Instructional Video9:40
TED Talks

Reggie Watts: Beats that defy boxes

12th - Higher Ed
Reggie Watts' beats defy boxes. Unplug your logic board and watch as he blends poetry and crosses musical genres in this larger-than-life performance.
Instructional Video16:23
TED Talks

Rob Legato: The art of creating awe

12th - Higher Ed
Rob Legato creates movie effects so good they (sometimes) trump the real thing. In this warm and funny talk, he shares his vision for enhancing reality on-screen in movies like Apollo 13, Titanic and Hugo.
Instructional Video19:34
TED Talks

Derek Paravicini and Adam Ockelford: In the key of genius

12th - Higher Ed
Born three and a half months prematurely, Derek Paravicini is blind and has severe autism. But with perfect pitch, innate talent and a lot of practice, he became a concert pianist by the age of 10. Here, his longtime piano teacher, Adam...
Instructional Video3:27
TED Talks

Nellie McKay: "The Dog Song"

12th - Higher Ed
Animal fan Nellie McKay sings a sparkling tribute to her dear dog. She suggests we all do the same: "Just go right to the pound/ And find yourself a hound/ And make that doggie proud/ 'cause that's what it's all about."
Instructional Video3:21
TED Talks

Rachelle Garniez: "La Vie en Rose"

12th - Higher Ed
Featuring the vocals and mischievous bell-playing of accordionist and singer Rachelle Garniez, the TED House Band -- led by Thomas Dolby on keyboard -- delivers this delightful rendition of the Edith Piaf standard "La Vie en Rose."
Instructional Video17:26
TED Talks

Maira Kalman: The illustrated woman

12th - Higher Ed
Author and illustrator Maira Kalman talks about her life and work, from her covers for The New Yorker to her books for children and grown-ups. She is as wonderful, as wise and as deliciously off-kilter in person as she is on paper.
Instructional Video5:34
TED Talks

"Mother of Pearl," "If I Had You" - Nellie McKay

12th - Higher Ed
* Viewer discretion advised. This video includes discussion of mature topics and may be inappropriate for some audiences. The wonderful Nellie McKay sings "Mother of Pearl" (with the immortal first line "Feminists don't have a sense of...
Instructional Video8:47
TED Talks

Apollo Robbins: The art of misdirection

12th - Higher Ed
Hailed as the greatest pickpocket in the world, Apollo Robbins studies the quirks of human behavior as he steals your watch. In a hilarious demonstration, Robbins samples the buffet of the TEDGlobal 2013 audience, showing how the flaws...
Instructional Video3:50
TED Talks

Jakob Trollback: A new kind of music video

12th - Higher Ed
What would a music video look like if it were directed by the music, purely as an expression of a great song, rather than driven by a filmmaker's concept? Designer Jakob Trollback shares the results of his experiment in the form.
Instructional Video2:58
TED Talks

Bruno Bowden + Rufus Cappadocia: Watch me fold origami (blindfolded)

12th - Higher Ed
After Robert Lang's talk on origami at TED2008, Bruno Bowden stepped onstage with a challenge -- he would fold one of Lang's astonishingly complicated origami figures, blindfolded, in under 2 minutes. He's accompanied by the cellist...
Instructional Video3:06
TED Talks

Derek Sivers: How to start a movement

12th - Higher Ed
With help from some surprising footage, Derek Sivers explains how movements really get started. (Hint: it takes two.)
Instructional Video11:58
TED Talks

Abha Dawesar: Life in the "digital now"

12th - Higher Ed
One year ago, Abha Dawesar was living in blacked-out Manhattan post-Sandy, scrounging for power to connect. As a novelist, she was struck by this metaphor: Have our lives now become fixated on the drive to digitally connect, while we...
Instructional Video5:52
TED Talks

Einstein the Parrot: A talking, squawking parrot

12th - Higher Ed
This whimsical wrap-up of TED2006 -- presented by Einstein, the African grey parrot, and her trainer, Stephanie White -- simply tickles. Watch for the moment when Einstein has a moment with Al Gore.
Instructional Video17:52
TED Talks

Raghava KK: My 5 lives as an artist

12th - Higher Ed
With endearing honesty and vulnerability, Raghava KK tells the colorful tale of how art has taken his life to new places, and how life experiences in turn have driven his multiple reincarnations as an artist -- from cartoonist to...
Instructional Video19:12
TED Talks

Andrew Bird: A one-man orchestra of the imagination

12th - Higher Ed
Musical innovator Andrew Bird winds together his trademark violin technique with xylophone, vocals and sophisticated electronic looping. Add in his uncanny ability to whistle anything, and he becomes a riveting one-man orchestra.
Instructional Video24:41
TED Talks

Sirena Huang: An 11-year-old's magical violin

12th - Higher Ed
Violinist Sirena Huang gives a technically brilliant and emotionally nuanced performance. In a charming interlude, the 11-year-old praises the timeless design of her instrument.
Instructional Video6:14
TED Talks

Eddi Reader: "Kiteflyer's Hill"

12th - Higher Ed
Singer/songwriter Eddi Reader performs "Kiteflyer's Hill," a tender look back at a lost love. With Thomas Dolby on piano.
Instructional Video16:06
TED Talks

Keith Bellows: The camel's hump

12th - Higher Ed
Keith Bellows gleefully outlines the engineering marvels of the camel, a vital creature he calls "the SUV of the desert." Though he couldn't bring a live camel to TED, he gets his camera crew as close as humanly possible to a one-ton...
Instructional Video15:26
TED Talks

Adam Savage: My obsession with objects and the stories they tell

12th - Higher Ed
Adam Savage talks about his fascination with the dodo bird, and how it led him on a strange and surprising double quest. It's an entertaining adventure through the mind of a creative obsessive.
Instructional Video12:07
TED Talks

Ueli Gegenschatz: Extreme wingsuit flying

12th - Higher Ed
Wingsuit jumping is the leading edge of extreme sports -- an exhilarating feat of almost unbelievable daring, where skydivers soar through canyons at over 100MPH. Ueli Gegenschatz talks about how (and why) he does it, and shows...
Instructional Video13:07
TED Talks

Stefon Harris: There are no mistakes on the bandstand

12th - Higher Ed
What is a mistake? By talking through examples with his improvisational jazz quartet, Stefon Harris walks us to a profound truth: many actions are perceived as mistakes only because we don't react to them appropriately.
Instructional Video24:05
TED Talks

Jennifer Lin: Improvising on piano, aged 14

12th - Higher Ed
Pianist and composer Jennifer Lin gives a magical performance, talks about the process of creativity and improvises a moving solo piece based on a random sequence of notes.
Instructional Video3:21
TED Talks

Andy Hobsbawm: Do the green thing

12th - Higher Ed
Andy Hobsbawm shares a fresh ad campaign about going green -- and some of the fringe benefits.
Instructional Video12:53
TED Talks

Bruce McCall: What is retro-futurism?

12th - Higher Ed
Bruce McCall paints a retro-future that never happened -- full of flying cars, polo-playing tanks and the RMS Tyrannic, "The Biggest Thing in All the World." At Serious Play '08, he narrates a brisk and funny slideshow of his...