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Showing posts from January 23, 2011

FYI: Free Music Education for Vancouver's Inner City Youth

I read an article on Canadian songster Sarah McLachlan in a back issue of Yoga Journal and learned about Sarah's music outreach program. Here is the website http://sarahmclachlanmusicoutreach.com/ I applaud these sorts of efforts.  Music also saved my life and I would have never survived my childhood without music lessons and music.

Essay: 3-PT Series--Lifting the Body's Vibration Through Sound

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Distinguishing Low from High Vibrations PT 2 So now that you've unblocked your chakras, you'll want to hang out in a higher vibrational environment... I know that I’m in sync with the world when a CD that arrives in the mail matches exactly my energy level and vibration. This happened to me recently when an advance copy of Mamadou Diabate’s “Courage” arrived in the mail (I’ll review this CD in February). And since I was contemplating my essay on vibration (high and low), I thought that the recording came at the perfect time. Not only that, I enjoy griot morality lessons. Not long ago, I thought of vibration in a dualistic way. You have high vibration which equates to love and low vibration which equates to fear. Now, when I talk about low and high vibration, I’m not talking about bass and piccolo. I’m talking more or less about negative and positive energy, but again, I’ve learned that there’s a lot more to it than raising your vibration by showing up in a high vibr

Essay: 3-PT Series--Lifting the Body's Vibration Through Sound

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Lifti ng Vibra tio ns (Series) The 7 Chakras I decided last night at 2:00 a.m. to write a three-part series on lifting the body’s vibration through the use of music and sound. Granted, I’m not a sound healer so if you wish to delve further into clearing chakras and balancing your aura with sound, I recommend visiting a sound healer who will teach you self-healing and balancing chants and use vibratory instruments such as tuning forks to clear stuck energy from your chakras. In the first essay of the series I will discuss the 7-chakra system of the West, the only one I’m familiar with and comfortable mentioning. It’s also the simplest to understand because it only involves 7 energy centers starting at the base of the spine (root chakra) and stopping just slightly above the head (crown chakra). The first 3 chakras refer to the material realm (root, sacral, and solar plexus), the heart and throat chakras refer to the bridge between the material and spirit realms, and the thir

Essay: Mama Mia Mozart! (From my PNW Author blog)

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Mamma Mia! Mozart and other Goodies A Musician Rediscovers Classical Music “I played all types of music for all three of you when you were children,” boasts my mother, “even the highbrow music.” And it’s true, up until about the age of 10, when I rebelled and would listen to nothing but rock and pop, I had heard jazz, Latin music, classical music, Broadway show tunes and children’s songs. At school, though our district had little funds, we still experienced a solid music program. And I took pride in naming instruments correctly when the teacher would play samples from each of them. I relished the idea of orchestras filled with so many unique voices and how they all fit together. But by the time I was in high school I had forgotten all about classical music in the favor of rock music. I was familiar with Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin and all the big name composers, but I knew so little about them. I didn’t realize then, that they weren’t just historical figures placed on a pedes