The Joys Of Learning To Play The Harmonica
A marvelous gift from God – music influences our deepest emotions and allows us to demonstrate how we feel. It gives us a lift when our spirits are down and puts us at peace during times of unrest and anxiety.
The benefits of music are even more intense when we are not just the listener, but actually the maker of the music ourselves. A listener who joins in singing a song or dancing to the music will increase the benefit they receive from the song but it is the instrumentalist who reaps the greatest joy.
The harmonica lets the musically challenged begin to enjoy the benefits of music within just a few hours. It is not necessary to be able to read music to begin playing the harmonica – you just need a tune in your head similar to whistling or humming. It only take a few hours to get to know where the notes on your harmonica are and after approximately ten hours of practice everything falls into place and you become a natural. You just sing your music through your harmonica without having to think about whether to draw or blow through the numbered holes. If your preference is folk songs or hymns you will easily be able to work out how to play them on your harmonica. Your music will not raise any complaints from the neighbors – they are more likely to compliment you on your gentle tones when you are playing outdoors.
The harmonica itself is small and compact and the true addict will carry it in his purse or pocket with him wherever he goes, a benefit you cannot enjoy if a piano or trumpet is your chosen instrument. Best of all, it is inexpensive – a fairly good one will cost you between $10 and $20. If someone should steal it, or you lose it, it is not the end of the world, as at this small cost you can simply buy another one. In fact, most players will accumulate several harmonicas in just a short time.
Once you have experienced the joy of hearing yourself play music on your harmonica you will no doubt become addicted. You will be sneaking off by yourself for your harmonica fix at every opportunity as it takes you over, becoming your stimulant or sedative depending on your mood.
Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of MusicianHome.com, a site that provides information and articles for musicians at all stages of their development. http://www.musicianhome.com/
Laurie Berkner’s Music – A Great Hit With Children and Adults Alike
It is not at all surprising that Children’s Music Web claims Victor Vito to be the Best Recording for Toddlers and Family Fun Magazine says “Victor Vito is really, truly neato” due to the fact that Laurie Berkner’s music is as popular with moms and dads as it is with children!
When listening to the big purple dinosaur sing “I love you, you love me!” it is no longer necessary for adults to put their fingers in their ears or rush to take a painkiller, thanks to Laurie Berkner’s talented knack for writing and performing children’s tunes. Even though the words of the song may be silly, the music is still appealing to parents who find themselves singing along when listening to the CD’s with their children.
Although music played a big part in Laurie Berkner’s life, her more recent success as a children’s recording artist came as a huge surprise. “It was so unexpected. I’d been performing in rock and struggling to write original music. Writing music for kids has not been a struggle at all. The more I started working on material for children, the more I realized that it opened up creativity in me that I never knew I had.” comments Laurie.
Following on from her studies at college, Laurie was employed in the role of music counselor at summer camps, and after that for many years as a children’s music specialist in and around the New York area, at day care and preschool centers. This experience of working with children became the ideal outlet for Laurie to express her many creative skills, resulting in what she remarks, “has turned out to be incredibly rewarding.”
There are a total of three members in Laurie’s band, long term friend and pianist Susie Lampert and Laurie’s bassist husband, Brian Mueller. As well as her video and CD’s, a new DVD is to be released in the near future. Laurie, a mom living in Princeton, New Jersey, performs on the TV show, Noggin on a daily basis. This is the only educational channel devoted to children of preschool age, twelve hours a day and seven days a week, totally uninterrupted by commercials.
If you check out the song titles on the Victor Vito CD, Victor Vito, Bottle Caps, Moon Moon Moon, Froggie Went A-Courtin’, I’m Not Perfect, The Toy Museum, O Susannah, BOOTS, Oleanna, The Crabs, Sneaks, The Goldfish, Zodiac, Trucks, Fruit Salad Salsa, The Story of my Feelings, I Feel Crazy so I Jump in the Soup, Shakin’ Down the Sugar, Googleheads, Tingolayo, White Coral Bells, Goodnight , the reason this is such a fun collection will be abundantly clear.
Lots of Laurie’s songs are simply good to sing along to create a feeling of happiness, whilst a great life lesson is tucked neatly inside Laurie’s acoustic guitar, flute, harmonica, horns and maracas. So if you are searching for children’s audio which will bring you enjoyment at the same time, Laurie Berkner is an artist you should definitely consider. You can learn more about Laurie on her webiste – just google the name for the site details.
Kevin Sinclair is the publisher and editor of MusicianHome.com, a site that provides information and articles for musicians at all stages of their development. http://www.musicianhome.com/
How to Read Musical Notes of Guitars
Music is defined as the art of producing arrangements of sounds, reference to rhythm, pitch and tone color. Pitch is the frequency at which a note vibrates. Tone color is the type of sound. For example an overdriven electric guitar has a very rough aggressive tone. Rhythm is a measure of the time frame with which you play the notes. In other words, music is formed with the combination of notes that are pleasing to the ear.
However, many a times looking at a guitar player reading his musical sheet you must have wondered, how to read musical notes of guitar like a pro. Well, that is easy. Here are some basic tips on how to read the musical notes of guitar
Tip 1
The problem is that most of the teachers start teaching the students to impose reading simultaneously with guitar learning as soon as the first class starts. The first step is to get the motivation along with the self-esteem high for yourself and then proceed towards reading notes.
It is no rocket science. You need to give yourself some time for learning how to read musical notes of guitar. Once you believe you are comfortable enough with the instrument you can start with the notation reading.
Allow your teacher to introduce to you music symbols and their interpretations. The teacher must remember that the student should be willing enough to learn how to read the musical notes of guitar. You can divide reading music into stages at whatever stage one learns. It is guaranteed to lead to music reading proficiency.
Tip 2
The first stage in reading music is to identify and understand where you know the tune. By this we mean how familiar you are with the tune. Initially you would only like to play tunes that you like hearing. You start playing it having the music sheet in front of you.
Tip 3
As you start reading notes all you need to do initially is to figure out where and how those dots, numbers and markings on the staff translate on the fret board. There are only a few basics that will make the whole process real easy. Knowing a just a few things will make the ride easy.
Tip 4
The music staff, which is the five horizontal lines, also known as Leager lines, shows you how high or low a note is. The third line is a mid point. This mid point is the open second string of the guitar a B Si. Most important you should know that the strings of the guitar are counted starting from the bottom and going up.
So while reading notes all you need is to see dots and their height on the staff. Mentally eliminate those lines, small dots, white notes etc.
Tip 5
Lastly, to play guitars use 4 fingers in one hand and 4 fingers on the other. Once you know by heart these few things, the next you have to memorize is what the 6 strings of the guitar look like, and their names. Knowing only these 6 notes, you should figure out every single note on the fret board.
With the knowledge acquired so far you can say with all certainty that you know how to read a musical notes of guitar.
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Why Are Cell Phone Ringtones So Popular?
Although there always seem to be a number of people who claim that cell phone ringtones blaring music is annoying and extremely distracting, they have quickly become a multi-billion dollar industry that stretches throughout the entire world. Yes, mobile ringtones is a multi-billion dollar industry. Considering that most tones are cheap in price means there are millions of people downloading them every day.
In 2007, United States consumers will pay a whopping $550 million for cell phone tones. That works out to be a 709% increase in sales since the year 2003, and it appears that this increase in sales is becoming a steady trend. These facts have been reported by Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), the performing rights organization, which is the group that represents 6.5 million songs that are also being downloaded as ringtones.
Now, this raises the question: Should ringtones really be free? Most people say yes, but millions more are purchasing them. Someone is certainly spending those multi-billions on cell phone tunes. Custom phone tones are not a necessity; why is there such a high demand for them?
While there is not a clear response to that question, many people are pushing to get the cell phone ringtones service free of charge. This urge for free tune downloads has caused a battle between iPhone hackers, who are currently making programs to access cell phone ringtones at no cost, and the ever-popular company Apple, who is striving to both please the consumers and the music industry by charging .99 cents for every new ringtone that is made and downloaded. Thus, there is a great battle between free and paid ringers.
While there are many people trying to get free tones, there are just as many people, such as music makers and phone carriers, who are pushing to keep phone ringtones paid. Their point of argument is that it should be illegal for customers to create cell phone ringtones because it is a violation of copyrights, and that it takes away their ability to make money. The music industry makes a tremendous amount of money in cell phone ringtones, and they would like to keep this niche profitable.
The current Fair Use provision of the copyright law explains that it is not illegal to copy a song for your personal use, like for CDs in your car. Many feel that this should also apply to cell phone ringtones, as it would be for personal use.
According to University of Utah professor Lee Hollaar, “Many feel it provides a defense for fair use, but nothing is absolute. This defense is less available when you’re simply doing it to save money.” Therefore, the debate on cell phone ringtones continues.
Andrew Welch, who is the president of Ambrosia Software, argues that if someone purchases a song from iTunes, they should be legally entitled to transform that song into a cell phone ringtone. If that is not the case, then people could actually end up being charged a fee for each time they make a music copy for any of their mobile music devices.
But again, as always, there is a flip side to the argument. Record labels feel that since they have to obtain a different type of license for you to use cell phone ringtones, you should have to pay a second time for your cell phone ringtone. Ultimately, it is a big argument between free and paid tones, with the music industry wanting to profit, while the consumer wants to access ringtones at no cost.
Christine Sargaeant is a ringtone specialist. For more information, please visit her site at http://cell-phone-ringtones.download-s.net/instantly/