Music: Uniting Nations, Dividing Generations – Kids
Music: Uniting Nations, Dividing Generations
Kirby Jones MBA, BSc
Cultures around the world since the beginning of time have appreciated, enjoyed, and incorporated some form of music in their everyday lives. However, just as one mans trash is another mans treasure, one mans music can often be another mans noise, and vice versa. Still, certain universal aspects of music can serve as a means of communication between two people who have little else in common.
Some say that the only thing that makes music different from noise is the culture of those listening to it. There is some truth in this; you wouldnt expect a typical American teenager to be found head banging to a CD of tribal African chanting. Similarly, youd be surprised to find that African tribe knowing what to make of a boy band ballad. Of course, such vastly different cultures may not share musical preferences, many slightly more similar cultures can enjoy a real connection as a direct result of shared musical abilities and experiences.
In an attempt to appeal to newer markets, music artists are evaluated for their international appeal as international sales can equal or even surpass the domestic sales figures. This worldly appeal can be successful in creating a shared interest and bond between citizens of greatly different lands: Americans and Chinese, Russians and South Africans. It is thus not surprising that a typical music promotion tour includes various international destinations.
Music artists of today and yesterday have been known to help cross cultural divides in times of conflict and even war. Their music can bring crowds of people in warring countries to their feet, tapping their feet to the rhythm. News broadcasts are frequently carrying stories of disheartened soldiers abroad smiling again after a visit from familiar pop music artists.
On the other hand, music is also a frequent bone of contention between the generations. Why is the music of different generations more often referred to by its respective decade i.e. the sixties, the eighties rather than by its most popular artists or a particular genre Grandparents are rarely found enjoying the same music as their grandchildren. Much more common, they are often heard complaining that the others music is too loud, too soft, too fast, or too slow. Even music artists with a wide-ranging appeal, like The Beatles, are not always appreciated by both extremes of the generation gap. Though their music stands a much greater chance of acceptance from fresh ears than rap has from a Frank Sinatra crowd.
Music hence signifies different things to different people often extending to a deeply personal level. Each generation~s music represents the aspirations, heartbreaks, achievements of people living in that specific time period. And as they carry different viewpoints on many daily social and political issues they get further divided by varying taste of music. However, the feeling to be human and alive to the world around us, and the desire to express lifes experiences through music remains common to all irrespective of the generation gap - and is capable of crossing the most guarded country borders.
About The Author
Kirby Jones MBA, BSc is the webmaster for Dav Music - probably the largest information resource on music related topics. Visit his web site and get immediate access to his archive of articles here: http://www.davmusic.com/articles/.
Free, Legal Music Online – Web Hosting
Free, Legal Music Online
Daniel Punch
Almost everyone has heard about the massive crack down on Internet music piracy that has been occurring over the past few years. Napster was taken down although it has now returned as a pay service, other file sharing programs now require users to pay for a license and the RIAA and other similar organizations are doing their best to hunt down copyright offenders and put an end to their crime sprees. The consumers on the other hand argue that their actions hurt nobody, that there is no damage done to anyone by their not buying an album. Furthermore, they claim, MP3s allow them to sample a CD before purchasing it, thus actually helping sales.
Im not here to argue the pros and cons. Basically its not worth it, as neither side of the argument will ever see the oppositions point of view. What Id like to do is take a look at the completely free and legal alternative to stealing music. Those wonderfully talented musicians who are willing to put their creations online to download for free, solely for the joy of spreading their creations to the masses.
Free music is surprisingly easy to come by, even music by famous bands. Sometimes it needs to be streamed from the Internet, meaning that you can only listen to a song while youre online, but with the ever-growing popularity of broadband Internet this is really no longer a problem. Sites such as MP3.com and purevolume.com provide free music by almost any band you can think of, although there is a large amount of it that has to be streamed and not downloaded. A search for free legal MP3 downloads will reveal a huge number of pages to visit.
For something specific, try visiting the artists website, or the site of their record label. These will often offer a few sample tracks to download for free. Its not quite as convenient as having access to every song that you want, but its not a bad alternative.
But how about we forget about the mainstream for just a while and move towards the alternative Towards the hopefuls, the talented bands that have yet been noticed. There are a huge number of these smaller bands out there that are sticking their stuff online for any and all to listen to, just so that they can be heard. These can be easier to find, because most MP3 sites will be filled with these smaller acts. A great place to start is http://www.garageband.com/ or the aforementioned http://purevolume.com
The great thing about smaller bands is that you can often find bands that come from your local area and then go and see them play live. Being able to see a favourite band live more than once a year or lifetime without expending huge amounts of money and time is pretty cool. Many music search engines will let you search for bands of a particular genre in a particular area, which makes it all quite easy.
A fairly major contributor to the online music scene is the remixer. These people take other tunes and redo them, usually in a techno style because one person can do this competently. Chief among the tunes selected to be remixed are those old ditties that used to play through the simplest of sound chips on aging consoles: the video game theme songs. People now go and grab the main tune line from an old favourite and fill it out, making real the work our imaginations used to do for us to turn the single tone melodies into orchestral masterpieces. A few good places to start are http://remix.kwed.org and http://remix.overclocked.org as well as a personal favourite band http://machinaesupremacy.com
I hope this has given you something to think about. Its not hard to come across illegal MP3 rips, in fact its often hard to avoid them, but if you give the free music scene a look you may find something completely different and new that will really do it for you. With web hosts already being penalized hugely for illegal content being stored on their servers having an entire server taken down because of one inconsiderate user is damaging and irritating beyond belief and moves being made to charge ISPs for the content being accessed by their users, it makes more sense than ever to get out there and grab yourself an awesomely original and completely legal music collection.
About The Author
Daniel Punch
M6.Net Web Hosting
http://www.m6.net
danielp@m6.net
How to Make Money on a Music Website through Affiliate Programs – Affiliate Programs
How to Make Money on a Music Website through Affiliate Programs
Jeff Schuman II
Do you find yourself looking for a way to make some extra money How about creating a website on something that everyone includes in their life, Music The opportunities are endless and what