The Avatar Course

I know this has nothing to do with music, but I'd just like to introduce this Avatar Course to you because I've benefited so much from it, and so have many people I know.

from http://www.avatarepc.com/html/whatis.html

What is Avatar?

Avatar is the most powerful, purest self-development program available. It is a series of experiential exercises that enables you to rediscover your self and align your consciousness with what you want to achieve. You will experience your own unique insights and revelations. It’s you finding out about you.

Avatar is a nine-day self-empowerment training delivered by a world-wide network of licensed Avatar Masters. Over 50,000 graduates from 65 countries, are enjoying the benefits of Avatar*.

*January 2000 statistic

Group Piano for Teens and Adults!

San Marino Recreation
Days/ Dates: Tuesday, 7/13-8/10
Fee: $65+ $15 materials fee/ 5 weeks

Time: 5:20- 6pm
Age: 13 years and above

Click here and scroll down to find the recreation guide for complete details and/or to register!

Simply Music is a revolutionary piano learning method that has students of all ages playing great-sounding contemporary, classical, blues and accompaniment pieces from the very first lessons!

Please bring a black and a red pen to class. Materials include a DVD, Keypad (printed keyboard) and Reference Book.

Making Music Boosts Brain's Language Skills

from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/02/100220-music-brains-language-stroke-dyslexia/

Victoria Jaggard in San Diego

National Geographic News

Published February 20, 2010

Do you have trouble hearing people talk at cocktail parties? Try practicing the piano before you leave the house.

Musicians—from karaoke singers to professional cello players—are better able to hear targeted sounds in a noisy environment, according to new research that adds to evidence that music makes the brain work better.

"In the past ten years there's been an explosion of research on music and the brain," Aniruddh Patel, the Esther J. Burnham Senior Fellow at the Neurosciences Institute in San Diego, said today at a press briefing.

Most recently brain-imaging studies have shown that music activates many diverse parts of the brain, including an overlap in where the brain processes music and language. (Listen to global beats at Nat Geo Music.)

Language is a natural aspect to consider in looking at how music affects the brain, Patel said. Like music, language is "universal, there's a strong learning component, and it carries complex meanings." Continue reading...

Learning to play in a new way: Simply Music piano instruction relies on ‘mental maps'

from http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=%2F20100605%2FNEWS01%2F6050303%2F1001%2FNEWS

By Tanya Caylor

of The News-Sentinel

Katie Londini is learning a new song, but there's no music on her teacher's piano — just numbers and letters, in what appears to be a code.

The 8-year-old barely glances at the book. After nearly a year of lessons, she still can't read music. Her teacher, Ian McKinney, can't either. Not very well, anyway.

But Katie can play 30 songs from memory. The Simply Music program emphasizes playing long before musical notation is introduced, McKinney explains, much the way toddlers learn to talk by “playing” with language before learning their ABCs.

A different method

In Fort Wayne, McKinney is best known as assistant manager of Young Adult Services at the downtown Allen County Public Library.

In other gigs in other cities, the Texas native was a puppeteer and a street musician. He can coax a tune from at least seven instruments, including the guitar, fiddle and penny whistle.

Yet despite taking piano lessons in high school, he still can't decipher musical notation quickly enough to convert it into a song.

McKinney's wife, Jen, struggled with childhood piano lessons as well, so they explored alternatives for their daughter, Fiona, now 7.

Jen McKinney, a children's librarian who works sparingly while raising kids — they're expecting their third – talked the library into buying a DVD by Simply Music founder Neil Moore, an Australian who developed his concepts while teaching a blind boy to play.

When they couldn't find an instructor in this area, Ian decided to undergo training. He's been giving lessons for a year; Jen recently became licensed as well. They're two of only four Indiana teachers listed on www.SimplyMusic.com.

“If this method is water, then I'm a duck,” says Ian McKinney, who met Moore at a seminar in California earlier this year. “Everybody – everybody – can do this. It's like ... it's just so ... obvious.”

So much so, he adds, “that it took a genius to do it.” Continue reading...

Opera When You Least Expect It

Few months ago at the central market in Valencia, Spain, opera singers disguised as shopkeepers were selling produce at the various stalls there. Suddenly Verdi's Il Travatore starts playing over the loudspeakers and they burst into song. None of the shoppers has a clue of what's going on. Sort of like cadid camera but completely charming. The sign that someone holds up at the end means: "See how you do like opera?"

Wolf Dog Sings to a Little Baby to Stop His Cry

an interesting video!

http://pogpog.com/v/wolf-dog-sings-to-a-baby-to-stop-his-cry/

The benefits to children of learning music

from http://www.helium.com/items/1836936-the-benefits-to-children-of-learning-music

by Theresa Rose

Time and time again, we hear about studies that show the evidence of how much better children who have the advantage of music lessons do in school. There are many factors that come into play and that make children who have the advantage of a musical education excel academically, but it is more than the academic advantage. The effects of this musical education extend into the rest of their lives, and this results in even grater advantages later in life.

We may not be to put our finger on the exact advantage that children and young people who take music lessons have over others, but we certainly can examine some of the benefits. For the purposes of this article, we are looking at the benefits to children who study a musical instrument.

*Learning to be responsible -

Music lessons require that a child learn to be responsible because they must practice everyday. There may be an expectation that children learn to be responsible in other areas of their lives, but those other areas may be things that benefit the entire family and aren't something for which the child must be responsible because of and for themselves. Continue reading...

Baby Einsteins: Not So Smart After All

from http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1650352,00.html

By Alice Park

The claim always seemed too good to be true: park your infant in front of a video and, in no time, he or she will be talking and getting smarter than the neighbor's kid. In the latest study on the effects of popular videos such as the "Baby Einstein" and "Brainy Baby" series, researchers find that these products may be doing more harm than good. And they may actually delay language development in toddlers.

Led by Frederick Zimmerman and Dr. Dimitri Christakis, both at the University of Washington, the research team found that with every hour per day spent watching baby DVDs and videos, infants learned six to eight fewer new vocabulary words than babies who never watched the videos. These products had the strongest detrimental effect on babies 8 to 16 months old, the age at which language skills are starting to form. "The more videos they watched, the fewer words they knew," says Christakis. "These babies scored about 10% lower on language skills than infants who had not watched these videos."

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1650352,00.html#ixzz0piVjgn1t