Get a Degree in Heavy Metal Music Performance

Looking to get that all-important college degree but care more about double-kicks and shredding than valence electrons or iambic pentameter? According to the Telegraph, Nottingham Trent University in England may have just what you’re after: a degree in Heavy Metal Music Performance.

The course will encourage students to explore how the actions of heavy metal figures have been censored throughout history, as well as to study how famous heavy metal bands came into being and the relationship of heavy metal to religion and philosophy.

The degree is a two-year focus that you’ll need to round out with another year of studies. In the end, you’ll be sent home with a nice artium baccalaureus. In England, says the Telegraph, the school is facing flak for offering what many are criticizing as a useless degree, one that sets students back professionally (on top of taking their tuition money.) - Continue reading at Smithsonian.com.

Ed note: If you were majoring in heavy metal, who would you want to be your teacher?

Photo courtesy of Flickr user Focka

A Brief History of Songs That Have Gone to Space

via flavorpill

Astronaut Performs David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” While Floating in Space

Before he returns to Earth after five months aboard the International Space Station, Commander Chris Hadfield recorded this amazing cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”

This isn’t Hadfield’s first foray into the world of YouTube. During his time in space he picked up quite the following here on Earth with his videos explaining what it’s like living for an extended period in space.

Ed note: We think this video should play on a loop in the National Air and Space Museum. What do you think of Hadfield’s cover?

h/t Mashable

Wood Record Plays Radiohead’s “Idioteque”

Amanda Ghassaei of instructables.com has figured out a way to turn any MP3 into a physical record using 3-D printing. Thus far, Ghassaei has been able to successfully produce records on wood, acrylic and paper. Check out her post for all the details and more videos.

Ed note: How do you 3-D scan a dinosaur? With lasers of course.

Duke Ellington With Hookah and Tea in Iraq

Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, born April 29, 1899 in Washington, D.C., was a global giant in jazz for more than 50 years. As a cultural ambassador, Ellington garnered global recognition for jazz as an original American art form and was admired by fans and heads of state, worldwide, for his artistry. Over the years, Washington, D.C. has celebrated its native son with numerous honors including a community-building contemporary art mural, the development of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, a statue of Ellington at the piano in front of the legendary Howard Theater and the dedication of a park in his name in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood.

But perhaps two of the city’s best tributes to Ellington was the installation of the Duke Ellington Collection—an archival treasure trove of photographs, records and other materials, including 100,000 sheets of unpublished Ellington music at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History’s Archives Center, and the establishment, through federal appropriation, of the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra as ”the nation’s jazz orchestra” to preserve and disseminate Ellington’s jazz legacy and that of other jazz legends, to the nation and the world via tours, recordings, education, and concerts. - Continue reading at Smithsonian.com.

Photo courtesy of Duke Ellington Collection, Archives Center, National Museum of American History

Esperanza Spalding Took on Bieber, Now Takes on Jazz

In 2011, [Esperanza] Spalding found herself onstage and on millions of television screens, collecting a Grammy Award in the Best New Artist category (and sending fans of pop post-teen sensation Justin Bieber, who lost out, into irate Twitter rants).

Her youth and beauty and progressive fashion-she accepted her Grammy in a deconstructed citron chiffon dress and a very intentional afro coaxed into a pompadour-were also an undeniable part of her appeal. Village Voice music critic Greg Tate calls Spalding the “sexiest and best thing to happen to jazz since Wynton.” - Continue reading at Smithsonian.com.

Photo by: Ethan Hill

Ed note: The inspirational winners of our first annual American Ingenuity Awards.

Brain Scans Uncover the Secrets of Rapping

Two Los Angeles rappers, Michael Eagle and Daniel Rizik-Baer, had their brains scanned while performing a freestyle and a memorized song. Researchers discovered the brains had strong action in the area that motivates action and thought and these changes were primarily in the left hemisphere of the brain, which for most right-handed people, is where language is processed. - Check out NPR for more.

Photo by: NIDCD (orange colors show active parts of the brain during a freestyle rap. The blue part represent activity during a memorized song.

Ed note: How reliable are brain scans?

h/t NPR

The Powerful Sound of a Custom Built Orchestra

I have always been fascinated by the raw musical power that an orchestra can express, so, after creating a series of videos where I’m performing a multi-track piece with an instrument I designed, I decided to take the concept a step further and create my own orchestra made of unusually unique instruments.

The project started by handcrafting a diverse selection of instruments, then I wrote a composition where I could fit them all in and finally performed each part.

A description of each instrument and its playing techniques.

Produced by Diego Stocco

Ed note: In a funky New Orleans experiment, musicians turn a ramshackle house into a cacophony of sound.

Recreating John Lennon’s Poster

A short film following the recreation of the Pablo Fanque circus poster that inspired John Lennon to write ‘Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite’ for the Beatles album ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.’ Using the tradition methods of wood engraving and letterpress printing, Peter Dean and his team of experts bring to life Lennon’s poster.

Video: Nick Esdaile & Joe Fellows

Ed note: John Lennon was born on this day in 1940. The National Postal Museum has his first album—his boyhood stamp album.

Squid Chromatophores React to Cypress Hill’s Insane in the Membrane

During experiments on the axons of the Woods Hole squid, we tested our cockroach leg stimulus protocol on the squid’s chromatophores. The results were both interesting and beautiful.

Video: backyardbrains

Ed note: Now that you know squid cells like hip hop, here are 14 more facts about cephalopods.

h/t Geekosystem