Dennis Walsh progressofmusic@hotmail.com

Like racing down a turnpike with too many signs and far too many choices, we stream through life never sure where and when to stop and go. The human race has a history of being closed-minded. Traditions were handed down from generation to generation. We were taught what was “right” and “wrong”, “true” and “false.” We were taught what to think and what not to think. We were taught what to do and what not to do. Anyone straying away from the accepted norm was considered foolish.

Struggling to make it all work, we pass through life frustrated with it all but more determined than ever to fit into the system that puts bread on the table and gives us purpose. Pity those who do not do that. They live in a special type of hell reserved for self pity and boredom. Rising to the occasion, we spend the day complaining about the way life should be and griping about the way it is, powerless to do more than that. Like it or not we are part of the big picture regardless of those who may want us to believe we have nothing to do with the outcome.

People have an innate desire and need to create. It is part of what makes us human. Once we have created an artistic work, there is usually an immense feeling of satisfaction and resolution- a feeling that we have “made a statement”. During times of great euphoria or times of trauma, musicians compose and perform music in an attempt to describe feelings that cannot otherwise be expressed.

Creativity makes the difference between an interesting, fulfilling life and one that is not. But creativity comes with a price. Creative people work at the edge of their competence. The possibility of failure is present but that is where they get the best results. Psychologists say genius is inseparable from failure. That may be true. Creativity tends to produce great quantities of mediocrity. The difference between success and failure is when creative people produce and keep producing work without giving up. That’s when they achieve their vision.

As a song shouldn’t have to be explained and it’s up to the listener to figure out what it means, Ludwig von Beethoven, arguably the most influential composer of all time, changed the voice of classical music. Influenced by political tensions that ravaged Europe in the wake of the French Revolution, his genius produced something so unique that it caused many people to dislike him. He provoked emotional fury and frantic applause wherever he went: That made people uncomfortable. Creativity makes some people uncomfortable.

Such threats are inevitable. So whose responsibility is it to forestall them? it has been posited that if we see practices like this grow as these devices as used more widely then the manufacturers will only have themselves to blame when the security issues put people off VoIP altogether.

VoIP hacking is the modern days version of war dialing - a method of automatically scanning telephone numbers using a modem, usually ringing all telephone number in surrounding area to find where computers or fax machines are available, then attempting to access them by guessing passwords.

Still there are precautions users can take to protect themselves. Here’s a list of WiFi VOIP security issues, and some effective ways to guard against them:

Many points of attack:
As the VoIP phones get more sophisticated, so could the points of entry for would be hackers. Email, client Web browsers, Bluetooth, SMS, WiFi, media players, and image viewers could all provide a window of opportunity for hackers. Though users can use open-source and commercial tools to continually test their phones and networks, they’ll ultimately have to rely on vendors to also do thorough testing on these devices.

Targeting phones in public environments:
For example a Bluetooth scanner could be hidden at the entrance to a major airport or train station and be used to grab user data. It may be best to keep Bluetooth and other wireless features swicthed off when not needed.

Rogue access points:
Other than this when at the office or on the road, users will have to keep their guard up and scan for rogue access points. Unscrupulous individuals will set up access points to target specifically WiFi phones in a business environment as well as at conferences and other places business people like to get together. Decent device authentication and encryption can help provide protection here.

Targeted attacks:
Targeted attacks on specific voice-over-wireless networks may also be an issue, albeit one that the victims may try to downplay.

Music licensing can be a very confusing subject. My intent with this article is to give you enough details on what music licensing is and what are your rights to use music in advertising and / or video productions.

A few months ago I was contacted by a company that was celebrating 20 years in business. They wanted to put together a radio commercial that highlighted their celebration. Their request was to use Kool and the Gangs song Celebration in their radio spot. I explained to them in order to do this they would have to obtain a licensing which would cost them quite a bit of money. This was not an option for them due to their limited budget and ultimately they told me that they “went another direction” with their advertising.

If I had agreed to use this song without obtaining a licensing I would have put both of our companies at risk. It was not worth the risk just to make a sale. Beware that there are unscrupulous production companies that will do this type of illegal activity so the best protection you have is knowledge.

The copyright law protects writers of music by giving them exclusive right to their music. Once a piece of music is under copyright protection it is illegal to use it without getting permission to the owner of the copyright.

There are actually two types of copyrights in the United States. One is the actual copyright which is denoted with the familiar C with a circle around it. This protection is for the actual melody, lyrics and arrangement of the music. The copyright is usually owned by the actual artist that wrote the piece or their publishing company.

The second form of copyright is the actual recording itself. This is denoted by a P with a circle around it. This protection covers the performance of the song caught on tape or digital media and released on CD or other media. Many times a record or production company will own this performance right.

If you want to use a song in a production, you need obtain a Master Use license from the owner of the copyright and a Synchronization license (often called a sync license) from the owner of the performance of the song.

The fees for synchronization licenses vary greatly. Low-end TV usage (music is playing from car radio in a scene) can cost up to $2,000. In a film, the fee may be as high as $10,000. A popular song is worth more, possibly $3,000 for TV and $25,000 for film. A song used as the theme song for a film might get $50,000 to $75,000. Commercials can get even more money. Fees for a popular song can range from $25,000 to $500,000 plus per year. The typical range for a well-known song is $75,000 to $200,000 for a one year national usage in the United States on television and radio.

I think you will agree with me that that is allot of money and usually way over budget for many video and radio productions.

To get around these outrageous fees, music production companies sell buyout music. When you purchase a buyout CD you do not need to obtain a licensing to use the music. You can use the music hassle free and at a much lower cost.

Buyout music or royalty-free, as it applies to my products, means that for your one-time purchase price, you can legally use the music in your productions for life of ownership. All copyrights of the music remain with Zebra Music LLC. My jingle licensing agreement allows a protected area of 200 miles. By doing this no other companies in a local market will have the same jingle.

Many other production companies offer a similar buy out music licensing. I would advise you to read the licensing agreements with other production companies and ask questions if you have concerns.

Network broadcast and international broadcast of buyout production music is cleared through a performance organization (like BMI or ASCAP). The revenue that these songs produce when they are aired is paid directly from broadcast station licensing, NOT from you as a producer. These performance organizations then in turn pay each artist based on the amount their song or songs were aired on the radio or TV.

I hope this article has cleared up any confusion or questions that you have had about copyright and music licensing.

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Steve Veloudos owns and operates Zebra Music LLC. It’s a one stop shop for jingles, radio production, custom music, library music, and sound design. Visit Steve’s web site and get free monthly music that you can use for your productions.
http://www.zebramusic.com

zebra24@msn.com

480-540-7768

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Three battles at the end of the 8 Mile movie made Jimmy Smith aka B. Rabbit a reputation in the rap arena. A real challenge for Jimmy Smith who was left with no voice at the beginning of the movie: a typical case of stage fright.

People who are not very much into hip hop need to realize the importance of a rap battle; rap battles can be compared to battles we have to face in real life. Words used in a freestyle or a rap battle are like a sword, they expose your opponent in a total nudity. When you get verbally ripped off, it is your turn to show your teeth and to use your verbal weapons in order to weaken your adversary. It’s a matter of honor, you have to expose and verbally annihilate your enemy in order to make him look bad or ridiculous in front of the crowd that expects your answer with impatience. You can feel this kind of fever in 8 Mile when the crowd shouts : What? What? which means that it is your turn to respond.
Eminem perfectly knows the importance of a battle:

” That’s one thing that I want this movie to get across, is that people who live in this world of hip-hop — how seriously we take this, how seriously we take our music and battling and the sport of it and the competition and everything.”

Losing a battle is terrible in an aspiring rapper’s mind. Since the time he was unable to spit any word on stage, Jimmy Smith had been humiliated by Alex who had cheated on him with Wink. He had been knocked out by the Free World leaders in real life.

He had to take his lyrical revenge and prove his skills - also in order to keep his honor safe.

Three battles will help Jimmy to build his reputation.

Lickety Split battles B Rabbit on the whiteness of his music. He enumerates numerous white artists like Vanilla Ice and Elvis. He wants to prove that Jimmy’s music is bad rap or even worse, no rap at all. The reference to Willie Nelson who -by the way- makes country music is intented to ridicule Jimmy. The only reference to a black artist is Tina Turner in a weak position, when she gets beaten up by her husband. He also points out his mistakes and the mistakes of his friend like Cheddar Bob!

Yo, this guys a choke-artist
Ya catch a bad one
Ya better off shootin ya-self wit Popa Doc’s handgun
Climbin up this mountain, ya weak
I leave ya lost witout a paddle, floatin shit’s creek
You ain’t Detroit, I’m the D
You tha new kid on the block, bout to get smacked back to the
boone-docks
F**kin Nazi, this crowd ain’t ya type
Take some real advice
And form a group with Vanilla Ice
And what I tell ya
Ya better use it
This guy’s a hillbilly this ain’t Willie Nelson music
Trailer trash
I choke ya till ya last breath
And have ya lookin foolish like Cheddar Bob when he shot
his-self
Silly Rabbit, I know why they call you that
Cuz you follow Future, like he got carrots up his asscrack
And when you act it up, that’s when you got jacked up
And left stupid like Tina Turner when she got smacked up
I crack ya shoulderblade
You’ll get dropped so hard that Elvis will start turnin in his
grave
I don’t know why they left you out in the dark
Ya need to take your white ass back across 8 Mile to the trailer
Park.

In the first battle, Bunny Rabbit battles his opponent on his sugarcoated music style that questions his masculinity and his music style that looks like it was aimed at a 100% female audience. The first sentence is hilarious:

This guy raps like his parents jerked him…

The great majority of a hip hop battle audience is usually composed of men:

He sounds like Eric Sermon
The generic version
This whole crowd looks suspicious
It’s all dudes in here
Except for these bitches…

He goes on making fun of the Free World leaders:

That’s ok, you look like a fuckin worm with braids
These leaders of the Free World rookies
Lookie, how can 6 dicks be pussies…

He also makes himself look in a positive light, he enforces his role as a fighter and shoots at his enemy in a funny way. Lickety is too slow to follow Rabbit’s rapid flow:

Ya they call me Rabbit
This is a turtle race
He can’t get wit me spittin this shit
Wickedy Lickety shot
Spicious spickety split Lickety
So I’ma turn around wit a great smile
And walk my white ass back across 8 Mile…

Bunny Rabbit conquered the crowd. But he had to battle Lotto.
Second round. Second fight.

Like his fellow Lickety Split, Lotto comes with a strong racial argument, which appears to be a bad strategy:

Huhhh huhhh
I’ll spit a racial slur honkey sue me
This shit is a horror flick
But a black guy doesn’t die in this movie
Fuckin wit Lotto dog you gotta be kiddin
That makes me believe, you really don’t have an interest in livin
You think these niggas gone feel the shit you say?

His hatred of Jimmy as a white man clearly appears in his whole speech. Jimmy fully counters his attack in the second part of his verse:

Matta fact dog, here’s a pencil
Go home, write some shit, make it suspenseful
And don’t come back until somethin dope hits you
Fuck it
You can take the Mic home wich you
Lookin like a cyclone hit you
Tanktop screamin, “Lotto I don’t fit you”
You see how far them white jokes get you
Boys like, how Vanilla Ice gone diss you?
My motto:
Fuck Lotto
I get the 7 digits from ya mother for a dollar tomorrow…

Bunny Rabbit makes the battle become more lyrical as he criticizes Lotto’s writing ability:

Matta fact dog, here’s a pencil
Go home, write some shit, make it suspenseful
And don’t come back until somethin dope hits you
Fuck it
You can take the Mic home wich you
Lookin like a cyclone hit you
Tanktop screamin, “Lotto I don’t fit you

He also definitely shuts his mouth about the white jokes .

Third and final round: Bunny Rabbit vs. Papa Doc.

Bunny Rabbit has managed to get rid of two of his enemies. He feels better about himself and has gained some confidence.

He now rallies the crowd from the 313:

Now everybody from the 3-1-3
Put ya muthafuckin hands up and follow me
Everybody from the 3-1-3
Put ya muthafuckin hands up
Look look…

People from the Detroit ghetto are proud to belong to the 313 area calling code. People from the 313 are supposed to be cool unlike the people from the 810 area.

Jimmy’s strategy is intelligently worked out. He perfectly knows his worst enemy, who-by the way- doesn’t raise his hand:

Now while he stands tough
Notice that this man did not have his hands up
This Free World’s got ya gased up
Now who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf…

He knows that he’s a gangsta wannabe. There is nothing ghetto nor gangsta in him :

1, 2, 3 and to the 4
1pac, 2pac, 3pac, 4
4pac, 3pac, 2pac’s, 1
Your Pac, he’s Pac, No Pac’s, None…

But Bunny Rabbit’s best strategy is his huge honesty and it will pay off in the end. He doesn’t hide what he is nor his mistakes:

I am white
I am a fuckin bum
I do live in the trailer wit my mom
My boy future is an Uncle Tom
I do got a dumb friend named Cheddar Bob who shoots himself in his leg with his own gun
I did get jumped
By all 6 of you chumps
And Wink did fuck my girl
I’m still standin here screamin fuck the Free World!

Then Rabbit reveals Papa Doc’s intimate and hidden secrets to the crowd:

But I know somethin about you
You went to Cranbrook, that’s a private school
What’s the matter dog you embarrassed?
This guys a gangster? His real name’s Clarence
And Clarence lives at home with both parents
And Clarence parents have a real good marriage
This guy don’t wanna battle, he’s shook
Cuz ain’t no such things as Half Way Crooks!
He’s scared to death
He’s scared to look
At his fuckin yearbook
Fuck Cranbook…

Jimmy’s great force lies in his total honesty. He is not ashamed of living in a trailer park and even proud to be white trash :

Fuck a beat, I go acapella
Fuck a Popa Doc, fuck a clock, fuck a trailer fuck everybody
Fuck yall if you doubt me, I’ma piece of fuckin white trash I say it proudly
And fuck this battle I don’t wanna win, I’m outtie
Here, tell these people somethin they don’t know about me…

Papa Doc is left totally unweaponed and speechless. Happy end for Rabbit who eventually wins his fight for recognition.

These 3 rap battles from 8 Mile also teach us a lesson about real life: don’t try to play yourself. Be honest, accept yourself with your imperfections, your failures, your mistakes, but always be yourself.

I do teach English and German at public schools. I am an Eminem biographer and a freelance music journalist.

Basically, if you want to get physical with your mp3 player then you need one with no moving parts. In this case, the iPod is not what you want. You would be looking for a machine which saves it’s music to memory. Some of the most popular mp3 players which fall into this category are in the Creative MuVo range.

There are basically three types of mp3 player. Hard drive based, memory based and mp3 CD player based. The hard drive mp3 players allow you to store thousands of tunes whilst the memory based version sacrifices music volume for freedom of movement. You can even get waterproof mp3 players! The mp3 CD players read the mp3 music from a CD which you have pre-burned.

So now you have enough information to know what type of mp3 player you should be looking for. Now what about capacity? How much music can you get on the various players out there? Let’s take a look ….

If you want your music to sound good you want to be using at least CD quality mp3s. One minute of CD quality mp3 takes up around 1Mb. The memory based mp3 players have a top limit of around 500Mb meaning you can get roughly 120 average length tunes on there. But the top end hard drive versions go up to as much as 60Gb which is a whole lot of music - an anorak’s dream

Another consideration is battery life. The hard drive mp3 players plough through the batteries at a rate of knots since the disk has to physically turn. The memory based option uses a lot less battery power. Many of the memory based mp3 players use the AAA size battery which is very convenient since you don’t need a re-charger and you don’t need to search for hard to find battery types. You’ll find that most hard drive versions use lithium-ion rechargeable batteries and if you use your mp3 player a lot, your re-charger will be in regular use. Many people simply leave the power lead plugged in when they are at home.

An important factor in your decision should be the size of the unit. If you want to use your player at the gym or while you’re out jogging then you’ll want the smallest player possible. There are some really tiny models on the market these days. You will usually have to sacrifice some storage with a very small mp3 players but you can usually get enough music on there to have a good long workout.

If you want to use your mp3 player more at home then size will not be such a great consideration. The iPod is still a very compact unit and most people will be able to fit their entire collection on there. Of course the iPod is not your only option and there are many excellent manufacturers out there. Just be careful of some of the cheap imports you see on ebay, often there is no support for these players.

As a replacement for the home hi fi system, the mp3 player is becoming more and more popular. High fidelity purists obviously will never be swayed but to most of us the quality of the mp3 is perfectly adequate for our everyday listening purposes.

In fact many modern players coming on to the market have been designed with both portability and versatility in mind. What better way to entertain your dinner party guests than to have your mp3 player randomly selecting music from over ten thousand of your favourite tracks? No more fumbling around in your CD rack trying to find the disk that lost its cover

Now you know what to look for, go get yourself a player and join the digital music revolution.

Fabio writes for many niches and is an experienced researcher. He has written articles covering a wide range of human experience and enjoys plying his trade especially on the Internet. He is currently sponsoring iClick Info mp3 Blogs and News and can be reached on fabio@linkz-and.info

When going to a online casino, debating how much one should bring to play can be thought provoking. You may wish to play a little or a lot in one casino, but not a lot in another. Some casinos offer a line of credit when you play at their business.

Casinos normally don’t offer a line of credit. There are a few who may depend how much you have spent before, or basically it is part of their service to begin with. When entering a casino, you can always ask whether or not they offer this service.

If a casino offers a line of credit, which becomes better, cash or that line of credit? It all depends on how you want your money spent. If you choose the line of credit, they may want you to pay it at the end of the night. Going on a line of credit may make you spend more than you wanted when you first entered into the casino.

Having cash on hand allows you to have a budget already set. The amount of cash you have is the amount you play till. The line of credit may put a limit on how much you can spend. It may however not, leaving you worried of how you are going to come up with the rest of the money to pay it.

After a while, people started to take advantage of this. They started adding pop ups, illegal spy software, among many other things to their sites. You downloaded an mp3 file and you got the file, but with it you had a shiny new browser window that told you to buy viagra everytime you surfed the web.

Fortunately, other resources came out. Legal Resources. Places were you can come inside and download music in a safe way, in a way you can trust.

These are cost effective, and if you compare it to the damage that could be caused by downloading the files from an illegal source, then the legal sources will outweight their value by tenfold.

When you’re downloading for and Mp3 music file online, there are a few things you will want to look for:

1) The quality of the Mp3. File quality can range anywhere from 20 kbps which is blurry quality to 320 kbps which is basically CD quality. You should aim for downloading music files that are above 128 kbps. Anything below that will have a trashy background that will not sound great when you burn it onto a CD.

2) You internet speed must be in a good shape. Sometimes it’s necessary to restart your computer to get it back to optimum speed before attempting to download any mp3 file. You’ll want anything over 3 kb/s to get the song in under 10 minutes.

3) Check you computer to make sure you have enough space on the drive you’re downloading your file. There’s nothing more annoying than getting to 75 percent of the download only to find out that you didn’t have enough room in your C: Drive. Nowadays with our hard drive’s spaces growing this is more unsual but it’s best to make sure before you start.

4) Make sure you don’t make illegal copies of the music you’re downloading. The best way to download music is to use them as samples for a music album. You download a music file, see if you like it, and if you do, you go ahead and buy the record. If you don’t then sample on to the next band. This way we keep the music industry going and it’s an all round win win situation.

All and all, downloading music is a great experience and you can even learn about new bands that you’ll want to go to the concert or buy the album later. Just make sure you do it from a legal source and keep your copies to yourself.

Charles Cruz CEO of Download Music Central (www.systemmastery.com/DownloadMusicOnline.html) Educating people on how to properly download movies online.

The structure offers the availability of completely independent units.

The access to the various units, disposed on the second floor of a doublefamily villa, is guaranteed from common entry-hall , all the premises are very spacious, extremely illuminated and endowed with every comfort, the rooms can be as single as matrimonial depends on the demands, the principal entry to the structure is independent to guarantee the maximum liberty to the guests.

The structure, that leans out on a typical sorrentine citrusgarten , is situated few meters from the beach of Meta of Sorrento and it is well served by every public transport: the stop of the bus is alone 10 m away, while the station of the local train, the Circumvesuviana, is 50 ms away., all guarantees an easy and fast connection with Sorrento and every other zone of the Sorrentine Peninsula .Near the structure are available all the services of first necessity and relaxation: alimentary, small supermarket, pharmacy, pizzeria, restaurant, typical English pub etc. besides few meters away is available a parking lot guarded for payment.

Meta of Sorrento
The Sorrentine Peninsula has the worlds unique landscape, where tall and low hills are alternated to deep valleys and stately mountains, the most impervious zones have been turned into the famous terraces, degrading terraces of earth toward the sea, on which they cultivate orange trees, lemons, olives and grapevines. They are the gardens of delight which in spring exhale the intoxicating perfumes.
The mild and dry climate during almost all the previous year in Sorrentine Peninsula the ideal destination for a very beautiful vacation in every season. Among the countrysides of this fantastic earth’s edge, the first one to really welcome you is Meta , that it opens her doors with the Madonna del Lauro square, on which stands the homonym principal Basilica. The country from the ancient origins has a marine character and it rises on a bluff precipice, degrading from the tall part of the hill till the very beautiful and sandy ones sunny beaches all to discover. Besides for the lovers of the historical centers there are plenty ancient hamlets, suburbs rural and narrow streets that narrate old history.

Boys hair grows usually 1.5 inch every two months, each human hair follicle will last around 2 to 6 years and then drops out. Once the guys hair falls out a new hair strand takes its place. With genetic hair loss once your hair drops out the hair does not come back.

Each strand of hair sits in a follicle in your scalp, over the course of time the follicle in men may shrink and result in less hair or no hair at all. The reason for genetic baldness is still not understood and will probably be related to hormones or DNA. Although your follicle will often shrink the follicles are still capable of growing hair if treated.

Baldness might often cause loss of confidence in chaps and thankfully there are terrific hair loss treatments available from clinics that might often help slow down baldness and promote magnificent hair growth. These treatments comprise of minoxidil which is an exciting topical treatment applied directly on the scalp, this genetic baldness treatment is shown to prevent loss of hair and even produce new hair growth, now that is awesome. Once you stop this baldness treatment your hair loss will then start back up.