I’ve woken up to the news that one of my all-time heroes passed away. I’m terribly saddened. BB King was one of the most amazing musicians that ever lived. I was very forunate to have watched one of his concerts a few years ago – he even gave me a guitar pick in the middle of his set!!
The world will miss you, BB, but your music lives on! Say hello to Jimi and Stevie Ray for us!
Read the full news story HERE
The Beatles’ songs should be left untouched and unchanged. I don’t want any of them remastered because nobody can make any of their songs better. To me, their that good. their music was ahead of their time in a way that only few can emulate. In the words of the Beatles themselves, LET IT BE!!
In response to today’s Daily Prompt: Let it be
Today’s Daily Prompt asked: You can choose any person from history to teach you any topic you want. Who’s your teacher and what do they teach you?
Charles Darwin, Richard Dawkins, Alain de Botton, Michel Foucault and Urie Bronfenbrenner taught me how to think
Adolf Hitler taught me what NOT to do
My family taught me how to survive and how to function in society
My beloved other-half taught me how to love…
But I really wish Jimi Hendrix could teach me how to play the guitar. I have been playing guitar for over a decade now and I have been influenced by guitarists who were influenced by Hendrix (who isn’t, right?). I would really love to pick his brains on how he managed to come up with timeless classics such as Little Wing:
And Purple Haze
‘Scuse me, while I Kiss the Sky!
Pingbacks:
Whether it’s Carly Rae Jespen’s Call Me Maybe, Nickelback’s How You Remind Me, or Maroon 5’s Moves Like Jagger, we all had a song or two that has been stuck in our heads for a while and we don’t quite know why. Such an experience is called ‘Earworm’, a term which is a direct translation of the German word ‘Ohrwurm’.It has been found that around 90% of the population have had such an experience at least once a week. Earworms have been found to last between a few minutes to a couple of hours (Beaman & Williams, 2010). Although it is a common experience, around 15% of people claimed that Earworms are ‘disturbing’ and ‘unpleasant’ (Liikkanen, 2008).
WHY DOES IT HAPPEN?
Although there isn’t a definitive theory which can explain why how songs get stuck in our heads, there have been a few suggestions:
HOW CAN I STOP IT?
Now that we know the possible reasons why an Earworm manifests, we must know of any strategies of stopping it. In a research conducted by Hyman et al. (2012), participants were asked to listen to a variety of songs, from those of the Beatles to current ones like Lady Gaga’s. They then completed a number of different puzzles, with varying difficulties. After these, they were asked to report whether there are any songs that are playing on their heads (and did so again after 24 hours). They found that puzzles which are too easy and too difficult induced the most number of Earworms. The researchers suggested that:
HERE ARE SOME EARWORM-INDUCING SONGS FOR YOU:
REFERENCES:
Beaman CP, & Williams TI (2010). Earworms (‘stuck song syndrome’): Towards a natural history of intrusive thoughts.British Journal of Psychology, 101(4), 637-653.
Hyman, I., Burland, N., Duskin, H., Cook, M., Roy, C., McGrath, J., and Roundhill, R. (2012). Going Gaga: Investigating, Creating, and Manipulating the Song Stuck in My Head. Applied Cognitive Psychology DOI:10.1002/acp.2897
Liikkanen L.A. (2008) Music in everymind: Commonality of involuntary musical imagery. Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of Music Perception and Cognition. Sapporo, Japan.
Williamson, V., Jilka, S., Fry, J., Finkel, S., Mullensiefen, D., and Stewart, L. (2011). How do “earworms” start? Classifying the everyday circumstances of Involuntary Musical ImageryPsychology of Music DOI: 10.1177/0305735611418553
Alzheimer’s disease, the 6th leading cause of death in America, is a form of dementia, commonly associated with memory loss in later life. It affects different areas of people’s lives such as planning, organisation and co-ordination. Despite being widely known as a condition of the elderly, it is not uncommon for people in their 40s or 50s to develop Alzheimer’s. At the time of writing, the causes of this disease is unknown, and hence, there is very little known about its treatment and prevention.
SYMPTOMS
Brain imaging studies have shown that little by little, the brains of people with Alzheimer’s are getting thinner and are losing their connections to each other. Such degeneration of the brain causes significant memory loss, particularly of newly presented items. Symptoms also include a decline in organisation skills, planning and co-ordination, as well as having (unfounded) suspicions over significant others. These symptoms will gradually worsen over time- the progression varies from one person to another.
THE EFFECT OF MUSIC
There has been some cases where Alzheimer’s sufferers who were non-responsive and were unable to communicate suddenly awakens when they hear a piece of music which they liked in the past (before they had Alzheimer’s). A case in point is that of Henry, which as you will see in the video, was unresponsive to other therapies and interventions. But after being given an ipod which played music from his era, he began to respond to simple questions. Here’s the video:
One of the reasons why people such as Henry is able to respond to music is because our medial Prefrontal Cortex (mPFC) is one of the last parts that are affected by Alzheimer’s. A recent fMRI study conducted by Dr. Janata of the University of California-Davis has shown that the mPFC is the part of our brains which processes music and interlinks it with memory and emotions. As long as the mPFC is still intact and relatively undamaged by Alzheimer’s disease, significant pieces of music will still be able to evoke emotions and memories.
For an abstract of Dr. Janata’s research, click HERE
Recent football events involving John Terry and Luis Suarez (separate incidents) have caused a major stir in football. John Terry was caught on camera shouting racially abusive words towards Anton Ferdinand:
People can easily make out what Terry shouted towards Ferdinand. This incident caused John Terry to be stripped off the England captaincy, and is still being investigated. In a separate incident, Patrice Evra of Manchester United claimed he was also racially abused by Liverpool’s Luis Suarez in their match last year. This resulted in an 8-match suspension for Luis Suarez. However, in Liverpool and United’s match a few weeks ago, Suarez refused to shake Evra’s hand during the start of the game, causing the issue to remain unsettled:
Also recently, Chris Brown was slammed after winning a Grammy for the Best R&B Album (F.A.M.E.) and being nominated for both Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song, on top of being allowed to perform in the said awards show. People’s anger stems from Brown’s domestic abuse case against Rihanna which occured only a few years ago (disturbing details from official court documents available here).
These incidents highlights the responsibilities of these famous people. They must realize that day in, day out, they are in the public’s eyes. People search for their videos, pictures and the latest news about them. Every action should be calculated and precise because people of all ages from all over the world, thanks to the internet and the media, can know what they are up to. Whether they like it or not, they are role models. I am not saying that we all do everything that these celebrities and sports people do. However, I cannot deny the influence they have towards our choices. Otherwise, why put them in commercials? Terry and Suarez represents not only their teams’ ethos and pride, but also the whole of football. Similarly, Chris Brown represents hiphop and is a part of the whole music business.
What they’ve done is terrible and shouldn’t be done ever again. But I do believe that all of them deserve a second chance. There is no doubt that I am angry with each of them. No one should ever be allowed to beat up another human being, let alone your romantic partner. Nobody should get away with racially abusing someone else, regardless of whether the whole world is watching or not. But we all make mistakes, small or big. Yes, Terry, Suarez and Brown should know that they shouldn’t have done what they have but the damage has been done. I just wish that they have learned from their experiences.
People will always remember what these three have done to tarnish their reputation. It is up to them whether or not they want to win their fans (and the whole world) back and how they will do it. It is also up to us to give them a second chance. People should remember that we have a choice of whether or not we continue watching Terry and Suarez’s games, Brown’s concerts and whether or not we continue buying Brown’s records. I just hope that other celebrities and sports personalities learn from these mistakes.
😉
As a guitar player, I’ve always been asked to name my favourite guitar solos of all time. I’ve been inspired by players from different genres and my favourite solos/songs change from time to time. Below are only a few of my favourite ones. Please note that they are not ranked and I am not claiming that they are better than any other songs that were not on the list. This is simply a list of the solos that inspired my own personal style of playing. These songs are the ones that I would listen to time and time again:
Mr. Big’s Daddy, Brother, Lover, Little Boy. Introduced to me by one of my best friends, Mr Big features Paul Gilbert- one of the best alternate-pickers of all time. This song took me a month to learn and 3 months to perfect.
Ozzy Osbourne and guitarist Randy Rhodes’ Crazy Train. This song has the groove that makes me wanna pick up my guitar everytime I hear it. The solo’s easy to learn but involves leggatos and tapping techniques that I believe every guitarist should have in their arsenal:
Guns n Roses’ Paradise City. No, it’s not Sweet Child o’ Mine. This song’s solos are far more complicated (for me) than Sweet Child’s and far more harder to learn and play- I still don’t know how to play this song in full.
Pantera’s Walk. I don’t need to explain why I like this song and it’s solo. If you’re a guitarist, you SHOULD know how to play this note for note. This is one of those solos that you don’t change when you play it live.
Avenged Sevefold’s Afterife. Yes, A7X lost it’s appeal when they went mainstream, but this song’s riff and solo is just out of this world. Learn to play this really really slow in order to play it up-tempo:
Derek Trucks’ I Wish I Knew. Honestly, I can’t pick a single song that will represent the genius of Derek Trucks. Just watch and learn:
Poison’s (Ritchie Konzen) Until You Suffer Some (Fire and Ice). I know the songs cheesy. But everytime I hear the solo, I always wish that I was the one who wrote it!
Al Di Meola’s Mediterranean Sundance. I know this is not your typical song and it may not be everybody’s cup of tea, but watch him! I am too scared to try to play like him!
Gary Moore’s Still Got The Blues. Slow, easy listening song with a mean, mean solo!
B.B King’s The Thrill is Gone. This man plays fewer note than most guitarists, but the notes that he plays are the right ones. I never knew what the BLUES is until I’ve seen this man live:
Lastly, my favourite solo of them all is John Mayer’s Slow Dancin’ in a Burning Room. I honestly don’t know why I love this solo so much. Everytime I hear/play it, I discover something new. I would never get tired of this song:
Understanding and Embracing Diversity 