Thursday, February 26, 2009

Music can take the pain away - continued

One of the studies compared the effects of music to the effects of looking at a favorite work of art subject was asked to choose a painting to look out of the 15 most popular paintings.

Art helped, as compared to staring at a blank wall, but the music is much more effective, she said.

Mitchell believes her research will make a difference in many medical situations - for example, in dealing with chronic pain or for people facing painful medical tests.

"We want to give doctors and health professionals, resources to make it more convenient for patients. Take their minds from the scariness of stay in hospital, and noise and people rushing about what can make you feel worse," she said.

Pain management only recently being given the importance it deserves, said Mitchell.

"This is something that really only the last five years, it has become really very important," she said.

"In Europe, currently about one in five people suffers from chronic pain, and they have an average of seven years, and two-thirds of them consider their drugs simply are not enough to really give them the assistance they need."

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Music can take the pain away very easy

A recent study by the University of Glasgow Caledonia found that people listening to your favorite music felt less pain and can stand for a longer period.

Pain researcher Laura Mitchell is measured by how people react to pain with various forms of madness, including relaxing music to listen to audio with a sense of humor, doing math puzzles, and looking at art.

As she told the CBC in the Q cultural affairs show, the music stimulus, the majority as to keep the minds of people in pain.

"My favorite music came out constantly, even to the extent that I was very surprised at the development of these studies is extremely efficient in how people can tolerate pain, and in fact, reduce the pain, how they feel," said Mitchell.

But not just any music - this is not the relaxing jazz playing in the dentist's office or the classic pipeline in the clinic waiting room, which makes a good man, but their personal favorite.

"I did it at the present time about 400 people ... and do not seem to be anything in common between the pieces, which they bring," said Mitchell.

"I was Smashing pumpkins on Kylie Minogue in the fate of the child pop up, old-fashioned rock right on the techno-dance music that most people will find themselves really quite painful."

In January, Mitchell published a study in the journal Psychology of aesthetics, creativity and art, showing a significant effect of music on pain.

It is used by the test assumes that people are asked to moisten your hands to the wrist in cold water, and keep it there as long as they can tolerate it. The test is done only in healthy people, and there is an upper limit on the time they keep their hands in the cold bath.

"We are looking for whether the music will have an impact on human tolerance of pain - how long they can tolerate a painful stimulus, and will reduce the actual sense, the actual perception of pain for them and whether this will lead to a reduction in anxiety human pain and whether it helps them feel a little bit to control the pain they are experiencing, "she said.

People have reported their ability to distract themselves from pain, two times more than if they were to listen to your favorite music, and their perception of worth more than they think, fell significantly.

Mitchell, who studies the art of governance and for eight years, believes that the emotional associations, which have reduced music to human perception of pain.

"This is a distraction from the music that you love, and you have a relationship with. And you're so emotionally tied to it, you're so emotionally involved that it can actually take the pain away," she said.

continued on next post

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Music Guide Feb 2009

Calle 13
"Los de Atras Vienen Conmigo"
(Norte)
Grade: B+

You don't have to speak Spanish to conclude that this arty, political San Juan rap duo deserve their rocketing reputation -- I sure can't, though when I squint at the booklet my puny recognition vocabulary helps. But you do have to immerse and concentrate -- and accept that you'll miss most of what's going on even then. They're reggaeton only by association, a lot further from Daddy Yankee's hey-mami dancehall than the Roots were from Dr. Dre's jeep-pimping funk. By all accounts and the little I can work out, their lyrics are playfully associative and outrageously filthy. But for gringos, their humor resides almost entirely in Visitante's out-there arrangements and Residente's overt vocal comedy, as on the Balkanized "Fiesta de Locos." If some promotional visionary were to provide trots, that might change. But as it is, big guests Café Tacuba and Ruben Blades are too mainstream to launch Calle's 2008 model into the surrealist stratosphere.


Calle 13
"Residente o Visitante"
(Norte)
Grade: A-

Start here, partly to benefit from the online discussion this album has inspired over two years -- cf. allthelyrics.com's takeout on the Rabelaisian "Uiyi Guaye" -- but mostly to delve into sardonic sonics that hint at what Tom Zé might have gone for if he'd come up on OutKast and Eminem instead of the Beatles and the Stones. From mock-operatic intro to mock-rock finale, the music is disruptive fun throughout. Latin-flavored yet light on salsa clavé and reggaeton dembow, it sharpens the lyrics so that sometimes a single word can make you nod or smile while its context remains a mystery.


Glasvegas
"Glasvegas"
(Columbia)
Grade: A

Not a brother band -- a cousin band, possibly inbred. For sure there's something hillbilly insular about their ties to Glasgow's Dalmarnock hood. But like Dolly Parton bringing her mountain home to Nashville, they churn out big, corny, mass-appeal heart songs, with subjects including knife fights, fatherless children, and -- really -- how your social worker won't let you down. Where you'd think ex-footballer James Allan would propel this material with Mick Hucknall soul or maybe Proclaimers purism, his musical ideal is elegiac Jesus and Mary Chain noise-punk, which cleansed of the Reid brothers' junkie dissolution approaches Righteous Brothers grandeur. Innocent and confident, this is one of those bands that could fall on its face or take over the world. They're too good to be true and plain as the nose on your face.


Guns N' Roses
"Chinese Democracy"
(Geffen)
Grade: B+

Hopeless eccentric spends most of his adult life and a large chunk of his ill-gotten fortune trying to make the perfect album. Succeeds, kind of, on his own totally irrelevant terms. Nobody cares. Since he's no longer capable of leading young white males astray, this effort isn't just pleasurable artistically. It's touching on a human level. Noble, even. I didn't think he had it in him.

Saturday, February 7, 2009

ABBA tribute band says it played for Putin

MOSCOW (AP) - British based ABBA tribute band said on Friday the Kremlin quickly away to perform a private concert for Vladimir Putin - offering rare insight into the private life of secretive prime minister of Russia.

Four members of Bjorn Again, the band said that traveled 200 miles (320 kilometers) north of Moscow on January 22 concert by the Lake Valday perform before an exclusive audience of eight people - Putin unidentified blonde woman and six other men in tuxedoes.

Putin representative denied that the Prime Minister attended any concert, but group members have sufficient information and stated that they recognized Putin shows.

ABBA is one of the most loved foreign bands in the Soviet times, and the Swedish quartet, even traveled to Moscow to serve in the Kremlin.

But the revelation that Putin may be a closet ABBA fans run counter to its traditional strong image. The Prime Minister is better known for the courageous display of judo mat and jet fighter cockpits, as well as for reliable outbursts against the West.

Rod Steven, the founder of Bjorn Again, at first it was a hoax when he received a phone call requesting that his team travel to Russia to perform at the Lake Valdai.

"It was a classic" Hello ... The Kremlin ... Russia ... we want to Bjorn Again "," Stephen recalled. "I thought he was one of the group by sending me."

But they soon realized it was serious.

Aileen McLaughlin, one of four team members who traveled to Russia, said the group found the whole experience "strange" since the beginning. After flying to Moscow, they boarded a bus for nine hours journey from "very bad" Roads and learned they had to perform before Putin.

"We arrived at five in the morning at the large metal security gate, where we had to go and looking for", she said by telephone from London. "We are just tired and want to get to the hotel. And my - we were wrong again!"

McLaughlin said that they were in places like military installations, with the most basic accommodation and tight security. Panel members are protected by machine gun-toting, and protecting cells, and when any of them have ventured on the street, they were prevented from moving away to men with Kalishnikovs.

But she said that the audience - seated comfortably on a sofa, three - appeared to enjoy the concert.

"They were clapping and swaying, and make their fingers in the air, this kind of thing," said McLaughlin. "He (Putin) was a good rhythm. He was shouting 'Bravo, Bravo!" After the song. "

The audience especially enjoyed "Great Actor" and "Mamma Mia", she added.

Lace curtain separated the band from the elite audience for the hour, high-security show, but McLaughlin said at one point Spotlight flashed from the audience and the band members saw Putin.

McLaughlin described the woman as a lonely blonde, who was "wearing long, cream, really pretty dress." Putin's wife, Lyudmila, has blonde hair, but they are rarely seen together anymore.

The band was paid 20,000 pounds ($ 30000) for their work, which was organized in Moscow on the basis of agents SAV Entertainment, said Steven, speaking in London.

The woman at the SAV Entertainment denied that anything to do with this event.

"We are told that each concert and did not take place. We deny it," she said, refusing to give her name.

The representative of Putin, Dmitry Peskov denied that Putin has taken part of any such party, or about 22 January, adding "Neither Putin nor his office has ordered a band of this kind."

"I have no doubt that he loves the music of Abba," said Peskov. "But it just was not there."