The Internet does well by music – here are a couple of examples.

Playing together

Making Music London is one of those delightfully uncomplicated websites that does one thing and does it well. The task here, you will be unsurprised to hear, is to help people in London to make music together. Unless you want to do this hanging around on a street corner, in which case you should try your nearest pub late on a Saturday night, you will need to find a group to join.

You can search this site for groups across the whole of London, or search nearer to home using the clickable map or the search box. You can specify vocal or instrumental (and refine your search using the keyword box), and leave the search engine to do the rest.

There is a text box on prominent display, the gist of which is that only limited descriptions will be shown on the website itself – they are going to rely on the groups to have their own websites to link to. This is sensible in that it limits the amount of updating to be done by the promoters of the website. It does mean that groups without websites (or whose websites crash – I found one) will be rather left out.

But for the prospective singer or player, there is enough choice here to justify an early visit.

(From the Gateway to websites, select "Music". Making Music London is a Key Link.)

Da da da daaah da!

There is a website called Bored.com, which has all sorts of games to stave off boredom. But the bit which interests me is called the Song Tapper. To use this, you have to invite ridicule from anyone within hearing by tapping out the rhythm of a song on your computer’s space bar, so that the magic machine can identify the song.

If it gets it right, you can link to lyrics of the song, or listen to the music as a ringtone. You get the picture - we're mostly talking idle-moment stuff here, although I’ve seen/heard library professionals use it in earnest. It probably won’t find the slow movement of a Haydn symphony, unless someone has "educated" it to do so, using the feedback box.

It’s a bit of fun which might just help you win that trivia quiz.

(From the Gateway to websites, select "Music". The Song Tapper is under "Popular".)

Dead exclusive

Are you in or are you out? This week’s websites are all about the chosen few.

Class of ‘05

215 new biographies have just been added to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and the qualification is simple, if a touch macabre – to be included in the latest batch, you must have died in 2005. Of course, since then your name will have been tossed around at meetings of the great and the good at the Oxford University Press, to decide whether you did enough, when you were still alive, to rate an entry in the Dictionary.

You don’t have to have been great or even good yourself. Robert Maxwell is famously described in the ODNB as "publisher and swindler"; they like a crook to spice things up. Sadly, I couldn’t find any known criminals in the new lot.

Parliament is represented by – amongst others - Edward Heath, James Callaghan and Mo Mowlam, the arts by Fay Godwin (photographer), Sheila Gish (actress) and Christopher Fry (playwright, at the great age of 97). Long John Baldry and Dave Allen are in there batting for show biz, while the maker of funny-shaped cars, John DeLorean, also makes it.
It’s a long list, and a fascinating cross-section of the country’s movers and shakers. And if the 2005 lot don’t interest you, there are another 50,000 or so from previous years.

The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is a Westminster Libraries Exclusive Resource for library members. Outside the library, you will need you library card number to get access.

(From the Gateway to websites, select "Biography". The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography is a Key Link.)

Everybody who’s anybody

There’s just room to remind you that Who’s Who (another Exclusive Resource, also including Who Was Who from 1898) is now in the same stable as the ODNB (discussed above), which means that it’s bright, attractive, and packed with interesting features, alongside the self-penned entries for the rich and famous. And if you’re curious about who gets into Who’s Who, there’s a link on the home page to a very good summary from the Daily Telegraph.

(From the Gateway to websites, select "Biography". Who’s Who is a Key Link.)

Parlez-vous Kent?

It used to be the case that, once Christmas and the New Year were safely out of the way, our thoughts turned to holidays. The standard method for getting through the wintry weeks of January and February was to plot and plan your summer jaunt.

This year it is not just the weather that is distinctly icy, so maybe you are thinking in terms of Margate rather than the Med. But that needn’t stop you buffing up your language skills – think how impressed they’ll be in Broadstairs when you ask for a raspberry lolly in fluent German! Try these websites for help with your learning.

See-through linguistics

Transparent Languages sell language courses. That’s presumably how they pay the mortgage, and good luck to them. But the reason they’re on the Gateway is that they have some useful free stuff for language learners. I particularly like the games.

I have to confess that normally I wouldn’t do one of those puzzles where you find words hidden in a square of jumbled letters. But do it in French or German and suddenly it becomes much more interesting.

As well as the games, there are quizzes, "survival phrases", and several more useful freebies. Well worth a look.

(From the Gateway to websites, select "Languages". Transparent Languages is under "Language learning and teaching".)

Coining phrases

Of course, if it’s language games you want to play, there’s nothing to beat the Babel Fish Reversible Translation Game. The rules are simple: go to the automatic translation site, Babel Fish. Enter a phrase in English (I tried "take me home"), then ask it to translate into, say, French ("prenez-moi à la maison"). Then re-enter the French phrase and request a translation back into English – this comes out as "take to me at the house", altogether a more intriguing prospect!

The permutations are endless, and fun is guaranteed. The serious aspect of Babel Fish is that you can get a rough idea of the meaning of a phrase, a paragraph or even a whole website. Just don’t rely on it to gain the admiration of your friends or the people you meet on the road!

(From the Gateway to websites, select "Languages". Babel Fish is under "Translation")

Pic: Fred Fossett