Piano Guidance
Piano Guidance
Photo: Steve Johnson
A single male elephant's two tusks can weigh more than 250 pounds, with a pound of ivory fetching as much as $1,500 on the black market.
Gray Colors Gray Colors Gray is a dull, moody, and sad color that affects the mind and body by causing unsettling feelings. Too much gray creates...
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The 1-4-5 chord progression consists of the movement of chords from the first degree, to the fourth degree, then to the first degree. The numbers...
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Pianoforall is one of the most popular online piano courses online and has helped over 450,000 students around the world achieve their dream of playing beautiful piano for over a decade.
Learn More »Who are the poachers? Since the industry is illegal, those who run it largely come from criminal syndicates or terrorist organizations. Al-Shabab, the Somalia-based wing of al Qaida, raises $600,000 a month from poaching to fund its activities. Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army, the rebel group notorious for enslaving children, also raises money through poaching. "Poaching has become one of the most profitable criminal activities there is," says Peter Seligmann, the CEO of Conservation International. Chinese mafia organizations mostly do the purchasing and distribution of ivory after it's been obtained, selling it mostly in China and Southeast Asia but sometimes to markets in the U.S. What impact has the slaughter had on the elephants? Elephants are highly intelligent, social creatures that live in matriarchal groups, and poaching has ravaged much of their social structure. The biggest tusks are found on the largest breeding males and on the oldest females, who lead the elephant troops. Where these animals are targeted and killed, elephant populations are reduced to leaderless groups of traumatized orphans huddling together. In the past year, even they are being wiped out, as some poachers have started dumping cyanide into watering holes, killing every animal that drinks there. Last year, poachers killed an estimated 300 elephants in Zimbabwe's largest park, Hwange, by lacing watering holes and salt licks with cyanide. How extensive is the poaching? Poachers are now slaughtering up to 35,000 of the estimated 500,000 African elephants every year for their tusks. A single male elephant's two tusks can weigh more than 250 pounds, with a pound of ivory fetching as much as $1,500 on the black market. The ivory is so valuable because all across Asia — particularly in China — ivory figurines are given as traditional gifts, and ivory chopsticks, hair ornaments, and jewelry are highly prized luxuries. "China regards ivory as a cultural heritage; they are not going to ban it," said Grace Gabriel of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Many Chinese consumers don't realize that elephants must be killed for their ivory; in one survey, more than two thirds of Chinese respondents said they thought tusks grew back like fingernails.
Do not use jewelry cleaners, chemicals, soaps, or detergents on your fossilized ivory, as they will most likely negatively affect the beauty and...
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Many decades of research have shown that time-out is associated with a reduction in aggressive behavior, improved child compliance, and increased...
Read More »When ivory became contraband, the supply got scarcer, but demand remained strong. In 1989, the international community passed a global ban on the trade in new ivory to stop the killing of elephants. Only ivory that had been harvested before 1989 could be sold, so the ivory carving industry in China crumbled, and with it the demand for tusks. Elephant populations rebounded — so much so that in 1999 the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), a global organization, decided to allow a "one-off" sale of pre-ban, stockpiled ivory to Japan. Then in 2008 it authorized another "one-off" sale, this time to Japanese and Chinese markets. The Chinese carving industry roared back to life, as the Chinese government licensed dozens of carving factories and retail outlets. Since there's no way to distinguish between pre-ban and new ivory, the illegal ivory trade has accelerated to meet the demand, and poaching is now worse than before the global ban.
In other words, musicians' brains responded more quickly and accurately to the emotional content of a sound than the brains of non-musicians. This...
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Summary: Interaction between auditory areas of the brain and the reward system drive pleasure when we listen to music. Communication between the...
Read More »There is no reliable way to tell pre-ban from post-ban ivory, or a real antique from a fake — in any country. "It's not like you walk into a store and find someone selling cocaine, which is illegal on its face," said Edward Grace, deputy assistant director for law enforcement at the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. In Chinese and U.S. shops alike, consumers simply assume that ivory trinkets are legal, and there is no way for law enforcement to prove that any particular item was made after 1989. Mary Rice, executive director of the Environmental Investigation Agency, says there's only one real solution: "We need to learn from history and permanently shut down all ivory trade — international and domestic."
The three most common jazz scales are: The dorian scale. The aeolian scale. The harmonic minor scale.
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If you want to be a professional classical performer, you're looking at a minimum of 10 to 15 years of concentrated study with a master teacher,...
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“Learning piano has no age limit. In fact, activities like learning piano can stimulate the brain, increasing the ability to recall information....
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