【推荐2】Why We Listen to Music with Lyrics(歌词) We Don’t Understand

From French electronic to K-pop and Spanish jazz, it’s common for us to listen to songs we don’t necessarily understand.     1    . Sometimes, we even sing along to them without knowing the dictionary meaning of lyrics.

But why? It all starts with what’s called “sound symbolism(语音表意),” which refers to the study of the relationships between utterances(发声) and their meaning. In music, there’s something about the appeal of words as sounds, beyond their meaning in a language.     2    . This might explain why we are fond of a song even without knowing its lyrics.

    3    . One example of such techniques is scale(音阶). Songs in major scales are brighter or happier, while minor scales usually sound slightly darker or bluer. Our brain is wired to respond to a certain sound, and our breathing and even our movement go with the sound we hear.     4    . Besides, elements of sound and music, like pitch, melody or harmony, also have an affective, emotional, and even physical impact on listeners. Through a complex of these elements, music adds so much meaning and dimension to lyrics. That is to say, the combination of all these creates the meaning far beyond the lyrics’ dictionary meaning.

    5    . Lyrics are powerful tools for helping us recognise, express and reflect our emotions. All in all, there’s value in whatever immediate appeal we find in the music we listen to, whether or not we understand the words. Music, after all, is a universal language.

【推荐3】American country music is also known as country western music. It has a very long history. It comes from the folk songs of immigrants (移民) from Britain.

Country music uses simple music and words to express everyday feelings such as loneliness, love, and sadness. That is to say, country music describes life. It talks about friends and enemies, trucks and roads, farm and crops. People in many parts of the world like country music, because everyone can understand what the music is about.

Country western music became popular first among cowboys (牛仔) in the American west countryside. Cowboys had to take care of cows day and night. When they were alone with the cows, they often sang beautiful and peaceful songs to calm the animals and to overcome their own fear. They were not well-educated and so they sang about their daily life in very simple words. They played guitars, violins and other instruments. In the south of America, many people added instruments from their homes, like bottles and spoons. When cowboys visited their friends and families on holidays like Thanksgiving, they usually sang and played country western music. 

In recent years, many musicians have made country western music a little different from the one in the past. These changes make the songs sound even better. Today singers such as Carth Brooks, Reba McEntire, Emmylou Harris, Lyle Lovett, Eddie Rabbitt, LeAnn Rimes, Randy Travis and a group called Alabama are singing and playing in different styles. They have brought country western music more and more fans from all over the world.

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This complex piece of jewellery makes the perfect gift! The My Daughter Forever Locket can be yours to give for only £90, payable in three monthly installments of £30; postage and handling is £7.80 no matter how many you order. Your satisfaction is guaranteed. If you or your daughter are not delighted, you may return the locket within 90 days for a FULL refund — including our postage and handling charge!

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【推荐2】Greatest Scientists of All Time

Albert Einstein

As a journalist might say, Albert Einstein was the whole package: unique look (wild hair, untidy sweater), witty personality (his words, such as God not playing dice, would live on) and major scientific reputation (his papers turned physics upside down). Time magazine named him Person ofthe Century.

Marie Curie

Born Maria Salomea Sklodowska in 1867 in Warsaw, Poland, she lived a hard life in her youth. In 1903, Curie, her husband and Becquerel won the Nobel Prize in Physics for their work on radioactivity, making Curie the first woman to win a Nobel. In 1911 Curie won her second Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry, for her work with polonium and radium. She remains the only person to win Nobel prizes in two different sciences.

Ada Lovelace

Ada Lovelace earned her place in history as the first computer programmer — a full century before today’s computers appeared. She couldn’t have done it without British mathematician, inventor and engineer Charles Babbage. Their cooperation started in the early 1830s, when Lovelace was just 17. Babbage thought Lovelace threw her magic around the most abstract of Sciences and has grasped it with a force which few male intellects could have placed over it.

Nikola Tesla

We owe much of our modern electrified life to the lab experiments of Nikola Tesla, the Serbian-American engineer, born in 1856 in what’s now Croatia. His designs advanced alternating current at the start of the electric age, powering American homes across the country. He developed the Tesla coil — a high-voltage transformer — and techniques to convey power wirelessly. Cellphone makers (and others) are just now using the potential of this idea.