Portent

I love visualisations and music. This video provides a little insight into the genius of Bach as it shows the notes being played as they’re heard. Simple but effective.

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Popularity: 8% [?]

I’ve often thought that if you take song lyrics too literally you are just banging your head on a wall.

Nevertheless with over 30,000 artists, over 350,000 lyrics and nearly a million comments from over 300,000 site members, it’s clear that discussing what song lyrics are about is very popular. That’s what this site does. As you’d imagine with so many people, there’s a bit of dissent at times in what the lyrics mean.

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Popularity: 7% [?]

30 Years ago, a Golden Record was created and put on The Voyager 1 and 2 Probes. These are now a very long way away from Earth- a shade under 10 billion miles which is a pretty long way.

The Voyager Golden Record is a phonograph record that contains sounds and images selected to portray the diversity of life and culture on Earth. It is intended for any intelligent extraterrestrial life form, or far future humans, that may find it.

On this website you can hear the music and view the 116 images. It’s not a very welcoming website but the content makes it of interest. You can find out more background information from Wikipedia.

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Popularity: 8% [?]

There are a lot of odd musical instruments. The late Roy Castle used to claim he could play almost anything and I suspect just as many people “have a novel in them” so many musicians have an “instrument in them”.

This site is about odd musical instruments and has 140 of them listed in their gallery, many with playable clips or downloadable MP3s. They’ve added forums as well so you can discuss things.

Oddly enough, one instrument they don’t have is one I saw being played in Bournemouth a couple of years ago. A stick. You can see them here.

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Popularity: 3% [?]

I’d seen a poster for this near where I work in the UK, which is a bit odd because it’s for US Indie bands. As we’ve many US readers of course, it’s worth covering.

As they say: “Bodog Music founder Calvin Ayre is on a search to find America’s best unsigned indie band with the $1 Million Bodog Battle. The grueling live performance schedule is ready to test America’s unsigned hopefuls with Bodog Music headliners playing alongside awesome local talent.”

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Popularity: 3% [?]

Ever fancied becoming a music impresario? With the slow death of the music industry, in their role of gatekeeper and ultimate middle man, guessing and deciding which bands will or won’t make it, the internet has brought bands and fans together in different ways.

Slicethepie enables artists to raise money directly from their fans to professionally record and release an album. In their own words:

On Slicethepie:
o Artists raise money directly from their fans to professionally record albums
o Fans become emotionally and financially involved at all levels of the music industry - scouting, breaking, investing in and influencing real artists
o Investors gamble on, trade in and profit from the success of these artists
o Artists who secure finance pay Slicethepie a small royalty on album sales but keep all their copyright and publishing rights.

There are other websites doing the same thing but I like the look of this one. Will it succeed? Lets hope so. Raising money for projects (not just music) in this way is not new but the internet makes it work so much better.

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Popularity: 3% [?]