Can't Get It Out Of My Head!

Recently someone sent me this interesting article about "earworms" which is "a term for a song stuck in one's head, particularly an annoying one," according to Wikipedia. I had absolutely no idea that there was a term for this particularly irritating phenomenon! What struck me most about this article is that researchers were able to confirm the existence of these so-called earworms and that at least 98% of people have had songs stuck in their head! Apparently, musicians/music lovers and those with "compulsive tendencies" may be more affected than others. Not only that, this "stuck song syndrome" is more frequent and lasts even longer for musicians! One of the reasons being that they are more exposed to music and encounter more repetition during rehearsals. The areas of the brain that are involved in listening to and creating music also plays another role for musicians. Another interesting point about earworms is that women are more susceptible to earworms than men! There haven't yet been any reasons as to why this is. As for now, it'll remain a mystery...

My earworms come in various degrees of intensity and levels of aggravation. What is the absolute worst possible scenario for me is when I have a song stuck in my head and I don't know the lyrics. So what happens is that the same part keeps repeating over and over again and I can't for the life of me get that song out of my head. The song simply bores into my head, it won't let go, and even worse, there's simply no known cure. What I usually end up doing is to try talking to someone about it (and hopefully pass the song along to them) or I try humming a different song (only to find that the new song gets stuck in my head). There is a web site called "Maim That Tune" that picks a substitute earworm for you (this is like hitting yourself in the thumb with a hammer so you can forget about your backache).

Despite the fact that these tunes are just so unbearably memorable, there are surprisingly positive things that can come out of earworms. Singer-songwriter Neil Diamond says those repetitive notes that won't go away have spawned some of the greatest hits of his career! I'm waiting for that day...

Here they are, the top 10 earworms!

1. Kylie Minogue, Can't Get You Out of My Head
2. James Blunt, You're Beautiful
3. Baha Men, Who Let the Dogs Out
4. Mission Impossible theme
5. Village People, YMCA
6. Happy Days theme
7. Corinne Bailey Rae, Put Your Records On
8. Suzanne Vega, Tom's Diner
9. Tight Fit, The Lion Sleeps Tonight
10. Tiffany, I Think We're Alone Now

A Different Way of Playing

I'd thought I'd share this neat clip. It showcases a person playing the piano a different kind of way. Not the traditional way of playing with two hands on the keyboard. I won't describe just how he plays, but I'll tell you it's definitely a very creative way of playing the piano. Towards the end of the clip, he starts playing really fast and it's simply amazing to watch! While playing, you can see that he truly is enjoying himself. It's nice to know that people are enjoying what they're good at doing. As I've heard people say, "enjoy what you do, and do what you enjoy." Something to keep in mind as we go about our everyday lives...

So do check out this clip when you get a chance! The guy is pretty funny, he definitely made me smile a few times! A very entertaining clip, definitely worth watching!



Quite talented if you ask me!

Pandora

Recently I came across a really neat online application. It's an internet radio called "Pandora" and it was created by the Music Genome Project, a group of musicians and music technologists. Pandora is not your average internet radio where you listen to random songs and artists. The really cool thing about Pandora is that when you create a radio station it lets you type in a song or artist you like and it instantly finds other music that might fit your taste, or what some may call "genetically similar songs." In other words, having analyzed the musical structures present in the songs you like, Pandora creates a radio station that will only play songs with similar musical traits to the song you typed in. It relies on a Music Genome that consists of 400 musical attributes covering the qualities of melody, harmony, rhythm, form, composition and lyrics.

Another neat feature of Pandora is that you can give it feedback so it can refine our station based on our likes and dislikes. You can give any song the station plays either a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down, and providing this feedback instantly changes your station's playlist. The result is a progressively personalized radio station that really does play only music you want to hear. It's always nice to have a personalized playlist based on our own musical preferences!

Some of the other things you can do with Pandora: you can create up to 100 stations, share a station with a friend through an e-mail link, register for RSS feeds to find out what your friends are listening to, what the top 20 artists are, add a song to your favorites list so you can keep track of the music you like, etc. And who knows? Pandora may even help you discover new music that you'll like!

There's definitely a lot going on with the Pandora player, but it's all pretty easy to access once you get the hang of it. Do check it out when you get a chance!

A Night at the Movies

After a stressful week, I finally sat down yesterday evening and relaxed by watching the live telecast of the Academy Awards. There's just something nice about getting all my work done for the upcoming week and sitting down and watching some TV. I'm definitely a big movie fan so I (usually) try to keep up to date on the nominated movies and actors. In the past, I used to get crazy during Oscar time. I would feel a strong need to see as many of the movies on the Oscars list as possible. (Soon I found out that this was way too overwhelming so I stopped).

While critics are predicting winners of the major categories (Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress) or even which film will take home the Best Picture Oscar, I think there's an often overlooked, musically oriented category that deserves our undivided attention. I'm of course talking about the "Best Original Score" category. You know, the award for the best music specifically written for film. Without music, movies would have no atmosphere. There would be no transition and the mood would be extremely difficult to establish. Thank goodness the Academy Awards honor the best score and the best song!

This year's field of Oscar-nominated musical scores are an interesting mix of styles and genres. We have music drawing from a variety of cultures (Gustavo Santaolalla's Babel), a tender and dramatic, orchestral/choral score for a dark fantasy (Javier Navarrete's Pan's Labyrinth), the light, animated, and even mischievous score for Alexandre Desplat's The Queen, the powerful, ominous, and masterfully orchestrated score for Philip Glass's Notes on a Scandal, and the classically melodramatic epic score for Thomas Newman's The Good German.

Apple has a very cool site where you can watch trailers, listen to clips/podcasts of all the nominated movies. See you next year at the 80th Annual Academy Awards! I'll leave you with a meaningful quote from the Oscar-nominated compose Alexandre Desplat.

“The main goal is to be able to write music which is dedicated to the movie but still stands by itself. I don’t want to be a machine that writes notes. When I go to a concert, I don’t like a soloist who plays notes, I want to hear a soloist who plays music. It’s about moving you, about making your emotions tremble. If I can achieve that, then I have succeeded.”
--Alexandre Desplat

Thoughts on Distance Learning Technology

Today, teaching and learning are no longer confined to the classroom or the school day. There are many technologies that can offer a great deal of flexibility in when, where, and how education is distributed. Distance learning applications, especially in higher education, are growing at a rapid pace. It is hard to believe, but it is now possible to obtain a college degree without physically attending a traditional class! I know that Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis offers an online Music Technology degree.

I really didn't know too much about distance learning until I read up on it. I now realize there are many many benefits to distance learning technologies (DLT). First of all, it is very convenient for both the students and instructors. Many of the technologies, (internet, videotape, telephone) are easily accessed at home. Others (desktop video-conferencing) can be distributed from a single point to multiple remote sites. DLT also provides flexibility in that students have the option to participate whenever they want to. They aren't required to do things at a certain time and they don't have a time limit. For example, some students may want to review a video in the early morning while another student may want to do so in the evening, and they have all the time to do so.

There is a wide variety of distance learning technologies. Because of this, it can meet everyone's learning preferences (well, at least part of the time). For example, some students learn from visual stimuli, such as video, and others learn best by interacting with a computer program. If distance learning courses are well designed, they will likely offer learners a wide range of choices, thereby providing the optimal combinations of interaction and media.

I remember during my undergraduate studies when one of my professors was out of town. Rather than hire a substitute or have his TA's teach, we watched a prerecorded video of our instructor on a large projector screen, teaching us the day's lesson. Not only was it an efficient way of delivering to us the materials we needed to know, but it was also very flexible. We could pause the videotape when we needed to or rewind the tape if we wanted to review the lesson again. If any of the students had questions, all we needed to do was send an e-mail to our instructor and he would provide us with feedback. I remember thinking to myself, wow, our teacher had become a "virtual professor!"

Happy Chinese New Year!

新年快樂!

February 18, 2007 marks the beginning of Chinese New Year, year of the Pig (or Boar, depending on who you ask). This year is very special in that it is the "Year of the Golden Pig" which falls once every 60 years. Definitely lots to celebrate :) Chinese New Year also means the beginning of an exciting two-week festival filled with lots of delicious chinese food, red envelopes (filled with $$$), fireworks, celebrations (Lantern Festival), and wearing lots of red!

Just an interesting tidbit, famous people born in the Year of the Pig include: Hillary Rodham Clinton, Humphrey Bogart, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ernest Hemingway, Alfred Hitchcock, David Letterman, and Arnold Schwarnenegger.

Here is a clip of the 2007 Chinese New Year Spectacular, which was performed here in NYC at Radio City Music Hall just last week. (Is there anything that YouTube doesn't have)?


To celebrate the new year, Skype has a special promotion that allows people to receive 24 minutes of free calling to people in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. For those of you who aren't familiar with Skype, it is a program that lets you make free calls over the internet to anyone else who also has the service. It's free and easy to use, and it works with most computers. The audio quality is pretty good so is the webcam. As far as I know, Skype can even replace a standard phone or cell phone. Because Chinese New Year is one of the world's biggest celebrations of family and friends, Skype allows people to stay connected during this time and provides Skype users to send New Year's greetings to family and friends. Skype is definitely the most advanced voice communications tool available today. What would we do without the internet :) Hats off to Skype!

Speaking of Skype, I found an interesting blog on celebrating Chinese New Year with Skype and Flickr, two very popular and useful programs out there on the internet today.

Wishing everyone a Healthy, Prosperous and Happy Lunar New Year!

Thoughts on E-learning

Happy Valentine's Day! I love what Google does with its logo on holidays! They're so very creative!

With that said, back to business...

What is E-learning? "E-learning is to classroom learning as cell phones are to a pay phone at the bus station." I thought this was a pretty clever way to put it. (It's on this website if you want to read more). The article goes on to explain that as long as you have a computer, you'll be able to learn anywhere, similar to a cell phone. With a cell phone, you'll be able to communicate anywhere.

Web technologies are definitely shaping education. One example is podcasting, which has become a popular technology in education. I just read about how Stanford University has teamed up with Apple to create the Stanford iTunes University! Rather than being a large collection of student/faculty playlists, this iTunes is quite unique in that it provides a range of digital content (although some are restricted to Stanford users). Talk about creative! There are also a lot of student-produced podcasts out there today.

The photo-sharing site Flickr is another great example of web technology (not to mention it's considered an early example of a Web 2.0 application) being used in education. I find that it's one of the better photo-sharing sites out there, you can easily share, manage, organize, and store all your photos. Plus users can comment on pictures and search for them based on "tags." All in all, a very nicely designed (free!) application. My favorite web-based Flickr toy is the postcard browser, which offers a really cool, fun way to browse through images with a specific tag. I won't try to describe it, just go try it for yourself and I think you'll see what I mean!

In education, Flickr provides a valuable resource for students and educators looking for images for use in presentations, learning materials or coursework. Students can also use Flickr to publish their digital photography to a larger audience and with the commenting function they can get critical feedback. Another handy feature on Flickr are the "notes." Notes allow users to add hot-spot annotations to an image. This is a great learning tool as it allows students to annotate and discuss the images in more detail.

These are just a couple of web technologies used in education. E-learning is still developing today (and everyday) and it'll be interesting to see how it changes in the future!