest to God production copy of the Attention Screen Live at Merkin Hall CD. You need to get one too. In the meantime, here's an interview with one of the truly great improvisors, Keith Jarrett.
"There's no change in the basic plan, which is that there is no plan."
Days pass, there are weddings and funerals, pink flowers smile everywhere, and we get closer and closer to the 2007 Home Entertainment Show.
I love wandering the hotel halls, listening for music, knowing that behind every door is the possibility of something new and wonderful. For now, my desk is covered in the press announcements, silent unveilings and invitations and enticements.
Among the many I received today, one stands out. A quick and simple note, in no fancy dress, lacking commas and periods and capitalization: "hope all is well" it says. "if you have a moment…
Classical Values takes a sharp look at the much ballyhooed honeybee blight. "The bees that seem to be suffering from Colony Collapse Disorder are the ones that get boxed up and trucked around, and they've been kept going for decades with regular dustings of miticides. Whether this is good for bees and how long they can be expected to compete with wild insects is of course debatable."
Hmmm, I did not know that.
I check in on aggregator blog Locust Street every week and it's almost always worth the visit. The last two weeks, however, have been extraordinary. Last week's deep excavation of the "Dry Bones" meme was perfect, but this week's theme of party girls is even better. Go—but only if you have a few hours to spend.
"A massive 83 million tapes were sold in the UK in 1989. Yet by last year the figure had fallen to a mere 100,000. In the Nineties sales of pre-recorded tapes were overtaken by CDs and record companies started phasing them out."
We will begin coverage of HE 2007 in New York starting Thursday, May 10. Stay tuned for reports from all three days of the show.
Counting down to HE2007, I'm starting to link each day to a hi-fi topic.
"Vacuum tube technology is a classic electronic technology that’s not going to go away. Why abandon a technology just because it’s old?"
"Every time [the robot] found a mine, blew it up and lost a limb, it picked itself up and readjusted to move forward on its remaining legs, continuing to clear a path through the minefield.
"Finally it was down to one leg. Still, it pulled itself forward. Tilden was ecstatic. The machine was working splendidly.
"The human in command of the exercise, however—an Army colonel—blew a fuse.
"The colonel ordered the test stopped.
"Why? asked Tilden. What's wrong?
"The colonel just could not stand the pathos of watching the burned, scarred and crippled machine…
Thomas E. Witte tells the story of an amazing photograph—and an even more amazing athlete.