Rabu, 05 Desember 2007

History of Grunge Music....

Rock music is a form of popular music with a prominent vocal melody accompanied by guitar, drums, and bass. Many styles of rock music also use keyboard instruments such as organ, piano, or synthesizers. Other instruments sometimes utilized in rock include harmonica, violin, flute, banjo and less common stringed instruments such as mandolin and sitar. Rock music usually has a strong back beat, and often revolves around guitar, either electric or acoustic. Rock music has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll and rockabilly, which evolved from blues, country music and other influences. According to All Music Guide, "In its purest form, Rock & Roll has three chords, a strong, insistent back beat, and a catchy melody. Early rock & roll drew from a variety of sources, primarily blues, R&B, and country, but also gospel, traditional pop, jazz, and folk. All of these influences combined in a simple, blues-based song structure that was fast, danceable, and catchy. In the late 1960s, rock music was blended with folk music to create folk rock, blues to create blues rock and with jazz, to create jazz-rock fusion, and without a time signature to create psychedelic rock. In the 1970s, rock incorporated influences from soul, funk, and latin music. Also in the 1970s, rock developed a number of subgenres, such as soft rock, heavy metal, hard rock, progressive rock, and punk rock.

Alternative goes mainstream (Early-mid 1990s)

- Grunge

By the 1980s, rock was dominated by slick and commercial glam metal, hair metal and arena rock artists. MTV had arrived and promoted this excessive focus on image and style. Disaffected by this, in the mid-1980s, bands in Washington state (particularly in the Seattle area) formed a new style of rock music which sharply contrasted the mainstream rock of the time. The developing genre came to be known as "grunge", a term meaning "dirt" or "filth". The term was perhaps seen as appropriate due to the dirty sound of the music and the unkempt appearance of most musicians. Grunge fused elements of hardcore punk and heavy metal into a single sound, and made heavy use of guitar distortion, fuzz and feedback. The lyrics were typically apathetic and angst-filled, and often concerned themes such as social alienation and entrapment. Although it was also known for its dark humour and parodies of commercial rock.

Bands such as Green River, Soundgarden, the Melvins and Skin Yard pioneered the genre, with Mudhoney becoming the most successful by the end of the decade. However grunge remained largely a local phenomenon until 1991, when Nirvana's album Nevermind broke into the mainstream. Pearl Jam also contributed to this with their album Ten. Both bands were more melodic than their predecessors and were instant sensations worldwide, but they refused to buy in to corporate promotion and marketing mechanisms. During 1991 and 1992, other grunge bands such as Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and L7 gained a wider audience. Commercial rock and metal faded almost completely from the mainstream. While grunge itself can be seen as somewhat limited in range, its influence was felt across many geographic and musical boundaries; many artists who were similarly disaffected with commercial rock music suddenly found record companies and audiences willing to listen, and dozens of disparate acts positioned themselves as alternatives to mainstream music; thus alternative rock emerged from the underground. In early April 1994, grunge took a sudden shift in popularity with the death of Nirvana's frontman Kurt Cobain. Although grunge bands continued to release albums, the genre was rapidly declining in popularity, and by the mid- to late-1990s, many grunge bands had split up, stopped touring, or had changed their musical direction.


What's the HerBal..??

Herbalism is a traditional medicinal or folk medicine practice based on the use of plants and plant extracts. Herbalism is also known as botanical medicine, medicinal botany[1], medical herbalism, herbal medicine, herbology, and phytotherapy. Sometimes the scope of herbal medicine is extended to include fungi and bee products, as well as minerals, shells and certain animal parts. Many plants synthesize substances that are useful to the maintenance of health in humans and other animals. These include aromatic substances, most of which are phenols or their oxygen-substituted derivatives such as tannins. Many are secondary metabolites, of which at least 12,000 have been isolated — a number estimated to be less than 10% of the total. In many cases, these substances (particularly the alkaloids) serve as plant defense mechanisms against predation by microorganisms, insects, and herbivores. Many of the herbs and spices used by humans to season food yield useful medicinal compounds.

The use of herbs to treat disease is almost universal among non-industrialized societies[citation needed]. A number of traditions came to dominate the practice of herbal medicine at the end of the twentieth century:

* The herbal medicine system, based on Greek and Roman sources

* The Ayurvedic medicine system from India

* Chinese herbal medicine (Chinese herbology)

* Unani-Tibb medicine

* Shamanic Herbalism

Many of the pharmaceuticals currently available to physicians have a long history of use as herbal remedies, including opium, aspirin, digitalis, and quinine. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 80 percent of the world's population presently uses herbal medicine for some aspect of primary health care. [16]Herbal medicine is a major component in all traditional medicine systems, and a common element in Ayurvedic, homeopathic, naturopathic, traditional Chinese medicine, and Native American medicine.

Few herbal remedies have conclusively demonstrated any positive effect on humans[. Many of the studies cited refer to animal model investigations or in-vitro assays and therefore cannot provide more than weak supportive evidence


how to play drum's....

So you just bought your first drum kit and you want to know how to play the drums. This is the complete how-to for drumming!

First Steps

The first steps to playing the drums is by counting. Without being able to count or understand time signatures, you are useless behind the kit. Everyone knows how to count to 4 – this will be the basis of your beat. Most basic rock drumming beats are in the time signature of 4/4, meaning there are 4 counts each bar. (or 4 counts before the beat repeats). From here, you want to follow your counting with your dominant (usually your right) hand. With this hand, hit the hi hat on every count. The rest is actually quite simple, now that you are counting, simply add your bass drum and snare drum on the counts. Add your bass drum on 1, and the snare on 3. This will be your basic drum beat.

Drum Notation

Now that you have learned the basics on how to play drums, you will be able to see how beats are built around this basic pattern. If you can count to 4, you can play the drums, as I have just shown you. This is the basics to most rock drumming beats and grooves. Next you will want to practice stick control and drum rudiments. Learning how to play rudiments will help you build independence and speed around your drum kit. But do not go too fast at first, pace yourself. Make sure you have a feel for the drum set and your sticks. Start out with the two most common rudiments, the Single stroke roll and the Double stroke roll. Become very familiar with that basic 4/4 groove, so you can play it at different tempos. Remember, you are a drummer whose main task is to keep everyone on time, so make sure your timing is very precise. Playing the drums is a lot more than just playing a beat on time – there’s much more to it. You want to feel the beat, feel the time, and feel the groove. There is also much you can learn about stick control. A drummer should be able to create the mood and groove for any song, adding fills and accents in to spice things up. Learning how to do this is not an easy task, but you are at the right place if you are interested! When you want to improve your overall skills on the drum set, check out these 2 powerfull articles and lessons: Increasing your stick Speed and control, and learning the double bass drum. Keep posted for upcoming lessons and the complete how to on the drums!

Allergy / Hypersensitivity

An allergy is a reaction of your immune system to something that does not bother most other people. People who have allergies often are sensitive to more than one thing. Substances that often cause reactions are

  • Pollen

  • Dust mites

  • Mold spores

  • Pet dander

  • Food

  • Insect stings

  • Medicines

How do you get allergies? Scientists think both genes and the environment have something to do with it. Normally, your immune system fights germs. It is your body's defense system. In most allergic reactions, however, it is responding to a false alarm. Allergies can cause a runny nose, sneezing, itching, rashes, swelling or asthma. Symptoms vary. Although allergies can make you feel bad, they usually won't kill you. However, a severe reaction called anaphylaxis is life-threatening. Food allergy is an abnormal response to a food triggered by your body's immune system. Allergic reactions to food can sometimes cause serious illness and death. Tree nuts and peanuts are the leading causes of deadly allergic reactions called anaphylaxis. In adults, the foods that most often trigger allergic reactions include

  • Fish and shellfish, such as shrimp, lobster and crab

  • Peanuts

  • Tree nuts, such as walnuts

  • Eggs

Problem foods for children are eggs, milk (especially in infants and young children) and peanuts.

Sometimes a reaction to food is not an allergy. It is often a reaction called "food intolerance". Your immune system does not cause the symptoms of food intolerance. However, these symptoms can look and feel like those of a food allergy.