The Clown Of The Orchestra Takes Its Revenge

"You might think you haven't heard the bassoon outside a concert hall before, but you have: The woodwind instrument features prominently in the theme music of Leave It To Beaver, represents the grandfather character in Peter and the Wolf, and scores Mickey Mouse's misadventure with the dancing broomsticks in Fantasia. Notice a trend there?"

For the full story, please see NPR.org.

JSTOR Opens Up U.S. Journal Content From Before 1923

"Users anywhere now have free access to JSTOR’s Early Journal Content, a corpus of scholarly articles published in the United States before 1923 and elsewhere before 1870. That’s about 500,000 articles from 200 journals, according to JSTOR’s announcement."

For the full story, please see Wired Campus.

How Steve Jobs Changed The Way We Listen

"We listen to music in the 21st century in a profoundly different way than we did in the 20th century. And, though Apple didn't invent the portable music player, the vision of Steve Jobs (a music geek himself) and his company of designers and engineers changed our listening landscape dramatically in 2001 with iTunes and the iPod. Some of those ways are wonderful: Portability of huge libraries, shuffling, quick access to millions of songs, and custom playlists are a few of the upsides. For some, shuffling may be a bittersweet downside, like compressed sound files or isolated listening, but I think the good far outweighs the bad."

For the full story, please see NPR.org.

Rick Steves gives $1M to arts in Edmonds

"Rick Steves, the Edmonds-based travel writer and public broadcasting host, donated $1 million to the Edmonds Center for the Arts on Thursday.

For the full story, please see the Seattle Times.

The Summer Opera Drinking Puzzler

"We're all told it's important to stay hydrated with plenty of water — not only in the summer heat, but throughout the year.

However, no one in the opera world seems to have gotten the message. Because when characters in opera raise a glass to their lips, they're almost always quaffing alcohol of one kind or another. Yes, there's the occasional teetotaler or poison drinker, but mostly people in opera are boozing it up. Not a good way to stay hydrated."

For the full story, please see NPR.org.

Actually Useful Research About Younger Jazz Audiences

"There's a new study out on the jazz audience. And for once, it actually contains some pertinent information about younger jazz concertgoers — the demographic much bandied-about the last time there was significant data about live jazz crowds, and the one necessarily responsible for the future proliferation of jazz performances."

For the full story, please see NPR.org.

A Village Person Tests the Copyright Law

"The prefab, gaudily costumed 1970s group the Village People and its big hit “Y.M.C.A.” are enduring symbols of the disco era. But now this campy and eternally popular song has become the centerpiece of what could be a significant test of copyright law."

For the full story, please see the New York Times.