Charting The Beatles is a project by graphic designer Michael Deal to express the history of that band through quantitative infographics. Pictured above is one describing their working activities, divided into touring, filming, and recording. Deal invites anyone to participate by contributing their own infographics to a flickr set.

Another of the many ways Queen’s classic Bohemian Rhapsody is performed, this time by Hayseed Dixie, from their new album Killer Grass.
 

One of the main priorities of doctors treating premature babies is to increase their body weight
Playing Mozart to premature babies can help them gain weight because they use less energy when calmed by listening to soothing melodies, scientists have found.
 

iThreeSixty
Hats with built in earphones are nothing new, but this new beanie from iThreeSixty takes things a step further by including a clear window that holds the iPod itself.
 

Adam Dean, Donahue Lovelace and Eddy Delahoz,  attend the Institute of Audio Research, at the Best Buy in Union Square
At a glance, the far corner of the main floor of J&R Music looks familiar to anybody old enough to have scratched a record by accident. There are cardboard boxes filled with albums by the likes [...]

Before you download the next pop hit from iTunes, check whether it is hazardous to your health. A teen panel working with the Boston Public Health Commission has set up a “nutrition facts label” rating (like that seen on food items) for songs:
“Music, like food, can feed our brains and give us energy,” said Casey [...]

The Ocarina
Welcome to an orchestra of the 21st century. iPhones are being used as musical instruments in a new course at an American university.
 

Total Tonality!

For a non-pianist, the idea of a microtonally fluid piano might seem either no big deal or baffling. But this weekend a composer will reveal the result of a 10-year mission – nothing less than the reinvention of one of the most important instruments in western music. (Video)

Terrafon
Musicians have been making music out of weird and wonderful instruments forever and we have seen many of them: vegetable orchestras, bicycle parts, ice and recycled drains and bed springs. And now another addition to this esoteric form of music: the Terrafon. (Pics and vdeo)
 

Cybraphon is the latest project from Edinburgh-based artist collective FOUND (Ziggy Campbell, Simon Kirby and Tommy Perman).
Inspired by early 19th century mechanical bands such as the nickelodeon, Cybraphon is an interactive version of a mechanical band in a box. Consisting of a series of robotic instruments housed in a large display case, Cybraphon behaves like [...]

Don’t you think a lot more people need to be aware of this?
Kevin Poulsen at Threat Level has a great item up about the growing menace of “money mules.” The term refers to bank customers who’ve been conned into unwittingly laundering cash that hackers have stolen from business bank accounts. The con and the funny [...]

Next generation violin
Check out almost any classical violinist, and you might notice that the instruments they use are based on designs first created over 300 years ago. World class players are even willing to pay millions to own an original instrument from the great 17th century Italian masters like Antonio Stradivari.
If you wanted to cross [...]

(YouTube Link)
 The Electronic Rock Guitar Shirt isn’t just a t-shirt. You can actually play music on it. Use a magnetic pick over the string markings and press down on the frets with your other hand. There’s also a volume nob and an amplifier that fits on your belt. Has it been a long time since [...]

Andy Woodruff noticed that Ohio has 88 counties, the same number as keys on a piano. So he went to work on a map application that assigns a note to each county. You can play a song on the map (a couple of songs are plotted out for you) or reassign the notes based on [...]

The woman who inspired the classic Beatles song Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, has died at aged 46, a charity said today. The song featured on the ground-breaking 1967 album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
John Lennon’s elder son Julian said it was inspired by a picture he drew of his classmate Lucy O’Donnell [...]

Master! Master! Where’s the dreams that I’ve been after?

Monkeys are found to be fans of heavy metal music, in particular Metallica, after a study showed it calmed them down.
A group of cottontop tamarins were played a variety of music, including Bach, Led Zeppelin and Miles Davis, but they only reacted when heavy metal rock songs [...]

Treehuggers rejoice its a green friendly music player. Oh joyful day.
While treehuggers bustle about looking for better ways to gather solar energy or wind power, designer Dmitriy Shcherbakov thinks they’ve overlooked an energy source right in front of them: constantly changing temperature. That’s how he plans to power Greenergy, a music player that also inexplicably [...]

When United Airlines workers destroyed Dave Carroll’s guitar in 2008, he tried everything to get fair compensation. After being denied, he promised that he would write three songs and post them onto YouTube.
 

Do you honestly think you can push enough buttons to keep up with Eddie
The track list for Guitar Hero: Van Halen, due out December 22, has been announced, and as suspected, it will feature only tracks from the Diamond David Lee Roth era of the band, and feature new bassist Wolfgang Van Halen and not [...]

While most multitouch displays designed to produce sound use a visual mode of interaction, the multitouch interactive Akustisch produces music with not much visual feedback. A new multitouch interface for production, control and manipulation of digital sound, the Akustisch is like a digital music instrument based on a touch interface. Developed by Balz Rittmeyer as [...]

Sony’s music player has beaten Dolby sound, compact discs and the ubiquitous iPod to come top of the list of “ten most important musical innovations of the last 50 years” published by T3 magazine. Its victory comes in the week that the Walkman celebrated its 30th birthday.
The first Walkman was the blue-and-silver model TPS-L2, which [...]

Eeek is that hissing sound a snake? No its your headphones
French accessories company HOON has teamed up with audio company The Perfect Unison for a line of python skin skinned headphones.

 
Experts say that listening to Girls Aloud can convince you that other people are in a good mood
Listening to cheerful music can be one way to put you in a good mood on the way into work.  But beware – it can also make you think that everyone else feels just as happy as you [...]

There are some strange bands out there with some even weirder names. Here’s a collection of bands and the story of how they came up with their titles. Included are Pink Floyd, Porno For Pyros, Gogol Bordello and 4 others!
Black Sabbath

Ozzy’s band of mischief didn’t start off nearly as dark as it ended up. The [...]