1st Piano

By Davion Wong iPhone owners are getting excited about loading their new gizmos with iPhone music downloads. After all, the phone-cum-digital portable media player can store up to 100 songs easily and allow a playtime of up to 24 hours of audio. This article will show you 7 hot tips to find the top service befitting of your new toy when it comes to iPhone music downloads. 1. Free or Paid Freebie seekers probably would argue with me on this. There is nothing wrong with wanting free iPhone music downloads. Who doesn't anyway? But the trouble is that free websites that give you music for free are often associated with exposure to viruses, spyware and adware when downloading media files there. Our phones are too new and precious and to risk exposing them to these harmful elements is a No No. How about downloading each iPhone song for $0.99 or more at online music services like HMV, iTunes and so on? People wouldn't mind if it is only one or two song. But if we are ...

Independent music has been a driving force during the development of MySpace, and now the social network has ignored its core when it launched the new MySpace Music. The new deal with Amazon.com makes them a new competitor against iTunes and Napster. After signing a deal with the 4 major labels (Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, EMI Music, and Warner Music Group, Inc.) MySpace and its business partners could benefit from the indie artists, but will they return the benefits? You can always say that yes, an indie artist being featured next to a signed artist could help their exposure. But does the artist gain the same amount of benefits as the major label? 1. The independent artist doesn't see a fixed amount of money coming in from the on-site advertising deals that MySpace creates, because of MySpace Music. 2. The indie artist has to count on, whoever checks out their page, actually listens to their music, instead of it being forced into their ear...

I think that some toy manufactures some times forget that the parents and grandparents of children also have to listen to music that their toys create. Most soon become very annoying, often grating on our auditory nerves. The Munchkin Mozart Magic Cube is a very welcome exception to that group of products. Any parent, grandparent or child caregiver wants to provide their children with the best forms of education. Up to now, the only musical expressions that were available to our children have come to us from the folks at Sesame Street or Barney. Sesame Street and Barney have been very important to the development of many children so their worth should not be diminished; however, the musical education that sprang from those shows left a lot to be desired. That is why the Munchkin Mozart Magic Cube is a great product. The music is actual Mozart music. The Cube plays 8 Mozart compositions. The music from the Munchkin Mozart Magic Cube is very pleasing to listen to. The in...

By John C Arkin The Multi-Region version is available from Planet Omni. This player is amazing. It's clearly better than the first gen players, bdps1, even the bd91. there are a few little things to consider about blu ray. It SHOULDN'T play cds. if you have 1000 to spend on an Elite blu ray, then you should have good money, like 600 for a Cambridge azure or a like 24 bit cd player. blu ray lasers are very narrow, and will not read cds correctly, and to make them do so would be way more work than is considered worthwhile by the major manufacturers. That being said, DROOL! best upscaling I have seen on any player to date, full streaming features, and the Pioneer Elite look. It's a really good player and I for one think that it's the best to date. It plays CDs, as well as internally decodes advanced audio (minus DTS-HD Master) into PCM for transmission over HDMI or analog, for all the legacy receivers out there. Very nice Blu Ray player though with many ni...

By Jay Douglas There are 3 major types. The desktop microphone, the lavalier microphone, and the headset microphone. Now, while there are some fine desktop microphones on the market, I don't recommend any of them for audio or video production. Why? Because they can be moved to different positions on the desktop and that means that each time you record you have to adjust it to ensure it is positioned in exactly the same position as your last recording or the recording volume won't be consistent. This is especially critical when you're doing long recordings, take a break, and come back to continue recording. The second undesirable feature of a desktop microphone is that, even if the microphone remains in exactly the same position, you as the user don't. You don't sit perfectly still when you're using the computer. You'll turn your head, scratch, or whatever, and your head and mouth placement will cause your recording levels to fluctuate. In fa...

By Georgina Pearce If you're interested in duplicating your CD's or DVD's the environmentally friendly way, here are a few things to consider when choosing a company to help you do it. Green packaging. Some duplication companies offer sleeves made either entirely or partially from recycled cardboard. Recycled plastics. If you must use plastic in your packaging, look for a company that uses recycled plastics. A sound policy. What's the company's internal policy on energy? Does it operate using green power? Is it committed to conserving energy by using energy-efficient bulbs and appliances? If so, you'll know that the company is committed to green duplication in other ways as well, and they're likely to be a good partner. Soy-based inks. Most commercial inks are petroleum-based and contain VOC's-volatile organic chemicals. These evaporate quickly into the atmosphere, where they contribute to global warming. Soy-based inks contain no VOC...

By John Milligan The Nintendo Wii Fit features four main categories of exercises to choose from: Strength Training, Aerobics, Yoga and Balance Games. Taking the revolutionary motion sensing abilities of the Wii, the Wii Fit itself features the inclusion of the Balance Board, a sturdy device placed on a flat surface, that can read the motions and gestures of anybody standing on top of it. This nifty device features more than 40 different exercises across four areas of training such as leaning to block soccer balls, swivelling hips to power hoop twirls or balancing to hold the perfect yoga pose. These are of course fun activities, and don't forget the ski jumping and heading soccer balls, that challenge the player's overall body balance. This is all about controlled motion using arms, legs and other body parts which in themselves include dancing, exercise, balance and dexterity games which Nintendo says will help to build muscles and provide stability. The Wii Fit ...

In the early 90s, "alternative" rock exploded and suddenly every wannabe musician believed they could crank out a hit tune. Kids grabbed guitars and headed for garages and basements to produce rough demo tapes and, hopefully, bask in the glow of fame. More or less, that was the beginning of the do-it-yourself era of music production that has exploded in the age of the Internet. And one example of the great leaps that have been made in home-recording equipment since the heyday of Nirvana is the H2 Handy Recorder from Zoom. According to Zoom, the purpose of the H2 Handy Recorder is to "provide brilliant stereo recording in an easy-to-use, ultra-portable device". Essentially, the small digital tool acts a mini recording studio, providing far greater sound clarity than a tape recorder ever could. The H2 has two sets of mics - one pair on the front and one pair on the back - and musicians can use all the mics at once to produce a four-channel recording wit...

By Luis Diez Il Divo, Josh Groban, classical crossover... Who are all these people that seem to be revolutionizing the classical music world? Musicians have been "crossing over" almost from the moment music was invented. Mozart's famous Rondo "Alla Turca" was already using a popular style of Turkish music that was famous at the time. Later on Tchaikovsky would be inspired by gypsy violinists playing in cafés and Bach had already written music for the Zimmermann café he used to play in. Although name labels are very useful for categorizing what type of music we are talking about, as soon as you go in a little deeper, boundaries immediately start to blur. What do we call a gipsy flamenco singer singing a famous traditional "bolero" with latin jazz legend Bebo Valdés? That is exactly what Diego el Cigala did in his Grammy-awarded CD Lagrimas Negras. What does all this have to do with classical music? Well that is precisely the point, funni...