Happy Friday!
We here at Soundfly HQ have been swamped getting ready for Monday when we’ll be (drumroll, please) LAUNCHING THREE NEW COURSES!!! Huzzah! Fortunately, our friends weren’t going to let us get through the week without seeing all the weird and wonderful things the internet had to offer. And without a doubt, this week turned out to be one of the weirdest. So a hearty thank you to everyone who sent us something amazing. And without further ado…
The best of the musical internet this week
- You may have encountered this video before, it dates back to 2010, but I hadn’t. And it has changed my life. I don’t think I could be more in love. (Embedding has been disabled, but please click through to watch it. It’s a delight.) [Leslie Hall]
- Who doesn’t want to watch little kids playing Led Zeppelin on xylophones (and marimbas and vibraphones and bongos)?! [Booooooom]
- Studies are showing that drummers may in fact be some of the smartest people out there. Which sent me down an internet rabbit hole in search of more on the studies mentioned, landing me here—a 90s-style collection of mean spirited jokes about drummers. We here at Soundfly are nothing if not fair and balanced. [3tags.org and DrumJokes.com]
- The New York Times ran a fascinating piece about the opening of Iran to American music and musicians and the cultural exchange that’s happening as a result. Who wants to go to Tehran? [New York Times]
- Ready for more weirdness? You have to watch this faux-mercial for “Raisin Brahms”. Even better, we found it because master classical violinist, Itzhak Perlman posted it to his Facebook page. [Youtube]
- I can’t get over the backend coordination it took to pull off Lady Gaga’s killer Sound of Music performance at the Oscars last Sunday. Half of the orchestra, playing live, was set up in a sound studio blocks away with the sound piped in for the performance over the internet. (In fact, that’s how they did the music for the entire awards show!) We live in the future. [ABC, Facebook, Playbill]
- In researching my Tuesday post on the Sam Smith-Tom Petty controversy, I came across this older article on the effect that listening to music has on our brains. I couldn’t fit it into that post, but it was so interesting I wanted to make sure to share it! [NY Times]
- Here’s a dog that plays cowbell. [Mashable]
- Chilly Gonzales deconstructs this year in pop music. [BBC Radio 1 on Youtube]
What we’ve been listening to
- London-duo Oh Wonder are taking a new approach to releasing music—they’re putting out one track every month for a year. They’ve got six so far and we love every one.
- Our production manager, John Hull went to a Relatives show this week and was flabbergasted.
- Ian just met the tireless, globe-traveling musician Tina Guo, a classical cellist with a surprising love of heavy metal.
- And then Tina told us to check out singer and Youtube star, Peter Hollens who makes these crazy covers, replicating every sound with his voice alone. And he does a lot of Lord of the Rings songs, so we’re sold.
- Ending on a mellower tone this week, a bunch of us went to check out a Groupmuse show last night and were blown away by the solo cellist playing J.S. Bach’s Cello Suites. Relive the moment with us and have a classy rest of your afternoon!