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It used to be 20 years ago that every function on a computer was assigned to its own separate chip. The main motherboard was a mess of dozens of little chips, one for each function. These days though, they've gathered everything and squeezed them into just two chips – they call them chipsets. You could say that much the same thing has happened to drums. It used to be that drum players would play drums one of the time. If you needed five different kinds of drums for the musical piece, you had five drummers come in, each with his own drum. They probably decided at some point that since there was only so much performance space on a stage, getting everything together into a drum set and getting the drummer to take care of it all single-handedly, would be good idea.

In popular music today, the modern drum set – the familiar array of a few drums on top and a big on-its-edge drum operated by foot at the bottom – is a familiar sight. In case you never took the time to see what each one did, here's your primer.

There are two parts to the drum that get the most attention – the kick drum and the cymbals. The kick drum is the big round on-its-edge drum that occupies most of the bottom of the drum set. You'll know which one it is by the way manufacturers usually choose to put write their name with a splash on that big advertising space.

If Michael Jackson was only starting out today, he'd be nothing more than a hundred thousandaire. Writing a hit song doesn't pay as much as it used to. Why, you ask? It's not just because people keep stealing music with their illegal downloads. It's also because there are lots of free music listening websites out there that are legal that allow you to listen all you want without paying.

Consider Pandora, one of the best free music listening websites on the web. Basically it's a radio station website. This isn't a place you go to, to pick what you want to listen to. But there's a way to customize your listening experience the way almost no other website allows you. Pandora has access to the music genome project. They use complex algorithms to look at the music you already like, and they recommend you songs that you might like they haven't heard of before.

So if you like Michael Jackson, Pandora might also recommend you George Michael and Justin Timberlake (not those artists, really, but unknown artists who make music like Michael Jackson). On Pandora, you can listen to 40 hours of free music every month (which should be enough, because do you really have more than 80 minutes to give to music listening a day?). If you really want unlimited listening, it'll take $35 a year for fully unlimited listening. The free listening comes with advertising, of course, but that's small price to pay for free.

I am a huge classical music fan, and one of my favorite composers is Johann Sebastian Bach. While I listen to dozens of composers on a weekly basis, it is Bach music that I find helps me to clear my mind and relax when I am really stressed out.

Of all of the classical music composers I have listened to in my life, I would have to say that I first fell in love with Bach. I have listened to Bach music since I was eight years old, when I first heard “Air on a G String.” It was very special for me, because it was also a piece that my grandmother loved and introduced me to, and I have been able to pass it on to my children. Whenever I feel nostalgic, I play this song and it feels as though I have to brush the memories away from my face.

On my first trip to New Orleans, I was looking through the classical music section at a local music store. I really had no idea what to expect, because New Orleans is not exactly known for classical music. I came across a collection of the Brandenburg Concertos and bought them. I have to say that I really love this collection and have never really heard a better version. Whenever I want to introduce a friend to Bach music, I always start with this collection and the second one in particular, as it is always a popular choice.

Time and again, music educators come upon one inescapable conclusion to do with how to learn keyboard or any music instrument for that matter – find a way that doesn't require a learner to become fluent with reading music.

Music notation is somehow unfriendly-looking to most people. It kind of looks like those strange symbols they use in higher math. It's hard to think of math or music symbols and not feel alienated. And so, music teachers and manufacturers have thought of all kinds of alternative ways to use.

The thing is, most instruments don't really lend themselves to an alternative way. It's hard to think of a way to teach the violin without any music reading skills at all, for instance. The keyboard though, is an entirely different matter. It’s not expensive at all to buy a lighted keyboard for instance – where the keys that you need to play to go along in a song, light up to show you – kind of like the words onscreen in a karaoke song. But this happens to be kind of a limiting way to go about it.

Until now, the moment 23:15 on 8-Dec-1980 is still a red obsession with Beatles devotees around the world. 20 years in prison for killer Mark David Chapman, but with The Beatles devotees, his death was from that moment.

After 31 years, Peace has not a chance

The fireplace in the Korean War, the war escalation in Vietnam, student protests in the French, the death of Kennedy and Pastor Luther King ... - the social changes that have created a John Lennon with long hair, lazy to shave beards and colored glasses for posterity worship, it is as a symbol of peace.