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The most serious piano teachers will adamantly point their students in the direction of an acoustic piano. For serious piano studying, I agree with this completely for reasons I will discuss shortly. But for many reasons, a genuine handcrafted instrument may not be the best choice for you. With the affordability, portability, and the many features that come with digital pianos, you may wish to head the other way. Summarily, the question of acoustic versus digital boils down to a matter of authenticity versus everything else.

Mostly, the drawbacks of an acoustic piano are matters of practicality, such as price. For what you could get a new, decent quality digital piano with, you\’ll be dealing with a rather meager acoustic. This can encompass a number of problems. For instance, aside from any tuning it might need, the overall sound quality of a cheap acoustic piano can be quite poor. This may not just be an issue of bad strings, but can result from an infinite number of possible factors arising from any of the complex mechanics of the piano being in disrepair. Other common problems of old pianos are broken keys and sticky keys, which is when the keys fail to spring up the way they should. There may also be faults with the framework that can range from nuisances to impending hazards. The list of the possible troubles of a bad acoustic continues indefinitely, and it is likely that the piano will need a decent amount of initial maintenance, in addition to periodic maintenance, which is likely to pull a few additional large bills out of your wallet right way.

Also, because of its bulk and weight, an acoustic may be a very difficult accommodation for people living in tight or elevated spaces, such as dorm rooms and certain city apartments. Some buildings may even prohibit pianos, particularly on floors above the ground level, because the weight and bulk of pianos make them quite cumbersome and possibly hazardous to either the tenants or the buildings themselves. This raises the issue of portability as well. Do you gig? Do you relocate frequently? Toting a 500 pound upright piano isn\’t possible for most people; moving one across the room is a challenge for most people. If your music should ideally be ready to go, your hulking wooden companion is not going to be sympathetic.

Acoustic pianos also lack the many features present in digital pianos nowadays that may be valuable tools to you. For example, volume control may be necessary in dormitory, or close living, situations. Newer digitals also come with a suite of onboard functions, including on-the-fly recording, voice customization, electronic metronome, and even music mixing features, which you won\’t have. You will also lack the benefit of porting your music to your PC; a simple MIDI connector would feed your performance directly into your computer\’s audio card without any ambient noise or loss of sound quality, which will probably beat any recording made with an acoustic piano and affordable, consumer-grade recording hardware available at a neighborhood electronics store.

In light what you\’re giving up in bells and whistles, surely you will be at a degree of inconvenience being committed to an acoustic piano. Still, despite the great deal of effort digital piano makers have put into their product, none have been able to truly reproduce the sound and feel of a good acoustic piano. First, lets talk about the piano sound. To most people, casual or occasional listeners of piano music, the sounds made with an acoustic piano and a digital piano are quite identical and equally satisfactory musically. But listen closely, because there is an important difference.

A digital piano outputs high quality recordings of the sounds that were made by a real piano at one time. During the process of making a digital piano, each key of a real concert grand piano is struck a number of times at varying velocities and recorded with sophisticated equipment. This array of high quality recordings will serve as the digital voice, and will give the digital piano a rather broad range of tonality and an overall likeness of an acoustic piano in varying music dynamics. But once the notes have been recorded and finally integrated with the digital piano\’s voicing mechanism, they are never going to be changed. Even though the aesthetic quality of the sound may be state of the art, it is the way the sounds should behave but cannot because they are fixed recordings that is the fundamental problem of digital pianos.

An acoustic piano uses a complex array of hammers, strings, a soundboard, and other moving parts that function in collaboration. This means that when any note is played, it is not played with entire independence, but is highly affected by the current state of the surrounding components of the piano. For example, playing a chord on a digital piano will simply result in three notes being played, as they were recorded individually, at the same time, whereas with an acoustic piano, the three notes will interact with each other through the soundboard and become a stew of vibrations, producing a different, more complex, and ultimately richer sound. Lacking this quality of pliability, what comes out of digital speakers will typically be quite simplistic and boring, and will be most unsatisfactory to aficionados of the true piano tone.

An acoustic piano is also an analog instrument, which means is has virtually infinite range. For example, there is no limit to the loudness or softness a note may be played on an acoustic piano. With digital pianos, there is a point at which a minimum or maximum will be achieved. This means there will be occasions when you will not be able to play a note as softly or as loudly as you wish. In order words, true pppp or ffff are probably beyond the scope of digital pianos without you resorting to adjusting the volume dial while you\’re performing. Even if you were to do that, the tonal quality of the notes would remain static from that point on, when it would further continue to dull or brighten on an acoustic piano.

Another problem of digital devices is the matter of intervals. In photography, for example, pixels are the intervals. With a traditional film camera, the amount of detail you are able to capture is theoretically unlimited because film is a single and continuous malleable body. The “film” of a digital camera is not single or continuous but is a multitude of pixels, each of which is only able to record a solid block of color. The amount of detail a digital camera is able to capture will depend on how small the pixels are and how tightly they\’re packed together. If the pixels, or intervals, are small enough and packed closely enough, the amalgam of the blocks of color they record will appear to be smooth curves and gradients to the human eye.

There is a similar issue of intervals with digital pianos, which is mainly the issue of touch sensitivity. Digital pianos have a finite number of intervals when it comes to key pressure. The more intervals there are and the closer they are to each other, the more realistically the piano will respond to your dynamics. High end digital pianos will have quite a lot of them. But digital pianos within the means of average shoppers may not have sufficient sensitivity. This means that while the vast difference between piano and forte may be noticeable, the most intricate variances of touch pressure may be disregarded. This will be quite a nuisance to pianists seeking a highly responsive instrument, particularly when it comes to meticulous classical music.

It also manifests in pedaling. Piano pedals are ranged. Between simple on and off, or up and down, there are degrees. “Half-pedaling” and “quarter-pedaling” are crude terms describing the manner of pedaling in which the pedal is only pressed partially down in order to create an intermediate effect. For instance, rather than completely depressing the pedal so that the full brilliance of a note is sustained, you may wish to depress it only half way to dampen about half of the note and let only the remainder of it sustain for a subtler, suppressed quality. Certainly a scrupulous pianist will wish to employ the complete range of pedaling available to him, which may not be represented entirely accurately in a digital piano.

Aside from sound, as mentioned previously, key touch is also an important issue. Digital piano makers these days have gone to great lengths to reproduce the feel of acoustic pianos. For the most part, they\’ve done a good job. They\’ve even gone as far as implementing graded hammer action, which is in line with the hammers of acoustic pianos gradually becoming lighter from left to right. As a matter of fact, if you could take a look at the inner workings of a digital piano, you would be quite surprised and impressed with the complexity of the hammer mechanics. However, as long as digital pianos look the way they do, being the shape and size they are, there is going to be a limit as to how authentically the key feel can be made.

The hammers in a digital piano are simply extensions of the pianist\’s fingers. When the pianist presses a key down, it will raise the opposing side of the lever, which touches an electronic pad inside the piano that serves as the string. The hammers in an acoustic piano do not behave this way. Instead of being extensions of the pianist\’s fingers, they are rather like projectiles that are sprung at the strings high above them. Imagine the carnival game where you hit the pad on the ground with a mallet, which flings a projectile up the meter towards the bell at the very top. The finger is the mallet, the visible piano key is the pad, the hammer inside the piano is the projectile, and the string is the bell. First of all, this means if you press a key all the way down but not with the minimum amount of force needed, the projectile hammer will never leave its seating and the string will actually never be struck. On the part of the pianist, this launch-pad-like action will need a slightly different technique than the seesaw-like action of digital piano hammers, predominantly in difficult works. Secondly, it will feel noticeably different under the fingers.

The only way this can truly be reproduced in a digital piano is by the use of bona-fide acoustic hammers. And there\’s nothing wrong with doing that. But the problem is there isn\’t enough room for them inside the compact size of most of the digital pianos today. That\’s why as long as they look the way they do, the action of digital pianos will not feel completely akin to that of acoustic pianos. Certain higher end models do integrate the acoustic hammer action simply to recreate the key feel. Even higher end models, which are called “silent pianos,” integrate strings as well and are bona-fide acoustic pianos with the added ability to remove the strings from the action and toggle on digital mode in order to provide volume control! But these tend to be even more expensive than acoustic pianos.

In terms of what the average piano shopper will be able to afford, the difference in the overall performance between a digital and acoustic piano will be stark. To restate what I said at the beginning of the article, it really boils down to the authenticity versus everything else. And the authenticity is usually going to cost you more to get. What you should think about is how important it is to you that the piano truly resembles an acoustic. Are you a classical piano student looking at a long road of perfection and possibly a career as a concert performer? Then a digital piano is probably not what you want to be practicing on, even as a temporary substitution, because there is a good chance it will hurt your technique. It is possible to get financing on an acoustic piano, so I would recommend going that route, using your budget of cash as a down payment. If this is not necessarily what you have in mind for your musical venture, then perhaps a digital piano is all you require. Depending on your needs, it may not be a mere reduction of an acoustic, but a substantial upgrade with all the features you\’re going to get. Typically, a digital piano will be more than enough to satisfy one\’s musical appetite.

E. Chung is a student of classical piano and webmaster at Piano Lessons with Master Teachers a freely available collection of interviews held with over 30 legendary concert pianists and teachers concerning the art of piano mastery. To learn more, visit his website at http://www.piano-lessons-master-teachers.com

I don\’t know the exact numbers but I\’d probably say that more people start out trying to learn to play acoustic guitar then electric. I say this from looking at the other guitar players I know, and thinking back to when I first started to learn.

What if you\’re just starting out, should you learn acoustic or electric guitar? Are there big differences? Is one easier to learn then the other? Will I get bored of one more then the other? What about switching part way through the learning process? These are all questions you should know the answer to before you set out to learn to play acoustic guitar, and I\’m going to answer three of them in this article.

1.) Instant Gratification: Again my opinions coming through here, but electric guitar is more of a lead instrument. Meaning that most people learn to play solos and in bands when they learn electric guitar. In contrast acoustic is a great instrument to jam with others, learn songs on your own, and play and sing at parties if you want. You get more gratification on your own and faster when learning acoustic guitar.

2.) Cost: Now this isn\’t directly related to learning to play the instrument but it should be considered. It\’s generally less expensive to purchase an acoustic then it is to get an electric. Not that the guitars themselves are cheaper, but the accessories required to use them properly are different.

With an acoustic all you need is the instrument, a case, and maybe a tuner and capo. How ever when purchasing an electric you need the guitar and same accessories, along with an amp and patch cord. The amp can be half the price of the guitar again depending on what you buy.

3.) Changing Instruments: Trust me when I say it\’s easier to switch from playing acoustic to electric guitar. I personally consider myself to be an acoustic player, but I do own an electric and do use it sometimes when jamming. How ever when I was learning to play acoustic guitar I spent most of my time mastering chords so I could play songs, in contrast it\’s more technique and scales when learning to play electric.

There you have it, why I think it\’s best to learn to play acoustic guitar when starting out. Some will disagree, especially those that are die hard electric lovers. You make your own decision and no matter what you choose stick with it. It takes time to learn well, and consistency no matter what instrument it is.

To learn more about Acoustic guitar lessons visit http://www.learnguitartoday.info, a popular guitar website that provides reviews and articles about video guitar lessons.

Do you feel like your life is getting our of your hands and you are victim of your circumstances? That you have no control over your life? Then you are stressed. However, even if that is not your case we still need from time to time to relax from the constant rush that we live in.

Piano for relaxation can be very powerful, in fact any kind of relaxation music can have a great impact in your life. When you are relaxed you reduce your heart rate, blood pressure, blood supply and you are less likely to get any illness.

So what should you care about music for relaxation? Simple because is one of the best ways to achieve it. There is music like Enya\’s that can really make you mind calm and get focused in whatever you want.

Classical music is known to be very effective for concentration, meditation, focus, increase of memory and overall relaxation. Of course piano is a very important part of classical music, there are a lot pieces of piano music but some of the best are from the masters of music like Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Back and many more. You can find many CDs of classical music at amazon and some are made of piano for relaxation. I found one at amazon like that with a cheap price, it has some good reviews and is great to achieve relaxation.

There are many other ways to relax and other kinds of music to help you relax. Such as the sounds of nature that have waves on the beach, birds sounds and wind sounds.

There are many more techniques that can help you relax very quickly and easily, visit us and take a look: http://www.relaxationtips.org/practical-relaxation-techniques.html

You can also read about: Ideas For Relaxation Group Therapy For Teens

Yes, you can learn to play the guitar online. You have always wanted to learn guitar now you have no excuse not to start. With a few online guitar lessons you will be on your way fun and success.

Once you start your lessons, and it won\’t be long, you will be the hit of the party. You can soon be taking your guitar with you to the picnic, the beach and all the good parties. People will love to sing along while you play. Imagine who gets the girl or guy.

And, it will happen much faster than you now think. The lessons will be available immediately online, and you can even get some free sample lessons. Once you pick up the basics you can quickly learn a few easy guitar songs and you are rolling.

You can quickly benefit from online lessons. Some of the important parts of learning to play a guitar are:

1. Where to start. Sounds silly, but sometimes it can be confusing and you need a guide to help you find the way.

2. How to develop your technique.

3. What is phrasing?

4. The key elements of a solo.

5. Easy lessons using e-books, video and audio.

However, you want to learn it is available online. You can just order materials that come in a box, or you can join an online guitar membership. A membership gives you ongoing information and help. You don\’t get snowed under by a ton of material all at once, because you will receive your lessons one at a time.

With an online membership you have the opportunity to get ongoing instruction when you need it. Since you are a member you are in constant contact with the guitar lesson company. Most companies have member forums set up so you can ask questions at any time and you get the added benefit of creating new friends on the forum.

One reason I really like membership courses is that you do not have to put up a ton of money at one time. When you buy a complete course at once you may have to wait, and wait, to receive a refund if you change your mind. With a membership course you can usually cancel whenever you are ready.

So, if you want to learn how to play a guitar fast and impress your friends look into guitar lessons online.

The most straight forward, no bull, let\’s get started guitar course can be found by Clicking Here!
Get started now. “FREE” sample lessons.

Playing the guitar can be a lot of fun and rewarding. It is an instrument that can be played alone and sound beautiful. It is also very portable, you can take it with you most anywhere you go. So, learning how to play songs on the guitar may be just the ticket for you.

The question is how can you learn how to play the guitar? If you do not have any background with a guitar you may be wondering where to start. Well, you are in luck, because we are going to explore several ways to get started.

Since you are probably reading this online let\’s start there. There are tons of resources online. The first is Amazon.com. They have tons and tons of books and several are devoted to the guitar. Search their data base for the type of music you desire, you will find plenty.

I took a peek and there are 90,505 entries on Amazon.com for guitar books and 13,767 results for guitars. Come to think of it there is another little site you may know…Ebay.com. They showed 2,532 guitar books and 86,607 entries for guitars. So, you should be able to find some help here.

Another online source is sites offering guitar courses. The range is endless. You should be able to find a course that you are comfortable with. Just be sure to check out several before you pay your hard earned cash.

And then there are a number of membership sites that offer an ongoing course. You will receive a regular lesson each week or month that allows you to build on each lesson until you reach the level you desire. Again, check out several before you commit.

Learning how to play songs on the guitar can bring a lifetime of enjoyment. It is something you can be proud of accomplishing and will give you a way to expand your group of friends. So, jump in and check out some of the tips given above and you will be on the road to becoming an accomplished guitarist.

Get the FREE guitar lessons while they are still being offered. Click Here! FREE information and FREE lessons.

Are you a guitar lover? Have you got a start, or are you just starting to learn how to play the guitar? Where ever you are it is time to improve your skills.

There are more resources that we can count to train you in how to play better, no matter what level you are at now. Many books have been written on how to play the guitar. There are books, CD\’s, DVD\’s and online courses to learn form. Or, maybe you would like to have a tutor?

You can even find tutors online. The list is endless. You have no excuse for not getting started. Everyone is different and everyone learns differently, so pick the resource that fits you the best.

One of the best suggestions is to find a friend, or a group of friends, and practice together. You can learn from each other and it will be a lot of fun.

If you decide to go it alone you might want to check out some of the online membership sites that teach how to play the guitar. They have the advantage of supplying you with fresh material on a regular basis. And, as the material becomes more advanced, you are challenged to stretch yourself and not fall into reaching a plateau. Online membership courses also provide a place where you can go to get help if you are stuck on a lesson or just need some advice.

Be sure you check out more than one site before you decide on committing to join. Be sure it is something you can back out of if you do not enjoy the course. The ads are designed to sell, so read between the lines.

The best way to learn or advance on the guitar is to hire a coach. Understandably, this will be more costs, but it is the fastest way to get started, and for some it is a necessity to get the motivation they need.

Whatever method you decide to follow just get started on your path to learn how to play the guitar. Playing the guitar can be a rewarding pastime. Who knows you might be famous some day.

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Who wouldn’t be captivated with this iPod mania that will allow you to carry a huge music library anywhere you go? iPod, the most popular gadget now has dominated music lovers all over the world. It is cool to have an iPod and knowing where to get the best music downloads for iPod will be a good advantage for iPod users.

Where to get music downloads for iPod? There are two places where you could get music downloads for iPod, one is through legal download websites and another from illegal download websites. If you don’t want to get into trouble with RIAA then you know what to do.

There are websites, blogs and file sharing services offering free music downloads for iPod, but you have to face the consequences in terms of legality issues. RIAA does not only file lawsuits on big companies but also to individuals caught downloading copyrighted files or music illegally. Another consequence that you have to deal with free music downloads for iPod is that you are exposing your computer to viruses that could harm your computer performance. Websites with free downloads usually have pop-up ads which are not only annoying but could be a real threat to your computer security. Pop-up ads can install spyware to your computer tracking your online activities and capture your personal information like credit cards. It can also slow down your computer performance occupying disk space and memory that can be really harmful to your computer in the long run.

Online music stores. You can get music downloads for iPod from online music stores run by legitimate companies like iTunes, Wal-Mart Music, AOL Music and Yahoo Music. These are not free music downloads for iPod websites, they offer per download fees. Downloads are all legal with payment for every song or album that you want to download. The fee for every song is very affordable but if you want to download more songs it could be a little expensive.

Paid membership on music downloads for iPod. There are also legitimate websites offering 100% legal music downloads for iPod like FeedMyiPods.com. It is a paid membership, a one time payment for the membership and you will have a lifetime unlimited access to more than 95 million files. Files include music, videos, TV shows, games and other iPod downloadable materials. After the payment for the membership, all downloads are free, legal and no per download fees or recurring charges.

Did you know that more than one millions active users of paid membership for iPod downloads are now enjoying their unlimited access on music downloads for iPod? Say goodbye to per download fees and welcome to unlimited access to the most recognized iPod portal for downloading unlimited music, movies, sports, TV shows and more! Visit Top iPod Downloads Reviews

To know more about iPod reviews visit Best iPod Download Sites

Gerry Restrivera writes informative articles on various subjects including How to Find Music Downloads for iPod. You are allowed to publish this article in its entirety provided that author’s name, bio and website links must remain intact and included with every reproduction.

When I first started DJing in Phoenix a few years ago, I was amazed by the difference between how easy it looks and hard it can be. Although I was being trained by a pro with more than 15 years of experience, it was so difficult to get the sound right.

With beat matching, tempo, cues, and all of the more advanced techniques, it feels like you could just drown in confusion before you really start to catch on. Now it doesn’t take a lot of DJ skills to get out there and play a few top hits while fading from one to the next. Yup- we can all play a middle school dance after a few nights with our friends’ decks.

But to me, it’s so easy to see that what all of us DJ’s really want is to get up in front of a large audience that knows good music and blow them away. To be respected in front of our peers (who know what good DJing sounds like) is a feeling that can’t be beat. Except- when you get paid for it to.

In order to take yourself from playing school dances to doing clubs and getting your name out there, you need to practice. Like most things, DJing is going to take practice to get good and to become sensitive to the sound you are trying to exude. When I started learning, I got so frustrated at the speed I was improving before I got some video DJ courses. The video courses made all the difference.

With so many DJ’s today moving to CD’s, iPods, and software, the DJ that can get out and spin some vinyl is in higher demand than ever. You just cannot be the rich sound or vinyl or duplicate the effects that can be done on vinyl with a CD mixer or DJ Software.

Now, put simply, to be a DJ you are going to need:

1. Sound recordings in a DJ’s preferred medium (vinyl, cd, or ipod)

2. A couple of sound devices, IE decks, cd players, ipods, or what have you. You need at least 2 so you can alternate back and forth.

3. A sound system for amplification or broadcasting of the recordings (e.g. portable audio system, PA system) or a radio broadcasting system.

4. A DJ mixer, an electronic two-channel mixer with a crossfader used to smoothly go from one song to another.

5. A microphone, so that the DJ can introduce songs and speak to the audience, and

6. headphones or a monitor speaker, which is used to listen to one recording while the other is playing, without outputting the sound to the audience.

But once you’ve got all six of those items in place, you have to learn how to use them correctly and with your own style. It’s like making love: just because you have the right equipment doesn’t mean you’re done learning.

Bradley Spencer was a DJ in Phoenix, Arizona for a good long stretch. Now he helps aspiring DJs get their skills in line before trying to get their name out.

As a DJ trainer, Brad always suggests starting with a complete DJ Video Training Course before playing out or paying a professional DJ thousands of dollars for hands-on training.

Zune - The latest craze among the music lovers. Though it was launched only in the last November, Zune has become the passion of entertainment lovers. Zune is the music device that plays music and videos, displays images and shares files wirelessly with other Zunes. Even though it is a recent launch, Microsoft’s Zune is giving a serious competition to Apple’s iPod which is currently dominating the digital audio player market.

Though the device comes with a good number of songs, videos, and images, every one of us wants to feed Zune to have a good music library with them. You have two options to download Zune music.

The first method is from Zune Marketplace, which offers over 3 million songs and one has to pay per song/download which comes to around $0.99 per song. Finally, it could turn to be a huge bill for music lovers. If one signs the “Zune Pass”, then he/she needs to pay $14.99 per month as subscription fees. The disadvantage of this method is songs downloaded under this service can only be burned to CD for an extra fee, and unburned songs become unplayable when the subscription lapses. So Zune Marketplace turns to be a huge disappointment for music fanatics.

The second and the most recommended method is to enjoy free zune music download from membership sites. These Zune music download sites let you download unlimited numbers of free zune movies, zune music and videos for a one time charge or on a yearly basis. So with the zune download membership sites, one can avail unlimited free movies, TV shows, music videos, MP3 music, sporting events, games, eBooks, software, programs, and many more with just under $40 for life time.

Who would prefer to listen their favorite songs with per download fees? Every one of us would love to access fast and free zune music downloads with just a one time charge and turn the zune into favorite music library.

Cher K Markov is an Internet Marketer and Music Lover. She writes informative articles on various subjects including Zune Downloads. Visit her site for more information on how to get Free Zune Music Downloads.

This unique set of recordings documents a collection of ceremonial chants and Ayahuasca icaros on CD.

Tracks 1-3 San Pedro ceremony held in Puruchucu, at the head of the Rimac valley. The ruins of this sacred site or huaca date back to pre-Inca times and have been accurately reconstructed. Setting the scene for the ceremony, three musicians play replicas of pre-Hispanic instruments. Alonso del Rio says: ‘while keeping to their original tuning, we have explored the instruments musical possibilities to give an idea of what the music could have been like in pre-Colombian times. The melodies came to us through the ancestral memory evoked through medicinal plants like San Pedro and Ayahuasca’. Instruments: the ceramic notch flutes of the Chincha civilization, Nazca panpipes or ‘antaras’ with their special tuning similar to Oriental scales, and Nazca drums.

The Mesa Nortena is a particular ceremonial tradition best conserved in the region of ‘Las Huaringas’, high and remote sacred lakes in the northern Department of Piura.
There are probably only a few good maestros who continue this ancient tradition in Peru today. The rest simply work with the externalities of the mesa, while giving their clients minimal doses of the visionary San Pedro cactus. Originally more importance was given to the medicine, which must be in the organism of the participants as well as the maestro for the power to flow. The mesa then served to intensify the power of the plant.

An altered state is needed to enter the symbolic world of the objects on the mesa (the word refers to the altar as well as the ceremony itself). The abundance of macerated plants, perfumes and smells employed in the mesa function to move the feelings associated with one’s memories. At a deep level, sensations are translated into vibrations which the medicine brings to consciousness so that associated hurt and pain can be ‘re-membered’ again and a new attitude can emerge.

The singado, or absorption of macerated tobacco juice through the nostrils involves another power medicine which is used to intensify the San Pedro at regular intervals. The instruction from the maestro to pour up the left or right nostril reflects the notion of duality found in shamanic disciplines all over the world: masculine and feminine, hot and cold, upper world and earth, expansion and contraction, flowing and stagnant. Illness arises from one of these polarities loosing equilibrium. The word singado comes from the Quechua word singa meaning nose and is perhaps an Andean notion of Pranayama!

Also audible in the following two mesas 4- 5 are the clicking of chontas, or black bamboo sticks used for cleansing people’s auras and the spraying from the maestro and assistants’ mouths, of perfumes and plant macerations over the participants.

The tendency to commercialise a tradition is inherent in urbanization and seeing things for their utility and business. For example mesas are sometimes held so that lawyers win legal battles. Piles of documents are laid on the mesa so that the power works on them and they win their case. In this way a shamanic ceremony is degraded to folklore. We can try to reconstruct the original tradition to how it was in pre-Colombian times and remove the images of Sarita Colonia and the other saints, crucifixes, photos etc., which have accumulated throughout the centuries and evolved the mesa into the mestizo tradition which survives today. Left behind are the ancient stones, magic plant brews and the enchanted waters of the lakes of Las Huaringas, being the original elements, which have survived underneath.

Track 4 Mesa with Alejandro Sanchez. Maestro Sanchez lives in Comas, a distant suburb of Lima which began in the 1960s as a shanty town. It is surrounded by impressive parched stony desert hills. The maestro’s house is at the end of a road near the cemetery and overlooks this immense settlement from where he draws his clients. Sanchez was born in Sondorillo near the legendary sacred lakes of Las Huaringas. At age 11, while still at school, he seemed to have perceptions and to be able foresee things accurately. His astonished teachers thought he was having hallucinations and called for maestro Florentin Garcia. Later Alejandro became his apprentice and learned from him the secrets of plants.

The strangeness of these ceremonies can be seen as part of the ‘trappings’ of rituals in general. Strangeness serves to trick the rational mind so that it will not interfere with the subtle processes taking place in the subconscious. When we are fully awake, things can indeed seem strange… ‘people are strange, when you’re a stranger…’ as the song by The Doors goes. A part of healing is recovering the lost gift of perception, the feeling of being alive again.

Track 5 Mesa with Leopoldo Vilela who was also born near the celebrated Las Huaringas in Radiopampa, an extremely cold place at 3,500 meters altitude. He was 90 years old and in very good health at the time of this mesa which was also held in the ruins of Puruchucu. At three years old he was sent outside to look for herbs for his mother who was suffering from a stomach ache; there he knew he would become a curandero. He used to watch his father who was clairvoyant and assisted people in his community to find their animals when they were lost. He used tarot cards and looked into bottles of aguardiente (firewater) with grains of corn of different colours at the bottom

Don Leopoldo improvises sessions for groups and individuals, which may continue for hours. These are full of idiosyncrasy, and characterized by warmth, dedication and playfulness, which is quite touching at times. The seemingly endless sequence of bottles of tastes and smells and other procedures are often extremely weird while his inadvertent remarks and caresses on his guitar (of his own manufacture) often provoke smiles and laughter in all present.

Human beings have an instinctive awareness of other people’s conscious states of mind. When another person, a shaman, is authentic and spontaneously creative in the moment, this has the power to focus the mind, stopping it from verbalizing and rationalizing. A sense of pure wonder is evoked.

Track 6 Closing calls. The conch shells or pututus, still used in Andean communities today, are handed down from the Incas who obtained them from the Caribbean. They are used for convening meetings and ceremonies.

Tracks 7-9 Shipibo icaros of Mateus Castro, a shaman living outside Pucullpa in Yarinacocha. The arts of the Shipibo, especially textile designs, are closely related to ayahuasca icaros. The words of the chants are symbolic stories telling of the ability of nature to heal itself. For example the crystalline waters from a stream wash the unwell person, while coloured flowers attract the hummingbirds whose delicate wings fan healing energies etc. You might see such things in your visions but the essence which cures you is perhaps more likely to be the understanding of what is happening in your life, allowing inner feelings to unblock so that bitterness and anger con change to ecstasy and love. To awaken from the ‘illusion of being alive’ is to experience life itself.

Tracks 10-16 Dona Cotrina Valles was born in Agua Blanca, Department of San Martin. She apprenticed herself to a maestro in 1979 and later came to live in Iquitos with her husband. Today she lives alone with her children. It is very unusual for a woman to be a shaman in urban situations although they do exist amongst indigenous peoples. Amongst other limiting beliefs, it is thought that women break taboos as they are unable to take dieting seriously because of demands from their husbands and that when they go shopping in the market they will have contact with menstruating women or people who are mal dormida, (ie. a person who has been making love all night).

The diet is a vexed question in the city as the temptations of rich spicy food as well as sex are greater than in the rainforest. As all shamans will tell you, Dona too, says that sex is bad. The ‘mother plant’ loves you and if you make love to another person, you are being unfaithful to her. For this reason it is often said that Ayahuasca is jealous, and if you do not respect her, she makes you ill instead of healing you. You will also not be able to see any visions. The ill effects from not respecting the diet are called cutipa and range from a sense of trauma and stress to skin problems.

Dona’s chants are sung in Spanish and Quechua, as also are the chants of Javier Arevalo which follow. Both Dona and Javier are mestizo shamans, that is to say their ancestors moved to the Amazon from the Andes, rather than being indigenous to the Amazon as the Shipibo are. The melodies of mestizo icaros have an Andean structure and are sung partly in Quechua, a language of the Andes.

Track 17Despacho to Pachamama in the ruins of Pisaq. A despacho is an offering to the Earth Goddess, Pachamama, which nurtures all life on earth. The ceremony symbolizes the reciprocity of nature and speaks back to her saying ‘we understand the message and we have the same attitude’. The word despacho was mistakenly translated into Spanish after the Conquest as pago, meaning payment, to imply a satanic pact with dark forces.

As each participant made their contribution to the despacho convened by the Shamaness Doris Rivera Lenz ‘La Gringa’, Kike Pinto, played pre-Colombian instruments. The first piece is a Harawi from the Department of Cusco played on a quena, or notch flute, made from the wing bone of a condor. This little melody has been handed down from Inca times, thanks to its incorporation into Catholic mass in Colonial times. The second piece is a Haylli from San Pedro de Castas, Department of Lima, played on a ch’iriqway, or antara (panpipes), made from condor feathers. The melody also has pre-Hispanic roots and has survived in a form played on the chirisuya, kind of oboe, of probable Moorish origin. This track is ended with some calls on the putu, or conch shell.

Kike Pinto is a lifetime musician and researcher of traditional Andean music. He has recorded several CDs and is curator of his own Museum of Andean Music in Hatunrumiyoq, Cusco.

Tracks 18-26 Javier Arevalo comes from Nuevo Progreso, a community of 50 families on the Rio Napo. Many generations of his family before him were shamans and already at 17 years old he knew this was his future. However when he was 20 his father died from a virote (poisoned dart in the spiritual world), sent by a jealous and malicious brujo (sorcerer) in his community. Soon after he began his two-year retreat in the rainforest with his maestro grandfather, dieting many plants, later to become his ‘doctors’. During his time in the wilderness he realised that it was better to leave God to punish the brujo who killed his father, and he decided to be a healer not a sorcerer.

There are several different kinds of icaros, at the beginning of the session. Their purpose is to provoke the mareacion or effects, and, in the words of Javier, ‘to render the mind susceptible for visions to penetrate, then the curtains can open for the start of the theatre’. Other Icaros call the spirit of Ayahuasca to open visions ‘as though exposing the optic nerve to light’. Alternatively, if the visions are too strong, the same spirit can be made to fly away in order to bring the person back to normality.

There are icaros for calling the ‘doctors’, or plant spirits, for healing, while other icaros call animal spirits, which protect and rid patients of spells. Healing icaros may be for specific conditions like manchare which a child may suffer when it gets a fright. The spirit of a child is not so fixed in its body as that of an adult, therefore a small fall can easily cause it to fly. Manchare is a common reason for taking children to ayahuasca sessions.

Tracks 18 Llamada de mareacion in which the spirits of various healing plants are called, here the huacapurana, a tall tree with hard wood, whose bark is used for arthritis. Huacapurana is also used as an arcana, or spirit to protect the body. Also the remocaspi whose bark is used to reduce fever and cure malaria.

Howard G. Charing, is an accomplished international workshop leader on shamanism. He has worked some of the most respected and extraordinary shamans & healers in the Andes, the Amazon Rainforest, and the Philippines. He organises specialist retreats to the Amazon Rainforest at the dedicated centre located in the Mishana nature reserve. He is the author of the best selling book, Plant Spirit Shamanism (Destiny Books USA), and has published numerous articles about plant medicines. He was baptised into the Shipibo tribe of the Upper Amazon, and initiated into the lineage of the shamans of the Rio Napo. Howard is also an artist who’s paintings have featured in major exhibitions in London and elsewhere. His artwork has also been featured on book covers.

His website: http://www.shamanism.co.uk
email contact: eagleswing@shamanism.co.uk