If you’re like us, you have been listening to Christmas tunes since before Thanksgiving. We can’t help it, getting our Andy Williams, Elvis Presley, and Wham! fix takes more than 25 days. Now, there’s a new song to add to your holiday playlist and we love it for its lightheartedness and accuracy about today’s culture. Performed by “Frozen” and “Veronica Mars” actress Kristen Bell along with a cappella group Straight No Chaser , “Text Me Merry Christmas” will have you laughing

Happy Thanksgiving! If your morning and afternoon will be spent in the kitchen chopping vegetables and basting a turkey we found a way to...

Chad Erickson lives several thousand miles from California but his spirit of determination can inspire us all. Erickson was a talented...

Do you keep a journal of your music lessons? Chances are a teacher from The Music Junction has recommended it because chronicling your...

As musicians, the Super Bowl halftime show intrigues us but we know it’s filled with hits and, well, some really bad misses. Yet, we can sympathize with the entertainers; bad acoustics prompt many to lip-synch while there is an expectation to do an over-the-top performance with pyrotechnics and it is hard for any one singer to please so many different generations that tend to watch the one of the biggest athletic games in the world. Online news site Vox, has collected some o

It’s no surprise that we love music and we especially love hearing new sounds and a fusion of cultures. When we read about a unique collaboration between an Israeli pianist and a Malian guitarist, we had to search for samples of their music, which you can find here. If you have time, check it out. Their music does not disappoint! The birth of this musical pairing began in 2008 when Idan Raichel ran into Vieux Farka Touré at a Berlin airport. Raichel was a big fan of Touré’s

Even when you are not actively listening to classical music you are still benefiting from it. Does that make sense? Let us explain. The University of Southern California’s news page cited several studies that show the benefits of passively listening to classical music. One study published in Human Physiology found that children who listened to an hour of classical music a day had greater levels of relaxation, even if they were never explicitly told to pay attention to it. A

There is something about a singer shattering glass that reminds us of our childhood. How many cartoons have we seen that features an oversized opera singer wearing a horned helmet belting out a note so loud and irritatingly high-pitched that glass shatters everywhere — from windows to cups to glasses? We never considered the validity of these cartoon images. Were these images based on fact or just a funny gag for the audience? Thankfully, there are inquisitive people in this

We’ve previously explored the condition of synesthesia, which is known as color hearing. People living with a type of synesthesia...

In our first “Music Worth Noting” feature, we mentioned how much great music is available online. We’re trying to make it a regular feature to showcase a wide variety of music to inspire you and us. Last week we had Common and Itzhak Perlman and this week includes a whole different set of talent. Enjoy! Cat Stevens We’re big Cat Stevens fans so if we get a chance to see him performing, we’ll pretty much stop what we’re doing. In this Tiny Desk performance organized by NPR, y

If alien life forms ever discovered human existence, how would you describe our life to them? Interestingly enough, scientists pondered this question in the 1970s and we love that they thought music was an important aspect of human life. NASA scientists created the Golden Record , a time capsule of sorts, which is a 12-inch gold-plated copper phonograph disk strapped aboard Voyager I and II that is traveling in the outer edges of the solar system as we write this post (In fac

Perhaps no other composer’s health has been dissected as much as Ludwig van Beethoven. He continued producing great works of music...