Sounds like 1975 Neil Young..... "Oh Susannah" "Clementine" "Tom Dula" "Gallows Pole" "Get a Job" "Travel On" "High Flyin' Bird" "Jesus' Chariot (She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain)" "This Land Is Your Land" "Wayfarin' Stranger" "God Save the Queen"
MIAMI (AP) - A Cuban-born jazz pianist and manager who helped popularize the cha-cha in the U.S. has been buried in Miami.
Family members say Jose Curbelo was buried Monday. He died Friday morning at a hospice in Aventura. He was 95.
Curbelo left Cuba in 1939. He worked with some of the greatest Latin music artists, including percussionist Tito Puente.
Amadito Valdes is a Cuban drummer and member of the Buena Vista Social Club. He says Curbelo was known as "a great defender of Latin bands against abuse by promoters."
Marta Curbelo said her father was a charmer with a big personality. She said he also had plenty of confidence in who he was, and passed that along to her and her brother.
The cha-cha-cha, or simply cha-cha, is the name of a dance of Cuban origin.
It is danced to the music of the same name introduced by Cuban composer and violinist Enrique Jorrín in 1953. This rhythm was developed from the danzón by a syncopation of the fourth beat. The name is onomatopoeic, derived from the rhythm of the güiro (scraper) and the shuffling of the dancers' feet.
A young girl dancing Cha-cha-cha. The girl moves her hips while holding the torso relatively still.
Posted: Sep 24, 2012 7:08 AM PDT Updated: Sep 24, 2012 7:08 AM PDT
By SCOTT BAUER
Associated Press
Pete Seeger, "A More Perfect Union" and "Pete Remembers Woody" (Appleseed Recordings)
At 93, no one expects anything new from Pete Seeger, but that's not stopping the folk music icon from putting out two new releases on the same day.
Seeger gets some help on "A More Perfect Union" from the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Tom Morello, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris and Dar Williams.
And on the aptly titled "Pete Remembers Woody," Seeger offers his own memories in spoken word of Woody Guthrie, timed to commemorate what would have been the folk legend's 100th birthday.
The more esoteric release of the two, "Pete Remembers Woody" is still fascinating and engaging as Seeger offers recollections of Guthrie, interspersed with new versions of his songs performed by Seeger and others.
On "A More Perfect Union," Seeger collaborates with longtime friend and fellow singer-songwriter Lorre Wyatt. But Seeger is the star of the disc, even when a children's choir and the celebrity guest stars step to the mic.
While the disc could have used some tasteful editing, maybe cutting down to 12 tracks instead of 16, it's a minor quibble for someone of Seeger's stature. At this point, let the guy release what he wants.
CHECK OUT THIS TRACK: The opening track of "A More Perfect Union" called "God's Counting on Me ... God's Counting on You" is just the latest in an unmatchable career of socially conscious songs that Seeger delivers with unparalleled conviction.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Pete Seeger, "A More Perfect Union" and "Pete Remembers Woody" (Appleseed Recordings)
At 93, no one expects anything new from Pete Seeger, but that's not stopping the folk music icon from putting out two new releases on the same day.
Seeger gets some help on "A More Perfect Union" from the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Tom Morello, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris and Dar Williams.
And on the aptly titled "Pete Remembers Woody," Seeger offers his own memories in spoken word of Woody Guthrie, timed to commemorate what would have been the folk legend's 100th birthday.
The more esoteric release of the two, "Pete Remembers Woody" is still fascinating and engaging as Seeger offers recollections of Guthrie, interspersed with new versions of his songs performed by Seeger and others.
On "A More Perfect Union," Seeger collaborates with longtime friend and fellow singer-songwriter Lorre Wyatt. But Seeger is the star of the disc, even when a children's choir and the celebrity guest stars step to the mic.
While the disc could have used some tasteful editing, maybe cutting down to 12 tracks instead of 16, it's a minor quibble for someone of Seeger's stature. At this point, let the guy release what he wants.
CHECK OUT THIS TRACK: The opening track of "A More Perfect Union" called "God's Counting on Me ... God's Counting on You" is just the latest in an unmatchable career of socially conscious songs that Seeger delivers with unparalleled conviction.
Pete Seeger, "A More Perfect Union" and "Pete Remembers Woody" (Appleseed Recordings)
At 93, no one expects anything new from Pete Seeger, but that's not stopping the folk music icon from putting out two new releases on the same day.
Seeger gets some help on "A More Perfect Union" from the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Tom Morello, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris and Dar Williams.
And on the aptly titled "Pete Remembers Woody," Seeger offers his own memories in spoken word of Woody Guthrie, timed to commemorate what would have been the folk legend's 100th birthday.
The more esoteric release of the two, "Pete Remembers Woody" is still fascinating and engaging as Seeger offers recollections of Guthrie, interspersed with new versions of his songs performed by Seeger and others.
On "A More Perfect Union," Seeger collaborates with longtime friend and fellow singer-songwriter Lorre Wyatt. But Seeger is the star of the disc, even when a children's choir and the celebrity guest stars step to the mic.
While the disc could have used some tasteful editing, maybe cutting down to 12 tracks instead of 16, it's a minor quibble for someone of Seeger's stature. At this point, let the guy release what he wants.
CHECK OUT THIS TRACK: The opening track of "A More Perfect Union" called "God's Counting on Me ... God's Counting on You" is just the latest in an unmatchable career of socially conscious songs that Seeger delivers with unparalleled conviction.
Official music video for "Hold On" - the first single off Alabama Shakes' debut record Boys & Girls. Out now on ATO Records and Rough Trade.
Download on iTunes: http://smarturl.it/boys-girls
Buy CD & vinyl: http://ow.ly/9Zr2d
Strawberry Fields is a living memorial to the world-famous singer, songwriter and peace activist – John Lennon. During his career with the Beatles and in his solo work, Lennon's music gave hope and inspiration to people around the world. His campaign for peace lives on, symbolized at Strawberry Fields.
This tranquil section of Central Park was named after one of the Beatles' best-known songs, "Strawberry Fields Forever." Recorded in 1966, the song's title comes from an orphanage in Liverpool, England where Lennon used to go to play with the children. His aunt, who raised him, disapproved but he insisted it was, "nothing to get hung about." Hence, the song's famous lyric.
Strawberry Fields was officially dedicated on October 9, 1985 – the 45th anniversary of Lennon's birth. Yoko Ono worked with landscape architect Bruce Kelly and the Central Park Conservancy to create a meditative spot. The iconic black-and-white mosaic was created by Italian craftsmen and given as a gift by the city of Naples.
Based on a Greco-Roman design, it bears the word of another of Lennon's songs:
Imagine.
A designated Quiet Zone in the Park, the memorial is shaded by stately American elms and lined with benches. In the warmer months, flowers bloom all around the area. Along the path near the mosaic, you'll find a bronze plaque that lists the 121 countries that endorse Strawberry Fields as a Garden of Peace. Today visitors from around the world flock to Strawberry Fields.
Let me take you down
'cos I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hungabout
Strawberry Fields forever
Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see
It's getting hard to be someone
But it all works out
It doesn't matter much to me
Let me take you down
'cos I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hungabout
Strawberry Fields forever
No one I think is in my tree
I mean it must be high or low
That is you can't you know tune in
But it's all right
That is I think it's not too bad
Let me take you down
'cos I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hungabout
Strawberry Fields forever
Always, no sometimes, I think it's me
But you know I know when it's a dream
I think I know I mean a "Yes"
But it's all wrong
That is I think I disagree
Let me take you down
'cos I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hungabout
Strawberry Fields forever.
A person's risk for coronary heart disease is strongly influenced by his diet.
It has been known that a plant-based diet can completely stop the progression of the disease or even reverse the disease condition in many cases.
A review article by W.C. Willett of Department of Nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston MA suggests thatdietary fats actually play a major role in the risk of coronary heart disease.
For his report published in the July 2012 issue of Journal of Internal Medicine, Dr. Willett reviewed 95 studies of all sorts including experimental studies, epidemiological studies and trials.
He has found something that may help food consumers understand the role of each major type of dietary fat in the risk of coronary heart disease.
Trans fat, commonly known as partially hydrogenated vegetable oils should be eliminated from everyone's diet, according to the author, as
they pose clear adverse effects on the risk of coronary heart disease.
It should be noted that beef and dairy products carry naturally occuring trans fat (about 15% of total fat), which is also detrimental.
Harvard nutritionists and epidemiologists have suggested that trans fat is involved in more than 100,000 deaths from heart disease.
Intake of saturated fat should be controlled and reduced intake of this type of fat may also moderately reduce the risk of coronary heart disease if saturated fat is replaced by a combination of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fat.
Replacement of saturated fat with certain carbohydrates may also further reduce the risk of coronary heart disease. But it should be remembered that not all carbohydrates are good. Replacing saturated fat with added sugar such as cane sugar or high fructose corn syrup may not help. Dr. Willett says in his report "both N-6 and N-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids are essential and reduce risk of heart disease, the ratio of N-6 to N-3 is not useful and can be misleading."
This does not mean that omega-3 fatty acids are not helpful. Many nutritionists believe a low ratio of N-6 to N-3 is desirable. Generally speaking, Americans are believed to have too high intake of omega-6 polyunsaturated fat from vegetables, which is not good for the protection against coronary heart disease.
Two undesirable oils are corn oil and soybean oil because they contain too much N-6.
In reality, the author suggests that reducing red meat and dairy products (they likely contain naturally occurring trans fat) and increasing intakes of nuts, soy foods, fish and non-hydrogenated vegetable oils can improve the fatty acid profile and help protect against coronary heart disease.
Additionally, "a diet generous in fruits, vegetables and whole grains and low in refined starches, sugar-sweetened beverages, potatoes and salt " helps prevent coronary heart disease.
This diet is similar to the plant-based diet Dr. T. Colin Campbell, a Cornell University nutrition professor suggests.
Dr. Dean Ornish, a professor of University of California in San Fransisco in California used a plant-based diet and a lifestyle program to treat coronary heart disease patients.
The efficacy is up to 99% and the treatment can stop effectively progression of the disease and in many cases reverse the condition.
President Bill Clinton is now using a plant-based diet (still using some fish) as advised by Dr. Ornish, and he claims that he feels much better now than ever.
Coronary heart disease kills about 600,000 Americans each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Napoleon Hill was a speech writer for U.S. President Harry Truman in the last Depression. He wrote some famous motivational books and is considered one of the founders of Positive Psychology. This type of thinking has many detractors but "foul water will quench fire", in other words, I look to efficacy as my metric. *
He has a 3 step process to achieve your goals:
1. Write a clear description of your one major desire, i.e., Sobriety
2. Write a precise statement of what you intend to give for your sobriety, i.e., strict adherence to the 12 steps of A.A.
3. Memorize both statements and begin repeating them to yourself hourly.
Whatever your mind feeds upon, your mind attracts to you. You need definiteness of purpose and a clear picture of what you want from life. Sobriety is number one because without it, all else fails.
This may look like brainwashing yourself and that's probably what you are doing to undo all the negative messages you have given yourself over the years.
He has a prayer of thankfulness you say a few times a day:
"Divine Providence, I ask not for more riches but for more wisdom with which to accept and use wisely the riches I was given at birth in the form of the ability to direct my mind to ends of my own choice."
The riches you can enjoy if you take possession of your own mind and direct it to ends of your own choice include:
Sound health
Peace of mind
A labor of love of your choosing
Freedom from fear and worry
A positive mental attitude
Material riches of your choice in the quantity you desire.
On the other hand, the penalties if you do not take possession of your mind are:
Ill health
Fear and worry
Indecision and doubt
Frustration and discouragement
Poverty and want
And a litany of evils like envy greed jealousy, anger, hatred and superstition.
Dr. Gabor Maté gives us clues as to who we are when we are not addicted. Filmed January 9th, 2012 in Vancouver, B.C. as part of a launch for Beyond Addiction: The Yogic Path to Recovery. This four weekend program with Dr. Gabor Maté and Sat Dharam Kaur N.D. begins January 20th, 2012 in Vancouver. For more information see kundaliniyogatraining.com - Kundalini Training Programs - Beyond Addiction, Vancouver.
This is a widely reported study so part of it is posted here...
Measuring the Evolution of Contemporary Western Popular Music
Popular music is a key cultural expression that has captured listeners' attention for ages. Many of the structural regularities underlying musical discourse are yet to be discovered and, accordingly, their historical evolution remains formally unknown. Here we unveil a number of patterns and metrics characterizing the generic usage of primary musical facets such as pitch, timbre, and loudness in contemporary western popular music. Many of these patterns and metrics have been consistently stable for a period of more than fifty years. However, we prove important changes or trends related to the restriction of pitch transitions, the homogenization of the timbral palette, and the growing loudness levels. This suggests that our perception of the new would be rooted on these changing characteristics. Hence, an old tune could perfectly sound novel and fashionable, provided that it consisted of common harmonic progressions, changed the instrumentation, and increased the average loudness.
Introduction
Isn't it always the same? This question could be easily posed while listening to the music of any mainstream radio station in a western country. Like language, music is a human universal involving perceptually discrete elements displaying organization1.
Therefore, contemporary popular music may have a well-established set of underlying patterns and regularities1, 2, 3, 4, some of them potentially inherited from the classical tradition5, 6, 7.
Yet, as an incomparable artistic product for conveying emotions8, music must incorporate variation over such patterns in order to play upon people's memories and expectations, making it attractive to listeners3, 4, 5.
For the very same reasons, long-term variations of the underlying patterns may also occur across years9.
Many of these aspects remain formally unknown or lack scientific evidence, specially the latter, which is very often neglected in music-related studies, from musicological analyses to technological applications.
The study of patterns and long-term variations in popular music could shed new light on relevant issues concerning its organization, structure, and dynamics10.
More importantly, it addresses valuable questions for the basic understanding of music as one of the main expressions of contemporary culture:
Can we identify some of the patterns behind music creation?
Do musicians change them over the years?
Can we spot differences between new and old music?
Is there an ‘evolution’ of musical discourse?
Current technologies for music information processing11, 12 provide a unique opportunity to answer the above questions under objective, empirical, and quantitative premises.
Moreover, akin to recent advances in other cultural assets13, they allow for unprecedented large-scale analyses.
One of the first publicly-available large-scale collections that has been analyzed by standard music processing technologies is the million song dataset14.
Among others, the dataset includes the year annotations and audio descriptions of 464,411 distinct music recordings (from 1955 to 2010), which roughly corresponds to more than 1,200 days of continuous listening.
Such recordings span a variety of popular genres, including rock, pop, hip hop, metal, or electronic. Explicit descriptions available in the dataset15 cover three primary and complementary musical facets2: loudness, pitch, and timbre. Loudness basically correlates with our perception of sound amplitude or volume (notice that we refer to the intrinsic loudness of a recording, not the loudness a listener could manipulate).
Pitch roughly corresponds to the harmonic content of the piece, including its chords, melody, and tonal arrangements.
Timbre accounts for the sound color, texture, or tone quality, and can be essentially associated with instrument types, recording techniques, and some expressive performance resources.
These three music descriptions can be obtained at the temporal resolution of the beat, which is perhaps the most relevant temporal unit in music, specially in western popular music2, 4.
Here we study the music evolution under the aforementioned premises.....
LONDON (Reuters)
- Comforting news for anyone over the age of 35, scientists have worked
out that modern pop music really is louder and does all sound the same.
Researchers in Spain used a huge archive known as the Million Song
Dataset, which breaks down audio and lyrical content into data that can
be crunched, to study pop songs from 1955 to 2010.
A team led by artificial intelligence specialist Joan Serra at the
Spanish National Research Council ran music from the last 50 years
through some complex algorithms and found that pop songs have become
intrinsically louder and more bland in terms of the chords, melodies and
types of sound used.
"We found evidence of a progressive homogenization of the musical
discourse," Serra told Reuters. "In particular, we obtained numerical
indicators that the diversity of transitions between note combinations -
roughly speaking chords plus melodies - has consistently diminished in
the last 50 years."
They also found the so-called timbre palette has become poorer. The
same note played at the same volume on, say, a piano and a guitar is
said to have a different timbre, so the researchers found modern pop has
a more limited variety of sounds.
Intrinsic loudness is the volume baked into a song when it is
recorded, which can make it sound louder than others even at the same
volume setting on an amplifier.
The music industry has long been accused of ramping up the volume at
which songs are recorded in a 'loudness war' but Serra says this is the
first time it has been properly measured using a large database.
The study, which appears in the journal Scientific Reports, offers a handy recipe for musicians in a creative drought.
Old tunes re-recorded with increased loudness, simpler chord
progressions and different instruments could sound new and fashionable.
The Rolling Stones in their 50th anniversary year should take note.
"To guarantee success, act as if it were impossible to fail."
“All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this:
Act as if it were impossible to fail.”
“I suspect that every teacher hears the same complaints, but that,
being seldom a practicing author, he tends to dismiss them as out of
his field, or to see in them evidence that the troubled student has not
the true vocation. Yet it is these very pupils who are most obviously
gifted who suffer from these disabilities, and the more sensitively
organized they are the higher the hazard seems to them. Your embryo
journalist or hack writer seldom asks for help of any sort; he is off
after agents and editors while his more serious brother-in-arms is
suffering the torments of the damned because of his insufficiencies. Yet
instruction in writing is oftenest aimed at the oblivious tradesman of
fiction, and the troubles of the artist are dismissed or overlooked.”
―
Dorothea Brande
“Act boldly and unseen forces will come to your aid.”
―
Dorothea Brande
“Most of the methods of training the conscious side of the
writer-the craftsman and the critic in him- are actually hostile to the
good of the artist's side; and the converse of this proposition is
likewise true. But it is possible to train both sides of the character
to work in harmony, and the first step in that education is to consider
that you must teach yourself not as though you were one person, but
two.”
―
Dorothea Brande
“All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and
frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail. That is the
talisman, the formula, the command of right-about-face which turns us
from failure towards success. ~Dorothea Brande”
―
Dorothea Brande,
Becoming a Writer
Dorothea Brande (1893 – 1948) was a well-respected writer and editor in New York.
How very paltry and limited the normal human intellect is, and how
little lucidity there is in the human consciousness, may be judged from
the fact that, despite the ephemeral brevity of human life the
uncertainty of our existence and the countless enigmas which press upon
us from all sides, everyone does not continually and ceaselessly
philosophize, but that only the rarest of exceptions do.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer
People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they
seldom use. -- Soren Kierkegaard
"I'd like to show by my work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart"
How a genius feels:
"I'm a nonentity, an eccentric, an unpleasant person"
March 30th is the birthday of Vincent van Gogh, born in Holland in 1853, a famous painter and also great letter-writer.
His letters were lively, engaging, and passionate; they also frequently reflect his struggles with bipolar disorder.
He wrote:
"What
am I in the eyes of most people — a nonentity, an eccentric, or an
unpleasant person — somebody who has no position in society and will
never have; in short, the lowest of the low. All right, then — even if
that were absolutely true, then I should one day like to show by my
work what such an eccentric, such a nobody, has in his heart."
He
wrote thousands of letters to his brother Theo over the course of his
life.
Theo's widow published the van Gogh's letters to her husband
in 1913.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.
- PlatoGreek author and philosopher in Athens (427 BC - 347 BC)
Image source: Vincent van Gogh's 1890 painting At Eternity's Gate. Wikipedia, public domain.
Woke up this morning,
after another one of those crazy dreams
Oh, nothing is going right this morning,
the whole world is wrong it seems
Oh, I guess it's the chain that bind me
I can't shake it loose these chains and things
Got to work this morning,
seems like everything is lost
I got a cold hearted wrong doing woman,
and a slave driving ball
I can't loosen these chains that bind me,
can't shake them loosen these chains and things
Just can't loosen these chains and things
Well you talk about hard luck and trouble, seems to be my middle name All the odds are against me,
yes, I can only play a losing game
These chains that bind me,
can't loosen these chains and things
Just can't loosen these chains and things
Oh, I would pack up and leave today people,
but I ain't got nowhere to go
Ain't got money to buy a ticket,
and I don't feel like walking anymore
These chains that bind me
I can't lose, I can't lose these chains and things
All lyrics, photographs, soundclips and other material on this website may only be used for private study, scholarship or research The copyright law of the United States Of America (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be "used for any purpose other than private study, scholarship, or research." If a user/visitor of this website uses a (photo)copy or reproduction of any material for purposes in excess of "fair use," that user/visitor may be liable for copyright infringement. Many items on this website do not contain individual copyright notices. The lack of a notice does not necessarily mean that the work is not protected by copyright law.
