instrument news stories on Newser

Ancient Instrument Pushes Music History Back 1K Years

Neal Colgrass — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 17:18:15 CDT

Turns out even ancient Europeans liked subtle and complex music. Archeologists have found part of a 2,300-year-old lyre—the oldest instrument ever discovered in western Europe—inside a Scottish cave, the Daily Mail reports. The broken and burnt piece of wood "pushes the history of complex music back more...

11 Worst Things Ever Lost

Evann Gastaldo — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 11:19:53 CDT

The drunk Apple engineer who left his iPhone prototype in a bar shouldn’t feel too bad: At least he didn’t lose, say, blueprints for the H-bomb like one physicist did. The Daily Beast lists 11 other famously misplaced items: Top-secret laptop : Once again, alcohol is to blame. A senior MI6...

'Cello Scrotum' Exposed as Medical Hoax

Rob Quinn — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 02:20:39 CST

The world's cellists can rest easy today knowing the dreaded "cello scrotum" is a myth, the Independent reports. A doctor who's a member of Britain's House of Lords has confessed that she invented the condition described in a letter to the British Medical Journal as a spoof. It has been...

Bain Buys Out Guitar Center

Greg Atwan — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 17:40:47 CDT

Bain Capital sealed a deal today to buy out Guitar Center, a California-based retail chain specializing in musical instruments, for $1.9 billion. The deal was reached after a secret auction conducted by Goldman Sachs; the private equity firm has recently purchased a slew of publicly traded retailers. The final...