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After hearing their music I felt that they had some great stories to share. Their lyrics are very powerful, full of emotion. It wasn’t long before I turned into a fan, which later led me to conduct an interview with Yahya, one of three members of Anger Boys. Below I share with you the results of this interview:

The band was created during the late summer of 2003. We got recognized within a very short period of time. This is due to our captivating words, attractive style and meaningful music.

The main inspiration that led us to start such a career is the situation in the Middle East and especially the Palestinian issue. It was also a reaction to the Arabs 48 issue where most of people outside Palestine think that we aren’t Palestinians while we get discriminated for that every day in Israel.

The name of the band is Anger Boys “ABNA2 IL GHADAB” which stands for the motivated anger we deal with on a daily basis. We express our anger through music to deal with the hard times.

I would like to clarify first that by “anger” they do not mean violence. They mean emotionally-charged music inspired from frustrating conflicts, being misrepresented, mistreated, and misunderstood. It’s great to see them do some productive things with this anger:

Anger could be the best motivation for us as Arabs to achieve our rights in this sophisticated world. Anger Boys is the first Arab rap band to merge real Arab classical music with Hip-Hop music, we are known for this musical style.

The members of the band are:1-MC.YN = Yahya Natour, 20 years old2-DR.X = Ward Tayeh, 19 years old3-MODY = Mohammed Zmiro, 19 years old

We rap about our life, we rap about our experiences, we seek ending the occupation in Palestine and in Iraq and we also rap for peace, happiness, justice. But most importantly we seek freedom.

Rap music is part of political and social activism, when you rap you aquire the power to change. You can change people’s minds, you can make them realize the truth, and stop pretending that everything alright, you can affect their ability to initiate movement and be generally active. Rap is a positive form of power, rap is hope.

Yahya also notes that through rap music, nobody can stop them from saying what they really want to say. And in his opinion the messages they send through rap music is successfully reaching their target audience.

It’s attracting more and more people to this music, through our songs we are a free voice and we want to be able to continue doing this for as long as possible.

I really want the whole world to know that we are alive and we are here as “Arabs 48″ and of course as Palestinians. And nobody, I repeat, nobody can exterminate us!

I also want the whole world to know about our life, our traditions, our beliefs, our culture, our history, our country. We are not terrorists, but at the same time we are not slaves for anything or anybody. We would like the Arab world to unite. Why can Europe unite and we can’t? People there have different nationalities, different histories, cultures, beliefs, language, and we are the same in that sense. We need to unite as Arabs.

Yahya has a dream. He wants everyone to listen to their music and not just merely listen for entertainment purposes… but to listen to it frequently and to understand the messages that we are promoting. He wants to inspire others to speak and to be active.

First of all, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak in your web site, and special thanks to whoever took the time to read this interview. Then I’d like to say that our band is unique, we put a lot of hard work into our latest album. I suggest that you all listen to some of our songs and you can decide for yourself whether or not we are gifted! We have yet to achieve most of our goals, and we think it’s necessary to bring people closer to reality through our music. We want to introduce a better future, and most of all to bring hope especially to the youth. We won’t give up or stop, that’s the mission of Anger Boys.

Anger Boys: Skab il Nar.

This band is young, hopeful, talented, and they sure have a lot of inspirational stories to share. We all have different ways of expressing ourselves, either through blogging, film, art/design or just talking. Anger Boys do it best through rap music, which is indeed a very influential and powerful medium especially for our youth.

I wish for them to succeed and to keep up the great work, we will certainly be rooting for them and keeping our eyes open for their new album which they worked extremely hard on!

I’d like to thank Yahya for this interview and I’d also like to thank Mahmoud for putting us in contact with such amazing young talents within the region. It is always a great pleasure to discover these things.

I’ll close this off with two Anger Boy videos:

Why should students check out the second WXJM show of the year?

“Because the first 500 people at my show will be given a brand new jet ski, and the next 500 will be given a regrettable tattoo,” said rap artist Astronautalis.

Though jet skis and tattoos will not be part of the free hip-hop show at TDU on Wed. the Richmond group Swordplay, Florida-based Astronautalis and the JMU groups MC PresTo and Blatant Vibe will be there.

JMU’s student radio station, WXJM, chose the hip-hop theme in an effort to keep shows diverse. The station features loud rock, jazz, Americana, progressive rock, RPM, urban, free form, world and talk shows and makes a conscious effort to reach each of those audiences through its live shows.

Programming director, Sarah Delia emphasizes the goal of the station is to expose students to all kinds of music throughout the year and appeal to all audiences.

“I’m really excited we have a hip-hop show coming to JMU,” Delia said. “They’re all extremely popular here and I feel there is a strong hip-hop scene that most students don’t know about.”

However, Wednesday night’s hip-hop show will appeal to more than just hip-hop fans. The members of Blatant Vibe, seniors Aaron Walker, Julian Astri, Dan Attaway, Kasey Flanagan and sophomore Kunal Jhanjee, a.k.a. MC PresTo, call their music “bluesy, funkadelic, soul hip-hop” and find they are most often compared to groups like The Roots. Because of the band’s varied musical background, tastes and styles, their influences range from Atmosphere, Wu-Tang, and Blackalicious to Pink Floyd and Miles Davis.

Though Blatant Vibe has only been together for about a semester, several of the members worked together in previous bands and Flanagan has been active musically since he was 14 with various solo recordings. Other members are active in other ensembles including marching, jazz and blues groups.

Swordplay hails from Richmond and the name is actually a code name for band member Isaac Ramsey. Beginning in July 2004 as a three-person group, Swordplay disappeared around the Bush re-election period  so he could write music reflecting the current state of the nation and emerged as a one-man show with the August 2005 release of the “Tilt” EP. Since then Swordplay produced the full-length album Cellars and Attics in 2007 with Concise Records and plans on releasing more records, doing more tours and not stopping until Richmond finds its place on the map as “a place where quality rap music comes from,” Ramsey said.

But Richmond isn’t the only place quality rap is coming from. Astronautalis is making the trip from Florida to JMU once again to add to his list of nearly 200 shows a year, though he would prefer to break 300.

“I love the road,” he said. “I live on the road. I have the best job in the world.”

Astronautalis is currently working on five different albums. One of the five includes a solo record produced by John Congleton, also known for working with Explosions in the Sky, The Paperchase and The Polyphonic Spree.

When asked why students and members of the community should attend the show, each group had a unique answer.

Swordplay is currently traveling with “the grandfather of RVA hip-hop music,” Swerve 36 who is also releasing an album with Concise Records within the month called Thanks but No Thanks.

“I’m excited about performing with him and Astronautalis, another sick, original, creative-minded rapper who has been doing his thing and working hard,” Ramsey said.

MC PresTo said the show would be entertaining for other reasons.

“Our drummer doesn’t wear a shirt when he plays,” Presto said.

And Astronautalis is still convinced jet skis and tattoos will draw a crowd.

The show is free and starts at 7 p.m. in TDU.

Hero Honda Motorola Campus Rock Idols, one of India’s largest inter-collegiate rock music competition is all set to enter its fourth edition. The annual competition for amateur bands at the collegiate level offers college bands the chance to pe
rform on a professional level. Hero Honda Motorola Campus Rock Idols Tour 2007 is association with Reliance, Levis and VH1 will be held in 10 cities across India.

The selections begin on October 27 in Hyderabad, the south zone comprises Bangalore, Hyderabad and Manipal.

The regional selection in Hyderabad will begin on October 27, 2007. The top two winning bands from the regional selections will compete with other bands in the south zone finals to be held in Manipal.

The winners will get a cash prize of Rs. 75, 000, the first runner up will get Rs. 50, 000 and the second runner up will get Rs. 25, 000.

This year’s winners will get the opportunity to perform with international iconic bands. Log on to www.campusrockidols.in or www.dnanetworks.com to register for the competition.

Burbank, Calif.

At a recording studio here, Britney Spears puts some last-minute polish on a song for her next album. As she sings a line about handling her “business,” I’m in the next room minding mine; with so much focus on the singer’s recent travails, her representative says she’s not giving interviews.

That doesn’t mean she’s not talking. My interaction with perhaps the most closely watched woman in America comes during a break, when she steps out of the vocal booth and politely asks me to pass her a drink from the fridge. (I do. Red Bull.)

No matter. The real draw at this session is the man in the control booth. He is producer Nate Hills, aka Danja (pronounced “DANE-ja”). At age 26, Mr. Hills is emerging as one of music’s elite, behind-the-scenes hit makers. With industry sales in a slump, demand for his services — and those of other top producers — is surging.

The Burbank session is a case in point. Less than 24 hours earlier, Mr. Hills had been working in his studio in Miami. An urgent call from Ms. Spears’s camp summoned him across the country (with me in tow) to assist her.

In the coming months, the fruits of this session and others like it will make or break tens of millions of dollars in music sales. It will also mark the biggest test yet for Mr. Hills as a solo producer.

In the past year, Mr. Hills has had a direct hand in crafting albums that yielded seven No. 1 songs, for singers such as Justin Timberlake and Nelly Furtado. “Gimme More,” one of his songs with Ms. Spears and the first single released in her comeback attempt, has been No. 1 on the iTunes chart for more than a week. Also bearing Mr. Hills’s mark this fall: an album from 1980s stars Duran Duran.

Although Mr. Hills is virtually unknown to music fans, he has joined the handful of producers who are behind the bulk of today’s top-selling pop records. Grounded mostly in hip-hop, this elite group includes will.i.am (pronounced as three words), leader of the Black Eyed Peas, who has recently been in the studio with Michael Jackson. Another key producer is Swizz Beatz, who has branched out from hard-core rap to work with Beyoncé and Alicia Keys.

You know, the New Age movement really has a lot to answer for. Aside from all the charges of cultural appropriation that can be laid at their feet, there's also the small matter of the stereotype they've created of Native Canadian and American musicians. Hand drums, cedar flutes, and chanting vocals are what all "real" Native musicians are supposed to be playing. At least that's what you'd end up thinking if you were to make your judgments based on what's available in your local New Age emporium.This makes it really hard for those who want to follow the more traditional path of the pop musician. Rap, rock, funk, blues, and for the older generation, country, are just as popular on the reservation as they are anywhere else and the folk who play it have the same ambitions as their counterparts in the city. Sure a lot of them do sit around the big drum at Pow-Wows, and might even play the wooden flute on occasion, but that's not pop music and it won't be played down at the local bar on a Friday night.So, aside from the usual difficulties facing aspiring pop musicians, natives have to overcome the image that us non-natives have been foisting on them for the past twenty to thirty years. That's not to say they aren't spiritual or proud of their culture and heritage, but they can do that and play rock & roll at the same time. There have been plenty of good Native pop musicians who have had various degrees of success playing music ranging from folk to hard rock in the past, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise that a new generation of musicians share the same aspirations as their predecessors.One of those up and coming stars of the new generation is Martha Redbone, whose latest release, Skintalk, came out earlier this year. Martha is of mixed African and Native American heritage and her music is contemporary without ignoring who she is or where she came from. She might sing about love and fun on "Stick Wit Me", but the very next song, "Medicine Man" talks about living in a traditional Native way.There are two things that strike you about hearing Martha for the first time: one is her voice and the other is the type of music she plays. In these days of squeaky voiced little girls singing about who knows what while spending their off days in rehab or on the front cover of People, hearing a woman who can sing in the mid range, like Martha can, is a treat on its own. The fact she also has a voice with personality and expression is gravy.She also has range, meaning she can start a song in the mid-range and push it all the way up into the high end without ever sounding like she's straining or doing something against her nature. But it's when she's in her throaty, mid range, that I found her the most effective. She reminded me of some of the classic women voices from the soul and Motown eras.Maybe that is also because she and her band play some of the finest funk I've heard in a long time. Having never heard Martha before, I didn't know what to expect when I started the disc. So when that wonderful electric guitar sound came through my headset on the opening cut of the disc, "Hard Livin'," it was a great surprise. What is really good about this disc is that they can play the full spectrum of rhythm and blues, from hard funk to the softer sounds of soul. Not only can they play those styles, but they also do them justice. Unlike so many others who confuse soulful with cheap sentiment, their music is the real thing, mellow with an undertone of something a little more – something that gives a body to the soul.I mentioned earlier she draws upon her native heritage for some of her lyrics, but on track eight she goes all out and brings in a native drum group to provide the opening for "Children Of Love," a prayer for the future. Interestingly enough the person leading the drum group is Dennis Banks, one of the key members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) in the early 1970s.For all of its problems, AIM had been able to make it possible for the people coming after them to believe in a future where they could be proud of who they were, instead of being a dirty secret that nobody wanted to talk about.At first the song was a bit disconcerting because there was no effort made to integrate the two styles of music. But after listening to it a second time, I think that was the right choice as the contrast actually made both halves of the song that much more effective. Every so often the sound of the native singers would come up into the mix on the funkier part of the song, and it felt like the voices of the past communicating their message of encouragement to the people of today and tomorrow.Martha Redbone's new CD Skintalk is about as far removed from the so-called "Native" music that passes for authentic in lifestyle stores and boutiques as you could get without leaving North America. Instead, it's the authentic voice of a modern woman who sings about the things that concern her the most. The fact she is a Native American means that she will sing about that subject on occasion, but not in any way that's expected.

Psychedelic cumbias from Peru. The folk music of Myanmar. Sugary Thai pop and soul. Raw, lightning-fast Syrian rock. Colombian sounds from the 1960s and ’70s.

A recent spate of astonishing world-music compilations, many from countries often associated more with political unrest than rocking out, have expanded the musical globe, filling in what were once blank spots on the map. With eyes and ears opened by groundbreaking prior releases, inquiring minds want to know: What does Burmese pop sound like? And what happened in Brazil after the Tropicalia movement had its late-’60s run?

Music made outside the borders of the United States and the United Kingdom has long been a presence in American record stores, primarily African and Brazilian music. But in recent years, the level of interest in exotic world music has increased sharply. The music industry’s split into dozens of small niches has helped to create a market of highly informed, adventurous music fans who - like the film buffs who spent the 1990s embracing movies from Taiwan, Iran, and China - seek fresh sounds, whatever their provenance.

Plus, the influence of well-regarded world releases such as the “Ethiopiques” series of Ethiopian rock and jazz and the rerelease of influential Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti’s albums have helped to generate a hunger for more of the same.

“There’s been a deluge in the past few years of really super-interesting, almost totally unheard of world-music compilations - stuff from Southeast Asia, tons and tons of African stuff,” says Michael Klausman, who works at Other Music, an influential music store in New York City. “It probably started a few years ago, with the huge resurgence and popularity of Fela Kuti, and ever since then, people realize he’s just the tip of the iceberg and that there’s a ton more along those lines.”

Having heard Fela’s “Original Sufferhead” or Luaka Bop’s collection of Brazilian music, “Beleza Tropical,” eager music fans now ask, “Is there more like this?”

The answer, invariably, is yes. Olivier Conan, owner of Barbes, a popular nightspot in Brooklyn’s Park Slope, discovered the psychedelic, dance-friendly chicha sound of Peru while visiting the country in pursuit of unique sounds.

Chicha had been popular in the 1960s, but the demise of Infopesa, the record label that had released the bulk of chicha, made it a challenge to track down original masters and acquire rights for the new album “The Roots of Chicha: Psychedelic Cumbias From Peru.”

“I got different kinds of reactions,” Conan says of his Peruvian excursion. “The first [musician] I contacted was the guy from Los Hijos del Sol, Angel Rosado, and he was very excited that someone in America was calling him to put his music out. He really saw that he was getting discovered. He was so excited, he was playing me songs over the phone: ‘What about this one? Do you like this one?’ In general, a lot of those people really craved a sense of recognition that they didn’t always get.”

Michael Bracewell (Faber and Faber, £20, available Thursday).

As the subtitle suggests, this is less a conventional band biography than a prehistory, ending with the epochal arrival of Roxy Music’s debut album.

What seems a perverse decision is, in fact, an ingenious one; in place of the usual grind through tour dates, record releases and jet-setting we get an evocative social history of the rich cultural melange which shaped the band members and inspired the music.

As the Fifties explode into the Sixties, themselves refined and shaded into the Seventies, we follow Bryan Ferry’s move from pop art to art pop, the early manifestations of Brian Eno’s gift for inspired awkwardness, Andy Mackay’s aesthetic adventures and those who would bring these three together.

Re-make/Re-model is an impressive feat both of research (fresh interviews were conducted with all of the key players) and of prose.

It enriches one’s understanding of the music of one of the most important and magical bands in Britain’s history, while also serving as a wider document of that history and a reminder of just how much things have changed.

It captures Roxy’s grand ambitions, their pioneering renunciation of "roots and realism and sincerity," without losing sight of their humanity.

As Eno says: "Pop music isn’t primarily about making music. It’s about creating new, imaginary worlds and inviting people to try them out."’

Re-make/Re-model is all any traveller in Roxy’s world could want from a guidebook.

Alex Sarll

Reg Vallintine (Anchilles Press, £20, available Thursday).

Reg Vallintine is a giant among divers and this is his personal story.

His evocative tale spans over 50 years of Scuba diving from its very early beginnings to the safe and popular sport it is today.

It’s written in words which are stimulating, exciting and full of magnificent descriptions of people, places, dives and dive sites all over the world.

And it’s littered with anecdotes and meetings with such diving legends as Hans Hass and Jacques Cousteau, along with so many other interesting people and friends he made along the way.

From diving alone in British waters with just a rugger shirt for protection, to his favourite sunny island Giglio where he discovered one of the oldest Etruscan wrecks in the world, there are many diving experiences in caves and wrecks.

Other exciting expeditions include visiting Henry VIII’s warship Mary Rose and an expedition to Norway to locate and lift the remains of one of the X craft submarines which sank the Tirpitz in 1943.

Interwoven is the history of the British Sub Aqua Club from its very beginnings and we meet some of the characters and individuals who had the vision to bring Scuba diving within the reach of ordinary people through this now internationally recognised club.

The title is illustrated by more than 100 black and white and colour photographs and includes five maps of dive locations, which help bring his fascinating story to life.

Deep In The Blue is a feast of diving anecdotes and an interesting insight into the people, treasures and pure pleasure of diving unexplored waters.

A must-read for all divers and those who are tempted to give it a go.

Georgina Rodgers

Liz Smith (Simon and Schuster, £14.99).

Liz Smith, best known for playing the role of Nana in The Royle Family, has put together a series of short stories and observations, the inspiration of which was drawn from her own life experiences.

She has a strong sense of justice which can be seen throughout the tales, with most ending with good defeating evil in a simple way.

Her wry and astute writing sees the stories based in several eras and areas with characters battling on, many aware of how much of a struggle their lives really are.

In one modern-day tale, Doris has become scared of her critical daughter Christine and tries to please her at every turn.

But picky, up-market Christine has a secret - she wants to wear leather and rubber outfits and longs to find her dream man, a denim-wearing Porsche driver.

Smith has clearly experienced several cultures and changes of trends, and to contrast Christine’s secret passions is Eliza Northrop.

Her story is undoubtedly the best in the book and is said to be based on a character Smith once played at the National Theatre.

It’s set in the 1900s, where Eliza lives with her violent husband and downtrodden son in a small, dingy house.

She has no money as her out-of-work husband squeezes every last penny out of her to spend in the pub.

But one day destiny strikes and she comes into money, which she uses to build a better life for herself.

But all the while her husband is in the background, threatening to spoil Eliza’s dream.

Jottings is a wonderful coffee table book that is easy to dip in and out of at leisure.

Some parts start confusingly, with the era, character and context unclear, but the situations soon unfold to tell humorous, witty, laid back stories.

Caroline Davison

Nelson Mandela may get big props forhis take on rock concerts with a conscience, but now Monterey wants to show you how they do it. On October 20th and 21st, take a drive and attend the first Monterey Music Summit. This two-day event will feature some of the most popular acts in music today from every end of the musical spectrum, such as The Roots, Cake, Brandi Carlile, Colbie Caillat and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club. The Roots and Cake are internationally acclaimed, and upcoming songstress Colbie Caillat presently boasts the fourth biggest single on I-tunes with her song “Bubbly”, which has recently been all over local radio stations, as well. Brandi Carlile you may remember from her recent stop in our area for downtown San Jose’s popular summer music series “Music in the Park,” and has recently been doing some chart rising of her own with the hit single “The Story.” Other performances include Michael Franti and Spearhead, G Love and Special Sauce, Tea Leaf Green, Jessie Baylin, Ian Ball and Zap Mama. These acts aren’t just for fun though. All performers invited were selected for their willingness to commit to positive social change and their openness towards speaking on current political matters. This is one festival you can pat yourself on the back for being a part of. For every ticket bought, a five-dollar donation is automatically made to one of four charities: Action Against Hunger, The Agape Foundation, Oceana and The Children’s Defense Fund.Additionally, trees will be planted locally in order to offset the concert’s carbon footprint. Not familiar with the term? Your carbon footprint is the impact your activities have on the environment, measured in units of carbon dioxide emitted. The more a person (or in this case, a concert) is able to offset the amount they emit, the better off our environment is. This event, presented by production company “Joe Fletcher Presents,” also features local vendors, artists and spoken word performances. Type in “De Anza” as a discount cod when purchasing tickets online and get fifteen dollars off your ticket price.

Within months of Blondie landing two chart-topping, genre-hopping hits (”Rapture” and “The Tide Is High”), Deborah Harry released her first solo album, a compelling collaboration with Chic’s Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers that fused together funk, new wave, jazz, and pop. In the years since its initial release, the album’s striking cover art by H.R. Giger is remembered more than the actual music but a re-evaluation of the Chic collective’s innovative work with Harry is long overdue. (Used copies of the CDs short-run re-issue on Razor & Tie fetch for upwards of $100 online.)A few years after contributing the Giorgio Moroder-produced “Rush Rush” to Scarface (1983), Harry teamed with producer Seth Justman for a well-considered set of pop tunes bolstered by studio stalwarts like Jocelyn Brown, the Uptown Horns, and Jimmy Rip. Despite its massive reception in the UK, promotion for Rockbird in the US didn’t rock so much. By 1986, Madonna had become the key priority for Warner Music Group, which distributed both her label (Sire) and Harry’s (Geffen). Ironically, the forthcoming UK-based musical of Desperately Seeking Susan is comprised solely of Blondie songs and a new Harry tune.Harry’s third solo effort reunited her with Blondie producer Mike Chapman, whose disciplined approach in the studio gave the artist some of her most enduring solo sides. Longtime co-conspirator Chris Stein wrote most of the songs with Harry and the duo’s synergy birthed typically artful and tuneful tracks. The album’s breadth of musical offerings is impressive and, minus some late-’80s production quirks, Def, Dumb and Blonde has held up extremely well.Crate-diggers would do well to seek out Harry’s criminally overlooked ‘93 outing, Debravation (recently re-released on the Wounded Bird label). An eclectic cadre of producers—eight—gave Harry a few sonic sandboxes in which to frolic about. (Future Blondie guitarist Leigh Foxx contributed a couple of songs.) Harry raps, punks-out, and recites a few lines of Edgar Allan Poe; in other words, a perfectly normal Deborah Harry album.It was inevitable that Harry expanded her elastic voice to jazz, having previously flirted with swinging combos on Blondie’s Autoamerican (1980). The Jazz Passengers, fronted by Roy Nathanson, was the perfect vessel to showcase Harry’s gift for carrying a song over upright bass, vibes, trumpet, sax, and drums. Though not a solo album per se, the accessibly offbeat Individually Twisted further secured Harry’s footing in a range of musical worlds.Two Blondie reunion albums and one Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction later, Deborah Harry’s latest solo album reflects how she’s influenced two generations of artists. The production team of Super Buddha is the perfect complement to Harry’s stylistic orientations; greasy glitter rock, gossamer ballads, and danceable pop frame the inspired musings of a poet’s heart.

Music promotes exercise. When pulsating music drenches the air, it raises the adrenalin levels and drives up exercise intensity. That is not all. Research shows that music positively affects exercise physiology and psychology in several other ways.

Music helps the mind dissociate from sensations of fatigue and exhaustion. Top sportspersons train with headphones on to break through barriers of pain and fatigue. This method is especially useful in sports that require prolonged, repetitive actions – like long distance running, marathon walking and running, gymnastics and swimming.

Music can stimulate as well as sedate, and every athlete needs a bit of stimulation as well as sedation before a competition. Sprinters often pump themselves up before a race by listening to pulsating music or aggressive rap lyrics. Many athletes derive calm and composure from music. Sachin Tendulkar listens to music on his headphones while waiting for his turn to bat. Like him, countless others use music to relax and to improve concentration. Top athletes often speak of a mythic “zone” – a state of mind where they perform their best while on virtual “autopilot”. Music, by increasing concentration and by inducing calm, increases the chances of entering “the zone”.

Music with a strong rhythm improves motor skills, especially if one synchronises exercise movements to the beat. Exercise is more successful when in harmony with music of a similar rhythm. The mind finds it easier to execute movements when it gets its cues from more than one source. Music makes exercise enjoyable, and enjoyment often determines long-term adherence to an exercise programme. Variety is important in music as well as in exercise. Boredom with either can be fatal for an exercise programme. Not all music is exercise-friendly.

Not many people will experience an adrenalin rush during a 5 km treadmill walk with a veena droning in the background. Exercise music should be rhythmic, with a beat in tune with the main exercise movement.

RAJIV. M