Something I just learned - you know the tune Chopsticks? Well, if you ask an American and a Brit to hum it you'll get different tunes.

T-shirt design found on eBay.

Listening to an instrumental version of the old carol Hodie Personent on the North Sea Radio Orchestra's lovely new album Birds, I had a hankering for the words. Which led me to discover that it's from a 16th century Finnish manuscript, Piae Cantiones. As is Gaudete and Tempus Adest Floridum (better known as the tune to Good King Wenceslas).

I then found an online facsimile of the book, so if you have the hankering and a group of musical friends, you could resurrect some of these lovely old songs yourself - after all, it worked for Steeleye Span. If you can't read white mensural notation, in which these songs are written, here's a handy guide.

According to the BBC, Florian has left Kraftwerk!

Apparently Amanda Palmer (of the Dresden Dolls) has given her record label the push - they refused to market her current single and album unless she allowed them to remove shots of her "fat" belly from the video for Leeds United.

From Peppermill Records, and available for free download, the Box. A 3 CD collection of eclectically odd renditions of TV theme tunes, including Bill "Cardiacs" Drake's delicate reworking of The Dukes of Hazzard, a lovely shivery retelling of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood by X.O.X., and a truly odd Airwolf rendition.

Some of the stuff I don't recognise - and I'd love a list - but also featuring are Rockford Files, the Sopranos, the Muppet Show, Inspector Gadget, M.A.S.H (done in French as lounge)... and that's just the first CD.

Apparently, the skull used in the Tennant Hamlet we saw last month was a real one. It belonged to a concert pianist and composer - a chap by the name of Andre Tchaikowsky - who died in 1982 and left his body to science, and his skull "to the Royal Shakespeare Company for use in theatrical performance." No actor until Tennant has had the nerve to use it on stage.

"It was sort of a little shock tactic. Though, of course, to some extent that wears off and it's just Andre, in his box," [Director] Doran told the Daily Telegraph.

Here's a website about him. No relation to the famous Peter, though - Tchaikowsky was the name on the false papers he was given when he was smuggled out of the ghetto in Warsaw in '42. There are links to him playing some of his own compositions here. And more on the skull bequest here - apparently the funeral directors initially refused, claiming it was illegal. There was a phone call to the Home Office to sort this out (it is illegal now - Human Tissue Act 2004)

David Tennant says:

'When I heard he had done this,' he says, 'I thought, that's brilliant, that's what I'm going to do, but apparently you can't any more, the law's been changed.'

And a quote from a friend, Michael Menaugh, showing the sort of mixed feeling that close associates must have with this kind of thing:

"Unfortunately, the fact of the skull will not go away for any of us. It is something that ultimately we have all to come to terms with, to reconcile with the Andre we knew and loved. I don't think Andre realized the effect such a bequest would have, both on his friends and on his own reputation. Andre didn't always understand that the world of ideas and the world of real people, real reactions and real events just did not coincide.

He had spoken to me of leaving his skull for the RSC to use in Hamlet back in 1966 when he wrote the music for my Oxford Hamlet. In my undergraduate way, I thought the idea wonderfully entertaining. When a great actor may hold the skull of a real man, a real man who 'set the table on a roar,' a wonderful man who had his 'gibes and gambols and songs,' when that great actor says, 'A fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy,' might not that electrifying flash of truth (transmitted by the actor) light up the play? Andre would have liked that idea, I think.

Ultravox have apparently reformed. I imagine they need the money. Anyone posting comments about how this news means nothing to them will not be appreciated. Also, Blur may well reform, according to Albarn.

I'm listening to Anton Webern's orchestration of Bach's famous Ricercar from his Musical Offering and I can only think, strewth, he must have really hated Bach. Awful. You can hear it on the tail end of this ''Late Junction'' iPlayer edition (3 days left from today) starting at 1:47ish. There's some good stuff in there - a Terry Riley piano piece, some good folk, and dear old Gai Toms.

An article in today's Graun notes that the ancient Aussie rock bands' greatest successes coincide with periods of financial turmoil. They suggest this is because people want something nice and simple when life is complicated, but my colleague Harry, who knows about such things, reckons it's simply because this album is a return to form.

From the Cardiacs website:

As some of you have no doubt become aware, Tim Smith, the stalwart front man of your beloved CARDIACS has fallen foul of ill health.

In order to quash any rumours and idle tittle-tattle amongst the faithful we find it appropriate at this time to furnish you with the necessary information to perhaps remove the worried furrows from the brows of the more hysterical amongst you..

On 25th June Tim collapsed and found himself the unfortunate victim of, ironically, a cardiac arrest. Thanks to the skill and dedication of those heroes of the streets, the paramedic service he was speedily ensconced within the caring hands of the National Health Service where he was treated by expert medical staff and thankfully he is now making a recovery. There is no longer any danger to his life and he is improving every day though we must caution that there is a long road ahead.

Needless to say we are sure you all wish him a speedy recovery and in keeping with our reputation as the caring concern, THE ALPHABET BUSINESS CONCERN will soon be facilitating a method of sending him your personal messages of goodwill on our Web site www.cardiacs.com which is sure to cheer both him and his fellow CARDIACS no end.

Needless to say, all further information will be generously furnished by THE ALPHABET BUSINESS CONCERN as and when we see fit and we hasten to add that YOUR LOYALTY DEMANDS the utmost respect for his nearest and dearest and that no attempts to gather any more information be made of them during this most fretful of times.

With respect

THE ALPHABET BUSINESS CONCERN

Blimey, poor Tim.

And we saw:

• KotoGo - Japanese koto playing in a jazz idiom, but to be honest we could have done with less of the guitar.
• Brigyn - lovely little gig, and an awesome version of Cohen's Hallelueia in Welsh.
• Cowbois Rhos Botwnnog - good, but better last year - Mrs Glaw works better at speed.. Odd to see Gwyneth Glyn rocking out with them.
• Ember - lovely many-tinted folk from this Welsh/American duo and their Dutch percussionist.
• 9Bach - bloody excellent daring interpretations of classic melancholy Welsh ballads, fronted by the ethereally lovely Lisa Jên Brown.
• Johnny Dickinson - fine slide guitar blues from Northumbria

As usual, we didn't spend much time on the Marian itself.

Been listening to quite a bit of stuff from the 80's lately, and I'd just like to mention that the following albums are all excellent:

• Infected, The The
• Oil and Gold, Shriekback
• English Settlement, XTC
• The Flat Earth, Thomas Dolby

Radio Lux, one of the bilingual Welsh rock scene's biggest groups, playing to an apparently empty field - a rare sight. They'd been asked to open the festival so people were still slowly turning up, and I think the mist put a few people off. They were bloody excellent - the true successors to the Gorkys' psychedelic throne, with more upbeat, accessible songs and jangly guitars, but the same whimsical and unpredictable air. They've learned a lot from working with Euros Childs. A really tight live act, too. Shame they only had time for a half-hour opening set before heading up to another gig in Llandudno - I think they did this one as a favour to their old friend and bandmate Sam, who organises the festival. They've got stuff on Myspace, but then who hasn't?

Saw Cerys Matthews at the Arts Centre last night - bloody hell, she's incredible. I've always thought she was good, but the sheer control she's got over her voice - without having lost any of its artlessness or fragility - is amazing these days. Highlights of the show - the encore, going from an acoustic version of Road Rage into Dyma Fi Arglwydd (while apologising for getting all her 'treigliads' wrong) - and above all, The Galway Shawl, imperceptibly segueing into an astonishing, heartrending and heartfelt performance of Strange Glue.

When faced with my demons
I clothe and I feed them
And I smile, yes I smile as they're taking me over -
And if I cannot sleep for the secrets I keep
That's a price I'm willing to meet.
The end of the night never comes too quickly for me.

I don't know how she does it, but she's one of those singers who makes you feel she's tearing her heart out and giving it just to you.

Incidentally, she mentioned in the course of the gig that she used to live in Abergeldie (a famous student dive here) and work as a breakfast waitress in the Seabank!

And I've got a week off! The world is my mollusc, think of the things I can do! Create new and astonishing works of art! Dazzle the world with feats of casual programming! Meditate peacefully in the beautiful Welsh countryside!

Actually, the exclamation point in that last one seems inappropriate. I'm hoping to do a bit of all those - I want to get out and do some photography, maybe work on some of my piano pieces too. There's a little tile-based puzzle game that might go down well on XBox Live's Marketplace I want to finish the prototype of, and sitting and relaxing might also be a good idea.

What I certainly won't be doing is spending all my time playing Oblivion and Halo 3.

Oh no.

YouTube videos of famous guitarists, overdubbed with hysterically bad playing. Much funnier than it should be, largely because of the little musical quotes dropped in (for example, the Final Countdown riff's appearance in the Santana one). If you watch nothing else today, though, watch the Iron Maiden one. As someone on popbitch said, this is what the internet is for!

Interesting article about how some 'classical' musicians claim that they're being injured by difficult music, particularily that of minimalists:

Kruger believes that some music, like that of composer Philip Glass, gives her and others pause at the stand. "This music can be hazardous. Anytime you stay in the same place, where you're doing the same thing with your left hand, that hand will get stressed and tired." [she] claims that one of those works is a ballet with the music of Philip Glass called Glass Pieces. "One of the movements is just unrelenting. It's four or five pages of the same thing. We have to take turns on the stand where I play eight bars and hang out for eight while my stand partner plays eight. We don't want to hurt ourselves. I think there would be a lot more people calling in sick if we didn't do that."

Well, it does sound like a problem, and they're trying to educate new composers about it - getting them to look at fingering charts to see exactly what they're getting their musicians to play, but (as the article points out) twas ever thus. Wagner famously didn't give a monkey's that he was ending his violinists' careers by getting them to play the bloody enormous (by violin standards) viola alta, and Beethoven even earlier was breaking fiddlers with his violent 'scrubbing' in his violin parts.

Just listening to Einojuhani Rautavaara's Cantus Arcticus (concerto for bird and orchestra) on Radio 3. Bloody hell, it's lovely. It sounds like a stupid idea, layering a symphony orchestra with recorded birdsong, but it's incredible - the birds are often just on the point of audibility, adding an indefinable but incredibly deep texture to the piece; and when they do come into focus they sound like some strange, ancient instrument.

Only just found this (youtube), although I understand it's been doing the rounds for a while. A strangely compelling song, even though the first few times you hear it you can't be sure if you're watching a real band or a Chris Morris pisstake. I'm still not sure if it's genius or utter shite.

I should have guessed this. On Tony Wilson's coffin, apparently, is the catalogue number FAC 501.

I think I'll post some videos today, just so I can find them later.

• Robert Wyatt and Annie Whitehead, Sea Song. Lovely, if a bit jazz.
• The Sea Nymphs, Sumer is icumen in. Not your standard interpretation.
• The elusive Cardiacs' Is This The Life? promo video
• Cardiacs' Hymn - "Holding these things in my hands, and I end up seeing everything." Creepy.
• Wonderful promo of Cardiacs doing the Kinks' Susannah's Still Alive
• Cardiacs again, doing Signs
• And finally, two from the mighty Bellowhead - Rigs of the Times and Jordan.

The Joyce Hatto story is all rather sad, isn't it? To recap if you're not familiar: new CDs by a fairly unknown pianist were being released on a small label, which were rapidly catching the eyes of critics, who were feteing her as the next best thing - well, the last best thing, because she sadly died last year. But then, some analysis was done on her recordings (accidentally, by CD identification software apparently), which revealed that the recordings are time-shifted and EQ-d versions of other recordings by known artists.

So far, so rip-off. But the story seems sadder than that, now her widower who made the recordings has come clean. It seems that he wanted to release her earlier cassette recordings on CD in her dying years (she had ovarian cancer), but the recordings had degraded, and they decided to re-record the works. Sadly, she was in so much pain that she couldn't play well, and could be heard groaning in the recording. Rather than deny her the dream of a 'great end to an overlooked career', he reconstructed the CDs from the work of others. And then he got carried away.

The owner of the record label has said:

"It is very touching and he does go through every detail and how he did it and he makes it very credible... I don't see how either myself or the industry can get any satisfaction for pure revenge ... I think the whole thing is [a] deeply tragic story."

Whether others in the industry will feel the same way isn't yet known...