How Art Works

How Art Works: Earworms

Arts, Culture & Media

Composer Jeff Lunden explains how songs stick in our heads.

How Art Works: The Sounds of O Brother Where Art Thou

Arts, Culture & Media

How Art Works: Earworms

Arts, Culture & Media

How Art Works: Pregnant Pause

Arts, Culture & Media

How Art Works: Upright Image

Arts, Culture & Media
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How Art Works: Conducting

Arts, Culture & Media

Standing in front of a large orchestra, a conductor can isolate and focus on the sound of a single violin or bassoon, refining a talent we all possess.

How Art Works: Perfect Pitch

Arts, Culture & Media

How can some singers pull a perfect “A” out of thin air — and why does it sometimes drive them crazy? Producer Jeff Lunden explores one of the most mysterious natural musical abilities, the phenomenon known as perfect pitch.

How Art Works: Perfect Pitch

Arts, Culture & Media

How can some singers pull a perfect “A” out of thin air — and why does it sometimes drive them crazy? Producer Jeff Lunden explores one of the most mysterious natural musical abilities, the phenomenon known as perfect pitch. (Originally aired: June 16, 2001)

How Art Works: Origami

Arts, Culture & Media

Origami is the Japanese art of folding paper into shapes without cutting or gluing. Now, this ancient art is going high-tech. The emerging field of computational origami uses computers and mathematics to figure out just how much you can do with a single sheet of paper. Gregory Warner caught up with origami artists and their […]

How Art Works: Scatting

Arts, Culture & Media

Beeee-de-be-de-be-pode-e-ba-da-bah. No one’s sure exactly how scatting — the art of singing improvised gibberish — began. But as Sarah Fishko reports, this purely American musical device took on a life of its own as each of the great jazz vocalists took a shot at singing free-for-all.

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