Friday, August 14, 2009

Does Music Help Children?

Why is Music Important for Kids?

This question has been debated for as long as time has existed. Even the great Greek and Roman philosophers approached the question: is music something that should be taught and does it help the development of children? Plato answered "I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy; but most importantly music, for in the patterns of music and all arts are the keys to learning." And again “what then is the education to be? Perhaps we could hardly find a better than that which the experience of the past has already discovered, which consists, I believe, in gymnastic, for the body, and music for the mind.”

In all cultures of the world music plays an important role. While these roles may change depending on the culture it is impossible to separate music from the life of an individual. While some may argue the role of music in our lives it is impossible to escape it. Even in the popular culture of Australia it is impossible to go shopping without hearing music. Music provides a means of communication and expression of culture and individual identity.

Children are immersed in music from birth and will be for their entire life. If this is the case why teach it? Is not the constant immersion in music enough? To this I say; is the fact that we witness the results of scientific principals on a day to day basis result in the understanding of those scientific principles? No it does not and likewise for music it does not either. The day to day encounters we have with music can move us but the understanding of this music can help us grow as individuals.

In many cultures the family plays the main role in music education. Families are most commonly the ones that teach children the music of their culture. As young children, we are commonly sung nursery rhymes. These provide entertainment for the child and often information in small repeated fashion. Children learn through the repetition and structure that the information was delivered in. many nursery rhymes teach fundamental life lesson and therefore sets music up as a means of educating. Children learn from music from a young age and will continue to for the rest of their lives. In a world where globalization and consumerism are dominating cultural identities are drifting into the background and children are more likely to be sung pop songs as lullaby’s than nursery rhymes. The benefit of nursery rhymes and progressive learning has become an issue. Children are missing out on fundamental learning opportunities.

The Mozart effect which gained a large following in the 1990’s claimed that listening to Mozart as a baby will make a child smarter. While this movement was short lived and there is little proof that it works there has been no denying that children who learn music will achieve higher in other aspects of their academic life. In earning music children learn to express their identities, gain confidence and develop sense of time and space. A research team at the university of Munster in Germany discovered that students who study music have more developed abstract reasoning skills which are closely linked to learning in the areas of science and maths.

I do not believe that there is any argument to this question…music is a vital part of a child’s education and should be taken seriously. Listening to music is not enough! A child must learn to think musically and that is what will help assist the development of the child and their academic development.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Using the Internet For Music Downloading and Searching

Listening songs is one of the best ways to relax and many people even listen songs for entertainment purpose. For many people, music has become a part of life. A number of new songs are released throughout the world by different artists and music lovers try to get hold of the songs as soon as they can. As a result of development in technology and Internet, it's now possible to download music files from Internet. A number of websites are available that allow users to download music files. Some of the sites charge an affordable fee for providing songs whereas some sites give away songs for free.

In order to search songs online, you need to find a reputed online music store and a simple search on a search engine can get you a number of online music stores. Once you've found an online music store, all you need to do is to browse the collection of the albums so as to select the songs that you want to download and then you can easily download the selected songs by following the simple guidelines mentioned on the site. So, it's pretty easy to find the songs on Internet. That being said, there are a number of benefits associated with usage of Internet for searching and downloading music files.

It's very easy to find music files on Internet when compared to going out to the market while searching for an album or a track. It's very difficult to find old albums at the real-world music stores but you can easily find old music files at an online music store as it's very easy to maintain a large collection of music files on a server.

Downloading music files is a fast process when compared to standing in queues at music stores for searching albums and for billing. Also, considerable amount of time is not wasted on roads because of traffic.

When compared to real-world music stores, it's very easy to search music files on online music stores. Generally, online music stores maintain a number of categories which helps an end-user to search the desired music files. On most of the online music stores, entering the name of the artist displays a list of all the songs sung by him and so, it becomes very easy to search the desired file. Also, it's even possible to search the files on the basis of their popularity, user rating, release date and more. So, it's very easy to search and download the files from an online music store when compared to real-world music stores.

With online music stores, an individual is not required to move out of his home for purchasing albums. However, a decent Internet connection is required for downloading music files from an online music store. All you need to do is to select the album, make the payment and then download the files. So, an individual can get the desired music files without even moving out of his place.

Usually, online music stores offer different kind of discounts on albums and so, you can get some considerable amount of discount on purchasing albums online. Online music stores are available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. So, you can download the songs whenever you want to. Most of the sites even offer songs for free. So, you can use Internet to get free songs as well.

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Thursday, April 30, 2009

Music Downloads Without Spyware

There are a lot of music download sites on the internet, but all music download sites are not created equal. Most of the music sites are illegal, and have harmful spyware/adware that can corrupt your computer. Advertising companies use spyware/adware to spy on you and your surfing activity. Yes, your computer is spying on you, and the funny thing is you made it all possible. The question I usually ask, why risk your PC health over a song? Would you believe 95% of all computers are infected with some kind of spyware? Most users don't have a clue how their PC became infected with spyware, in the first place. I would bet you 99% of the time; it started with free music downloads. Be very cautious of the free music download sites, their mainly the sites that carry spyware/adware. Most victims are lured in by the free music downloads, as you know everyone loves free stuff. Some of these sites you might be familiar with like Kazaa, LimeWire, BearShare and Ares. These sites are P2P, better known as peer to peer file sharing sites. Once these programs are loaded on to your computer, they begin to eat at your PC like a cancer. The more files you download, the more it spreads throughout your PC. Your PC will start to run sluggish, to the point where it will frequently freeze or crash. If you think you already experience this, you will have to remove the spyware from your PC with a spyware program. Some spyware programs offer free scans to detect spyware on your system. Sites like Zone-1 PC offers spyware/adware protection, plus you scan your PC for free.

Everyone enjoys music on their PC, but no one enjoys spyware. There are ways to prevent music downloads from spreading spyware throughout your PC. First of all, I would suggest not downloading illegal music. Like I said early everyone likes free stuff, but for the price you pay for free music downloads it's just not worth it. Again why risk the health of your PC for a song. Secondly, download from sites that have legal music downloads. Depending on the site, you can pay per download, usually .99 cent a song. Some sites you can pay a small one time fee, and get unlimited music downloads. The sites I like the best are the sites that have been around for a while, like Napster, Rhapsody and eMusic. I'm currently using Rhapsody, but I have also used eMusic as well.Both are great programs, but I like Rhapsody better, because of it's interface. Even though I said free music downloads are bad, these sites sometime offer free trial offers, not the same thing . If you decide to subscribe to their program, then you would pay a small fee monthly for their services. What I like most about these sites no spyware/adware and my music downloads are legal. Legal music sites have spyware/adware prevention tools loaded into their programs making them safe for downloading. I rather pay a small fee for my music downloads, than to pay larger fee to fix my PC.

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Thursday, April 2, 2009

Lets talk pop

Pop music is very flexible and is constantly changing. Pop music is usually indentified as that which is successful on the pop music charts. In 1926 the term pop music meant a type of music that had a popular appeal. Most of the pop music styles over the past 50 years have changes and evolved.

There are a lot of new pop artist out there and some seems like they attract a wide variety of people. It also seems to me that more and more pop artist are pairing together to make some really awesome hits. These artists also do some really nice remixes if you like that kind of stuff.

Justin Timberlake has been around for sometime now and sense he went out on his own I think he has done a lot better and made some really good music. He just released a new album called futuresex – lovesounds. After listing to his new release all I can say is that it is awesome. The CD does not seem to have a bad track on it at least that is what I thought.

The CD has 12 tracks on it that are very well written. Many of the songs on this CD display a lot of emotion. Justin Timberlake touches many real emotions on this CD such as love, heartbreak, pain, and failed relationships. So if you are into pop music I think you will really enjoy this album and will not be disappointed.

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