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.

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.

Researchers have developed ways to induce hallucinations, and though it sounds weird, it could also tell us a lot about mental health.

Whether your favorite band is One Direction or Slayer, you can probably tell tense chords from relaxed ones, but what exactly gives them those qualities?

Sounds in the ocean can travel more than 10,000 miles - that's halfway around the world! Here's how.

Have you ever wondered how your ears work? In this delightful and fascinating talk, biophysicist Jim Hudspeth demonstrates the wonderfully simple yet astonishingly powerful mechanics of hair cells, the microscopic powerhouses that make...

Crash Course A&P continues the journey through sensory systems with a look at how your sense of hearing works. We follow sounds as they work there way into the ear where they are registered and transformed into action potentials....

Playing sound effects both pleasant and awful, Julian Treasure shows how sound affects us in four significant ways. Listen carefully for a shocking fact about noisy open-plan offices.

How to Turn Sound Into Light: Sonoluminescence

Jessi and Squeaks want a way to let their friends know when it's time to play at the Fort, so they work together and use engineering to build a prototype solution!



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Electronic music is older than you may think. Enter the theremin - a device that turns your body into part of a capacitor, and allows you to play music without even touching an instrument!

Unicorns may not exist on this planet, but Earth does have plenty of one-horned creatures that are just as remarkable, if not quite as majestic.

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Virtuoso Pamelia Kurstin performs and discusses her theremin, the not-just-for-sci-fi electronic instrument that is played without being touched. Songs include "Autumn Leaves," "Lush Life" and David Mash’s "Listen, Words Are Gone."

When you think of fangirls, what comes to mind: large swaths of fandom (usually for a boyband) whose feelings culminate in tears and joyful screams? Perhaps you grimace or roll your eyes at the thought. In this fun, lively talk,...

The older the word, the longer (and more fascinating) the story. With roots in Old English, 'true' shares etymological ancestors with words like betroth and truce...but also with the word tree. In fact, trees have been metaphors for...

Sometimes you hear music and you automatically tap your foot, or do a little dance, or walk to the beat. What’s happening in your brain that makes your body move like that? Can music’s effects on movement or speech rewire your brain?

Patients in comas might look like they’re sleeping, but there are pretty fascinating things happening inside of their heads.

Objects that fly faster than the speed of sound (like really fast planes) create a shock wave accompanied by a thunder-like noise: the sonic boom. These epic sounds can cause distress to people and animals and even damage nearby...

What's haunting Carrie Poppy? Is it ghosts or something worse? In this talk, the investigative journalist narrates her encounter with a spooky feeling you'll want to warn your friends about and explains why we need science to deal with...

There are more than 20,000 species of bees, all of which buzz when they fly, and many of which also do it to communicate. But some bees buzz for a completely different reason that has nothing to do with communication or flight!

Biologist Mark Pagel shares an intriguing theory about why humans evolved our complex system of language. He suggests that language is a piece of "social technology" that allowed early human tribes to access a powerful new tool:...

I believe that losing my hearing was one of the greatest gifts I've ever received, says elise Roy. As a disability rights lawyer and design thinker, she knows that being Deaf gives her a unique way of experiencing and reframing the world...

You’re in the woods, there’s a full moon, and the wind begins to howl. We can’t take you out of this horror movie scenario, but we can explain why the wind sounds so spooky.

By dissecting a cockroach ... yes, live on stage ... TED Fellow and neuroscientist Greg Gage shows how brains receive and deliver electric impulses -- and how legs can respond. (Launching a series on Awesome Nature) "The Cockroach...