2 . I devote myself to music because of my grandmother. My mum and I lived with my grandparents from the time I was two until I was eight. And even then, I was at their house before and after school every day while my mother was _______. 

Grandma loved music. It was she that first _______ me to Elvis Presley as a very young child, and once I heard his music, I was truly in_______with it. Most five-year-olds ask for toys for birthdays, but I wanted Elvis’ albums. I would play them non-stop and _______ to the music in my grandma’s family room though my movements didn’t look_______. 

Grandma played the piano and _______ me to sing “America the Beautiful” and “Somewhere over the Rainbow”. I finally started playing music on the piano, and soon grandma was paying for me to take piano lessons from a lady living in the _______. I would come home from_______ and walk there for my lesson. I _______ took about nine months of lessons, but it was enough to give me a foundation and allow me to continue to teach myself. 

Last month when I came home to visit grandma in the hospital, I brought along my guitar with me. She was in great pain, but the music seemed to__________ her soul. She had me sing some songs and when I started to sing “Somewhere over the Rainbow”, her weakened voice__________ in with mine for a few lines. That experience was one of the most __________ of my lifetime and one I will certainly cherish forever. I told her of my music career and she was very __________ and said, “That’s wonderful!” I __________ to play for her throughout the week I was home. 

My grandma passed away two days ago. In my opinion, part of her will live on through every __________ I write or sing for her in my life.

3 . Adele’s new album, “30”, is finally available. Last month, hundreds of millions of us streamed its first single, “Easy On Me.” This song arouses feelings not easily put into words, but we can probably agree it is a sad song.     1     Yet sad music does pull us in and lift us up.

Let’s start with a biological theory. When we experience real-life loss, or empathize (体会) with another’s pain, certain hormones are released within us.     2     They do so by making us feel calmed and supported. Feeling Adele’s pain, or recalling our own, may cause such chemical changes within us.

Psychologically, a key reason we enjoy sad songs is that they profoundly move us. Feeling moved can come from us suddenly feeling closer to other people. Indeed, when we have listened to “30”, we may turn to reaction videos to see how others feel.     3    And it boosts our feeling of being moved and triggers feelings of comfort and belonging.

    4     Adele’s songs allow us to view the pleasure in terms of the meaning she helps us make. Adele takes hard life experiences and makes sense of them. This is what much sad art does. It takes the pain and suffering of the world and gives it meaning. As philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once put it, someone who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

Ultimately, we listen to Adele’s songs when we want to recall, reflect, or belong. They let us feel her sadness, share our suffering, and connect with others. To all of us, Adele’s songs say:     5    

4 . Making Music Visible

On a recent afternoon in a brightly lit studio in Brooklyn, Tom and David were filming a music video. They were recording a different version of their favorite song, but the voices that filled the room were those of the two original singers, who made the song a hit. And yet the two men were also singing—with their hands.

Tom is a deaf actor and dancer; David is a hearing dancer and choreographer who is, thanks to seven deaf family members, a native speaker of sign language. Their version is part of a 10-song series of sign language covers of works.

Around the world, music connects together communities and promotes a sense of belonging. But as sign language music videos become an online phenomenon, the richness of sign language has gotten a broader stage.

“Music is many different things to different people.” Alice, a deaf actress told in an interview, using an interpreter. “I realize,” she added, “that when you do hear, not hearing may seem to separate us. But what is your relationship to music, to dance, to beauty? What do you see that we may learn from? These are conversations people need to get accustomed to having.”

A good sign language performance thinks highly of the combination of the elements of sign language—hand shape, movement and facial expression—with those of spoken language, allowing a skilled sign language speaker to engage in the kind of sound painting that composers use to enrich a text. “The hands have their own emotions,” Tom said. “They have their own mind.”

Deaf singers prepare for their performances by experiencing a song through any means available to them. Many people speak about their highly sensitivity to the vibrations of sound, which they experience through their body. As a dancer trained in ballet, Tom said he was particularly conscious of the vibrations of a piano as transmitted through a wooden floor.

5 . Best Sleep Music Apps

If you want to sleep better at night, trying a sleep music app might be the answer. Here are some ideal sleep music apps to choose from.

Calm

Calm is one of the most popular sleep music apps and its large library of relaxing and sleep-causing tracks is largely responsible for that. This app offers a free version, but to really take advantage of what Calm has to offer, you had better choose the paid version, which costs $ 69.99 for one year. A lifetime membership is $ 399.99.

Relax Melodies

Relax Melodies is intended to calm your mind with relaxing sound. The composer is visual and easy to use, and the Discover page gives you access to other app features, like bedtime stories and breathing exercises. Though its free version provides a great introduction to the idea of sleep music, the paid version unlocks a larger library of sounds. Consider paying for it if there're particular sounds or features that really attract you.

Headspace

Headspace is a feature-rich app designed in a simple way that makes it quick and easy to use its library of sleep-specific music. The Sleep icon at the bottom of the app is easy to identify and leads to a library of options that include Sleep Music and Sleep Radio. It's worth noting that nearly everything in Headspace's Sleep Library requires an extra subscription. Headspace costs $ 69.99 annually, or you can pay $12.99 per month.

Pzizz

Pzizz offers sleep music tracks you can use at naptime, bedtime, or to improve focus. One thing that makes Pzizz different is its voice narration（旁白）option. If you find the presence of a calming voice to be comforting or benefit from someone helping you to relax your body and mind, then Pzizz is a good choice for you. Male and female voice options are available and the voice is low and calm. It has a free version but you should pay for extra subscriptions.

6 . Flower-drum dancing is a traditional Chinese folk performance. It is popular across the county especially in places such as Fengyang in Anhui, Guangshan in Henan, and Haian in Jiangsu.

The Haian flower-drum dance dates back to more than 400 years ago. It became popular in the areas of the Yangtze River and the Huaihe River in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). The art form was used to show the peaceful lives of local fisherwomen. It is still popular with local people, known for its lively movements and gentle music. In 2007, the Haian flower-drum dance was included in the list of art forms that make up Jiangsu's provincial intangible (非物质的) cultural heritage.

Yang Peijie, 71, is an inheritor (传承) of the Haian flower-drum dance. He has been performing the dance for more than 50 years. "It has become a part of my life," he said.

In the 1960s, Yang joined an art troupe (艺术团) and started to learn the dance from older artists. At that time, people could only learn it in this way. There were no textbooks. Worrying the art may become lost, Yang spent five years studying the history of the dance and recorded its movements in detail. He visited almost all the local artists and wrote a book about the subject in the 1980s.

According to Yang, the dance movements are easy to learn and understand as they come from   everyday life. "For example, there is a movement called fengbailiu (风摆柳)，it means you twist (扭动) your body like the wind blowing the willow trees (柳树). ’’

Nowadays, Yang focuses on promoting the dance among all age groups, especially the young. He set up a team to work on this. The team members visit about eight schools each year to teach students. It has been added to break-time exercises in many local schools. "To make it easier for kids to learn, we break down difficult movements into several simple ones," Yang said. They also go to communities and parks to teach older people. "It's my responsibility to pass down the art. I don't want to see it get lost in my lifetime," Yang said.

9 . When everything is going wrong, there's nothing like listening to a few bars of your favorite sad song. But why do we find pleasure in sad music? This puzzled two researchers at the Freie Universität Berlin in Germany who set out to explore our strong feeling for sad songs in a world where entire industries exist to help us remove sadness from our lives.

Their study — based on a survey of more than 770 people around the world and published this month in the journal, PLOS ONE — discovered sad music can create positive emotions, like peacefulness and kindness, and that choosing the tearful ballad on your music player offers three benefits.

The biggest turned out to be that sad songs allow you to feel sadness without any of its “real-life contexts.” In other words, you can safely explore what it's like to be a little blue without experiencing the great pain of losing a loved one, for example.

“Emotion control” was another important benefit. Many of those surveyed said that when they were in a bad mood (情绪), experiencing sadness through music made them feel better afterwards and provided an emotional improvement. That may be because the songs help them to express and let go of their emotions, researchers noted. “Sad music promotes and creates a space for reflection and reexamination of personal experiences, thoughts and feelings,” one of the researchers added

The benefit of “empathy” (同理心) made the listener feel good by allowing him to share the sadness of another human being through the song. When we're having social problems, like when we're feeling lonely, homesick or missing someone, the sad songs can offer comfort by showing someone else shares our state of mind, the study found.

So it turns out that Elton John was right: Sad songs do say so much.