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Thanks to a new recording by former Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart, anyone can hear a sound that was cloistered in Himalayan monasteries for centuries.

With an exotic fiddle, a viola, a classical guitar and a drum kit, the quartet called QQQ creates something like Appalachian folk music — albeit filtered through Brooklyn experimentalism and rural Norwegian flavor. The band plays a special session in Studio 4A.

In the mid-1960s, an electrician converted his basement into a jerry-built, custom studio he dubbed Double U Sound. Between 1967 and 1981, Felton Williams recorded more than 300 reels of tape. Downriver Revival is the first in a series of compilations focusing on the recordings of these local studios.

Millions have discovered the now-familiar landmarks of California's Yosemite Valley through the extraordinary black-and-white photographs of Ansel Adams. Now, jazz legend Dave Brubeck aims to bring musical emotion to the experience of viewing Adams' work with a new piece.

He wrote hits and and played guitar for the biggest names in pop music, and he had plenty of hits of his own. But for Bobby Womack, joining the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame represents an actual homecoming for a soul survivor.

A few years ago, the banjo master Fleck set out to explore the birthplace of his instrument: West Africa. The results of his cross-cultural explorations are collected on a new album. He describes and performs some of his findings, with Malian kora virtuoso Diabate.

Blind Pilot conducted its first tour on a pair of bicycles, riding from Vancouver to San Francisco. Though the group now tours in a van, its members look back fondly on their early days, which included campfires and unexpected attention from truckers.

Recent developments in understanding the interaction between music and the brain might help us avoid the stress inherent in sending one's hard-earned tax dollars to Manhattan and Detroit and Baghdad. With the right music in the background, preparing taxes might feel about the same as drinking cucumber water in a swank spa, or doing tai chi as the sun rises over the seashore.

NPR's Tom Huizenga takes Scott Simon on a guided tour of a fascinating new set of opera CDs, documenting singers and their recordings from 1898 to 2007. Along the way, hear opera great Enrico Caruso in his first recording session and the penatrating sound of dramatic soprano Eva Turner.

When singer-songwriter Jill Sobule found herself without the financial support of a record label, she found a way to circumvent the business — by getting her fans to donate enough money to fund the recording of her new CD. Here, Sobule talks about the creation of California Years.