Nicki Minaj and M.I.A have also been linked to Madonna’s Half-Time Show performance as they feature on her new single ‘Give Me All Your Luvin’.

At 13, an age when most boys want to learn the guitar, Gary Marcus, decided he wanted to be a scientist. Twenty-five years later he had become one of the country’s best known cognitive psychologists, with major papers and three general-interest books on the workings of the human mind and a position running New York University’s Center for Language and Music.

For any adult learning an instrument or a new language is terrifying. For a cognitive scientist, it can also be downright depressing. Humans have an early childhood window to acquire such skills easily, according to a long-held tenet in his profession, and it’s a window that closes quickly. Then there is the issue of innate ability. While no single gene can explain Beethoven, Yo-Yo Ma or “Waterloo Sunset,” Dr. Marcus does believe in natural talent, he said, or at least in the certainty he doesn’t have any.

Despite those misgivings he allowed himself one year of dedicated practice, armed with instruction books, a $75 Yamaha acoustic bought on eBay and one thing few adult music students have at their disposal: a year’s sabbatical.

Three years later he has chronicled his journey in a new book, “Guitar Zero: The New Musician and the Science of Learning” (Penguin). Like Daniel J. Levitin’s “World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature” and Oliver Sacks’s “Musicophilia,” “Guitar Zero” investigates the intersection between neuroscience and music. But the thread here is Dr. Marcus’s own often frustrating attempts to learn guitar. It’s the sort of book where Steven Pinker (Dr. Marcus’s mentor and collaborator) mixes with K. Anders Ericsson (the psychologist most associated with the “10,000 hours” theory of expertise) and Tom Morello (the lead guitarist from Rage Against the Machine)....

Who's making these decisions and how can we stop them?

Former Beatle Paul McCartney is composing music for a video game which he hopes will introduce his work to a whole new generation, he has told a German newspaper published Thursday.

The 69-year-old musician told Die Zeit weekly newspaper that he had found the prospect exciting and that a new video game was currently a better seller than a new CD.

In comments published in German, McCartney, who has two albums due out this year, said many youngsters would probably hear his music for the first time through playing the video game.

I LOVE Herman's Hermits.

That doesn't make me feel any better, Tis. You're a geek, too .

There's a little "geek" in all of us.

LOL Poor Geoff always gets picked on. BUT that is funny.

RR,

Speaking of McCartney, I heard yesterday on the radio something I find very hard to believe. They said that the biggest hit (solo it for Paul) for either Paul or Stevie Wonder was "Ebony & Ivory" I haven't checked it out and it's a good song but their biggest??????

Now I assumed Stevie was gonna sing. In the short clip I hear the harmonica but no singing by Stevie.


TIS

You think you've seen everything on a topic at YouTube, then you find this.

You know I don't think I've ever seen James McCartney. I know Paul has several children but I only know of Stella, who is a model. Does James look like Paul?

I'll try to stay up but will try to catch it later cause I likely won't make it.


TIS