This Coming Sunday is "Drummer Appreciation Day"

Or so I've been told.  As someone who still plays (and was once a teacher), this is long overdue. In fact, I believe Drummer Appreciation Day should be an international holiday.

You still have time to shop for the drummer in your life. And let's all declare a moritorium on jokes like this--at least for one day.

• How can you tell when a drummer’s at the door? The knocking speeds up, then he doesn’t know when to come in
• What do you call a drummer who breaks up with his girlfriend? Homeless.
• What's the difference between a drummer and a drum machine? You only have to punch the information into the drum machine once.

Metallica Announces Shoe Deal with Vans

Here's a new set of shoes to go along with James Hetfield's line of sunglasses and Kirk Hammett's love of horror products.

Just don't go looking for your Kill 'Em All shoes until January.  Sorry, kids.  Nothing under the tree this year.

iPhone 5: Possibly Better for People Who Like Good Sound

A man in brown shorts delivered my iPhone 5 on Monday. We're still becoming acquainted (me and the phone, not the dude in the shorts.)

Like many people, I value the sound I get out of my mobile phones. I want the best audio quality possible from my music files so the device has to be up to snuff when converting this digital information back to analogue sound waves.  (Headphones are a different matter.  I'm speaking exclusively about the circuitry that turns MP3 files back into music.)

Engadget did a series of tests on a variety of mobile phones.  Turns out that the iPhone 4S is king when it comes to sound.  Click on the chart to see more.

Via Engadget

The World's Best Infographics Includes a Winner About Music

The Information is Beautiful Awards were held in London last week.  This was a celebration of the best in infographics.  

Check out this gorgeous graphical explanation of how the Beatles became the most-covered band in history.  (Click on the image to embiggen and to see more artwork like this.)

Via The Daily Mail

Today's Science News: A Gibbon's Singing Isn't Affected When They Breathe Helium

At least that's what I got out of this post from Discover Magazine.

Diversifications in primate vocalization, including human speech, are believed to reflect evolutionary modifications in vocal anatomy and physiology. Gibbon song is acoustically unique, comprising loud, melodious, penetrating pure tone-like calls.

In a white-handed gibbon, Hylobates lar, the fundamental frequency (f(0) ) of song sounds is amplified distinctively from the higher harmonics in normal air. In a helium-enriched atmosphere, f(0) does not shift, but it is significantly suppressed and 2f(0) is emphasized. This implies that the source is independent of the resonance filter of the supralaryngeal vocal tract (SVT) in gibbons, in contrast to musical wind instruments, in which the filter primarily determines f(0) .

Acoustic simulation further supported that gibbons’ singing is produced analogously to professional human soprano singing, in which a precise tuning of the first formant (F(1) ) of the SVT to f(0) amplifies exclusively the f(0) component of the source.

Thus, in gibbons, as in humans, dynamic control over the vocal tract configuration, rather than anatomical modifications, has been a dominant factor in determining call structure. The varied dynamic movements were adopted in response to unique social and ecological pressures in gibbons, allowing monogamous gibbons to produce pure-tonal melodious songs in the dense tropical forests with poor visibility.”

Do with this what you will.