I did meet a Brazilian artist on the net and he is preparing a global meditation with binaural beats.

Binaural beats? Well, if you bring 100 Hz in one ear and 104 Hz in the other, your brain will make the difference to bring balance: 4 Hz. This way it is possible to get into Alpha or Delta without falling asleep.

This artist, Luiz Felipe Klein, wants to collect as many people as possible  to meditate at the same day: 22 september, a contribution to the world.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFArfsRFOsE

I really love his music: he is using binaural beats, the sounds of whales and dolphins, nature sounds and in the end he even uses the principal of the fibonnaci spiral to create a climax.

Are you interested or do you want to hear some excerpts of his music?

Go to:       http://globalmeditation.ning.com/ 

Music with a fibonacci spiral to heal the world? Sounds great!!!

Bea

In this 8 minutes movie you see 5 rules to create your great work…great stuff. To my opinion those rules do fit in other branches of life as well.

Hope you enjoy this movie as much as I do!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZF6vz5ThR0

Bea

Bobby McFerrin is demonstrating neural programming, using audience expectations based on the pentatonic scale at the World Science Festival. The funny thing is, this always works in any audience, regardless of where he does it…

Source : BoingBoing.net

What if you could feed hungry people by knowing the meaning of a word? No, this is NOT a tricky question. This is actually what FreeRice.com does. You simply answer a multiple choice question and for every correct answer, Freerice.com donates 10 grams of rice through the UN World Food Programme to help end hunger.

According to the United Nations, 25,000 people die every day from hunger or hunger-related causes, most of them children. FreeRice.com was founded in October 2007 by John Breen and he donated the site to the UN World Food Program in March 2009. In making the donation, Mr. Breen expressed his hopes that FreeRice will be able to grow over the coming years, helping to feed and educate as many people as possible throughout the world. A great example of how 1 person make a real difference! FreeRice.com donated 66,849,742,200 grains of rice so far.

If FreeRice.com has the rice to give, why not give it all away right now? Great question. Well, FreeRice.com is not sitting on a pile of rice. All the players are earning it 10 grains at a time. Here is how it works. When you play the game, sponsor banners appear on the bottom of your screen. The money generated by these banners is then used to buy the rice. So by playing, you generate the money that pays for the rice donated to hungry people.

Though 10 grains of rice may seem like a small amount, remeber there are thousands of other people playing at the same time (easily 40,000 users/day). It is everyone together that makes the difference. And so can you… Imagine if you start the day with answering 1 question right…

So, my advice is to play this game once every day. You’ll extend your vocalubary and help the UN World Food Programme to end hunger.

PS : There are a number of other subjects available like Art, Chemistry, Geography, Math and Languages (French, German, Italian, Spanish).

Source : Bert Verdonck’s Blog

About a week ago the three of us (running this blog) were having a conversation about abilities and disabilities and the opportunities this was creating for each of us.

I did study music at the conservatory in Antwerpen-Belgium and it wasn’t obvious because I am a badhearing.  Bert (one of the three) was telling me that the word ’badhearing’ was giving me a negative image. He said: you are much, much more than that.  But I am hearing bad so I started wondering about it.

I did my own investigation for years and at the soundorientated institute of Lichtenberg in Germany I discovered that our ears are doing much more than just hearing. Hearing is what you do when you pick up a sound in your ear and it ends up in you brain where you finally ‘hear’.

The other important role your ears do have is the possibility to sense. This sensitivity is directly communicating with your larynx and it adds a lot of colour and frequences to your sound. And this is something all of us can produce. What an ability!

So when I am coaching a voice I do smell, taste, feel, sense what is happening in a students’ mouth. Hard to explain but that’s the way it works for me. I’m reaching beyond the ‘normal’ way of hearing.

So Bert has right to say that badhearing isn’t the right word for me. But I do not find another word. It has something to do with hearing in a different way, feeling a sound, tasting and smelling frequences.

My disability became my own unique ability!!

My question to you: do you have any suggestion for a new word that suits me about the way I hear? Your suggestion or comment is more than welcome!

Bea

As a vocal coach people often tell me that they can’t sing. Then I ask them to produce a sound. After some hesitation they do but they also immediately claim: ‘you see, this is no singing!’  Then I say: ‘maybe but you have just produced a naked sound’.

You see, the basic of a sound is a sinus tone (you hear that quite well when you try to sing high notes: it often sounds very sharp without any colour). When you want to ‘colour’ that sound you have to allow overtones and undertones. You can compare it with an atom which has a nucleus or centre and  a cloud of electrons moving around the nucleus. The cloud of electrons are the overtones and undertones. They do give your voice its personal colour. To be able to produce them you have to make use of the acoustic possibilities in your head: the mouth, the throat, …etc.

At this point I do stop giving information and let them experience:

Take a small piece of chocolate (or honey or marmelade or something you like and that melts quite quickly in your mouth).

First take a smell of the chocolate and try to situate the places in your mouth were you are smelling or tasting it already.

Then put it on the middle of your tongue. Close your mouth and keep it there about 10-15 seconds. Your salivary glands will react immediately, be aware and try not to swallow yet. Now start to rub the chocolate with your tongue against your palate. Finally swallow the chocolate. Be aware of all the places you experience the chocolate, the texture of it, the smell, the satisfaction.

After you swallowed it, keep on going observating what is happening in your mouth.  Now you will be fully aware of all the acoustic places of your mouth and a bit of your throat. If you feel comfortable produce a sound being fully aware of the chocolate experience. It will affect your sound and now your are singing a sweet chocolate sound.

The more you enjoy tasting a sound, the more a public will enjoy the taste of it too. It is like drinking wine: the more you are aware of smelling and tasting  it the more you will enjoy the bouquet.

this way a naked sound will be surrounded by overtones and undertones and end up in a rich and colourful result everyone is enjoying, yourself included.

Sing chocolate!

Bea

I had several conversations last week about the feeling of not being good enough. What is failure and what is success? We were also talking about pleasing people in order to make sure you were taken care of. Even if you have to lie or to denie yourself (often as a kid we do). This way it is hard to be successful and failure is the easy one to catch. Is this true? Or is it just a black and white statement?

Yesterday  after some brainstorming on my own , I came up with next sentence:

THERE IS NO SUCH A THING AS FAILURE EXCEPT IN THE MIND OF PEOPLE

What do you think about it? What is your experience on this subject?

Bea

“People who are born (right) after an arbitrary cut-off point are generally more successful.”

Imagine school where age is used to determine in which schoolyear kids are registered. In Belgium the schoolyear is from september to june. Age is, of course, considered from 1st of January till the 31st of December.

The theory, as stated above, says that kids born in january till march (Q1) are more successful then kids born in october till december (Q4).

Let’s take soccer for example. Two kids can pick a team from a random classroom at the age of 6. It’s more likely that the kids from Q1 will be chosen much faster than those of Q4. Why? They are bigger, stronger and more experienced (min. 6 months!) than the rest of their class. Even if they are mediocre at first, because they are picked earlier, they are perceived as better players and thus become better players. When they become better players, they will be chosen even faster and more often then before. This means it will be hard(er) for Q4-children to catch up with Q1-children.

So, why don’t you ask around in your sports team when everyone’s birthday is? According to this theory, the best players will be born in Q1, right?

Let’s bring in the examples, research, experiments and evidence please

I am curious to see what happens,
Bert

We all want to know WHY something happens. Ok, some times also How

So, instead of doing years of research I’ve decided to create some Inventive Theories that are totally based on … what actually? On my imagination. This means that some theories will consist of logical and easy to understand reasoning. On top of that I’ll add flavours of pure creativity and imagination. So most of them will look “real” to most people. In fact, my goal is to persuade people or even seduce people into a conversation about it. Some people will instantly share that they know examples of this theory. Some will say that (extensive) research has been done about it. Others will come up with counter-examples. And yes, that’s when the goal of Inventive Theories is achieved

In fact, the creation of Inventive Theories became the subject of what is now called
“Verdonck’s Law” (de Wet van Verdonck). More info on this later…

So, I dare you to come up with proof Why the theory works or not. We might write history together and at least have lots of fun with debating on it, clarifying thoughts, sharing how we feel about them, etc.

Are you ready for the first one?

Yes? Be back next week for the premiere

Have fun, always,
Bert

A festival…one guy starts to dance…on his own for quite some time…

Watch what happens!

Do you recognize?  1  1  2  3  5  8  13…..

One man starts to dance…suddenly a second one is showing up and now they are two of them. A bit later number three is joining the party. Very quickly you see two more and then they are five….three more and then they are eight…4 and 1 more then they are 13 and now it is speeding up like a rollercoaster….

What would happen if we all keep believing in our ‘dance’???

Something to ponder!

Dream beyond your limits and dance!!!!

Bea