Meet Stanley - Interactive Piano

I have only just come across this amazing project by creative agency Digital Kitchen. Stanley Piano is the world's first interactive piano! In July 2012 A piano was placed in Seattle which was linked up to three computers, which would play songs requested by twitter users. Uses could tweet their song choices to @stanleypiano and were notified when their songs were due to play. The piano would then play the request fully visible with all the keys moving! I think this is such a brilliant and innovative way to connect with an audience and interact with social media.

Overall Stanley recieved 220,000 web views and almost 5,000 song requests. You can see the project on the website below and on twitter. Stanley still recieves song requests to this day. 

http://stanleypiano.com/
@stanleypiano


 
Introducing Stanley from DIGITAL KITCHEN on Vimeo.

Photoshop Inspired Interactive Music Video

This is a really interesting new interactive music video for the song "Not the Same" by Tanlines. The experimental video was created by creative agency OKFocus and has been inspired by the layout of photoshop. Each member of the band is a different layer which can be selected, moved and resized. There are also other tools and interface items to experiment with, including changing the background and muting different instruments. This also gives you the opportunity to listen to the intricate sounds in the piece and isolate certain elements of the song. Its a really fun way to interact with a music video, go and check it out! Im sure it will probably go viral soon!

http://www.notthesa.me/

Petr Spatina - Glasses

Skoda have produced some really memorable adverts (One of my favorites being the Skoda Fabia Cake car, you can see here.) This advert is also simply amazing. It shows a man playing music by running his fingers across many crystal glasses which are in the shape of the car. I didn't believe it was real until musician Petr Spatina appeared as a guest on the Joathan Ross show recently and played his unique piece of music 'fragile sounds' live! He even did a Lady Gaga cover! It was unbelievable, I find it difficult enough to make sound from one glass, let alone composing music using glasses with water in them! You can see the skoda advert below, and watch Petr's performance on the Jonathan Ross Show here.

Happy New Year

Lovely little video by Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt singing a Nancy Wilson song, 'what are you doing New Years Eve?' The video went viral after being posted on Zooey's blog HelloGiggles. I definitely want to watch 500 days of summer again after seeing this. The video is really sweet, hopefully they will be doing many more collaborations. Wishing you all a Happy new Year!

In your Arms

I have been a fan of Kina Grannis for a few years now. Originally I followed her youtube account to listen to her beautiful cover songs. Her newest video for her own song 'In your arms' is a genius stop motion production. Director Greg Jardin worked with Kina for two years to shoot a music video made from 288,000 jelly beans! Below is the making of video, its really great to see Kina involved with the shoot, actually lying on top of the jelly beans instead of using a green screen. The video shows just how laborious and time consuming this sort of production takes, but how the outcome is worth it!

You can see the music video here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOu0DuxFAT0&feature=relmfu.

Lille

I have only just discovered the wonderful Lisa Hannigan. This music video for her song Lille is so creative, definitely the best pop up book I have ever seen! Lisa was the vocal partner of Damien Rice on his albums O and 9. She has recently released her second album passenger and my friend Thom has been sharing his love for her and kindly given me lots of her music.

La Blogotheque

So in love with this video right now. Lianne La Havas has such a nice soulful voice, its filmed in the streets of Paris as part of the Take Away show on LaBlogothque. Its just so beautiful, someone take me to Paris please! I can't believe all those people just watch her pass, I would want to listen right to the end. There are lots of other good videos on the youtube channel, check it out. Also Look for Lianne La Havas,  an up and coming artist, I love her!

Move like you want

Today, Ben Howard added new dates to his tour, so I bought my sister Sophie an early birthday present to see him with me in Bristol in February. I am very excited even though its months away! Lucky Pete and Ellie bought tickets before and are seeing him at Thekla in Bristol in a couple of days.. jealous! Watch this video of his song 'move like you want' my favorite from his ep. Thanks to my friend Thom today too who sent me the delux edition album. Lots of Ben Howard love right now!

Habibis

How stunning was Sophie Habibis this weekend on the X factor? Her make over transformation was one of the best out of the 16 finalists, her dark hair and fringe really suit her face and bring out her eyes. Her gold eyeshadow was stunning, her eyes looked huge, and to top it off she has the most beautiful voice, singing a Katy Perry cover. Watch her performance here http://youtu.be/fshrfvlhzG8?hd=1&t=8s. Definitely one of my favorites in the competition. Was really sad to see James Michael leave last night, X factor is getting so harsh!

Ben Howard

Ben Howard's album is coming out next week, I'm so excited! He has such a beautiful unique voice, I really enjoyed listening to his EP over and over back when we had our last deadline for uni. His music bring back memories of extremely late nights working with Ellie and Pete!

His Debut album is called Every Kingdom and is out on the 3rd October. I have high expectations for this album. You can listen to a teaser here

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ktr8Rwpx1I&feature=channel_video_title

Nobody's Perfect

The latest music video from Jessie J was leaked yesterday. It has a much darker feel using a creepy Alice in Wonderland themed Mad Hatters Tea Party. Jessie looks great as usual with her striking make up and clothes. I love the beige bodice and I am a big fan of the Purple lipstick. Jessie swings from chandeliers and even submerges herself in a black pool of oil in the video. Little bit strange but I quite like it. Watch the Music Video below.

Jessie's Lip Art

Jessie J is starting to get known for her dramatic make up, and unusual outfits. I am loving the make up artist that has been creating her studded and painted lips, I think its really unique. I wonder how long it will be before I see people walking down the street with crazy coloured lips. Nail art has caught on, maybe it won't be long until lip art is fashionable. http://jessiejofficial.com/

Stand Up for the love love love

I went to see Jessie J at Thekla last night with my friends Ellie and Alice. She has an incredible voice and was very entertaining chatting to the crowd throughout the gig. She said she found it odd being on a boat, and that Bristol were a lot more rowdy than Manchester the night before! We had a really good view on the top balcony, and had lots of fun dancing. The songs 'Price Tag' and 'Nobody's perfect' were my favorites, along with 'Who you Are' which was a very emotional acoustic version. Its probably the last time we'll get to see her for so cheap!

The mixtape project

I recently stumbled upon this great blog. Im thinking of joining up when i am back from my holiday. I love making playlists and it will be great fun to turn them into mixed cd's for people and then i would receive one each month too! There is a flikr site set up with photos from all the mixtapes given. Some of them look really lovely. http://sharingthemusic.wordpress.com/

T in the Park!

I flew up to scotland last weekend for this years T in the Park festival. It was an amazing weekend and i was very glad that the sun decided to stay out. It did rain a couple of times but we had fun in the mud in our wellies. I saw so many amazing artists, like florence and the machine, muse, paolo nutini, stereophonics, ellie goulding, bombay bicycle club, vampire weekend, eminiem, kasabian... to name a few. Was sad to go home. Unfortunately one of my cameras came out blank but i did get a couple of photos to capture the weekend.

Florence!

Seeing Florence and the machine was an amazing end to a great day in Cardiff. She played in Cooper field, Cardiff castle grounds where the Summer ball festival is being held. It was such a great venue, it was like being in a mini festival! The stage and tents was huge, it looked like a circus! There were also huge bar areas and funfair rides. It has made me very excited for T in the Park this year!