Family Activities

Looking for something to do that the whole family will enjoy and keep them occupied? Look no further. Below are ideas that will be fun for everyone in your family. Including great activities for kids to do when you hear those dreaded words of "there is nothing to do" or "we are bored." From family road trips to rainy days when going outside is impossible. These family activities will keep everyone entertained!

Road Trip Fun

Tired of "Are we there yet?", or "I'm bored!" Here are a couple of VERY easy family games great for in the car.

Rhyming

Start with the letter A. Say a word that begins with the letter, for example: "apple". The next person has to find a word to rhyme. Everyone takes a turn finding a rhyming word. The person who can't think of a word that rhymes goes to the next letter of the alphabet and starts over. This keeps going until you reach the end of the alphabet.

One Word Association

Start with any word. The next person has to say another word that comes to their mind from the original word. This game can go for a long time because each person comes up with the new word which allows for a new association. A great family activity that will make a long road trip more like a short trip to the grocery store!

Example: Dog - bone - eat - dinner - cook - groceries - money - allowance - etc.

Seek Color

Look around as you are driving. Name items by color, not using a color twice.

The person who finds the most colors wins.

Example: Tree/green, road/gray, sign/yellow, car/blue, truck/red, etc.

Story

Begin a sentence with 2 to 4 words. The next person repeats your words and then adds 2 to 4 words of their own and so on. This continues until it has gone around enough that the story is all mixed up or forgotten. A new person then starts a new story.

For example: (1st person) Yesterday I saw...

(2nd person)Yesterday I saw a big blue...

(3rd person) Yesterday I saw a big blue ox that was ...

(4th person) Yesterday I saw a big blue ox that was sitting on top ...

(5th person) etc.

Rainy Day Actives

Can't send the kids outside to play? Try some of these activities for kids that are perfect for indoor fun.

MUSICAL STATUE

Have the children dance around to a favorite CD. Ideally one that is fun and upbeat. When the music stops, the children must hold the exact position that they were in. Anyone seen moving is out and the game continues until the last child remains. Have the children take turns running the music and you dance with them.

TREASURE CHEST

This game has been around for a long time. Although it is old, it is ALWAYS fun for both parent and child. Pick a few treasures... nothing fancy is needed... it can be candy, favorite toys, cut out stars, etc. Hide them in the house if it is a rainy day or outdoors if it is a nice day. (Be sure to note where you hid them!) Draw a map with clues on how to find the hidden treasures. And, enjoy!!! If the game ended too soon, let the children hide the treasures and you try to find it!

OTHER INDOOR ACTIVITIES FOR KIDS

Have a picnic inside on the floor. Have the children help you plan the menu. Maybe make a party out it and have each child invite a friend. Tell stories, by someone starting it, and then everyone adding a line. Let everyone's imagination take the story to different places

Draw picture, take turns adding the details, and tell a story along with it.

MAKING A COLLAGE

What you will need: old magazines, safety scissors for kids, glue stick, construction paper, crayons or markers

Give each child a magazine and have them go through it and cut out their favorite things (favorite animals, food, flowers, toys, etc.) Have them paste the pictures onto a piece of construction paper. They can decorate their collage with the crayons and markers. Then have the children explain what their collage is about and why they cut out the items that they did.

Chris Lowrey

Author and Editor of Family Time Charm

A truly unique family magazine. Family Time Charm is absolutely designed for the entire family.

For more parenting articles, fun games for kids and educational activities for all, visit our website: http://www.familytimecharm.com

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Is Music A Religion?

Lately I am thinking about the power that music has to influence especially the young generation.

I can say that some people are addicted to their ipods and their favorite artists are their new idols. Many of them are thinking that music is just a part of somebodys entertainment, but to me music looks a lot like a new religion.

Music is getting people together and music is separating people, music is bringing a new culture and music is ending a culture, music is mobilizing people for war and music is making them cry. Yes, music is more than few keys joined together, music is a strong tool that deeply changes the young generation.

Teenagers don't want to be like their dads (like in the past), but they want to be like their favorite artist. They don't faint when they see so much suffering around them, but they faint when they see their idol. It's like their idols are taken by their music into a whole new world - the world of fame and glory.

If you want to be successful, if you want to impress the people around you, you have to look and act like a famous singer. The same tendency comes to the Christian music too, almost everybody is looking and prefers to be like one of the singers they love.

I've been to a Christian concert and I was shocked to hear that some of the well known Christian artists are doing a "special favor" to the present pastors, giving them an autograph... It's such a pitiful idea... Why does a pastor need an autograph ? We are suppose to worship Jesus and not people!
The main role for Christian music is to praise God and edify His people.

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Easy Exercises You Can Do At Home

Do you know that in order to keep your heart healthy and your weight under control, you need to walk at least 10,000 steps each day? This may sound daunting but many activities you're doing everyday such as running errands or doing household works can add up to a few hundred or even thousand of steps for you.

To maintain your health and make sure you achieve the 10,000 steps each day, here are some simple and easy exercises that you can do at home. These exercise routines not only help to keep you fit but also will tone your body as they work on some specific muscle groups. They are a lot more effective than the general exercises such as running errands and doing house chores. Here are the exercises you can easily do at home:

- Stretching exercises. Stand with both of your hands against a wall and move your left leg back so that your foot is flat against the floor. Hold for a few seconds; then repeat this move with the right leg. Another great stretching exercise you can perform is to lie on your back, use both hands, bring up your right knee to your chest and hold it for a few seconds. Repeat this routine with your left leg.

- Curl is very easy to do. Just lie on your back with both hands behind your head and raise your upper body. Repeat this move for 15-20 times.

- Leg exercises can be done by lying down on your side and lifting each leg repeatedly for 15-20 times. You can also stand and hold on to the back of a chair and lift your legs backward repeatedly.

- Arm exercises. This is important to improve muscle tone. For arm exercises, you can use an exercise band. Place both feet on one end of the band, hold the other ends with each hand and then repeatedly raise and lower the band (in an up and down motion for 10-15 minutes). If you have a pair of dumbbell, you can also use them to exercise your arms.

- If you are working at home and sitting in front of your computer most of the time, try to press down on your toes in an up and down motion frequently. This activity will help to keep the blood circulation flowing in your legs.

- If you know how to dance, put on a music CD and dance for about 20-30 minutes. This is a great cardiovascular workout. You can also incorporate push-ups, sit-ups and jumping rope into your daily home exercise routine.

- Abs workout. I have found a great 8 minute video showing you how to do abs workout at home. You can watch the video at "Best Abs Workout At Home - Only 8 Minute".

NOTE: Always do some stretching to warm up before starting any exercise routine to prevent injury.

Leon is an Infopreneur dedicated to sharing his online discoveries across the net. You can visit his blogs at Leon's Self-Improvement Blog and Health Buzz Zone.

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Are Free Music Download Programs-FREE

Before you use one of those free music download programs you may want to compare them with the legal file-sharing programs to help you make a decision.There are many free music download software programs available to download free music online. It seems like there are new "Ares download, free music download web sites" entering the Web everyday.
Getting a free KaZaA music download is all I here my students talk about in class. Asking each other where to download free music or download and burn free music. They talk about sites to find Inuyasha music downloads, Final Fantasy music downloads, even cell phone music downloads.Are free music download programs...FREE?It all depends on what you want. Some offer Pro versions which have no ads or pop-ups. But do be cautious with most of the free music download software, they will have adware, spyware and pop-ups.KaZaA music download-KaZa Lite music download

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Free Grokster Download

PoisonedThese programs are free... but they have some problems.
Basically, the difference between free file-sharing programs and file-sharing programs that you pay for is as follows. With the pay programs such as Mp3 Advance, MP3 Music Subscription and DownloadShield, you get technical support, no pop ups, no adware or spyware, most offer privacy protection, and your money back if you're not happy with the program. With the totally free music download programs, unless you buy their Pro version, which some of them are more expensive than the pay programs mentioned above, you're pretty much on your own along with the ads and pop ups and don't forget the spyware. It's your choice.

John Rivers has been involved with music for over 30 years as a student, performer and teacher. His site The-NetGuide-for-MusicDownloads.com helps individuals to find safe and legal Music and Movie download sites. Subscribe to "NetMusic News" and receive Free music downloads each month.

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The "Stag Line": A Cape Breton Dance Hall Etiquette (part of Cape Breton Social Heritage)

The Stag Line, a male high school dance etiquette, was certainly indigenous to Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia Canada.

Remember those Cape Breton school dances in the 1960s?

The community hall or gymnasium would be dimly lighted by a few flood lights. Whether the music was delivered by a jukebox, a DJ or live band, the use of a color organ and strobe light was prevalent. Waiting in anticipation of being asked to dance, the teenage ladies were seated along the walls of the dance floor while some of the young girls started things off by dancing with each other.

In Cape Breton this familiar 1960s dance scene now took a radical depart from the norm. The young gents, dressed in typical macho denim jeans 'n jacket, entered the dance hall 'struttin' their stuff'. Then, like "the March of the Penguins", these young males, 2 or 3 abreast, began a deliberate saunter (always in counter clockwise direction) around the dance floor.

This procession of "eligible male dance partners" (hence the name '''stag line''') expanded with more guys joining their buddies in the "dance floor walk about". In short order, this stag line grew to a solid moving procession (2 to 4 wide) of guys. For the entire evening, this organized stag line circled the dance floor, positioned between the dancing masses and the eligible ladies sitting along the edge of the gymnasium.

What was the purpose of this Cape Breton dance-matching ritual?

Being in the stag line, provided each male ample opportunity (multiple loops of the dance floor) to scope out the females, both dancing and sitting. He would spot his next potential dance partner. With both the encouragement and jabs from his immediate stag line buddies, once he worked up the nerve, (usually after 4-10 passes) the male would simply step out of the stag line in front of the chosen sitting lady and request a dance.

Now here is the shear brilliance of the stag line. It really was a simple male support system for those almost always shy and awkward teenage guys working up the courage to ask a girl to dance. If the female response was affirmative, the gentlemen simply escorted her to the dance floor then danced to as many tunes as was enjoyable for both. When the dancing was ended by either party, the guy escorted her back to her seat and then (this is perfect) rejoined his comrades in the stag line parade.

Now, should a female's response to a dance request be 'negatory' or even a little hesitant, the "stag line extracted" male need simply to step back into the line right next to the comfort and support ( or jabs) of his buddies. And likely only a few people even noticed the rejection let alone the valiant attempt. Everyone kept face. And the recovering male, once re-composed, would start the hunt for the next dance partner.

How did the stag line practice get started?

One plausible theory about the origin of the stag line is that at a dance enters the local 'fonzie,tough guy with his entourage of tough guys. Being the top catch for any lady, these tough guys started to strut in front of the ladies seated around the dance floor. Low and behold, the 'regular', 'not so tough', 'but wanting to be part of the tough guy club' guys started following behind these tough guys. And so the 'stag line' was born. The stage line phenomenon appears to have only survived the 1960's teenage generation. Not sure if any photographs have captured this social dance practice.

So the stag line really brought a kind social order to Cape Breton teenage dances. No one got hurt and males learned to deal with rejection and ridicule in a more supportive (sometimes not) team environment.

Maybe stag lines should re-introduced for those over 50 dances. If for no other reason, seniors would get their walking exercise. Picture that.....

Carl Chesal is a business development consultant, trainer, photographer, and avid snowmobiler. He operates BizFare Enterprsie Inc, Foursight Marketing and Consulting, and Foursight Photography, which provide business, marketing, and internet marketing consulting services. He also co-operates a number of e-commerce web-sites with his wife: MyLeatherExpressions.com, PewterExpressions.com and CoolComfortWear.com, which provide Pewter Home Decor, custom leather bags and casual and activewear apparel.

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Trash TV's Secret Story

You can tell summer has arrived here in France because the signs are all around us.

First up there are the obvious ones - such as the weather and the dress code. Of course the latter, especially in the nation's capital, can still turn into something of a catwalk as this year's chic hits the streets big time in what for many is the Mecca of the fashion world.

Then there are the music festivals, concerts, outdoor productions, and jumble sales held up and down the country and let's not forget the smell of a BBQ wafting in from the neighbour's garden.

Prime time television news reports begin focusing on the queues at airports and the number of passengers passing through the French capital's major railway stations, rather than hard news. And national newspapers go in for the inevitable silly season.

The inside lanes of the motorways are bumper-to-bumper full of Dutch cars, trailers and caravans, busting at the seams with provisions for a month.

In August of course, when (hopefully) summer will be in full swing a huge chunk of the country will all but close down for a month and Paris will put up shop almost completely as the French head south literally and metaphorically with "Aoutien" holidaymakers replacing "Juilletistes".

But the real clue that the whole shebang is underway has to be the reappearance on the small screen of Secret Story.

It reared its less than attractive head on Friday evening on the country's number one national channel, TF1, and is set to be in everyone's sitting rooms for the next 10 weeks.

In essence it's France's answer to Big Brother - only more downmarket. Impossible you might think, but sadly true.

Basically the idea is very simple. It starts with 15 people, strangers to each other - with the odd exception, as will become clearer later on - moving into a built-for-TV house, where they'll be under the watchful eye of the production team and the viewing public 24/7 (via the Internet of course) for two and a half months.

Each carries with them into the house a "secret" - and the idea is to keep it hidden from the others for as long as possible while trying to cajole out of fellow house mates exactly what they're trying to keep under wraps.

Off camera there is also the deep bass booming tones of The Voice (La Voix), dropping hints whenever he feels like it, setting playful if somewhat idiotic tasks with cash rewards should they be completed successfully without anyone else in the house realising.

Every week two candidates are nominated and television viewers get to vote in a 'phone poll (at premium rates of course) on who should stay in. Original stuff huh?

Yes the country which so often likes to think that it has taken the cultural highroad, brought the world classics in the fields of literature, art and music, prides itself on its language and traditions, cuisine, fine wines and haute couture - now proves once again that it can mix it with the best and worst of what the world of reality TV has to offer.

The new series, which kicked off on Friday evening will have a hard act to follow.

Last summer, when TF1 first ran the programme, the eventual winner quickly had her secret revealed .She was a triplet - and after the other house members wheedled it out of her, in tramped her two sisters.

Thus the three of them provided viewers with hours of entertainment as they played cards, ate, played cards and slept, eventually being crowned the winners because.... well because they were pretty inoffensive and bland.

Up against them was the nudist, the escort boy, the son of a famous French tennis player (Henri Leconte) a transsexual and an obnoxious couple (their secret) who bickered and manipulated their way to the final, earning their Warhol moment of fame and then (thankfully) disappearing into oblivion.

This year's dollop of dubious "culture" kicked off with the contestants tastefully arriving at the house one by one in his and hers blue and pink limos. Each woman seemingly more buxom than the last, many of them sporting micro dresses of which even pop diva Mariah Carey would have been envious.

And with a few exceptions each man was more muscled, more coiffed and more drop-dead gorgeous than the last, preening and pouting as though they were models in Milan.

Separately they tottered, strutted, swaggered or tripped their way through the jeering and cheering masses into 10-weeks-worth (for the eventual winner) of fleeting public notoriety and a stab at the chance of picking up a 150,000 cheque at the end.

Some of the contestants have had their secrets revealed to the public already - such as the lesbian couple from Belgium, the black mother and white daughter or the 30-something hunk and teenage siren who have to pretend to be "a couple". But none of the other housemates (apart from those "in" on their own coupled secrets) is any the wiser yet.

Nor do any of the contestants know exactly what secrets they have to find out, although once again viewers have been told that among the 15 there is an Anglican minister (male of female not revealed), an undertaker, a medium (who you would think might just have a head start on the others and know whether he or she would end up winning), a prince or princess and a Don Juan with apparently more than 750 "conquests" under his belt already.

So as the 15 pretenders to the title of French telly's newest reality TV hero or heroine are busy settling in to their 24/7 life together transmitted live on the Net and daily on the small screen, we can probably expect some tasteless antics similar to last year's offering - such as the rump steak shoved down the underpants of one male contestant.

There'll also doubtless be the same sort of petty rivalries, squabbles and handbags-at-dawn stuff that characterised much of the first series.

But breathe a sigh of relief because at least it's all being done in the name of entertainment. And as much as some might question why and find it "outrageous", there'll probably still be millions tuning in.

Let's also not forget there's always the "off" button on the TV set or alternative viewing on other channels.

As compulsive and trashy as Secret Story might be it'll still more than likely pull in the viewers and become its own story in itself as the nation tut-tuts and hisses in disapproval and indignation at the antics of the previous night's revelations.

Oh well. In the indomitable words of La Voix "C'est tout pour le moment."

Johnny Summerton is a Paris-based broadcaster, writer and journalist. For more on what's making the headlines here in France, log on to his site at http://www.persiflagefrance.com

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Online Jazz Guitar Lessons - Information Overload!

Many years ago I asked a good friend of mine who is now a very successful professional musician, what my next step in learning was as a musician. I was so surprised with the fact that he could play anything he heard without fumbling for notes; and not only on the keyboard, but also on the bass, the guitar and several other instruments.

He told me that the most important thing a musician should learn is HARMONY. Now, I fully understand why:

When you study harmony, you are not only studying guitar, but all instruments at the same time. Harmony is notes and chords in their context. You start to understand the relationship between note intervals and scales, scales and chords. You know what will work effectively in a musical situation and what will not. You can consciously combine genres (i.e. fusion).

Once you've started learning harmony, you literally 'take off' musically. You have so many directions you can go that you'll never get bored. There's always something new to discover once you get 'out of the box'.

But the problem is which direction to take, what to learn first and what to leave for later on. When people are looking for online jazz guitar lessons; are they just looking for information, or how to put the information to good use?

If it were just a matter of information, the web is filled with hundreds of sources to find out what the Lydian Mode is, for example. Wikipedia itself has the definition and an explanation for anyone interested in knowing about it. But how to put it into use effectively is an entirely different matter.

Good online Jazz guitar lessons are well structured in a step-by-step manner and this takes the guesswork out of your learning. You learn step-by-step through watching videos and seeing it written in musical notation and TAB, practice it and consolidate it by playing along with backing tracks so you get the right feel. By learning in this way, you can clearly see how much you've progressed; and being able to play exactly what you hear is one step closer every time.

Ruben Cardos has been a non stop studio and live musician as well as sound technician, electronics technician and sporadic guitar teacher for well over 25 years. Learn more about the #1 recommended "Play What You Hear" guitar method for learning harmony and improvisation by Chris Standring at BandSuccess.

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Art Equals Peace

It is actually very sad, and at the same time funny to be presenting papers, or conducting workshops on Peacebuilding through the Arts because Arts is really about peace-it has one and the same meaning, only the spelling is different. Yet, time and again, we have to convince other people, especially funding bodies that what we do is essentially peacemaking.

An example of how Art equals Peace is this experience I had when I attended the Flying Circus Project 2000 in Singapore. The 21-day workshop-interaction organized by Theatreworks, Ltd. based in Singapore gathered 75 dance, theatre, music, traditional, visual, and film artists all over Asia, many of who did not speak English. Of course there were translators. All the time, we were sitting on the floor in circles or semi-circles. There were sessions where we would listen to an artist resource person who would share his/her work. We would watch live performances, video shows, and slideshow presentations of these artists' works, after which, we would talk endlessly about the presentation, where we argued a lot. Some discussions became heated or boring enough for some of us to leave these sessions. The only time that we laughed together and felt our kinship and solidarity was when we performed together. These were the moments of pure peace and contentment. In the end, some of us who have become real friends agreed in one of our over-lunch tet-a-tets that whenever we opened our mouths to talk about an idea and try to convince the others about this idea, an argument ensues. But all philosophical and pedagogical differences are wiped out when we break into song or dance.

ART AS A RELATIONSHIP

Art is about reflecting your life, another person's life, or another creature's life on stage, on canvass, and in verses, the difference being an entire life is captured in a few moments of performance (theatre) and exposure (film), a few strokes (painting), or a few words (poetry).

But art as a mirror requires: 1) knowledge and understanding of the subject, and 2) communication. When you try to paint a stone, you are actually trying to understand what a stone feels like, where its curves lie, why it's chipped on one side. When a performer portrays the role of a devil or a dictator, s/he tries to put him/herself on that creature's shoes and tries to feel what that creature is feeling.

Art is about communication. When you paint a picture and hang it on the wall, people are bound to look at it and even try to analyze it. They may or may not get what you're trying to say, but the fact that people actually stop and look and try, if desperately, to understand that piece of work, is the beginning of real communication.

A lot of conflicts are the result of the lack of communication.

Artists project onto the canvas, or paper, or onstage their feelings and thoughts and philosophies about certain subject matters. When a child draws on paper what seems to be senseless, vigorous strokes of scratches and lines and endless circles, the child may be trying to say I am disturbed, I am angry, I am hopeless. An ordinary person seeing this piece of confused work is actually seeing a piece of art drawn by a child trying to say that his/her life is, indeed, confused.

ART AS A BLIND PERSON'S JOURNEY

Art is about magnifying or detailing certain things about life. Artists notice lots of things around us that "non-artists" don't. A blind person carries with him/her sensibilities and sensitivities akin to that of an artist. Because a blind person does not have visual references which to hang on to, all his/her other senses compensate for a visual disability by working double time, and twice over. So do artists. They are very keen at observing little things, mostly things that we take for granted, like cracks on walls, and a blade of grass bent in another direction.

As a non-blind person doing a blind person's journey, you are actually afraid to take a step forward because you are thrown in a different perspective, presented with a different point of view. A lot of biases and conflicts arise from very set beliefs, opinions, cultural patterns, and political frameworks borne out of years of social conditioning in the homes, in schools, on TV, in movies, etc. So when another point of view is presented to you-one that you have not experienced, the immediate reaction is resistance, a refusal to take that crucial first step forward and embrace that new space, that new dimension, in order to understand more comprehensively the world and how it works.

It is common to think of artists as free spirits, good-only-for-entertainment human beings. I was once invited to sing in a women's conference and I was introduced as an artist with no political stand or affiliations but they invited me because I was a woman and I knew a few women's songs. We have common mis-perceptions of artists as having no political backbone, when in fact many of our artistic creations-whether they are paintings of a fish or stars or flowers-are political. The images that we show are our political statements. "Nature is beautiful" is as much political as the statement "stop the war."

And with art, everything is beautiful. Even your anger, when expressed on a piece of paper, is a beautiful thing. In this sense, artists are, indeed, blind.

ART AS A TOOL FOR HEALING AND PEACEMAKING

In the olden days in some indigenous communities, two people expressed their anger for each other by chanting or playing the flute or some other instrument. Imagine a world where arguments are settled through song.

When we're really stressed out, angry, or depressed, we go out and watch a movie (film arts), we gormandize on food (culinary arts), we splurge on new clothes (fashion arts), we listen to classical or rock music (music arts).

Art is everywhere-it is as basic as food, without which we'd all be killing each other, which is what is happening now, because there isn't enough art to serve 70 million Filipinos, for example. To calm ourselves and make this world a "peaceful" place to live in, we kill those who make us angry. We kill over parking space. We kill over an uncooked dinner.

Because art has become inaccessible. You need money to watch a movie. You need money to buy food. You need money to buy clothes. You need money to buy a cd playern or an ipod. You need money to buy costumes and make-up and paint and canvasses and stage props. Poverty and inequity has reduced art into an activity available only to a select few. And those who have so much produce entertainment shows and other pseudo-art that reinforces poverty and inequity. And the cycle goes on.

PEOPLE AS PRODUCERS, RATHER THAN CONSUMERS OF ART

Herein lies the difference, the gap, and the greatest challenge for us all as peacemakers and peacebuilders. More often than not, we are consumers, rather than producers of art. But do you notice how children-especially poor children-are the best examples of art producers, yet little do we recognize their natural artistic talents? In the absence of money to buy toys, poor children create toys out of tin cans, stones, leaves, found objects-in adult terms, appropriate technology. This is their way of handling poverty. But this is not enough.

How we translate or elevate these natural talents into a conscious, institutionalized and programmatic art-making is the challenge for development workers and especially for government-so that art, which was once upon a time a language spoken by every member of the community, is reclaimed by every single human being as his/her own.

Imagine a world where every human being is an artist.

http://www.musicanthology.org

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