Music helps teacher speak again after brain surgery

Allison Woyiwada is a music teacher from Ottawa, Canada, and had literally taught thousands of elementary school students in her 28 year career. In 2012, she was diagnosed with an brain aneurysm which required a very delicate and risky surgery. When she emerged from the surgery, her family quickly realized that she had lost most of her motor and speech skills. Two months after the surgery she basically had the skills of toddler, unable to even put two words together.

Then a miracle happened. Her daughter was pushing Allison in a wheelchair through a hospital waiting area and saw a piano. She wheeled her mom up to the piano and then something amazing happened. Allison started to play the piano, and not just any song. She began to play the Beethoven Sonata sheet music that was sitting on the piano at the time. Her daughter and everyone around was absolutely astonished. Allison soon began working with a music therapist who used a method called "melodic intonation therapy" to help bring back her speech. Today, just two years after the surgery, Allison is almost fully recovered and is once again teaching music and even sings in French, German and English.

Stories like Allison's never cease to amaze me. Once again, musical therapy has proven to be a sometimes miraculously tool when someone is up against something seemingly insurmountable. For the full account of Allison's amazing journey and recovery thanks to music, I invite you to check out the newly published book entitled "Allison's Brain" by author Robert McMechan found on Amazon.com right here: Allison's Brain - Amazon.com

I first learned of this story through CBCNews and CBC Radio in Ottawa. Here's a link to the CBC Radio story in Ottawa by Anna Maria Tremonte Allisons Brain Documentary

That's our inspirational story of the week, and I hope you liked it as much as we did. We'll be back tomorrow night with a new post, and if you've got an inspirational story to share please let us know about it. Thanks and goooood nite all!

Music, Love & Laughter,

Vincent James @ LoveSongs.com

Alex B hits 1 Million YouTube views w/"Will You Be My Girl"

Philadelphia's very own up and coming pop star Alex B recently hit 1 Million YouTube views for his song and video "Will You Be My Girl". We recently featured Alex as our Indie Love Songs artist of the month with his groovin' uptempo Pop tune "Rollercoaster". We're so happy to see Alex cross the 1 Million mark for "Will You Be My Girl" that we're giving him an extra month of fame here at LoveSongs.com.

Currently only 14 years old, Alex performs like he has been performing on stage for years and years. He is so amazingly comfortable entertaining the crowd young and old and its obvious he's having the time of his life enjoying the experience. Add to that Alex's growing collection of great original pop songs, you now have a recipe for a big star in the making. Alex has already performed at some of the top venues in the Philadelphia area including the TLA downtown, World Café Live in Wilmington and multiple Xfinity Live events. It's only a matter of time before this young pop star bubbles up onto the national scene.

Check out Alex's "Rollercoaster" now playing on the front page of www.LoveSongs.com till the end of June.

If you haven't already heard "Will You Be My Girl" here's the Official video that crossed the one million mark:

Yet another great pop tune by Alex is "This Thing Called Love" and here's the video:

We will definitely be keeping an eye on Alex's progress towards the national stage and wish him the very best on his journey.

Apple/Beats Music jumping into the Music Streaming World

Apple computers recent acquisition of Beats means that it will be jumping headfirst into the music streaming business competing with Pandora, Spotify and the legions of others. Amazon will also be jumping into the bigger music streaming pool soon as they announced they'll be offering a new Music Streaming service to their millions of Amazon Prime members. All these developments definitely make an interesting story-line for what options we as music lovers have to hear our music (anyone still missing our vinyl records??). Here's a recent article on how the Apple Beats combination might fit into the streaming scene: How Does Apple Beats Shake Up Music Streaming?

Do you currently use Pandora, Spotify or Beats music streaming and if you do how do you like it so far? How would you like to see these services change to better enhance our musical listening experience? Leave a comment here and let us know.

That's all for today folks - be back later this weekend with another post - until then have mucho fun tooooday!

Peace, Love & Laughter,

~Vincent James @ LoveSongs.com

APRIL is Here & Lets Keep the MUSIC ALIVE!

After a winter that just wouldn't quit - 15+ snowfalls in our area and a total of over 5 feet of the white stuff - the month of April is FINALLY here Hallelujah! I hope that all is well in your world now that spring has finally, actually sprung :) With spring comes new beginnings and the start of a new mission for us here at LoveSongs.com .

Will anyone buy music 10 years from now??

Does anyone else notice that more and more, music is becoming devalued in our society? Over the last 10 years we have switched from buying physical CDs to instead buying MP3s online via Itunes, Amazon, etc (and sometimes just downloading songs for free on other sites). What's funny is that now that the increase in online music purchases has finally evened out the loss in physical CD purchases, we're starting to see the online purchases are also beginning to go down. That's right, our newest technology friend is music streaming (think Pandora, Spotify, Beats and at least a dozen others).

Billboard Magazine - Digital music purchases shrunk in 2013

So now we're firmly entering the music streaming world with YouTube, Pandora, Spotify and IHeartRadio leading the way. While these services do all compensate songwriters and artists, its becoming apparent that the money available is greatly reduced compared to royalty rates on physical CDs and actual song downloads. I'm sure this doesn't have a huge impact on superstar artists like Bruno Mars, Miley Cyrus and perhaps a few dozen others each year. But for the 10s of thousands of other songwriters and artists that used to count on music to earn their living it may be another story.

We all inherently know the value of music in our lives and many of us also know the value music brings to education and numerous types of therapy (it's that right brain thing). Imagine if we reached a point where no new music was being created, for the simple fact that there was no longer a business model that supported musicians and songwriters. Now this is far-fetched of course, since there will always be musicians and songwriters creating art. However its not such a stretch to imagine the quality of new music going down the tubes (some would argue that it would be continuing trend already in progress. With less new quality music, fewer and fewer kids would take up learning instruments compounding the current issue of music programs being cut from schools.

I don't know what the answer to all this is, but I do see a problem and have to say something about it. Music has always been very important in my life whether I was earning money playing & writing music or not. I want to live to see the importance and value of music re-established in our youth, in our schools, and in our culture. Here at LoveSongs.com, we will be looking for ways to help share this message and for ways to recognize the value music is giving to all of us.

Let Her Go - Passenger

Okay now off my soapbox and back to the music :) One of my favorite songs playing this month is "Let Her Go" by Michael David Rosenberg, better known as Passenger - Apparently Michael fronted the UK band Passenger from 2003-2009 and when the band broke up he kept on using the name. "Let her go" is a really beautiful mid-tempo tune that reminds us to always appreciate what we have while we have it instead of waiting till...

"Well you only need the light when it's burning low
Only miss the sun when it starts to snow
Only know you love her when you let her go...and you let her go"

That's all for today folks - look for a new posting shortly and also news about new & updated features launching at LoveSongs.com this week!

Music, Love & Laughter,

~Vincent James @ LoveSongs.com