Read an interesting article on MSNBC about newborns’ ability to follow a rhythm. “Infants as young as 2 days old can process pitch and tell if a series of notes are rising or falling in scale. And it is now known they have rhythm, too.”. A study last year found that babies as young as 5 months can distinguish an upbeat tune, such as “Ode to Joy” from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, from other gloomy tunes.

I have been reading Appetite for Self-Destruction – the Spectacular Crash of the Record Industry in the Digital Age and it’s both a well-written and fascinating tale of the rise and fall of the record industry over the past 30 years.

If you are interested in social media marketing and social networking (and to be honest, you can’t afford NOT to be), here’s a great new book: Groundswell – winning in a world transformed by social technologies. While the book is not focused on musicians, it gives an excellent overview of the subject matter as well as provides an in-depth study of how to structure your own social media and technology strategy.

One of my favorite bloggers, Kat, just started a new music blog not too long ago: bloggable music network. She highlights not only her favorite music (and does so with much humor), but also music her readers submit. Oh, and did I mention she had excellent taste in music?

Many musicians are also entrepreneurs, and all entrepreneurs (and most musicians) should read Guy Kawasaki’s brilliant book The Art of the Start. One of the central questions is brilliant in its simplicity: how do you turn ideas into action? That question is particularly important for artistic music types (I am one, so I am speaking mostly to myself here!). However, the book is excellent for anyone who is even remotely interested in starting a new initiative – whether it’s related to music or not.

One of the most popular photo-sharing sites, Flickr is also a great tool for musicians. Besides of course posting your pictures, Flickr is a wonderful tool to build community and communicate with fans, but also find new fans – you can search and make friends, create groups and join groups, all through posting pictures.

A few tips: obviously, post pictures of your shows. But do not limit yourself to that – post pictures of rehearsals, of fans at your shows, of your hometown, of things you like or think are beautiful – all this creates new ways for people to relate to you, and it builds community and makes people feel involved.
This is an excellent article about the use of Flickr for musicians by the always-amazing Ariel Hyatt: check it out, you will not regret it!

Music Success in Nine Weeks is an amazing, practical, and inspirational book by Ariel Hyatt – and it is worth every penny you spend on it.

From the August Rush soundtrack:

This is an amazing song – here performed during the Academy Awards earlier this year. We just added it to the repertoire of an AIDS benefit concert we’re putting on in May.

Interesting article about the power of getting a song covered on American Idol. This particular one referring to Jason Castro’s performance of “Hallelujah” on the show a few weeks ago.

We’re redesigning our website at the moment, so most of my reading material kind of centers around that topic. The Big Red Fez by Seth Godin (yes, another Seth Godin book) is one of the current ones I am reading. It’s about having bananas on each page of your site. And if you don’t know what that means, and your band has a website, you should get this book. It’s worth reading, and it’s a quick read.