Home Entertainment At Its Best--Your Private Home TheaterWritten by Larry Denton
You LOVE watching movies, but don't always have time to roundup family and journey to local theater, or can afford to shell out money for cost of tickets and criminally priced greasy popcorn. So, you often resort to renting videos from your local store, but watching them on your 27" TV just doesn't quite have same impact. Not only is picture quality awful, sound is even worse through those 4" speakers in your TV set. You've been hearing a lot about "Home Theater", and both your neighbor and your brother-in-law have huge, new, big screen TVs, powerful surround receivers, and gargantuan speakers to shake entire house. The kids are begging for a similar system, but your spouse is saying "no" to remodeling front room for a wall full of techno gadgets. So, how do you keep everyone happy? Perhaps answer lies in a home theater system. Whether you are considering a home theater-in-a-box for $200, or are adding a entire room to house your $25,000 state-of-the-art equipment, there are hundreds of options and choices in design and construction of your ultimate home cinema. Home theater design has reached record levels of stylishness and complexity. Having a private theater used to mean you were either a wealthy celebrity, CEO of Paramount Pictures, or president of United States. Today, however, with advanced audio-visual technology (think DVD players, powerful new speakers, and digital high-definition projectors) nearly everyone can afford a stylish home entertainment environment that can rival your local movie theater. The term "home theater" refers to any combination of audio and visual equipment in your home that attempts to duplicate or surpass sights and sounds of movie theater experience. This definition can vary widely, however. On high end, you can have a custom designed (and built) home theater that costs thousands of dollars--complete with high end video projector, state-of-the-art DVD player(s), separate amplifiers for each channel, dozens of in-ceiling speakers and some subwoofers that can shake paint off your neighbor's garage. In reality, home theater in most households does not consist of major room re-modeling, expensive custom installations, or a lot of money. It can be as simple as a 27 inch TV, a basic DVD player, inexpensive stereo receiver and a set of modest speakers. You can have a home theater in just about any room of house, a small apartment, office or even a dorm room. The options are nearly endless and choices are yours!
| | How To Play The ViolinWritten by Helen Baxter
This article gives essential basics for how to play violin. Generally violins are quite commonly available instruments and it is reasonably easy to rent or buy a violin. Children may need smaller violins (from an eighth, quarter, half, three-quarters, seven-eighths up to full size) to accommodate smaller hands if they are going to be learning over an extended period. The Basics The bow is held in right hand with thumb bent underneath frog to support it and other hands loosely gripping wood. There are many different holds and it its important to find one that suits your hand size and strength. The violin is held with left hand, with chin on chin rest supporting most of weight, and fingers loosely coiled around neck of violin. The thumb should be relaxed but firm. The left elbow should be curved under violin. The violin should be roughly horizontal and right arm held high. The main methods of playing violin are bowed and pizzicato. Bowed The bow should be drawn swiftly and smoothly across strings, about halfway between fingerboard and bridge. A down bow starts with hand close to strings pulling across string from left to right, and is generally used on strong beats. An up bow goes opposite way, right to left, and is used on weaker beats and upbeats. However with practice down bows and up bows should be fairly difficult to distinguish. Slurs in music indicate that all notes within a slur should be played in same bow movement. To play loud notes, bow is pressed down harder on string using index finger or bow is drawn across string faster. To play more quietly use less pressure or draw bow across string slower. In classical music bowed music is indicated by Italian term arco.
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