The Friday Informer: Just what is a bell on a bobtail, anyway?

Photo of the Week [via soho the dog]

• As they sharpen their pencils and write those “best of the year” lists, New York City turns the tables and critiques the critics.
  
  
• If even after a decade of music school, your family still has no clear conception of exactly what it is that you do, say it with a homemade holiday gift.
  
  
• Before the millionth Muzaked performance of the Nutcracker Suite drives you to off the department store Santa, sample this arrangement for bicycle parts.
  [via music for maniacs]
  
  
• Still, if traditional holiday tunes seem too old hat for your adventurous disposition, leave it to the new music crew to make even the old standards more obscure and intellectual.
  
  
• The Grinch may have stolen Christmas, but this Time Warner CEO stole an entire music catalog. (Okay, maybe all iPod owners are criminals after all.)

[Via musicalchairs.info—the website for classical musicians]

Have you heard?

• Wondering if you’re hardwired to hear the pretty colors yourself? There’s a test for that.
  
  
• Feel like you don’t get Xenakis? Perhaps there’s a deeper reason it all seems Greek to you.
  [via soho the dog]