Skip to footer

Top Picks: The Music Memos app, PBS’s 'Loretta Lynn: Still a Mountain Girl,' and more

Physicists Umberto Cannella and Daniel Whiteson's animated video explains how gravitational waves work, Wynonna Judd's album 'Wynonna & the Big Noise' sounds more like Bonnie Raitt or the Allman Brothers Band than anything on country radio, and more top picks.

|
American Masters/PBS
  • By Staff

Soul of Wynonna

Sounding more like Bonnie Raitt or the Allman Brothers Band than anything on country radio, multi-platinum star Wynonna Judd returns with Wynonna & the Big Noise, her first album in seven years. Bringing her band into the studio for a more live feel, she teams up with red-hot contemporary stars for songwriting and singing duets on tunes such as the funky “Ain’t No Thing” (featuring Susan Tedeschi from the Tedeschi Trucks Band) and the touching, soul-bearing “Things That I Lean On” (featuring Grammy winner Jason Isbell).

Pocket studio

When musical inspiration strikes, tunesmiths – amateurs and pros alike – have been singing or strumming song ideas into voice memo apps on their smartphones for years. Apple took note and created the free Music Memos for iPhone that not only allows for HD recording and cataloging, but can also add pro quality drums and bass to your guitar strum or piano melody. It’s just like being in a band. The next big smash may be being hummed into an iPhone at this very moment.

Ripple in time

If you need visual help in understanding how gravitational waves work (see Briefing, page 17) here’s a good start: Physicists Umberto Cannella and Daniel Whiteson have created an animated video to show how massive objects in space (like black holes) can cause ripples in the fabric of space and time. Check it out at http://bit.ly/GravityRipples.  

Mountain royalty

Musician Loretta Lynn is often called one of the most important figures in country music. Now a new program, PBS’s Loretta Lynn: Still a Mountain Girl, examines the life of the singer as part of its “American Masters” series. It looks at her youth but also focuses on her career now, including showing Lynn working on her new album, “Full Circle.” The documentary premières March 4 at 9 p.m.

Space travel 

Many know the history of the space program in the United States, but who helped those men and woman reach the stars? The new PBS program Space Men looks at those who worked to figure out whether space travel was possible, including those who studied how it would affect people, such as Army doctor John Paul Stapp, and those who actually participated in experiments, such as pilot Joseph Kittinger. “Space Men” airs March 1 at 9 p.m.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Top Picks: The Music Memos app, PBS’s 'Loretta Lynn: Still a Mountain Girl,' and more
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Arts/2016/0226/Top-Picks-The-Music-Memos-app-PBS-s-Loretta-Lynn-Still-a-Mountain-Girl-and-more
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe