July 6, 2007
The Gourds on the KGSR morning show, July 10
Push & Release CD Storage
Zibra Zibra ?CD? Release Party
Get tuned in: whether you listen to it or play it, music has been shown to ease pain and anxiety
Music’s soothing power saw me through more tests and a successful regimen of chemotherapy. It turns out this calming effect wasn’t just in my head: Widely used technologies like Functional MRIs (fMRI) show that listening to music or playing an instrument stimulates our minds in ways we’re only beginning to understand. “Rhythm, pitch, and melody are all processed in different parts of the brain,” says Daniel Levitin, Ph.D., professor of psychology and music at McGill University in Montreal and author of This Is Your Brain on Music (Dutton, 2006). Music, he says, activates the brain’s pleasure centers, which may help lower blood pressure; improve sleep; and reduce pain, depression, and anxiety.
A 2006 Temple University study found that patients who played CDs during a colonoscopy needed less anti-anxiety medication–about a full dose less–than a control group. In a Case Western Reserve University study also published last year, adults with chronic joint and disc pain who listened to music for an hour a day reported 12 percent to 21 percent less pain. In both studies, the type of music didn’t appear to affect results.
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As for making music, it has the power to improve your concentration and confidence. “Learning to play an instrument develops regions in the brain that help you focus,” says Levitin. Abby Fleischer, a 34-year-old first-grade teacher in Brooklyn who started drumming a few years ago, can attest to that. “It keeps me learning and thinking,” she says. Making music can also ease stress, according to a 2004 study of 75 first-year nursing students. For Fleischer, the drummer, it’s even made her stronger. “I’ve noticed that my biceps are getting bigger,” she says proudly.
World Music: A Global Journey, w/CDs
Two compact discs with 70 audio examples and hundreds of pictures of performers in varied cultural environments set the stage for this world-wide musical trek. Replete with excellent ideas, efficiently organized and sharing the personal stories of music makers from every continent, this volume is a must for the private studio. It is a wonderful “sampler” of the sounds and sights one would experience in a well-planned musical tour. But much more than that, the book’s easy language educates us with accurate geographical and social information, leads our first impressions into each sound sample, and provides a structured analytical approach for those who want it. The authors bring ethnomusicological insights to the reader in clear observations linking each culture’s realities with its music.
This publication and its extensions offer answers to many questions about the variety and meaning of traditional, folk and popular music, ranging from songs and instrumental selections by performers in the largest countries to the tiniest islands. Somehow the authors have done the unbelievable–sampled the mass of our world’s music and made sense of it.
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Conceived as a textbook for college and university world music classes, this new volume has already achieved success in the classroom because it is accessible to non- music majors as well as those emphasizing music study. The preface sets forth the book’s purpose, scope, organization and the authors’ personal journeys. Opening chapters are followed by sections forming a well-crafted plan of imaginary world travel, exposure to new sounds, investigation of their forms, and absorption of their functions in indigenous societies. Successively we visit Oceania, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, Central and South America, and North America–each cued with multiple recorded examples. “Discovering Yourself Through Music” constitutes the final chapter. The emergent result is usable and enjoyable in every teaching-learning setting. Drawbacks are few (such as the absence of timings for each recorded track) and they are far outweighed by the numerous positive inclusions.
Some added utilities are: a detailed index, good maps, brief autobiographies, a large glossary, appropriate photographs, translations, insightful study questions, additional resources, suggestions for further research, websites. For every private teacher pressed for time, this concise publication is a true gift to launch inquisitive music students on their personal journeys to other lands and people, and to help answer the host of student questions that arise in connection with our world’s music.–Reviewed by Loran Olsen, NCTM, Port Angeles, Washington
* The items marked with this symbol can be ordered via the MTNA website through our affiliation with Amazon.com. Go to www.mma.org and choose Member Services from the Membership option in the main menu bar for more information.
The Gourds on the KGSR morning show, July 10
Ralph Buckley cd release
Se habla internet: one third of Hispanics are under 18, and Web sites are using music and entertainment to connect with them
According to US Census Bureau figures, the average age among US Hispanics in 2005 was 27, compared with 36 for the general population. About one-third of the Hispanic population was under 18 in 2005, compared with one-fourth of Americans as a whole.
That has national media companies, as well as some South Florida Internet firms, racing to produce material that will appeal to young Hispanic consumers–a segment increasingly valuable to advertisers.
“We are language-agnostic,” says Rick Marroquin, chief marketing officer at Batanga.com, a Web site based in Coral Gables that produces bilingual entertainment content. “We can’t deny the duality of the world of the Hispanic consumer. And that makes them more powerful.”