Gan Bua

Boring and mundane tasks can often be made more appealing by adding a bit of music to the mix. This applies to jobs of all kinds, whether they tax the body or the mind, or both, as well as many activities outside of a job. Stringing together a few good songs in a playlist can make even working out a more exciting endeavor. There are many reasons for this, and I’ll get into them momentarily, but one needs to be mentioned right away. Music and its accompanying rhythms and beats can give rhythm to a workout where there was none before; it’s a kind of self-hypnosis if you ask me.

If you’ve ever worked out without music, then done the same workout while listening to a tune you enjoy, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. It seems like a unanimous thing, and not an experience limited to just one out of every few people. In fact, a study released in 2010 found a correlation between listening to fast-paced music while working out and working out at a faster pace. Apparently, the best music to listen to when exercising ramps up between 130 and 140 beats per minute (BPM), and the vast majority of music falls into that speed range.

I know very well the power of music, since I attend Crossfit wearing a set of best footwear for Crossfit training. Having the right equipment can help make or break your workout too, but I don’t want to get into that too much – just really like my shoes, that’s all. Even when I’m not working out, I know that listening to music I like can elevate my mood and make me feel better in general. That’s not to say it doesn’t work the same way when exercising though; it’s actually another great reason to keep your MP3 player or other musical device handy when you’re working out.

Some types of music, especially upbeat, loud and cheery pieces, actually make the person listening to them want to move more. Have you ever listened to something slow and somber, and felt like you just didn’t want to do anything? It is essentially the same principle, only working in reverse. Music like this is especially good for those doing Crossfit, since the aim of that particular exercise is to get as much of the participant’s body as possible moving and active.

Now, getting back to what I first said about using music to perform a kind of self-hypnosis: the right songs and sounds can put you “in the zone” so to speak. There is a science to this, as well. Just like smells, sights and feelings, we also associate certain sounds (and songs) with memories. Often these associations are related to the context under which the sounds or songs were originally heard. For instance, if you’ve seen Thriller before, then that song (and that dance) no doubt brings to mind memories from that time when you saw it. Associating songs with exercise can actually improve your workouts.

Perhaps you’ve seen it before – pregnant women with baby bumps singing songs or playing music for their yet to be born children. It could be there’s something about the vibrations, or the soothing sound of melodious music, which helps a developing fetus to grow healthier than one facing comparable conditions, minus the audio stimulation. I’m no scientist, but I do know the power of music. It can bring people together, or drive them apart; it can pull all traces of hostility from them, or ramp them up so much they’re ready to kill. As a musician, I feel I’m still more than qualified to give discourse on music.

First, let me say that we grow plants indoors ourselves and use the best LED grow lights – more info at http://plantozoid.com. Maybe that means we’ve got a bit of bias as to the effects of music on plant growing, but I think it also means that we would know better than most people about whether there is a correlation to be drawn, or not. We used to play out most of our jam sessions in closed spaces, soundproofed rooms, you know the deal; these keep outside sounds from interfering with our music and give us a chance to hear what we’re doing right and where we need to improve.

But now we do some practice in the same room as the plants. I’m not going to say that I actually see any of them perking up while we’re playing our tunes, but I can and will say one thing with certainty. If you grow plants outdoors, then you know about the weathering process – that’s when you purposefully expose plants to wind, temperature fluctuations and other things they normally have to deal with, so they become more hardy and likely to survive at times when those conditions persist. I believe that the vibrations caused by our musical instruments have a similar, hardening effect on plants.

Sound is a kind of energy, just like heat, or light. It may not radiate from high concentrations to places where there is less of it like those last two types of energy, but it is a form of energy all the same. If you stand by an amplifier that’s cranked up, you can feel the sound throughout your body, which is all the proof I need to make this statement. I think plants can feel sound through their own bodies too, and when exposed to it regularly, they grow stronger in response. Maybe that means their stems become denser, or their roots dig deeper into the earth for a stronger hold against the audio’s influence.

Like I said before, I’m not a scientist. I’m just keen about observing the world around me and seeing the reactions which occur based on the actions I perform. We’re all very interested in our effects on the world around us, at least in the GanBua family. Once we realized our music was having positive effects on our plants, we decided to do everything we could to make them grow big and strong. Recently, we upgraded our whole system with these new grow lights, to get the most out of what we’re growing.

The cloud is changing the music industry and the way that people are listening to music. Consumers are no longer buying and downloading music. Instead, they are using their cell phones to stream their favorite songs and albums on demand through providers like Pandora and Spotify. These cloud-based services aim to seamlessly provide access to a seemingly endless stream of content that is highly customizable based on what the user wants and can be anything from Celtic to Alternative to Classical music.

Smartphones and Streaming

The services have evolved to allow users to rate their selections, receive recommendations and create playlists. On smartphones, current service providers provide a premium services that support streaming over 2.5 and 3G networks and WiFi as well as offline modes and the ability to sync phones to computers. What this all seems to show is that smartphones are the new future of music. Pandora recently filed for an initial public offering on the strength of its 80 million users. What is important here is that users have doubled since Pandora started developing smartphone apps for its radio service. This is obviously the new model for online music and other services are following suit.

Providers and Competition

Even the current leader in traditional downloading, iTunes, is trying to break into the mobile streaming market. Possibly in order to counteract weakening sales, Apple has created the iTunes Match service, which focus on higher-quality content in order to lure users to it. However, there is plenty of competition from already established market players: Pandora, Spotify, Rhapsody and Sony Music Unlimited services as well as Amazon’s Cloud Player. Even more, rumors have been circulating that Google is looking to work on a cloud-based music service for Android users that will possibly be integrated with the Android Market.

The Cloud and Demands on Data Centers

Obviously, the market for streaming is highly competitive and a provider needs to make its service works perfectly in order to be a contender. The sheer number of people using mobile streaming services also places huge demands on the data centers these service providers use. Data Centers have to store huge amounts of content and allow for easy access. For example, iTunes Match alone has a catalog of over 28,000,000 songs, and other services boast similar numbers. This raises the need of increasing the quality and quantity of data storage services – data centers.

A well planned data center becomes critical and it is imperative for those in the music industry to research how to build the best data center with the help of companies like Citrus.Lv. With the advent of the cloud, data centers must be able to meet new demands and be able to work nonstop to satisfy the consumer. Citrus Solutions is one of the strongest market players in developing cloud-based data center concepts and provides excellent information on how to design and build effective cloud-based storage solutions.

Revenue Models

There is good money to be made with the cloud if service providers can develop a solid interface to deliver content and have a well-designed data center to ensure that content is stored safely and delivered seamlessly. There have been a couple of revenue models used up to this point. Most cloud-based providers are premium services. Pandora bucks that trend by focusing on free, ad-supported streaming options. In the end, music streaming will likely follow a similar path as other app services. Free apps with mobile ads will be the best way to build a bigger base, and a smaller group of users will pay to have ad-free streaming content and more functions.