Piano Guidance
Piano Guidance
Photo: Jannis Knorr
Current End-consumers of Ivory Products & Public Awareness The exact demand from Asia is unknown but in recent years China has become the largest consumer of ivory products in the world (page 7).
Recommended Instruments: Piano and Drums are the most common choices for this age range, as children tend to flourish best when they do not have to...
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Walrus and elephant ivory Elephant ivory is characterized in cross section by a series of intersecting lines (Figure 1b) that are whiter and more...
Read More »Ivory tusks and worked ivory have been kept as ornamental trophies and a sign of wealth for hundreds of years, but the ivory carving industry in India is said to date back 4,000 years (Martin and Vigne, 1989). Elephant tusks are the typical ivory commodity being illegally trafficked to consumers all over the world, but warthog tusks, walrus tusks, narwhal tusks, and hippopotamus teeth have also been taken as trophies for their ivory, used for scrimshaw, and even sold to tourists. Mammoth tusks are also excavated, particularly in Siberia, and the mammoth ivory is legally traded worldwide. In late 1989 African elephants, the dominant source of ivory today, were officially listed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) under Appendix I, which provides the highest level of protection for a species by prohibiting international commercial trade of live specimens or its parts. During the ten years before this listing, from 1979 to 1989, the elephant population in Africa is estimated to have fallen from roughly 1.3 million to around 600,000, more than a 50% decline. Since then a few country-specific populations of elephants in Southern Africa have had their protection downgraded to facilitate legal trade of government stocks, conservation-related translocation, and non-commercial hunting while maintaining a level of protection consistent with their healthy elephant populations. Additionally there were two one-time sales permitted by CITES to allow specific African nations to sell stockpiled ivory directly to Asian governments. Asian elephants were added to Appendix I in 1975 and have remained there as a result of continuing pressure on their populations from habitat destruction, poaching, and human-wildlife conflict (page 42). Contrasting with male and female African elephants who both have tusks, in the Asian elephant species only the males have visible tusks. This has led to a decimation of male Asian elephant populations in some regions of India due to foreign demand for ivory. In 2011 more than 9,000 elephant carcasses were documented (page 32) at Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) program sites in Africa and an estimated 17,000 African elephants were illegally killed within those sites that year. Data from 2013 estimates that 15,000 African elephants were killed in MIKE sites. The exact number of elephants killed throughout all of Africa is unknown, but is suspected to be significantly higher.
Digital pianos last between 20 – 50 years. High-end digital pianos are built better structurally. They use better electrical parts, solid plastic,...
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Why do plastic keyboards become yellowish? I eventually found out that the yellowing of the plastic keys was because of bromine – a flame retardant...
Read More »In recent years a significant portion of elephants killed illegally have occurred in Central Africa, even though it is home to less than one third of Africa’s elephants. Eastern African has also lost a significant number of elephants due to poaching and these countries are much more dependent on wildlife-related tourism revenue. Some of the illegally acquired ivory ends up in domestic markets but tens of thousands of kilograms are trafficked to Asia each year (view the African Wildlife Foundation’s trafficking infographic). Numerous regions within Central Africa are experiencing extreme violence caused by rebel militias and there is evidence that these groups are killing elephants (page 16) and selling the ivory, or trading it for weapons and supplies, as a means of continuing their insurgency (full report). Elephants within the national parks of Democratic Republic of Congo are also under threat as are the anti-poaching rangers who protect them. Ivory flows from all over the continent into major departure points, most notably Kenya and Tanzania, and in 2011 customs officials from these countries seized 16 shipments each with more than 100 kg of ivory (page 45). That same year Kenya, Tanzania, and several other countries seized a total of 17 ivory shipments that each weighed more than 800 kg (page 46). Historical records of ivory seizures show that seizing massive shipments of ivory has become a common trend over the past few years. In at least some instances this ivory is returned to the origination point of the shipment as in 2002 when Singapore returned a shipment of 532 elephant tusks to authorities in Kenya. Nations like Kenya and Tanzania which currently or historically had huge elephant populations had and continue to accrue vast stores of raw ivory from the retrieval of tusks from elephants that die of natural causes, from confiscation during arrest of poachers, or due to elephant population culling. But not all the shipments are being directly shipped to Asia before making it to local markets. In January of 2015 Ugandan officials seized a shipment of 137 ivory tusks weighing 700 kg and destined for Amsterdam; whether there was a different final destination is unknown. The ivory shipment had an estimated street value of $1.5 million or $2,142 per kilo ($973 per pound), which compares to $1,500 per kilogram for ivory purchased in 2010. Kenya, Tanzania, and South Africa are the major departure points (page 49) in Africa for illicit ivory on its way to Asian markets. Thailand and China are the most common final destinations (page 43) but Hong Kong, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam are both destinations and act as transit points of illegally acquired ivory.
Below are 11 aptitudes or abilities to explore that might also help you understand which types of intelligence are strongest for you. You're...
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It takes about one month to reach the beginner level, to learn piano basics and get accustomed to it, multitasking, and learn basic music theory,...
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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 »A report in 2016 revealed Shuidong Town (Shuǐ Dōng Zhèn, 水东镇), in China’s Guangdong provice, to be a major destination in the illegal ivory trade (page 2) and a growing entry point for illegal pangolin scales into the domestic Chinese market (page 5). Shuidong has a history of illicit ivory trafficking beginning in the late 1990s and building on a foundation of legal sealife imports and trade from local fisheries (page 2). With the rise of ivory demand in China during the late 1990s, traders and syndicates based out of Shuidong Town were able to effectively create trade networks both between their coastal province of Guangdong and nearby Chinese trade ports, including Hong Kong and Shanghai, as well as originating ports in Tanzania and Kenya on the east coast of Africa and Nigeria on the west coast (pages 4, 16). They also established ivory supply networks in Mozambique (page 10), one of the world’s most corrupt countries. Although the port of Maoming is nearby, illegal ivory is frequently trafficked through the larger ports of Hong Kong and Shanghai and transported to Shuidong Town syndicates via overland routes (pages 16, 19, 20). Ports in Malaysia, Philippines, South Korea, and Vietnam (page 15) act as entrepôts between African and Chinese ports and aid in obscuring the true origin of the shipment with the assistance of corrupt customs officials and falsified documents at virtually every transit point (page 18). Perhaps as a result of this domestic and international trade network, Putian (Pú Tián Shì, 中国 福建省莆田市) in Fujian province has become one of the largest processors of raw ivory in China and is believed to be a major purchaser of ivory coming from syndicates operating out of Shuidong Town (page 4).
In spite of the international ban on commercial ivory trade, the domestic buying and selling of ivory continues, legally, in many countries,...
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La Grou believes that highly advanced gestural control and brain/machine interfaces will transform the way music is recorded and played back. That...
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When your digital musical piano has some problems with the keys and the warranty offered by the manufacturer has expired, you can ask for help from...
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According to a 2020 report from Thumbtack, a piano teacher will charge anywhere from $40-$100 an hour for private lessons and $30-$50 per hour for...
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