Linsey Pollak is brilliant. Some of the best beatboxing coupled with creative musical instrument overlays I’ve ever seen. Turn it up, enjoy Pollak’s musical creativity.

[via wimp.com]

Interview with Brian May, lead guitar player of the group Queen about his Red Special guitar that he and his father built from scratch. The “Whammy bar” is made out of one of his mom’s old knitting needles. Perfect.

[via wimp.com]

Bobby McFerrin is a national treasure. Here he is improvising with a rather large group in a stadium who know exactly how to stick with him.

Here he is doing his thing at TED:

The Maccabeats celebrate Hanukkah. Ya gotta love these guys, they’re so un-self-conscious it makes me smile.

The Maccabeats on Wikipedia and The Maccabeats web site.

They Might Be Giants isn’t a group I follow or listen to although I know they’re quite popular. Somehow I love the names “Istanbul” and “Constantinople.” Don’t know why but I’ve head them rattling around in my head since I was a kid; my father’s mother came through Constantinople on her way to the US so I first heard the name as a kid no doubt. This is great stuff, love all of their gizmos and fun.

[via Coudal Partners]

Stomp in an apartment. Okay, some of it is staged, remixed, edited but it’s the ideas and spirit that count. Great stuff.

[via wimp.com]

Alan Mezquida and smigly do it again.

Glen Gould was a musical genius, no doubt about it. Many thought and think he was mildly autistic but whether he was or wasn’t he had odd quirks which made and in retrospect make him a fascinating character.

Gould was known for his vivid musical imagination, and listeners regarded his interpretations as ranging from brilliantly creative to, on occasion, outright eccentric. His piano playing had great clarity, particularly in contrapuntal passages, and extraordinary control. He was considered a child prodigy, and in adulthood was also described as a musical phenomenon. As he played, he often swayed his torso in a clockwise motion.

[via The Kid Should See This]

Ohga’s connection to music affected the specifications of what became the compact disc. Ohga insisted that the CD be designed to be 12 centimeters (4.8 inches) in diameter so that it could hold 75 minutes worth of music. It was necessary for the CD to support 75 minutes of playback in order for it to be able to hold the entirety of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

Sony sold its first CD in 1982. Ohga insisted CDs would eventually replace record albums, and although many scoffed at the notion, a mere five years later CD sales overtook LP record sales in Japan.

Great anecdote. Too bad Sony didn’t understand what Nicholas Negroponte was talking about in the early ’90s: “Move bits, not atoms.” Audio CDs are in fact digital (as opposed to analog LPs), but the CDs themselves are objects (atoms) and Negroponte was pushing downloading and steaming before the iPod (and Rio).

[via Malia Vatikiotis-Bateson]

Listen to this on good speakers, it’s killer good. This tips me to buying Bennett’s new album when it comes out: Duets II.

Bennett is 85. They’re both musical geniuses.