Bela Fleck appeared on NPR Monday, in the This I Believe segment of The Morning Edition. Fleck read an essay he wrote called Doing Things My Own Way. The essay provides a great deal of insight into Bela’s approach to his music. I found it amazing that Bela (who has adapted Bach to the banjo) can barely read music! I also found the part where Fleck admits “I worry that my approach might not be built on a strong enough musical foundation.” quite ironic because I can’t think of a musician with a stronger musical foundation. You can read and listen to it here!

Lifehacker has an excellent post containing fifteen ways to get the most out of Pandora, the music player that I’m constantly raving about. One thing they recommended was a very slick desktop application for accessing Pandora called Open Pandora. I’m constantly looking for more ways to enjoy Pandora and one thing that I like to do is to combine two completely different genres of music to see what Pandora suggests. For instance I created a station with Grateful Dead and White Stripes and it was pretty interesting to see the results. Try it sometime.

I was just reading on Rolling Stone’s website how Ryan Adams produced Willie Nelson’s latest album entitled Songbird which is set to be released on October 31. Ryan Adams has really gotten a ton of attention lately. In addition to putting out 40 albums per year he’s been playing shows with Phil Lesh and Friends. Adams is an imensely talented musician, but it seems odd to me that he’d produce Willie and not the other way around. I guess that the trend these days is for the younger artists to produce the older ones (see Alison Krauss and Dolly Parton). At any rate I can’t wait to get my ears on Songbird which I read somewhere is supposed to have a Grateful Dead tune or two on it!

For your listening pleasure may I suggest:

Phil Lesh and Friends Live at Fillmore Auditorium on 2005-07-15 (with Ryan Adams)

I couldn’t resist posting these instructions on how to build your own upright bass from cardboard and other household supplies. The only thing I’d change is that I’d upgrade the Radioshack Science Project Buzzer to an actual pickup. This is my next home project for sure!

(via makezine)