The always handy Life­hack­er has pulled togeth­er resources that will teach you to play gui­tar, drums and piano. Some of these lessons are taught via video, oth­ers with pod­casts. And if you’re look­ing to teach your­self music the­o­ry, then head over to Musictheory.net. They’ve got you cov­ered.

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FirstSounds.org has gath­ered some of the ear­li­est sound record­ings. This clip, dat­ing back to 1860, fea­tures some­one singing the French folk­song “Au Clair de la Lune” on April 9, 1860, and it “is the ear­li­est audi­bly rec­og­niz­able record of the human voice yet recov­ered.”

Jazz fans, here you go. A list of the most essen­tial jazz albums com­piled by David Rem­nick (edi­tor of The New York­er) and Richard Brody.

And, for the fun of it, I’m throw­ing in a video of David Brubeck play­ing the clas­sic “Take Five” cir­ca 1961. (Also find it on our YouTube playlist.)

Sur­viv­ing mem­bers of the Grate­ful Dead announced Thurs­day that they will be donat­ing their archives to UC San­ta Cruz. This pod­cast (Feed — Web Site), fea­tur­ing Bob Weir and Mick­ey Hart (among oth­ers), gives you insight into the think­ing behind this move…

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A nice lit­tle find for Dead Heads: The Inter­net Archive hosts a large col­lec­tion of the Grate­ful Dead­’s live music. Some con­certs (usu­al­ly record­ed by mem­bers of the audi­ence) can be down­loaded. Oth­er audio (usu­al­ly tak­en from the sound­board) can be streamed. You can access the over­all col­lec­tion here.

A few items worth sam­pling include: Live at the Boston Gar­den (May 7, 1977); Live at the Dane Coun­ty Col­i­se­um (Feb­ru­ary 15, 1973); or Live at Madi­son Square Gar­den (Sep­tem­ber 4, 1979).

Enjoy.

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Below we have an out­take from one of the ear­li­est rock mock­u­men­taries, which paved the way for the ven­er­a­ble This is Spinal Tap. Co-pro­duced by Eric Idle (Mon­ty Python) and Lorne Michaels (Sat­ur­day Night Live), “All You Need is Cash” traced the career of “The Rut­les,” whose resem­blance to The Bea­t­les was “pure­ly – and satir­i­cal­ly – inten­tion­al.” The show aired in 1978 and scored low rat­ings, though some fans still defend it.

via Goings On

Relat­ed Con­tent:

• The Bea­t­les: Pod­casts From Yes­ter­day
• What New York­ers Heard on the Radio the Night John Lennon was Shot
• The Grey Video: Mix­ing The Bea­t­les with Jay‑Z
• The Com­plete Bea­t­les in One Hour (and The Sopra­nos in Sev­en Min­utes)

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With the recent 250th anniver­sary of Mozart’s birth, there has been no short­age of pod­casts ded­i­cat­ed to Mozart’s mas­ter­pieces. First, Radio Swe­den (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) reis­sued a dig­i­tal archive of Mozart record­ings by the Roy­al Swedish Opera from the 1940s and 1950s. And, along very sim­i­lar lines, Dan­marks Radio (Feed — Web Site) issued pod­casts of nine Mozart sym­phonies record­ed by the Dan­ish Radio Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra. (You’ll find here sym­phonies num­bers 15, 17, 23, 34, 35, 36, 39, 40, and 41. Since the web site is in Dan­ish, we’d rec­om­mend access­ing these high qual­i­ty MP3’s through the rss feed list­ed above.) Last­ly, we should men­tion here that, as part of last year’s fes­tiv­i­ties, The Inter­na­tion­al Mozart Foun­da­tion pub­lished online for the first time the entire­ty of of Mozart’s musi­cal scores.

Along with Mozart, you can find plen­ty of Beethoven. We have high­light­ed here before, but it’s worth not­ing again, Deutsche Welle’s pod­cast col­lec­tion called Beethoven­fest (iTunes — Feed — Web Site). You’ll want to give it a look, and also see the pod­cast col­lec­tion put togeth­er by the Boston Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra Con­ser­va­to­ry (iTunes — Feed — Web Site). This edu­ca­tion­al series offers an exten­sive overview and record­ings of Beethoven’s work, as well as that of Arnold Schoen­berg. You can also catch more Beethoven (as well as a lit­tle Mozart and Bach) with the pod­cast series called The Con­cert (iTunes — Feed — Web Site), which fea­tures record­ings from the Isabel­la Stew­art Gard­ner Muse­um in Boston.

Speak­ing of Bach, you may want to give some time to these two pod­casts: Bach Pod­cast from Magnatune.com (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) and Bach Fes­ti­val of Philadel­phia (Feed — Web Site).

Let’s now leave you with a few oth­er good finds: Wag­n­er Operas Pod­cast (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) lets you lis­ten in on record­ings from the annu­al Bayreuth Fes­ti­val, plus more. An Inti­mate Tour Through the Music of Yo-Yo Ma (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) offers essen­tial­ly what the title says. Final­ly, we’d rec­om­mend Clas­si­cal Per­for­mance (iTunes Feed Web Site), which con­sists of clas­si­cal music per­for­mances from WGB­H’s Stu­dio One in Boston; The New York Phi­la­har­mon­ic Pod­cast (iTunes — Feed — Web Site) which intro­duces you to the music and per­form­ers fea­tured in the con­certs of the New York Phil­har­mon­ic; and From the Top. Live from Carnegie Hall Video Pod­cast (iTunes — Feed — Web Site), a pod­cast that show­cas­es the top-notch skills and com­pelling sto­ries of Amer­i­ca’s best young clas­si­cal musi­cians.

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Sir Paul talks about his clas­si­cal album “Ecce Cor Meum” (Behold My Heart). It was per­formed live at Roy­al Albert Hall, and it’s now being released on DVD.

via The New York­er’s Goings On blog

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