Every hobby has its own panoply of bizarre-looking tools, machines, and items that a non-hobbyist can't possibly understand by just picking it up and looking at it.  Why should music be any different?

No matter what instrument you play, you probably have a few of these items that non-musicians can't identify.  Maybe you have some stories you like to tell about them.

See the mystery item?  Click thru to find out what it is.  If you already know, maybe you can share something even harder to identify.

It's been too long since I ran one of these!  So let's call this one a Fathers Day Present, either to you, your dad, or that special Dad to someone else in your life.

How did your dad affect your view of music?  Did he play an instrument?  Did he teach you to play?  Did you learn because of him?  In spite of him?  In memory of him?

Strum through and I'll share my story, then you can share yours.  Happy Father's Day!

On Tuesday night, InsultComicDog posted one of the funniest diaries in a long time.  John McCain's forward-thinking campaign crew decided he needed one them intertubes websight doohickies, and they set up a swag store too.

But technology isn't McCain's strength.  The store had a "feature" that allowed potential customers to write product reviews.  So Insult's recommended diary called out some of the jaw-dropping critiques people left about the McCain Golf Kit.  Plus there was snarkilicious commentary in the comments, including other product reviews.  Good thing it's there; yesterday morning McCain's tubesmeister took down all the reviews and the ability to post them.

Yet one product, all by itself, perfectly captures the epic fail of all that is McCain.  Permission is granted to come aboard, so click over to learn why the $200 McCain Nautical Lapel Pin shows the campaign isn't so ship-shape.

After helping out with the liveblogging effort covering the wildfires in Southern California, I realized it's time to bring back the Music Room series.

Natural disasters can cause havoc in anyone's life.  If there's a fire raging near your house, you have minutes to grab what you need and get the heck out.

Today's Music Room topic: have you ever lost any instruments due to a disaster?  Play through the bridge and I'll join in on the reprise.

DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS DIARY.  Go RECOMMEND THE  MOTHERSHIP and keep it in the Recommended Diary list.

This is the thirty-fifth in a series of diaries providing information regarding the California wildfires to those who most need it.  

The DKos community is providing extraordinary coverage of the California Fires.  What makes this site different from the typical media bubbleheads is that community members are giving real-time information regarding evacuations and fire locations.

Many of you are directly affected, many have family in danger, and most of us just hope and pray for the safety of our fellow citizens.

From all of us in Northern California, we are with you in spirit.  Our prayer is for calm skies, no winds, more humidity, lower temps, and safety for you all.  The forecast is for lower temperatures and so far the wind and humidity are cooperating.

After the horrific Columbine school shooting, some people blamed video games for the perpetrators' violent behavior.  Scores of war simulations, shooting fantasies, and violent attack games, the critics alleged, lead to an acceptance of horrendous and otherwise unacceptable behavior.

So most parents should welcome a musical video game like Guitar Hero as something wonderful.  Players earn points by playing a guitar-shaped controller along with a song, scoring higher the longer they can keep up a run of correct notes and rhythm values.  And a rock star is  a healthier role model than a deranged killer or a lunatic car thief.

That's all very well, unless you happen to be a musician.  Then, Guitar Hero isn't the wonderful game that makes Playstation 2 safe for the living room.  Click the strum bar to find out why.

My signature says that Music Room appears every weekend.  Whole weekend looked open, but life got in the way.

So, as I post this week's Music Room a day late, a dollar short, and years behind in blog time, this week's theme is Missing The Gig.  I bet a lot of us have stories about being late for a concert, missing a performance, or showing up at the wrong venue.

DailyKos is five years old!  And so were all of us, once.

Five year olds love music.  Give any five year old a wooden spoon and a cabinet full of pots and pans, and out comes a percussion glutton!  Watch them explore the piano keyboard if they're allowed to.

Even if you can't remember back to when you were five, odds are all of us have a story about making music as a kid.  Smack that pot, click "There's more" and read on.

I'm furiously packing for a school trip.  My son and I will be exploring the Gold Country of California along with thirty classmates, his teacher, her aide, and 15 other parents.

Of course I'm bringing a guitar.  But not my guitar.  I can't leave a new Taylor in a hot car while we go on tours.  Time for the cruddy beach guitar to come out of the closet!

Join us as we discuss what to use when you're on the road - whether a trip, a move, or a concert tour.

Last week, I had a poll that asked if you were getting better or worse in your music-making.  This week, let's discuss that.  What techniques are you working on that will make you a better musician?  What are you noticing that you can't do any more that used to come easily?

Also in progress is a nice discussion on guitars over here, if you're interested.  Mostly electrics but some acoustiphiles are sneaking in where it's dark.  I want to gush about the new Taylor I bought but I'll try to sneak it in there.

Turn the page for the extended jam session.

Madre de Dios, is it the weekend already?  Time for Music Room!  Cuarto de Música!  The madre y padre are visting, so I don't have time to write a nice themed diary.  This isn't quite a siesta, but it is a case of not having the time to sit on the computer all afternoon.  Therefore, today is No Rules Music Room.  Anything goes.

Jump in after the next canción and let us know what you're working on, what you're thinking about, and what you're listening to.  If you have suggestions for future Music Room diaries, share them too.

Some songs do not deserve to become hits.  Some songs are very well written, performed, or produced and still become annoying because they're overplayed.   Either way, every musician has a mental list of songs they do not want to play because they have heard it enough.

If you're playing for a crowd, and they ask for a big hit that you hate, what do you do?  Do you pretend you've never heard of it?  (Stairway to Heaven?  By who?)  Do you mention that you don't have the right equipment to do it justice?  Do you imply you played it at your last gig?

Join us as we discuss how to avoid playing the songs we hate and others want, in today's Music Room.

Our initial euphoria that Karl Rove would finally be investigated died down quickly when Scott Bloch, head of the Office of Special Counsel, was revealed to be under investigation himself.  Today's Los Angeles Times story on the OSC mentioned that Bloch has named Deputy Special Counsel James M. Byrne in charge of the three-pronged investigation.  (Do read that story, Bloch is coordinating with Fred Fielding and finds him cooperative!)

I can't find much about Byrne.  Bloch hired him as his Deputy OSC in February.  One of the few items on Byrne as OSC has him rescinding Bloch's really stupid directive.

Join me on the flip - I think I may have found out who Byrne is.  And plenty more linky goodness inside!

Music these days is divided into genres.  Top-selling recordings are measured by how they do compared to others in their class, so there's a top ten pop list, a top ten country, a top ten classical.  Even the iPod lets you sort your music library by genre.

But often tunes cross over from one area to another.  Last week's Music Room touched on that famous crossover classical piece, Pachelbel's Canon in D.  Not only did it become movie soundtrack music, it wormed its way into pop hits,  and even electric guitar solos.

Do you ever get inspiration from a tune and move it into an entirely new music type?  Cross on over to discuss how a piece can change its genre label.

You've heard plenty of inane pop songs.  They aren't interesting musically, you know exactly what they are going to do, there's no aha! moment to them.  As a musician, I find them boring because many are constructed on the I-IV-V model, and I always know when each of those chords is going to hit. (If you aren't familiar with this notation, it just refers to the interval relationships of the song's chords.  If the song is in C major, then the chords are C-F-G, since F is a fourth interval above C, and G is a fifth interval.)

By way of introducing Guitar Comic Rob Paravonian's hysterically funny Pachelbel's Canon rant, this week's Music Room is on insipid music.  But you can also join in on where Pachelbel is following you, even if you won't eat at Taco Bell any more because it sounds too close.

Click through to enjoy, and I'll catch you at the bridge (no doubt more IV and V).

Some musicians can pick up a score and play it flawlessly the first time.

Some musicians can hear a piece and play it flawlessly without any music at all.

Few can do both.  Plenty can do neither.  Join our discussion and see where you fit in.

I've mentioned in a previous Music Room diary that I grew up in a family of not very musical people.  Sure, most of my cousins took piano lessons, but for them it was an obligation.  For me, piano was a passion.

The real proof of my extended family's inability to get music would come out if any of the others tried singing.  They were all, in a word, awful.  What's worse, few of them had any idea of how poor their singing was.  Listening to their off notes was physically painful for me.

Perfect Pitch, Relative Pitch, and Tone-deafness: that's today's theme - click onward for the variations.

I started piano lessons when I was six.  It all made perfect sense to me.  You looked at the notes on the page, you played the correct piano keys, you made a song!  As soon as I learned 3 notes, it was time to make up my own tunes.  The easiest start was playing every measure backwards, but as soon as I learned five notes it was time to play whatever I was hearing people sing.  I was one of those annoying kids who spent hours playing all the pieces I had already mastered, just to be sure I had not forgotten them.  But I'd often neglect the current week's lessons because the music on the radio was far more interesting than the assignments, which were based on Your Hit Parade, 1929.

Jump in at the turnaround for another community music discussion.