The Belizean rap artist Shyne, who became an orthodox Jew and moved to Israel, has teamed up with Israeli music exporter Oleh! Records to help at-risk youth in Belize, Central America, through music.

The pilot project, titled Let’s Fill This Town With Musicians, is a first-of-its-kind music residency program, where Israeli musicians will guide and teach under-privileged youth communities worldwide, starting with Belize.

The project says its philosophy lies in the power of music as a positive vehicle for change. Shyne, along with Israeli musicians and educators, will teach music and record production skills.

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Shyne, who was once sentenced to ten years in jail for his involvement in a New York nightclub shooting, which also included Sean Combs (Diddy), says he has embarked on a new path in life with his conversion to Judaism.

Exporting knowledge, making music records

Oleh! Records was founded in 2007 as a non-profit organization that supports thousands of Israeli musicians and music events around the world.

Jeremy Hulsh, Oleh! Records founder and Executive Director says: “we are proud and excited to team up with Shyne in this incredible project that will affect thousands of Israeli and Belizian young people through music education and outreach. With Shyne’s and Oleh Records’ vision we will keep the town of Belize City filled with musicians.”

Shyne has already been working to help the citizens of Belize with the King David Foundation. Last year he donated a recording studio to the community in Belize City, which will be turned into a Music Education and Resource Center to house this new project. It will also feature as a work space, practice room, library, performance hall, and a computer center.

This year, eight to ten youth participants will take part in 30-day residencies, with programs running four to five times throughout the year. The activities will take place after school, for up to four hours per day. At the end of the residency, the music educators will work with around 500 local youths to compose and record songs for an album to be distributed internationally.

Why Belize? Why music?

All revenue from downloads of their compositions will be recouped by the youth musicians who participated in the program and Shyne plans to select one of the songs to adapt into a major international release.

“Belize is a meaningful place to start, not only because of Shyne’s personal connection, but because of its potential to benefit from the project. Forty-three percent of the population lives below the poverty line, with an alarmingly low number of children finishing primary school,” says Hulsh.

The program aims to empower young people in the developing world and urban environments by providing music education to foster creativity. “This way Belizean youths can direct their energies into something productive rather than into street crime, violence, and drugs,” says Shyne. He adds: “I really believe in music and music education as an alternative to violence. It’s important to have the music education resource center as a place where these kids can escape from violence, and hopelessness.”

Although the Let’s Fill This Town With Musicians’ program is still being developed and waiting for further funds, the organizers hope it will serve as a pilot for other countries in the future. “This project has great potential and we intend to replicate its success all over the globe for years to come,” says Jeremy Hulsh. Shyne adds: “we want those at-risk children to find the creativity inside.”

iAlbums is a new iPhone app which aims to enhance the music-listening experience on your iPhone. For any audiophile who wants to know more about who’s behind their favourite songs, look up lyrics, read artist interviews, bios and more, iAlbums is a must-have. And it’s also a great replacement for the native iOS music app to boot.

iAlbums plugs right into the music that you’ve already got on your iPhone or iPod, and brings you a wealth of information about those tracks. The app is currently available in an Alpha version, with the full version hitting the App store this summer.

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When you first load the app, you’ll be met with a grid of album covers, displayed in alphabetical order. If there are album covers missing from your collection, iAlbums will find them for you. Opening up any given album will display the tracks you’ve got on your device. You can choose to change the display, sorting your musical content by artists, songs, playlists, date or genre.

Opening up any given album will display the tracks you’ve got on your device. You can choose to change the display, sorting your musical content by artists, songs, playlists, date or genre.

iAlbums gets all of its info on your favourite artists and songs from over 20 different sources. Information includes stories, bios, quotes, and reviews, giving you a full picture on any given artist. iAlbums pulls information from Wikipedia, Google News, Wikiquote, and even the band or artist’s official Twitter and Facebook accounts. It also provides users with images and video from the likes of DeviantArt and YouTube.

iAlbums also provides users with the ability to easily look up lyrics to any song, with the service powered by LyricFind. iAlbums’ database currently features over 1 million albums, 10.5 million songs and over 2.3 billion content items about its 600,000 artists.

Information provided by iAlbums

The app is a standalone music player as well, and could easily replace the native app in favour of the wealth of information it provides. You can play, pause, and skip songs, as well as access your playlists. The only feature that appears to be missing from the music player is the ability to play songs on repeat.

The full version of iAlbums will also include live show listings and audio streaming, at which point we can also expect iPad and Android versions of the app.

iAlbums is also going straight to the source, collaborating with artists, in order to showcase their work using the app. The launch of the app coincides with the release of a new album by Balkan Beat Box, expected on March 6th. iAlbums will be featuring a manually curated feed for the album, including rare pictures, videos and material exclusive to the app. And we can expect more of these partnerships from iAlbums in the future.

To continue reading this article, click here.
Via The Next Web
Photos by iAlbums

New social network Pinterest, an online pinboard,  has been on everyone’s lips in the last few months.  The site allows people to pin content by categories and follow other friends’ pins. So popular has the concept of pinning become, that others have followed suit.

One of these platforms is Loudlee, a new Israeli social network for music lovers, developed by Yaron Revah and Guy Elharar. Users can connect Loudlee via Facebook or request an invitation from a registered friend.

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Loudlee’s design looks a lot like  Pinterest’s main page, with content featured by albums or artists. The site includes a video player which allows users to make their own playlist from albums or specific songs.

Revah told Israeli website Feeder that Loudlee is a service for YouTube and the artists: “We don’t harm YouTube, but rather strengthen it. Alongside giving the proper and full credit to the content derived from Youtube, we enable another channel for traffic.”

Since Loudlee has social network characteristics, when logging in with your Facebook profile you are automatically following your friends that are already on Loudlee. This way, you can see the albums or songs your friends shared and follow their musical taste – and discover new music.

See what your friends are hearing

Unfortunately, there is no option to save playlists or find others’ playlists and everytime you close the website the playlist is erased, but this might be remedied along with new features.

When asked about future plans for Loudlee, Revach said that more features are coming: “We wanted to launch this product because we felt it was ready and we wanted to hear users’ feedback about what’s missing for them.” He adds that in the future viewing other users’ playlists will be available, commenting and “liking” songs and albums, getting recommendations for artists and genres and even other users with a similar musical taste, searching by genres, artist biographies and more.

Currently, Loudlee’s musical catalogue includes music from Europe and the US and most of it is in English.

Via Feeder

Always searching for new music that fits your taste? A new Israeli company aims to utilize the Internet’s social potential to help you discover new songs and artists.

Serendip is a free music player that is built to design playlists for its users, based on music uploaded by millions of social network users in real time. What distinguishes it from other “make your own playlist” platforms is its ability for non-linear listening.

According to Co-Founder & CEO, Sagee Ben-Zedeff, Serendip is trying to find a cure to what he refers to as the “Pandora Fatigue”. In his words, this is a state in which people get bored by the repetitive nature of songs played based on resemblance to sounds and rhythms of previous songs. After a while, according to Ben-Zedeff, it just sounds like you are listening to the same type of song over and over. When dealing with online playlists “there is always the problem of what to play,” he says.

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Serendip, founded in early 2011 by Ben-Zedeff and Assaf Atzmon, decided to take a different approach. The duo says they noticed  the way social networks were changing the way they were exposed to music and decided to maximize that potential for the public.

Instead of using algorithms, the company uses the creativity of the human mind and character. Just as people tend to bounce around when they listen to music, Serendip takes that human eclectic taste and channels it into the users’ ears. Instead of having a playlist based on similarity to other songs, it is based on similarity to like-minded strangers.

The Serendip User Interface

This is how it actually works: The company receives data from popular social networks, so that every time music is uploaded from any public source, it is integrated automatically to Serendip under that user’s name. The user then becomes a Serendip DJ – sometimes without even knowing it.

Currently, music is taken directly from Twitter, but Ben-Zedeff points out that Serendip will  soon track Facebook and other social networks. “Serendip connects you to people who wouldn’t necessarily connect socially. Now they connect through music,” he adds.

A Serendip user can see who shares a similar taste in music from among almost 11 million users currently in the company’s database. The user can also hop from DJ to DJ based on his uploads in real time – branching out to different musical directions.

Like other music platforms, users can search for specific songs and artists and create playlists based on genre or country of origin. To encourage more interaction between users, there is a button that allows users to “Rock On” a DJ or a song, similar to Facebook’s “Like” feature.

The application’s developers aim to turn it into a tool that artists and record companies could use to know what the public wants to hear in a direct and focused way and through which artists and potential fans can connect. It is currently in its alpha stage and is anticipated to have its full release by the end of this fiscal quarter.

According to a study conducted in the Department of Communication Disorders at Tel Aviv University, about a quarter of Israeli youth may develop hearing disorders due to prolonged exposure to music players and loud noise. 289 adolescents aged 13-17 participated in the study that examined the habits of music listening through headphones attached to MP3 players, mobile phones and computers.

Eighty percent of participants reported that they listen to personal music players on a regular basis and 41 percent reported daily use. In addition, 83 percent said that they listen to music while driving.

The study shows that 49 percent of participants already encounter short term symptoms after listening to loud music. Twenty-one percent of the respondents reported changes in hearing and 11 percent suffered from “tinnitus”, which is the perception of sound within the human ear in the absence of corresponding external sound.

The second phase of the study measured the intensity of the music played on music players. Researchers used miniature microphones which they inserted into the external audio channels in the participant’s ears.

Measurement revealed that 26 percent of the adolescents listen to music at an intensity that could cause damage and found that the average volume is 89 decibels.

For a comparison, noise regulations for factories allows workers to be exposed to 85 decibels for eight hours maximum, or 88 decibels for four hours. The measurement also discovered that many participants listened to music at 100 decibels or more.

Professor Hava Mutchnik, a lecturer at the Communication Disorders Department at Tel Aviv University and head of the research team, emphasized that in Israel and the United States, unlike Europe, there is no law which forbids the distribution of music players that enable playing more than 100 decibels.

The research partners were colleagues of Prof. Mutchnik, including Dr. Noam Amir, Dr. Ricki Kaplan-Ne’eman and Ester Shabtay. Other findings of the research are that 79 percent of adolescents are aware of the connection between high volume of music and actual hearing damage, but only 20  percent are concerned about it.

Also, only 13 percent of the participants ranked hearing difficulties as damaging their quality of life – below other factors such as drug addiction, car accidents and terror.

There are no technical means which prevent prolonged listening to high volumes on music players today. Because of that, Professor Mutchnik says that today’s youth needs to be aware of the auditory damage caused to them by music players.

“The damage is created over the years and therefore it is important to prevent them in advance,” says Professor Mutchnik. “The participants do not feel any problems now but they will feel it as they get older.”

The researchers are currently developing a new technology that will alert music listeners about hazardous noise exposure to music players, depending on the intensity of the noise and the length of exposure.
…

Via Haaretz
Translation by Tal Hefer
Photo by downing.amanda

An old Russian proverb says: “When the cannons roar, the muses stay silent.” This proverb might be true for the Russia, but whoever said it obviously doesn’t know the complexities of the Middle East conflict. The conflict might be a constant in the lives of Palestinians and Israelis, but the periods of heightened tension come and go. And at every occasion of relative quiet, there are groups and people on both sides who try to pick up the pieces and form normal human relations.

One of these groups is Heartbeat: Jerusalem, founded by Aaron Shneyer in 2007, to create a space for young Palestinian and Israeli  musicians to work together, guided by an international community of professional musicians and educators.

“We wanted to explore the power of music to build mutual understanding,” says Shneyer, who won a one-year MTV and Fulbright scholarship to help make music in the Middle East. The program began by bringing together 12 Israeli and Palestinian high school students from the ages of 14 to 18 for weekly musical encounters. The students are from various Palestinians and Israeli cities such as Ramallah, Haifa, Ashqelon, Hebron, Qadima, Be’er Sheva, and Bethlehem.

“Music has been a strong tool for the young musicians to express their needs, fears, frustrations and hopes,” Shneyer tells NoCamels. “Unlike other mediums for dialogue, a song can easily be spread across the masses, far beyond the room where it was created,” she adds.

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Heartbeat: Jerusalem is the first youth band with Palestinians and Israeli musicians that plays modern music. Other groups have been around that play classical music, but Shneyer says it is the modern sounds that will reach the ears and hearts of youths on both sides. Heartbeat’s music ranges from Israeli folk and funk to hip-hop and Arabic rap.

Moody, a 16-year-old Palestinian from Haifa says of the band: “I feel like when we’re doing music there’s no difference between us. And we are in the same mind and with the same goal. And that’s peace.”

Heartbeat has already released two full-length albums and the group held its debut performance on September 21, 2008, marking the UN’s International Day of Peace, at the YMCA Theatre in Jerusalem. The event was sponsored by the U.S. Consulate of Jerusalem and brought together over 300 Israeli, Palestinian and international residents of Jerusalem.

In 2010, the band performed in a Jerusalem-Berlin hip hop exchange program that saw sixteen Israeli, Palestinian and German young musicians create music in Berlin and Jerusalem. And last December, the group received the annual prize from the organization “Europeans for Peace.” The European organization will fund Heartbeat’s next project: A “Hip Hopera” with  Palestinian, Israeli, African, and German youth musicians. In 2012, the group will travel to Europe and the USA for performances.

Heartbeat’s most challenging time came during the war in Gaza which started on December 27, 2008. “In the beginning of the conflict, fearing that it would become more and more difficult to meet, we sang our anthem ‘I am a Seed of Peace’ and then parted ways,” says Shneyer. “Throughout the month-long war our group could not come together in person, but kept in touch online.”

“Facebook proved to be the greatest gift, as our ‘thread’ kept us in almost constant contact, providing space for dialogue on the situation, updates on personal relationships and lively discussions about our music. We asked the band members to write lyrics and music about what they were witnessing. A great deal of the music on the new album comes from this terribly dark period.”

But despite the unavoidable political discussions, the students try to keep the focus on their music. “Why talk politics?” asks one member. “Nothing ever changes and we’d just end up going home angry at each other.”

This winter Heartbeat: Jerusalem is going on a Music Tour called “the Mic is Stronger.” The tour will consist of presentations, performances and dialogue sessions held at high schools and community centers throughout Jewish and Arab communities.

“We want to help millions of people understand that they have a partner for peace on the other side,” explains Shneyer. “It’s no simple task. To get there we are sending our all-star band into their communities to share their music and experiences through performances and workshops.”

Photo courtesy of  heartbeatjerusalem.org

In the spring of 2007, Yuval Oz, an Israeli performance artist, musician and acrobat, went to a famous rap band’s live concert in Paris, France. He had been to many small  concerts before and had performed in several, but this was the first major international show he attended, and he couldn’t wait.

“To tell the truth, I was very disappointed,” said 30-year-old Oz. “It was a great show, but something was missing. Throughout the show I was imagining things that would have made the show so much more entertaining, that would have brought it to life – something new.”

And something new was what Oz set out to do. He met with New York Choreographer and aerialist Angela Buccinni on her visit to Israel and the two joined forces to create a new form of live concert combining music, circus and dance. The circus artists incorporate the music into their performances by playing on the beat of the songs.

The idea was that music should not only be listened to, but also seen and felt. ”The goal is to give the audience a real and more complete way to enjoy a live concert,” Oz told NoCamels. “When you watch a music video,  for example, you can more easily connect to the music because of the visual aspect, the story behind the songs.”

Oz and Buccinni are now working on their first show and are creating what they call a visual “collage,” using songs from Oz’s first album “Standing in Line.” The project, still without a name, includes many songs written especially for the show and each song will have its own story-line. “We are creating, in essence, a live video clip, where the songs are reflected through the show,” Oz explained. “We are all used to seeing songs that support the show, but we wanted to turn it the other way around. It is something that is just not done today.”

Yuval Oz performing

Oz and Buccinni are now looking for more musicians and circus artists to complete their ensemble. “Half of the album is already completed,” Buccinni explained. “But the second half of the album will be completed once we have our new artists, based on their skills and how the character’s stories connect.”

To fund his project, Oz is turning to everyone who is willing to give, even a few cents. He created an interactive page on the Kickstarter website, a funding platform for creative projects. Oz is asking for $15,000 and so far, $2,689 has been donated. Oz will only receive the money, however, if at least $15,000 has been pledged by September 1.

Oz and Buccinni are confident their idea will take. According to them, when people are going to a concert, they want to experience a general sensual feeling, not only to listen to music. “A concert is supposed to let you experience the stories behind the music.”

Photo and video courtesy of Yuval Oz

The 10 band members of rap group System Ali are a mixture of Jewish and Arab Israelis and they sing about unity and co-existence in Hebrew, Arabic, English and Russian.

BBC Duncan Crawford interviewed them at a rehearsal in Jaffa inIsrael and filmed it for BBC’s Newsbeat.

Neta Weiner, a singer and accordion player, told Crawford that the point of the band is to “bring a voice or several voices that are unheard in Israel…taking them out to the world.”

They’ve been working the Israeli hip-hop scene since their 2006 formation in a bomb-shelter in Jaffa.

Weiner says that the audience reactions are mixed and range from the positive to anger.

Although the band is comprised of members from different backgrounds, Weiner said they mostly get along and love each other, but “fights and disagreements are part of our everyday lives and are a tool for creation.”

For the original story click here
Via http://www.ynetnews.com/

Take the experience of running a vintage piano reconstruction company for over a decade, mix it up with some advanced software development skills and you’ll get something like internationally acclaimed Israeli pianist Gershon Silbert’s latest venture.

Silbert created Vivotext, an innovative software that can translate written text into human-sounding speech that stays true to the original meaning of the text. Silbert, of whom illustrious Chilean pianist, Claudio Arrau said “he possesses the inner fire of a great master,” is hoping his innovation will revolutionize gaming, audio books and improve the lives of those who are visually impaired. Many current Text To Speech (TTS) voices, even in GPS navigations systems, can be “irritating and lead one to turn off the website or product,” Gershon told NoCamels.

“Our Text To Speech (TTS) algorithms are based upon principles and methods derived from extensive musical performance research and experience,” said Gershon. His system uses a sample library that has the ability to analyze the text in order to provide a human-sounding playback. Gershon explains: “Just as variation in tempo, articulation, and dynamics contribute to the effectiveness of a musical performance, speech attributes such as pitch, duration, and amplitude—known as prosody—are at the core of effective TTS.”  The software also also takes into account expressive instructions provided in the text such as italics, underlining, and CAPS. Based on those clues the speech can sound enthusiastic, serious or sad, for example, when replaying a sentence.

Silbert says he experience with visually impaired individuals also made him understand how dissatisfied they were with current TTS softwares and how they yearn to hear voices that sound more human.

In addition, according to VivoText, many best-selling books never get turned into audio-books as the cost of employing actors to read out the various characters can be expensive. The company is hoping its TTS system will eventually be able to translate any literary piece into pleasant automated speech.

“Our software can also be applied to sms or e-mails while driving,” Gershon explained. Drivers would be able to listen to their e-mails without taking their focus off the road.

VivoText wants its software to become a universal platform available in any language. So far, VivoText has completed the English voice software and will launch the product at the end of this year.

Image by jeff_golden

Tel Aviv – Israel’s bustling hub of modernity – is widely known for its unconventional and kooky trends. There are not many other places in the world where the popular gay beach has been placed right next to an ultra-religious one, or where you can find a restaurant that serves, well, air.

Now shop owners and barbershops in the “city that never sleeps” have come up with a new idea – music concerts in their shop windows.

One of these stores is vintage heaven “Bograshov 53″ where fashion meets music on every last Friday of the month. Ophira Aubercger, owner of the shop, told NoCamels how she came about the idea:  “A music agent was was looking for a creative place to promote the new CD for one of her artists called Michal Lotan. Many of the artists know my store and the design of my window looks like a frame when you stand in it, a perfect fit to place a musician. After the success of the first show, we decided to continue this tradition.”

With loudspeakers turned to the street, passers-by are immediately attracted to the usually mellow music. The artists performing are always dressed in the shop’s clothes, to promote them.

Aubercger is delighted with the results results: “It presents a special alternative lifestyle which fits the way of thinking of a musician,” she said. “The reactions of customers are extremely positive and sometimes people come just to see the gigs. Every concert involves a lot of fun and creates a positive atmosphere. Many artist come into my shop and ask if they can be part of the concept,” she added.

Another person to have adopted the trend is Kobi Mercury, who owns a hair salon. The weekly shows in his barbershop shop provide a welcome platform for young artists.

The trend is picking up in several other places as well, perhaps changing the face of live Israeli music as we know it.

Next time, instead of buying tickets to a music concert, you can simply go to  get a haircut.

Photo by Shira R