Shakira meets Betancourt in Paris

Colombian pop star met with former hostage Ingrid Betancourt and her son Lorenzo in Paris Tuesday, celebrity website Celebrity Gossip reports.

Shakira is currently recording her new album in London and Betancourt is in Paris recovering after being held in the Colombian jungle by the FARC for six years.

Both women will be involved coming Sunday in a worldwide protest against the FARC. Betancourt, together with Colombian pop star Juanes, will head the march held in Paris. Shakira will hold a concert on the Colombian border with Peru and Brazil.

news source : http://colombiareports.com/

Shakira leads demo for hostages' release

BOGOTA: Pop star Shakira led nationwide demonstrations in her native Colombia yesterday demanding the liberation of hundreds of hostages held by rebels in the jungle for years.

Colombian ex-hostage Ingrid Betancourt staged a concert in Paris as part of the rallies. "No more hostages!" Betancourt chanted as she addressed a crowd of several thousand people who came to watch more than 30 artists perform in a square across the river Seine from the Eiffel Tower. Colombian star Juanes, Spain's Miguel Bose, and French artists Renan Luce and Michel Delpech were also present.

Stolen Picasso recovered

SAO PAULO: Brazilian police recovered a Picasso engraving stolen during a brazen daytime heist from a Sao Paulo museum last month. One of the suspected robbers was arrested on Friday.

news sorce : http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/

Live Nation Follows Shakira '360 Deal' With Nickelback Signing

Colombian pop star Shakira to a reported $70-$100 million "360 deal," concert promotion giant Live Nation (NYSE: LYV) announced on Tuesday that it signed a new multi-faceted contract with Canadian rock band Nickelback. Under the deal, financial details of which were not disclosed, Live Nation acquired a vast array of rights for the band, including three touring and album cycles, tour sponsorship, merchandise, VIP/travel packages, secondary ticketing, clothing, licensing, non-tour sponsorship and endorsements, DVD and broadcast rights, fan club, website and literary rights.

Previously signed to EMI in Canada and Warner Music/Atlantic/Roadrunner Records in the rest of the world, Nickelback has sold more than 26 million albums worldwide. The band's last tour of North America and Australia, in 2006-2007, sold more than 1.5 million tickets and grossed in excess of $67 million. "This deal with Nickelback will enable us to fully capitalize on our vertically integrated platform to connect the band with their fans, monetizing our unparalleled reach to drive revenues and increase overall margins," said Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino. "This partnership is structured to increase our revenue and cash flow potential significantly, while reducing our risk profile. This investment is cross collateralized, spread over multiple years and comprises multiple business opportunities."

news source : http://www.dmwmedia.com/

To Sing Like Shakira, Press '1' Now

ScienceDaily (July 2, 2008) — Vibrato -- the pulsating change of pitch in a singer’s voice -- is an important aspect of a singer’s expression, used extensively by both classical opera singers and pop stars likeShakira. Usually, the quality of a vibrato can only be judged subjectively by voice experts. Until now, that is. A research group from Tel Aviv University has successfully managed to train a computer to rate vibrato quality, and has created an application based on biofeedback to help singers improve their technique. Your computer can now be a singing coach. The invention was recently showcased at an international competition in Istanbul, where it won first prize at the International Cultural and Academic Meeting of Engineering Students. Researcher Noam Amir, a senior lecturer from the Department of Communication Disorders at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, says the tool might not help record producers find the next great pop music sensation. But it could teach singers how to mimicShakira’s signature vibrato.

Good Singing Is Not Subjective

Vibrato is a musical effect than can be used when a musician sings or plays an instrument. It adds expression to a song and is created by a steady pulsating change of pitch, characterized by the amount of variation and the speed at which the pitch is varied. TAU’s application can teach singers how to mimic the vibrato qualities most attractive to the human ear. But mastering vibrato is no guarantee for an American Idol appearance. “Vibrato is just one aspect of a singer’s impact,” says Amir, an expert in the ways that emotions impact speech. “Singers need to arouse an emotional response, and that is a complicated task.”

Music, By the Numbers

Three years ago, Amir and his colleagues decided that they would look for an objective, numerical assessment of vibrato quality. New vocal students usually don’t have good control of their vibrato, explains Amir. “Their vibrato is erratic and hard to judge subjectively, and it’s hard to find to a precise measure for this. We wanted to find a way to emulate a human expert in a computer program.” Amir’s team input into their computer many recordings by students singing vibrato and had their vibrato judged by human teachers. Using hundreds of vocal students and expert judges, the team was able to use mathematical measurements to correlate vibrato styles to their quality as judged by the teachers.

The computer was then able to rate the vibrato quality of new voices on its own, producing ratings similar to those given by the expert vocal teachers. In effect, a machine had “learned” how to judge the quality of an individual singer’s vibrato. The researchers then added a biofeedback loop and a monitor so that singers could see and augment their vibrato in real time.

news source : http://www.sciencedaily.com/