Concussion links

While not necessarily music therapy related, a topic that is of great interest to me is concussions. The subject is interesting to me for a few reasons. Firstly, I'm a huge sports nut, and unfortunately concussions are a big part of athletic competitions (especially my favorite sport, football).
Another reason I find them interesting is that I've always been absolutely fascinated by the human brain. Just think about this for a second: every thought, feeling, emotion, smell, taste, and everything you've ever seen is because of this big ol' mass of tissue in your skull. Every opinion you've ever formed, any idea you've ever come up with, every breath you take, every song you listen to, the very ability to read this sentence and understand it comes from billions of cells all working together. Unbelievable! If that just doesn't blow your mind (so to speak), then I just don't know what to think...(get it?)

While browsing a favorite sports blog of mine the other night, I stumbled across this article from the New Yorker about the frightening long terms effects of concussions in athletes, and how this might effect the future of contact-sports like football and hockey. While I don't necessarily agree with everything in the article, it does make for a very interesting read and brings up important questions that must be addressed soon.

Through this article, I found a fascinating blog entitled "The Concussion Blog". It focuses on concussions issues in various sports.

I thought I'd share these links for those who might enjoy "nerding out" on topics like this, as I do.

My opinion on the topic is somewhat split. I am completely smitten with college football, and one of the things I particularly love is a good defense. I love watching teams with good defenses work. I love big, punishing hits. It's one of the things that drew me to my favorite team (The Seminoles of Florida State, GO NOLES!) when I was growing up. FSU had a famous defensive coach named Mickey Andrews who was known to tell his players to "hit until the last echo of the whistle," meaning don't stop hitting until the very last possible second that the refs allow. I love the psychological effect a punishing defense can have on an opposing offense, making them play timid. To me, it's what makes football great.

However, if I was honestly asked if I had a son (or daughter), would I let them play football? And truthfully, I would be very concerned if they did. Why do you think I chose to be in the band (aside from a total lack of athletic ability)? The thing you have to remember is that those are other people's sons getting hit every week on the gridiron.

So as you can see, this is a topic of great interest to me, and I thought I'd share a few interesting links you you all. Thanks for reading!

Parts of the Cell lyrics

Just realized I forgot to put up lyrics for the cell rap, so here they are. Recording is in the previous post.


A million here, a million there
Way too small to see
But listen up, gonna make you aware, see

Let me tell you about the nucleus
Where the brain of the cell is
Little tiny chromosomes are wrapped up inside this
With the cell’s info
And when it’s time to make more
The nucleus makes another copy of these chromo’s (chromosomes)

Then we got the membrane, making sure the cell’s safe
Holding it together out there, taking up space
What goes in, what goes out
Prepared like a boy scout
If you still don’t know, let me tell you what I’m talking ‘bout

Cells. These are the parts of the cell.
A million here, a million there
Way too small to see
But listen up, gonna make you aware, see

Cytoplasm is a substance like jelly
Stays inside to keep the cell healthy
Check out these vacuoles, they’re like the cell’s suitcase
This is where the cell puts its food water and waste

Listen up, ‘cause I’m giving you an education
Mitochondria are the cell’s power station
And vesticles provide the cell transportation
Now we’re almost done, so start the celebration

Cells. These are the parts of the cell.
A million here, a million there
Way too small to see
But listen up, gonna make you aware, see

Plant cells have a structure called the cell wall
Provides strong support so the cell doesn’t ever fall
Finally, chloroplasts are the last organelle
Making food, but not for animals, only plant cells

"Parts of the Cell" by Andrew Littlefield

Last week, I got a request from the teacher of my 5th grade EBD class. She asked that I write a song or rap about the parts of a cell and their function. "Hmmm," I thought, "tall order."

But ta-da! Here it is! A few students in the class have mentioned to me that they like Lil Wayne, so I took the beat from his song "A Milli" off the album "Tha Carter III" (which, in my eyes, wins the award for best album cover in the last decade.)

Enjoy!

"I Like Counting By Two's" piggy back song

Giving my first video post a shot! Apologies for the poor sound quality, all I have to use is the microphone on my webcam.

This is a piggy back song I wrote for working on counting by two's. Here are the lyrics for the song:

I like counting by two's!

It feels alright

Skipping every other number

Counting pairs is out of sight

Yeah!

2, 4, 6, 8, then there's 10

12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22 it's true

I like counting by two's!

I like counting by two's!

It's my favorite thing

Look at all these even numbers

Makes me want to get up and sing

Yeah!

2, 4, 6, 8, then there's 10

12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22 it's true

I like counting by two's!

I like counting by two's,

I like counting by two's!

(Bridge)

I like counting by two's!

It feels alright

Skipping every other number

Counting pairs is out of sight

Yeah!

2, 4, 6, 8, then there's 10

12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22 it's true

I like counting by two's!

I like counting by two's,

I like counting by two's!

These are the video's I used to learn the guitar parts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5sccusIra0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3LpGgDETbI&feature=related

Enjoy!

Winter break and snow days

It's been an eventful few weeks since my last update.

At the end of last semester, one of my schools had a holiday program. This was quite the experience. I wrote about rehearsing some of this show back in November. It was very exciting to see it all come together. As you can imagine, it was also interesting trying to get about 50 student with special needs on the same page at times, but in the end it was perfect. My parents even got to come to one of the performances too, which was great.

Over Christmas break, I got to experience my first white Christmas. My parents recently moved to North Georgia, and we got about 3 inches of snow Christmas morning, which was a blast.

This semester started on a Wednesday, which made for a short week. Then this past Sunday, we got 5 inches of snow over night! This resulted in school being cancelled both Monday and today (Tuesday). Yesterday, my roommates and I had a blast trying to make sleds out of whatever we could find in the garage, making snowmen, and generally behaving like 8 year olds in the snow.

We'll see if I can get out tomorrow, but the news just said the ice could be even worse in the morning, so it may end up being a veeerrrry short week.