In this week’s news from planet 21st century, the musicians who perform at Playbar, a small venue in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Surry Hills, have been silenced by Sydney’s “offensive noise” laws after…
If someone sold it, and you can hold it, you can pass it on.
Michael D. Dunn
What’s the difference between selling a secondhand music CD and transferring ownership of the same songs bought from iTunes?
Not much, you’d think – except one’s illegal, according to a New York court…
If the new Marilyn Manson video showed a young woman disembowelling herself with a large sword because she had lost her lover it would be banned instantly. But this same scene is tolerated nightly in opera house performances of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly.
EPA/TOR ERIK SCHRODER
As Jane Austen probably wanted to say, it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good Black Sabbath CD must be in want of a shotgun.
We are so encultured to believe that…
There’s loads of evidence that the type of music played affects shoppers' buying habits.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hopkinsii
I spent the Christmas of 1988-89 stacking shelves in a liquor store. It paid $2 per hour (a pittance even way back then), and the boss made me mop the floor before vacuuming it, which continues to annoy…
Minami Minegishi, member of Japanese pop group AKB48, made a tearful public apology on AKB48’s YouTube channel.
YouTube
Japanese pop star Minami Minegashi made headlines worldwide after shaving her head and making an dramatic public apology on Youtube for violating her pop group AKB48’s strict no dating policy.
While shocking…
Ever wondered why remastered compilations sound so awful? John Maynard Keynes may have the answer.
Affendaddy
Music fans may have noticed something odd when their favourite artists release new “best-of” compilations or remaster back catalogues for CD or iTunes. Over successive reissues, the same songs sound worse…
It’s easy for uninhibited humans to elicit vocal responses from gibbons by imitating their song.
Jerome Ludmann
Gibbons and humans have more in common than might immediately seem apparent. Among many behavioural traits shared by our two species is singing. Not just that – the songs of gibbons have the potential…
Music can create a vortex – and a coupling of cortexes.
AlicePopkorn
Music is an emotional business. But is it also a natural law, bound in with our bodies and ideas of motion we’re only beginning to understand?
I am in the unique position of studying with both Professor…
Politicians should invoke the Boss at their peril.
EPA/Daniel Dal Zennaro
Wayne Swan’s deeply felt and widely pilloried use of the music of Bruce Springsteen as some kind of political motivation begs some interesting questions.
On the one hand it has those of us who remember…
Does music feel and talk like we do?
John Mallon Iphoneography
A fine musician complemented by a fine musical instrument can communicate a range of strong emotions. But even the best of these combinations cannot speak in the sense of transferring textual information…
The Higgs boson is alive with the sound of music.
rafeejewell
The July 4 discovery of a particle that closely resembles the Higgs boson opens a new era in science: it should help us understand some fundamental mysteries, such as how microscopic particles attain their…
“Physics permeates the language we use to describe music, and the concepts we use to understand it.”
Ravages
My ANU colleague John Rayner’s excellent recent article
on the physics of music seemed to touch a nerve with the readership of The Conversation.
Although beautifully framed by the personal and anecdotal…
Music is the language of love – and it exemplifies some principles of science.
Roxanne Milward
My wife Theresa represents many things for me – in addition to being my partner, I see her as a 17cm-long quarter-wavelength resonator (which I hope you’ll understand and agree with by the end of this…
Roll up for the mathematical mystery tour.
Lucy (嘉莉)
“TWANG! It’s been a …”
There is perhaps no song as quintessentially Beatle-ish as A Hard Day’s Night – it just bubbles with unbridled enthusiasm and joy. And in my mind, there’s no other opening chord…
Nice sounds – but are you responding to the bass or your basal ganglia?
TORIMBC
There’s no doubt rock music evokes excitement, but is there more to that excitement than guitar solos and head banging?
Writing in the Telegraph recently, science correspondent Nick Collins remarked…
Feel free to bust out some tunes, but you won’t fool the children of the evolution.
Verano y mil tormentas
What transforms noise from album filler to dancefloor killer? Why do some tracks turn us on while others make us tune out?
DarwinTunes, a computer program that employs the principles of natural selection…
There were protests against cuts to the ANU’s school of music, but the changes were sorely needed.
Flickr/Orangedrummerboy
The current crisis at the ANU School of Music has widely been reported as being, fundamentally, about money. The Australian National University’s (ANU) Vice-Chancellor Ian Young has cut ten academic and…
The ANU music school cannot replace live one-on-one teaching with online lessons.
Flickr/Orangedrummerboy
The Australian National University (ANU) has recently announced serious changes to the School of Music in Canberra. Students will receive fewer hours of one-on-one performance lessons, and the current…
Orchestra of nature: artist Bartholomäus Traubeck has converted pieces of trees into music.
Eric C Bryan
What is the music of trees? German artist Bartholomäus Traubeck spun slices of logs on turntables that translate their textures and annual rings into music. Traubeck calls the result Years, and I played…
Emo music may be bleak but there’s no evidence to show it causes depression.
Flickr/Corrie
By Andy Brader, Queensland University of Technology
Like death metal and grunge before it, emo music has copped more than its fair share of criticism since it rose to prominence a decade ago. Rather than being seen as an outlet for young people to express…
It’s December 15th, 1983. Around 13,000 people, a capacity crowd, are packed into the Sydney Entertainment Centre. This is the last of five Cold Chisel shows there.
Fans had queued for blocks, some had…
Almost a third of professional musicians regularly take medication to manage their performance anxiety.
Flickr/kronik
“One of the most exhilarating experiences I know of is performing in public, especially when there is a magnificent piano under my fingers, great music in my head, and the feeling that there are no technical…
Under the Milky Way is an iconic Australian song.
flickr/Doug Klembara
Sometimes we just get sucked into a story. Reason, caution and scepticism sometimes just get swiftly sidelined for a story that’s captivating. And sometimes, along the gay girl in Syria, Colorado balloon…
Rock stars are successful in the bedroom, but all too often their wild lifestyle catches up with them.
Flickr/Chalocuaz
Kurt Cobain was the messiah of my generation, the monumental talent who saved rock from the mediocrity of 1980s cock rock and hair metal. But behind his public eminence stalked a personal hell of addiction…
Did music precede language for Homo sapiens?
Spuz/Flickr
All human cultures and social groups that we know of respond to music and dance. The type of music may vary but the underlying, fundamental principles of making music are the same.
Our recognition of…
