The stories behind Christmas carols-part 1

The stories behind Christmas carols-part 1

Christmas carol have become an integral part of christmas celebration all around the world.

Have you ever wondered how these carols came about ,here is a brief history of few of the famous carols.

Silent Night
This hugely popular carol came about in 1818 just a few days before Christmas, after an Austrian church mouse munched his way through the bellows of an organ. The organist, Franz Gruber, went to see his priest, Joseph Mohr, to express his concern that there would be no music for Christmas. Equally concerned, Father Joseph wrote a new carol - not requiring an organ - in haste, while Gruber composed the tune. It was played for the first time on guitar at Midnight Mass.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T4WB2zfmps


O Come, All Ye Faithful
Another of the most loved of Christmas hymns started out as 'Adeste Fideles', written by John Francis Wade, an Englishman who during the 1700s left England to join a Roman Catholic community in France. He paid his way by teaching music to youngsters and composing and selling pieces of music. It wasn’t until about 100 years later that another Englishman, Fred Oakley gave us the version we know and love today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oUAnGcT--A



The First Noel (First Nowell)
After the first appearance of carols in the Middle Ages the Reformation took hold and the popularity of the seasonal songs took a downward turn. It wasn’t really until the Victorian era when they started to enjoy a resurgence. 'The First Nowell' - or 'First Noel' as it is normally known today - was originally a traditional Cornish Carol. It was first published in a collection called Xmas Carols Ancient and Modern in 1833 by a solicitor William Sandys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANUV9vD1zg8


Joy to the World
We have Handel to thank in part for this Christmas favourite as it was his original melody from Messiah, which composer Lowell Mason used. The words came from Isaac Watts, an English theologian. He returned home after attending church one day and told his father that he hadn’t been particularly inspired by the music he’d heard during the service and that he thought he could do a better job. He was right
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpgaWm2pnNs


The Twelve Days of Christmas
Dating back to the late 18th century, this popular seasonal song was reportedly used to help youngsters learn about their faith with each gift having a significant meaning – for example, the partridge represents Christ; the calling birds, the four Gospels; the Lords are the Ten Commandments – and so on. There’s a rather different version in the west of France. It’s all about food! Among the delicacies sung about are four pigs trotters, seven spitted rabbits, eight plates of salad and ten full casks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyEyMjdD2uk

...contd

10 Popular Online Guitar Gurus Who Make Learning The Instrument A Blast - part II

continuing ...

Nate Savage

Nate started playing the guitar at the age of 13 and was hooked right away. Since then, he has been fortunate enough to make a living doing what he loves - touring the world as a professional guitarist and teaching the guitar to students around the world.
At the age of 34, Nate has become one of the most popular guitar instructors in the world. At last count, 71,274 students from around the world are subscribed to his online lesson updates, and his video have been viewed over 8 million times over the past four years alone. Even still, Nate remains humble and focused on helping his students achieve their unique goals on the guitar.
"There is no better feeling than hearing from a student who was able to achieve something they thought was impossible", says Nate, "it motivates me to find new and more effective ways to help them become great musicians - and it gives me purpose every single day".


Justin Sandercoe

Justin Sandercoe, born in 1974, is a guitarist, songwriter, performer, producer and educator who grew up in Tasmania and who has been based in London, England since 1996.
Sandercoe's official website, justinguitar.com, was first launched on 31 July 2003 offering lessons as a sample to promote private one on one lessons. The site developed a modest following but once he began making instructional guitar videos for YouTube in December 2006, the site became one of the most popular guitar instruction web sites. By 2012 there are over 550 free lessons enjoyed by over 20,000 unique visitors a day from all around the world.
His videos on YouTube clocked up 100 million views in August 2011 and he has been a YouTube partner since 2008.
The site runs on voluntary donations and purchases of products from the store from users and there are no fees for membership.
Justin was named as one of the UK's Top 10 YouTube Celebrities on The Telegraph Newspaper and The Independent newspaper called him "one of the most influential guitar teachers in history"
 and he has received accolades from guitar legends Brian May [4] and Steve Vai.

Assaf Levavy

Music is about more than just practicing dry exercises. It’s about playing around with every lick you learn, improvising on it, making mistakes, learning from those mistakes, and ultimately – Creating your own interpretations of everything you play.

Assaf Levavy started his own website known as LickNriff.com in the year 2011 with a vision to provide a platform to all budding guitarists to learn more about the nuances of a guitar.


Neil Hogan

Neil Hogan was born in 1956 in Southern California. He has his own website called TotallyGuitars.com. Founded in 2008, Totally Guitars addresses the aspects of acoustic guitar playing, emphasising on finger picking.

Steve Luciano

Steve originally hails from New Haven, CT, where he studied guitar with legendary teacher Joe Tinari. Over the years, Steve has performed with numerous jazz musicians like Charles Erland,George Morrow, Joe Morello, Dary Gutteb and many more. His guitar lessons are a must for any aspiring guitarist!.
Steve was the staff musician for Walt Disney World for more than 15 years and currently is the guitarist for Larry Elgart Orchestra.

You can learn how to play songs, how to play fancy scales, and much more. The trouble is, there just aren't many GOOD guitar lessons available to someone looking to start playing guitar.
These guitar lessons from renowned instructors are designed for people who own (or have borrowed) a guitar, but don't yet know the first thing about playing it.pick up the guitar and give it a try ..

10 Popular Online Guitar Gurus Who Make Learning The Instrument A Blast - part 1

Many of us have tried to play our favourite song on a guitar but the lack of proper technique has sapped our enthusiasm. It is often very difficult for a beginner to decide where to start from. The aspiring guitarist is confused by questions like what kind of guitar to use, how to go about chord transition and when and why to use a capo!  We come to your rescue and present these online guitar tutors who have made guitar learning a fun and stunning experience, for all beginners across the world!


Marty Swartz

Playing the guitar may look complicated, but it isn't! All you need is proper technique and a fun approach. Marty, with all his experience, has evolved a technique which allows anyone at any level to make huge, immediate leaps, even if you are an amateur.There are so many reasons why one will like Marty's videos and style of teaching. He is such a fantastic instructor because of his sense of humor (you have to watch the videos to see why), his ability to slow things down and make it easy for beginners, and he has such a great depth of knowledge on the guitar of which he genuinely wants to share with viewers.

Jen Trani

In her own words “I hit my head a lot as a child, and I mean, a lot. I think that somehow affected the way I show up in the world,” Jen Trani laughs. “Honestly, I don't know what makes me unique. I'm just a very lucky girl from Colorado with a guitar trying to make a living doing music.” Thirteen year old Jen Trani was watching a movie when she saw a scene of a guy playing the guitar on the end of a bed. Something clicked in her mind, and she instantly thought, “I could do that.” She picked up her mother's old acoustic guitar the next day and began playing. 

In addition to writing and performing, Jen keeps busy as a private instructor to many aspiring guitarists. She has done over a 1000 online instructional videos, which total upto more than 40 million users for YouTube and Mahalo.com! Her guitar tutorials are ideal for beginners as they help one understand the fundamentals of guitar playing with a whole new approach.  

Andy Crowley

Andy became a full time private guitar teacher in 2009 after creating the website www.andyguitar.co.uk. Around this time, he started filming youtube video lessons to advertise for new students. In 2012, he filmed a full online beginner’s course full of real songs and made it available for FREE on his website.
Andy has got a unique method; he teaches guitar knowledge and techniques through real songs as much as possible, and gets one playing along to the record straight away!.Andy's custom made beginners course and lesson materials are an accumulation of a lifetime of learning and 6 years of private teaching.

Jimmy Brown

Over the past 20 years, Jimmy Brown has built a reputation as one of the world's finest music editors through his work as a transcriber, arranger and editor for Guitar World magazine. In addition to his role as Guitar World Senior Music Editor, he is a busy working musician, performing regularly as a solo guitar/vocal act and rocking out with a full band at taverns, restaurants, resorts, weddings and private parties. Having earned a Bachelor of Music degree in Jazz Studies and Performance and Music Management from William Paterson University in 1988, Brown is also an experienced private guitar teacher and writer.

Erich Andreas

Erich Andreas, AKA “YourGuitarSage" has been playing guitar for nearly 30 years and has almost been teaching for that long as well. He has a passion for creating easy, step-by-step lessons and loves making "difficult" concepts attainable. His guitar lesson video channels(YourGuitarSage, YGSGuitarLessons, and 1MinuteGuitarLessons) on YouTube alone have over 40,000,000 views. He has authored several books on the subjects of guitar and music and has been praised for his teaching style and systems as one of the top instructors on the internet. Recently he was featured in the Wall Street Journal as well as appearing on Wall Street Journal Live. Erich is a full-time musician and instructor in Nashville, TN. His motto is: "With the right instruction and consistent practice you can do anything that you desire.”

there are more guitar gurus who will be featured in the II part of this blog...

share of our success and struggles : Our 5 year story

It’s important that when you tell your story,it reveals your humanity.it must encompass both sides of the human experience.The success and the struggle. The dream and the doubt. Your passion and your fears. One without the other seems incomplete.

so heres our story so far, we believed that LIFE in itself is your biggest DIY(do-it-yourself) project and we decided to dedicate 1 year of our lives to do exactly what we wanted to do.if it did'nt work we had the cushion of our corporate experience to fall back on and resume the rat-race,but if it clicked it may change the course of our lives and course of our lives it did change.

Its been just over 5 years since we started cafeidly,we started with very little money, absolutely no experience in food industry and zero domain knowledge, a very crazy thing to do, i should admit.Experts say 'do what you know' .but if you have the desire,a plan and the commitment to make your dream a reality.screw the experts and go after your dream.

Heres a share of our success and struggles:
got excited when we got an sunday coverage on Times of India newspaper within a month of starting
we had no money when we signed the contract for our second outlet, we signed it first and started to pool in cash. that was an challenging experience
felt amazing when our outlet was featured on BBC world and a European showed up and said that ' he watched cafeidly feature on BBC while in Europe and made it a point to visit us while he came to namma Bengaluru'
sometimes its so emotionally draining and kind words like 'keep it up' and 'god bless you' from our lovely customers is what feeds our soul.

now we are getting franchise requests from through- out the country every month and i keep saying to myself ...have just a bit of patience.

now we have a bigger outlet @ frazer town same location with seating and we welcome you all and as we move along, we look forward to your love and support and well-wishes.thank you all.God bless.

Unique Guitar Adaptations

Guitar is one of the musical instruments that bring melody to your life when you feel its chords.
In this article, we intend to share with you few odd but worth noticing creative things shaped as a Guitar. Here is a list of some the most creatively designed and famous things spotted around the world that takes their design inspiration from this instrument.

Josh Pyke, an Australian singer and songwriter, sailed the seas on a giant guitar boat, which was not playable; nonetheless, it successfully managed to attract people’s attention. It was an accurate replica of his favorite guitar.

Preetham Desouza, an Indian interior designer, designed a guitar shaped staircase. The attractive staircase symbolizes steps toward a musical world, the banister of which supports the case, giving it an uber cool look.

Jay Ohrberg, a car builder, collector and designer, has created some of the most unique and expensive cars.  The guitar like beast created by him is a marvel of auto engineering for sure. His other cool creations have been a regular part of the entertainment industry

John Graham, a musician who played in the 1960s rock band The Ramrods, was famously known for his love for guitar. So, his wife decided to get a guitar shaped coffin modeled for her husband, which was an exact copy of the one he was gifted when he was fifteen. She did so to take her love for the musical instrument with him to his grave

 Elvis Cardin was so passionate about music that he made his dream turn true by designing his
own house into the shape of a guitar. It has a flat roof with electrical wires running along the top to mimic the strings.

 You can easily connect your sensibilities with this guitar shaped deck madeby a couple in their backyard pond itself. The deck mimics a simple frame of a typical guitar, which is secured in a pool nicely. After all, what could be a better way than to spend the lazy weekend in such a cool deck?

Summary:
All Guitar lovers! Do not ever let your love for the guitar die within you because that would be a sad end to a musical life. There are so many ways to stretch yourself and grow, strum the strings and make it a part of your life in a way that it becomes a musical extension for you to flaunt your musical sensibilities.

source:incrediblediary.com

Music Can Make You Feel Invincible

Lets admit it,you can’t separate Rocky from its music. It’s easy to believe the lovable underdog boxer could be a champion, so long as that rousing, brass-heavy score is roaring as insistently in his head as it is in ours.

But stirring sounds aren’t simply a way of generating excitement or enthusiasm. A new study finds certain types of music -- especially tunes with a heavy bass beat -- can make one feel more powerful. This sense of confidence and ability, the researchers add, can subsequently shape the way we think and behave.

In one experiment,78 undergraduates were made to listne to an original, two-minute-long piece of instrumental music in one of two conditions: With the bass line prominent or subdued. Afterwards, they “rated how powerful, dominant,
 and determined they felt,” as well as how strongly they were feeling three positive emotions (happiness, excitement and enthusiasm).

“Participants who listened to the heavy-bass music reported greater feelings of power than those who listened to the light-bass music,” the researchers report. “Importantly, the amount of bass did not produce any effect on positive emotions,” meaning the sense of power was not the result of their feeling happier or more excited.

How does this work? “Powerful people are more likely to speak with a deep, bass voice, and a bass voice is often associated with higher perceived power,” the researchers write, noting James Earl Jones' foreboding tones as Darth Vader in Star Wars.

 In additional studies, participants who had listened to “high-power music” such as Queen’s “We Will Rock You” were more likely to step forward and go first in a debate competition.Compared who listened to “low-power music” such as
“Who Let the Dogs Out,” they also scored higher on a test measuring abstract thinking, an ability that has previously been linked with power.

This suggests music can, at least temporarily, help us to think in ways that are more typical of powerful people.

source:huffingtonpost.com

Dutch Repair Cafes keep stuff out of the trash by fixing it for free

How awesome is the idea of a repair cafe? Very simply, it is a place you take your old, broken-down items, buy a cup of coffee and get your things fixed so that you can continue using them.

The Repair Cafe which debuted  in Amsterdam few years ago does just that. According to the New York Times, “the Repair Cafe Foundation has raised about $525,000 through a grant from the Dutch government, support from foundations and small donations, all of which pay for staffing, marketing and even a Repair Cafe bus”.

Repair Cafes started as a way to curb consumerism. Martine Postma, a former journalist came up with the concept after the birth of her second child, which made her think about environmental issues differently.

Inspired by a design exhibit about design and recycling, she decided on the idea Repair Cafes to help people fix things. For most people, possessions have a sentimental value and they don’t want to part with them. Some others would rather fix a broken item than buy a new one. Although the Netherlands only puts less than 3 percent of its municipal waste into landfill, there is still room for improvement. With Repair Cafes, people get together to share repair tips and foster an environment that supports sustainability.

People who volunteer at a Repair Café are most strongly motivated to take part because of what they can do for others. They want to help other people live more sustainably, to provide a valuable service to the community and to help improve product reparability and longevity. 

Who are these dedicated weirdos that are going above and beyond that already insanely good behavior?

Marjanne van der Rhee, a Repair Cafe volunteer who hands out data collection forms and keeps the volunteers fortified with coffee, says: “Different people come in. With some, you think, maybe they come because they’re poor. Others look well-off, but they are aware of environmental concerns. Some seem a little bit crazy.”

These Repair Cafes cater to people who find it too expensive to replace their broken items and at the same time, they also do not try to compete with existing repair shops. The Repair Cafe Foundation provides interested groups with information to help get them started, including lists of tools, tips for raising money and marketing materials. So far thirty groups have started Repair Cafes across the Netherlands, where neighbours pool their skills and labour for a few hours a month to rectify holey clothing or broken appliances. Postma has received inquiries from France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, Ukraine, South Africa, and Australia.

If this idea gets traction, it could be fantastic way to meet people who are interested in DIY, discourage consumerism whilst fostering an environment of creativity.

source:thealternative.in,triplepundit.com,grist.org,repaircafe.org