The Whole Music Experience

Salsa dancing, Mexico, Wikipedia Music Videos to get your blood pumping, and to inspire your heart... Often midday we feel sluggish and we feel tempted to take a nap or down another cup of coffee.  However, I encourage you to forgo the caffeine and take a music break instead.  The best way to do this is to start with a slower to moderate beat per minute song and gradually build up to rousing Latin, African, or other high-energy music.  Some of the music traditions from the Subcontinent can also provide you with invigorating beats. Take a 20 minute to 30 minute music break, and at least a 10 minute music break. You can even take a short trip over to YouTube and listen to the following songs: Let's start with Habib Koite and Bamada from Mali with a medium tempo with an uplifting melody: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5_HfjcjR_M At relatively the same tempo, here is Ana Moura singing an uptempo fado from Portugal http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V42ix2CtZ8Y For wild

World / Classical   Joji Hirota   London Metropolitan Orchestra   Japanese Folks Songs II   Arc Music Over the years I have enjoyed listening to a few Japanese traditional songs which I describe as delicate and flowing.   The Japanese folk songs that appear on Joji Hirota’s Japanese Folk Songs II (I liked this CD so much I would like to hear the first volume) remind me of a cultivated garden because the musician methodically arranged each song.   Backed by the strings of the London Metropolitan Orchestra, a Japanese children’s choir on a few of the songs, and embellished with shakuhachi (Japanese flute), Taiko drums and percussion and plucked harp, Hirota provides us with a lush musical canvas that dazzles the senses.     Included on the recorded are two suites (one of children’s songs and another including a lullaby, girl’s handball game song and a ballad), as well as, work songs, love and dance songs from different prefectures or regions in Japan.   Hirota