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Thursday, September 30, 2010

Music – Life



Music is all which can be everywhere around us. Music is not only the piece of melody or the sound which comes from an instrument it is something which is sensed by soul. It can be from everything like the cry of toddler, running waves. Everything will seem much richer, much more luminous, and much more important, but music is the only thing which makes you cry when you want to cry, makes you dance when you are in joy makes you feel happy all the time.

Nowadays music is even treated as a good therapy for health to make a man relaxed.
Research has shown that music has a deep effect on your body and psyche. In fact, there’s a growing field of health care known as Music Therapy, which uses music to heal. Those who practice music therapy are finding a benefit in using music to help cancer patients, children with ADD, and others, and even hospitals are beginning to use music and music therapy to help with pain management, to help ward off depression, to promote movement, to calm patients, to ease muscle tension, and for many other benefits that music and music therapy can bring. This is not surprising, as music have effect on the body and mind in many powerful ways.

Music and noise are alike in many ways, but also diverse in some important ways. While noise is disturbing annoying and often a nuisance, music is soothing, peaceful, exciting, and has positive effects towards human emotions. Human feelings toward music or noise can be a comatose state of the mind or it may be a learned reaction and acuity. For example if we play music for a person who has never heard music in his life, he may die for it because it that much soothing and pleasant.Music has no end.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Rock Hall of Fame shows get a three-disc set for the ages



Mick Jagger can't recall who recommended Gimme Shelter as his model symbiotic exercise with U2 for last year's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame shows in New York.

When Jagger and Bono were discussing Gimme Shelter seem to be good one. And it worked too. And Jagger said that they rehearsed the night before and tried different tempos and a few different arrangements.

The 1969 Rolling Stones classic, with Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas undertaking Merry Clayton's role, is among 67 performances on The 25th Anniversary Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Concerts (Time Life, $40), a three-DVD set out this week.

Their glowing version is an undeniable highlight on the all-star collection, but it may have been a rematch.Jagger has got a sly feeling that Fergie's guested on it with the Stones before, when we did shows with the Peas.

At the Madison Square Garden event, Fergie was very good. She's not fazed by anything. She's right there, happy in every situation."

He also joined Bono on U2's Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of, a single from 2000'sAll That You Can't Leave Behind. Bono's suicide-themed song, an imagined argument with late INXS singer Michael Hutchence, wasn't entirely unfamiliar to Jagger.
Jagger was the third act to sign on after Rock Hall chairman Jann Wenner enlisted U2 and Bruce Springsteen for two historic music marathons of big hits and fantasy collaborations by an ambitious roster including Jerry Lee Lewis, Smokey Robinson, Aretha Franklin, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Billy Joel, Ray Davies, Buddy Guy, Sam Moore, Sting, James Taylor, B.B. King and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

The two-night stand, which aired a month later as a four-hour HBO special, raised roughly $5 million for Cleveland's rock shrine and served up such choice combos as Jeff Beck and Billy Gibbons on Foxey Lady, Springsteen and John Fogerty on Fortunate Son, Metallica and Lou Reed on Sweet Janeand Paul Simon and Dion on The Wanderer.
A bonus disc of mash-ups not shown on HBO boasts Springsteen and Tom Morello's London Calling, Stevie Wonder and John Legend's Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) and Simon & Garfunkel's Mrs. Robinson.

He's pleased that rock's big tent accommodated genres from soul to metal to blues but wishes the shows had been less Boomer-centric.
There are always one or two people who get nervous. But everyone was vibed up to do it, and it was well put-together. Most of these people know each other, so it was very friendly. It was a real enjoyable experience.

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Final chance to see Silence of the Music


















Cape Town audiences have only one more week to knowledge the musical magic of Silence of the Music.

With a leading Cape Town daily giving the musical score a five-star rating and nightly standing ovations from audiences, Silence of the Music - the original South African musical drama - demonstrates its tagline that in a varied world, music does certainly fuse.

Directed by Basil Appollis, Silence of the Music premiered on September 23 at the Baxter Theatre to turbulent applause and a standing ovation. This audience reaction has become a nightly occurrence as the star-studded production enters its second and final week.

Critics and audiences alike have raved about the score composed by leading world music composer Lynne Holmes-Ganief of the Desert Rose music production company and the original soundtrack has been experiencing brisk sales only a week after its launch.

Holmes-Ganief's musical score reflects the rich diversity of South Africa's melting pot of cultural influences, merging classical, Eastern and African musical elements into contemporary melodic world music arrangements which drive the narrative of an intercultural love story set in South Africa.

The production's stellar cast, headed by doyennes of stage and screen, Michele Maxwell and Farouk Valley-Omar, comprises award-winning musical actor Loukmaan Adams, popular TV heartthrob Keenan Arrison, top Bollywood singer Asmina Aleker, rising soprano Antoinette Blyth, leading actress and singer Nobuhle Ketelo, well-known TV personality and Hebrew vocalist Belinda Silbert, as well as Yusuf Ganief, the acclaimed Arabic vocalist who is the lead singer for Desert Rose.

Silence of the Music has evolved from a partnership between Appollis and Holmes-Ganief and the duo's ground-breaking combination of drama and diverse musical styles is pioneering a new genre of theatrical entertainment that reflects a uniquely South African perspective.

Silence of the Music is being funded by a group of customers who have come together with a common vision to promote common humanity and peaceful co-existence amongst people through music and theatre.

Thursday, September 23, 2010

The peculiar world of home-made guitars



Trashed rake, old frying pans and moose antlers might be scrap to some, but not Canadian Lorne Collie who has made all of these things into guitars at one time or another.

Collie is a "luthier," or guitar maker, and his hobby is transforming the scrap he stumbles across at the farm his lives on with wife, Helen, into electric guitars.

The first guitar he made was out of a spade.

Collie regularly gets offers from guitar enthusiasts to buy weird instruments but he says they are not for sale. He doesn’t want to get into making things to sell. He retired now. He simply does it for pleasure.

For now, Collie is retaining his treasure trove of shaped obscurities until a Beatle comes along.

Working out of the loft of his house in Veenendaal in The Netherlands, Landman has made one-off instruments for musicians including Sonic Youth and Kate Nash.

It makes it individual. My guitar, which has a bass string, sounds like a five piece band.
--Laura-Mary Carter, guitarist, Blood Red Shoes.

The 37-year-old who made his first guitar 10 years ago out of a table leg, now builds instruments with three to 18 strings, giving them an idiosyncratic pitch and tone compared with traditional six-stringed variety.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Karkwa wins the 2010 Polaris Music Prize



The Polaris Music Prize is a music award yearly given to the finest full-length Canadian album based on artistic merit, regardless of genre, sales, or record label. The award was established in 2006 and includes a C$20,000 cash prize. The Polaris Music Prize is sculpted after the Mercury Music Prize, which is handed to the best British or Irish album.

And this year Montreal francophone rockers Karkwa were awarded the 2010 Polaris Music Prize for their album Les Chemins De Verre. And they came out with a $20,000 purse, and is handed out annually to the best Canadian album of the year, regardless of sales or genre.
Karkwa’s win marks the first time in the Polaris’ five year history that the award has been given to a non-English band.

The band – singer Louis-Jean Cormier, keyboardist Francois Lafontaine, drummer Julier Sagot, drummer Stéphane Bergeron and bassist Martin Lamontaigne – was formed in 1998 and have released three albums prior to Les Chemins De Verre, including Les Tremblements s’immobilisent, which won a trio of Felix Awards in 2006.

Scottish singer Emma’s thoughts wins Must Be the Music



Emma’s thoughts have won Must Be the Music 2010.

The Edinburgh born singer, whose real name is Emma Gillespie, has come a long way from busking on the streets of Glasgow.

The talented 27 year old blew the viewers and judges away on the Sky1 talent show, with her performances of Focus and This Day during last night’s live finals at Wembley Arena.

Following in the footsteps of leading Scots singer / songwriters like Amy MacDonald, KT Tunstall and show judge, Sharleen Spiteri, Emma is now set to rainstorm the charts after show fans have been rushing to download her tracks.

Winning £100,000, Gillespie wheezed: "Thank you so much for supporting me, I couldn't have done it without you. I can't get my head around [the £100,000 prize money]."

Must be the Music has been a huge success and will return for another series next year. Many industry insiders feel it is a much more probable talent show than others that are currently out there.

Spiteri previously told The Sun: "I love the X Factor - it's absolutely brilliant television. But the competitors have a very unrealistic view of the music industry.

"They want to be musicians and write songs. That's the variation between the X Factor and Must Be The Music."

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Music makes you smarter, happier


Music energizes the soul of all humanity. It excites the brain and animates the spirit, accumulating evidence shows. That is why music is so enduring and pervasive.

When we listen to music (it is as if) the brain is on fire. According to Nina Kraus at Northwestern University, music has "a pervasive effect on how the nervous system gets moulded and shaped ... a transformation that comes about only with active engagement with sound."

Researches confirm that listening to music at a very young age improves spatial and temporal reasoning, and increases aptitude in mathematics, engineering and some games, such as chess.
The impact of playing a musical instrument is even more impressive.

Recent information indicates music can boost brain power and that musically-trained children have enhanced visio-spatial processing capabilities, better memories and higher overall intelligence.

Some neuroscientists call it the "Mozart effect," the collective benefits acquired through playing and/or listening to music.

Music processing is an "ensemble activity" involving many areas of brain circuitry. Studies show that music impacts on almost every important region of the brain: prefrontal cortex, motor cortex, cerebellum, hippocampus, amygdala, sensory cortex, nucleus accumbens and auditory cortex, some of which are vital in long-term memory retention.

Accordingly, music impacts on the brain's pleasure centres.

Babies are born with a musical readiness that includes a basic sense of timing and rhythm.
Specific taste in music tends to freeze in early adulthood, rarely changing thereafter.

(People) tend to form enduring preferences during a sensitive period in their lives, the researchers report. Musical tastes are strongly related to song-specific ages (the age at the time the song was popular), peaking in late adolescence or early adulthood (23.5 years of age).
"Music styles popular during youth generate preferences over other styles of music that tend to prevail for the rest of their lives," they explained.

That is why listening to music that was popular during one's youth can be therapeutic. Such nostalgic music can be beneficial in treating dementia, anxiety, stroke, cancer, some respiratory ailments and some types of brain injury.

Music significantly boosts the self-images of children and has hugely beneficial impacts in the treatment of some hospitalized children.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Bob Marley’s Family Loses Rights to His Most Famous Music

Albums recorded between 1973 and 1977 by reggae legend, Bob Marley are owned by UMG and not his family. In the lawsuit, Marley’s family stated UMG was intentionally withholding royalties from them and undermining the 1995 agreement giving the family rights under the original recording agreements.

The albums include “Catch a Fire,” “Burnin’,” “Natty Dread,” “Rastaman Vibrations,” and “Exodus.” Which means his most famous songs, “One Love,” “No Woman, No Cry,” “I Shot the Sheriff,” and others are not owned by his family.

Marley died of cancer in 1981, age 36.

The lawsuit filed by his widow, Rita, and their nine children said that UMG exploited the “quintessential Bob Marley sound recordings.”

They also said that they were not notified of “key decisions.” However U.S. District Judge Denise Cote wrote, "Each of the agreements provided that the sound recordings were the 'absolute property' of Island. Whether Marley would have recorded his music even if he had not entered the recording agreements with Island is beside the point."

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Goal of organizers of Peace Jam is unity through music


The organizers of Peace Jam hope music can be a unifying force in neighborhoods shaken by violence.

The event will be held from noon to 7 p.m. Sept. 25 at Marsh Field, on the corner of Peck Street and Laketon Avenue. Activities will include choirs and spoken word performers, lecturers, food and information booths and children’s games.

The Peace Jam is designed to turn the community’s focus away from this summer’s violence.
Four men were killed and at least six wounded by bullets, and one was severely beaten, in a month-long streak of violence late this summer.

Music played a part in starting this summer’s violence.

One neighborhood came out with a song, and the other neighborhood would try to top them, with the rivalry escalating to fights.Now the Peace Jam organizers hope music can be part of the solution to the problem of violence.

After this all the guys would love music. They’re going to be playing on the same side.

Monday, September 13, 2010

Lady Gaga rules MTV Video Music Awards 2010



Washington, (ANI): Pop star Lady Gaga took the MTV Video Music
Awards by storm as she won in eight of the 14 categories in this year's event. The categories in which Gaga took the moon man home are Video of the Year, Female Video, Pop Video, Collaboration, Dance Video, Choreography, Editing and Direction for her album 'Bad Romance'.

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Music therapy in critical care


Music therapy is an effective intervention for critically ill patients for such purposes as nervousness reduction and stress management. The therapy is readily accepted by patients and is an intervention patients thoroughly enjoy.

The MAIT is one resource that nurses caring for critically ill patients can use to implement music therapy in clinical practice. Patients can be given the opportunity to select a musical tape they prefer and to negotiate with the nurse for uninterrupted music-listening periods.

Allowing patients control over music selection and providing uninterrupted time for music listening gives the patients an enhanced sense of control in an environment that often controls them.

So Oliver Wendell Holmes says
Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons. You will find it is to the soul what a water bath is to the body.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Eminem Wins Digital Music Royalty Lawsuit - Music Industry Turned on its Head - How Will it endure?

Rapper Eminem along with earlier production company F.B.T Productions LLC wins a digital royalties lawsuit. They will be paid higher digital music royalties from Universal Music Group (UMG) according to a recent ruling by a federal appeals court. The rapper’s company will receive an additional share of the royalties for music that is downloaded over iTunes or as cellphone ringtone sales.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Personal Music Players Damage Hearing Over Time



Study found dramatic increase in hearing loss among teen girls who used them

Personal music players may pose a major risk to hearing if they're played too loudly or for too long, researchers report.

The 24-year study included 8,710 girls from poorer families, average age 16, whose hearing was tested when they entered a residential facility in the northeastern region of the United States. Between 1985 and 2008, high-frequency hearing loss -- a common result of excessive noise exposure -- among the girls nearly doubled, from 10.1 percent to 19.2 percent.

Between 2001 and 2008, personal music player use among the girls rose fourfold, from 18.3 percent to 76.4 percent. During that same period, high-frequency hearing loss increased from 12.4 percent to 19.2 percent, and the proportion of girls with tinnitus (ringing, buzzing or hissing in the ears) nearly tripled, from 4.6 percent to 12.5 percent, the investigators found.

Girls who listened to personal music devices were 80 percent more likely to have impaired hearing than those who didn't use the devices, the study authors reported. Of the teens with tinnitus, 99.7 percent used the devices.

Other factors in the girls' lives -- such as poverty, poor air quality, substance abuse and risk-taking behavior -- could add to the effects of noise exposure from personal music players, she said.

The findings, released online Aug. 31 in advance of publication in an upcoming print issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, indicate the need to improve efforts to educate young people about safe use of personal music players, Berg suggested.

"You have to target them at a much younger age, when they are liable to be more receptive," she said.