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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAgdT-YO_nc Tis the season when we’re never more than one singalong Messiah away from wishing we had a better voice. David Li’s interactive Blob Opera allows us to pretend. The machine learning experiment takes its cues from four opera singers—soprano Olivia Doutney, mezzo-soprano Joanna Gamble, tenor Christian Joel, and bass Freddie Tong—who provided it with 16 hours of recorded material. The result is truly […] The Blob Opera Lets You Create Festive Music...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fu40YANO1M Billy Idol has long evaded straightforward musical classification, being a full-on star but one fully belonging to neither rock nor pop. He may have come up in the 1970s as the frontman of Generation X, the first punk band to play Top of the Pops, but the hits he went on to make as […] When Billy Idol Went Cyberpunk: See His Tribute...

Throughout the past week, we’ve read many tributes to Eddie Van Halen and his endless capacity for innovation. Stylistically, EVH changed the sound of rock with tapping, a technique that let him play rapid arpeggios with two hands on the guitar’s fretboard. (Exhibit A is here.) Technically, he created a unique sound by fashioning his […] The Great Illustration That Accompanied Eddie Van Halen’s...

What is the musical instrument most thoroughly of the 1980s? Many would say the "keytar," a class of synthesizer keyboards shaped and worn like a guitar. Their relatively light weights and affordable prices, even when first brought to market, put keytars within the reach of musicians who wanted to possess both the wide sonic palette […] The Story of the SynthAxe, the Astonishing 1980s...

The Deutsches Uhrensmuseum introduces the French-made Peter Pan clock above as follows: Even as early as 1930, people were trying to find a way to replace the unpleasant sound of the alarm clock. The inventor of this gramophone alarm clock had a brilliant idea. The gramophone works like the standard alarm clock of those days; […] 1930s Phonograph Doubled as an Alarm Clock, Letting...

When we consider the many identities of David Bowie — Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, the Thin White Duke — we often neglect to include his transformation into an internet entrepreneur. In line with Bowie's reputation for being ahead of his time in all endeavors, it happened several tech booms ago, in the late 1990s. Foreseeing […] When David Bowie Launched His Own Internet Service...

When Helen Keller was only twelve years old, she stood accused of plagiarizing a short story. A tribunal acquitted her of the charges, but when her dear friend Mark Twain read about the incident years later, he strenuously protested, exclaiming in a 1903 letter, “the kernel, the soul—let us go further and say the substance, […] Every Possible Melody Has Been Copyrighted, and They’re...

The techno-futurist prophets of the late 20th century, from J.G. Ballard to William Gibson to Donna Haraway, were right, it turns out, about the intimate physical unions we would form with our machines. Haraway, professor emeritus of the History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, proclaimed herself a cyborg […] Electronic Musician Shows How He Uses His Prosthetic...

For decades we've been hearing promises about how communication technology will one day eliminate distance itself, making everyone around the globe feel as if they might as well be in the same room. Such a future would have its downside as well as its upside, but even now, approaching the third decade of the 21st […] The Virtual Choir: Watch a Choir Conductor Digitally...

When I was a little boy, I thought the greatest thing in the world would be to be able to make records. — Fred Rogers By 1972, when the above episode of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood aired, host Fred Rogers had already cut four records, including the hit-filled A Place of Our Own. But a childlike curiosity compelled […] Mister Rogers Demonstrates How to Cut a Record...

Glenn Gould made his name as a pianist with his stark, idiosyncratic interpretations of the music of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and especially Bach. He left behind not just a highly respected body of work in the form of recorded performances, but also a host of strong opinions about music itself and all that culturally and commercially surrounded […] Hear Glenn Gould Sing the Praise of the...

Some enjoy free jazz as soon as they first hear it; others think it sounds like music from an alien civilization, a listening experience fit only for a jazz fan as high as a kite. But how about as high as a space probe? Outerhelios, a 24/7 stream of artificial intelligence-generated free jazz, comes designed […] What Happens When Artificial Intelligence Listens to John...

Do you remember your first Walkman? If you grew up after the cassette era, of course, you might have owned a CD-playing Discman instead, or maybe — just maybe — even a Minidisc Walkman. Nowadays you probably have an iPod or iPod-like digital audio player as well as a cellphone equipped to serve the same […] The Walkman Turns 40: See Every Generation of...