Here's a handy checklist of points for your upcoming talk: BEFORE THE EVENT (when? night before is best) 1. Stand in your spot...and their spots: With the room empty, stand where you'll be speaking and sit where the audience will be...
One of the most common questions by Twitter newbies: what good is it for me to tweet something when I only have 20 followers? The "hashtag" is the way to get your message to hundreds, thousands, and literally MILLIONS of people, immediately, in...
Begin drooling now. Mmmmmmm. This pie is from Modern Apizza in New Haven, Connecticut USA. Thanks to Bruce Marshall for the yummy photo. Hey! where did that first slice go already? When you think of GREAT PIZZA, what place, brand or location...
LISTENING TO LYRICS: To find out the message of a song, you've gotta listen to the words, or LYRICS. A song's lyrics are critical to proper interpretation of its meaning. Some contemporary songs have a powerful message, tell a story or establish...
Here's a complete song list, in order, of ALL the music performed this afternoon (January 18, 2009) at the "We Are One" Inaugural concert celebrating the inauguration of Barack Obama and honoring Abraham Lincoln, held at the steps of the Lincoln...
All that JAZZ history Jazz is an American music genre which can be traced back to the the 1920s and is a combination of dixieland, blues, and swing music. One of the most unique characteristics of Jazz is that no two performances of a song are...
Country music is all about the STORY. Country songs have a PLOT. Unlike other genres, country songs literally tell stories that are easy to understand and universal in appeal. More than all other genres, the stories in country songs have a plot,...
Although hiphop was originally meant to refer to the urban lifestyle and rap was meant to refer to the music of the urban lifestyle, today the two terms hiphop and rap are often used interchangably for each other. Hiphop music is a highly...
Pick a state and watch senate & house members' YouTube videos, a new way for elected officials to communicate directly with the public. Even though yesterday was a Sunday, the United States Congress spent time on that day (January 11th, 2009) in...
Very often in society there are situations where YOU can be the conversation starter - YOU can be the person who "kicks off" a short dialog - YOU can be the one to set the tone for the next few seconds of talking. What I'm about to explain is...
From the 1950's through today, there have been times of major social upheaval in the United States, when the political climate was ripe for change, especially during the race riots and segregation of the 50's and 60's, and the protests over the...
In 1946, the year after World War Two ended, US president Harry Truman created the director of central intelligence. The next year, the American congress passed the National Security Act of 1947, which reorganized the military branches and the...
This list of "Car Tunes" are great travelling songs for your car or truck. Songs that make your drive come alive! An article by hubber Angela Harris called "Playlist of Best Road Trip Songs" inspired me to create this list. But these songs...
America began having a President and a Secretary of State in 1789, 13 years after the nation's birth in 1776. The Secretary of State plays a critical role in the executive branch.
There have been vice presidents that are VERY well known, others COMPLETELY obscure. Fate and fortunes determine which column each VP ends up. Q: Are there always Vice Presidents?...
Here's a handy list of the Presidents of the United States, beginning with the 1st president, George Washington, "the father of our country" who took office in 1789, and ending with Donald J. Trump.
Of the millions of documents pushed across desks, jammed into file cabinets and argued over by politicians, which ones are most important to the United States of America? Which documents defined, more than any others, what America is all about? ...
It's ironic: Although I have written some realllly cool HubPages articles on the history of rock & alt rock music (here), another fun one tracing disco & dance music (here), still another on country, jazz and hiphop all in one article (here), and a...
Let's look at the LINGO: the words of Internet streaming and their rough equivalents to radio terms. ENCODER: a piece of software which “transmits” a radio station's audio over the Internet for listeners everywhere and anywhere. PLAYER:...
As far back as 1999 and 2000, the radio business was trumpeting non-traditional revenue (NTR) through ad insertion. The industry gave lip service to this budding technology, then came the Internet bust. Now, nearly 10 years later, stations are...
The Beatles - As the 1960's evolved from rock'n'roll to pop rock to psychedelic rock to the many other forms of rock, so did the Beatles. Although the Beatles were together as an international sensation for only 6 years (1964-1970) their music...
Barry White: One of the first artists of the 1970's to popularize the "sound" of what later became known as disco music was Barry White and his Love Unlimited Orchestra. A classically-trained piano player, Barry White rose to superstardom by...
Not only were the 1960s important in the development of popular music, those same years (1960-1969) were important years in the cultural evolution of the United States of America as well. Since this is an article on MUSIC in the 1960s, may I...
"The Rachel Maddow Show" (video) - The host of the newly-minted talk program called "The Rachel Maddow Show", she can be seen weeknights on US cable network MSNBC, or whenever you want if you subscribe to this podcast. NOTE: the podcast of her...
Don't be confused. In fact, if you have ANY interest in marketing, advertising, promotion or building awareness of yourself, your skills, your product, service or web site, you need to "get your head around" Social Media, and do it quickly. Why?...
Once rock'n'roll exploded onto the American music and cultural scene in the mid 1950s, the scene was set for a variety of musical movements to take root and begin growing in the 1960s. IMPORTANT: when people refer to "music of the 1950s" or "music...
This article contains some basic musical terms and explanations. Understanding these words will be valuable in this course (and in the rest of your life!) as you learn more about how to talk about music to others, using specific terms that are...
Here in the Northern Hemisphere, Summer is here and already heating up people's homes and lives. Which podcasts are getting the most attention this season? Here's a clue: Kids, cars & comedy. TOP CATS (categories) this month, COMEDY and KIDS...
Let's explore MELODY in a bit more detail then we have in previous chapters. This chapter is dedicated to the first of the three 'building blocks of music": MELODY. Some argue that a song's melody is most important of the three, because without...
The lead singer in any song is important, of course. But often, it's the HARMONY around the lead singer that makes or breaks a song. Or, the best harmonies can turn a good song into an instant classic which people will be singing for years to come. ...
Let's discuss the use of RHYTHM in popular music as it was used in every decade from the 1950's to today. This article will use the June, 2008 death of rock pioneer Bo Diddley, to show how the rhythmic influences of one musician affected...
This month, let's COMBINE all the iTunes categories and countdown the most popular podcasts with the absolute most downloads over the past 30 days. CATEGORY DOWNLOADED MORE THAN ANY OTHER: COMEDY! No joke, let's count down the 15 most popular...
Every song has its own musical DNA, made up of three elements which are present in every popular song from every genre. Those three building blocks of music's DNA which exist in every song are MELODY, HARMONY and RHYTHM. Melody. Harmony....
Understanding music of the times provides a unique mirror of current events, trends and movements in the USA. Beginning with this article, I'll be pointing you to some of the most successful and popular musical acts of all time. In future...
With so many podcasts out there, how can you find the MOST POPULAR podcasts without spending hours listening to all of them? Easy...just check out this HOT list of COOL content: Category / Name / Source #1 Arts podcast: "Open Source Sex"...
Every day, radio stations in the USA and around the world are tolerating people on their staffs who just aren't that friendly. Frankly, the managers of that station would LOVE to replace that dull or shy person with YOU. However, the station...
Most people LOVE music. Many speak passionately about it: "I love MY music", "MY playlists rock!", "On my iPod I've got all MY favorite songs", "I keep a box of CDs in my car with all MY music", "Playing MY music playlists while I work helps the day...