What is perfect pitch? This is a phenomenon that a few people are born with and millions more wish they had. It is the marvelous ability to simply hear a note (or chord) played and be able to recognize and name that note (or chord). I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that this trait is a really big asset to have if you’re in the musical performing business or even if you’d just like to go out with friends and sing karaoke without seeing other people plug their ears in pain when it’s your turn to sing!

So, we know now the answer to, “What is perfect pitch?, here are a few facts about it you might find interesting:

• There are two types - Relative pitch is when you can tell where different notes are in relationship to each other. Perfect or Absolute pitch is when you can hear a note and then name it. Most people have relative pitch as opposed to absolute. Either quality is wonderful to have for the hopeful performer.
• Non-musical people can have it - There was a new test developed recently that checked people to see if they had the ability to recognize pitch or keys and they discovered that many of the people found to possess this ability had no musical training at all. It seems that tests in the past had been made only for people with musical training. This new test, based on the process that babies use to recognize words or phrases, made it possible to test anyone.
• Absolute pitch can be learned - That’s right! It use to be thought (and is still thought by many) that it’s an inherent trait. That is not true. It’s a skill like anything else and can be developed as such.

So, what is perfect pitch? It’s a necessary talent you need to have if you want to perform music well.

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There is a lot of interest in a new, amazing activity known as “Street Hypnosis”. In street hypnosis, a skilled hypnotist puts a person into a rapid trance and has him or her perform fun activities for the amusement of all passersby. This new activity is really quite old. Street hypnosis has actually been around since the eighteenth century when street performers used Mesmerism to entertain the crowds. Some would say that hypnosis would have died out hundreds of years ago if performers hadn’t kept the art alive by doing street performances. So how does one get started in this exciting activity?

The first step is to learn basic hypnosis. One of the easiest and most effective inductions is the “Dave Elman Three-Minute Routine”, as described in his book, “Hypnotherapy”. This induction is so easy to use, that all you need is a willing volunteer and the ability to read aloud. As the name implies, this induction takes only three minutes to produce a somnambulistic trance in most willing volunteers. Practicing this basic induction is best done with a willing volunteer in a private, quiet place. Hypnosis can still occur on a noisy street, but it is best learned in a more conducive atmosphere. Also, a family member or close friend may not always be your best subject. This person knows you very well and may have a difficult time believing that you can induce hypnosis. Their belief in your ability is essential in producing trance. For this reason, an acquaintance is often a better subject than someone close to you.

The next step in the process is known as “deepening”, and this is done to stabilize the trance state and ensure the subject will remain in hypnosis. A simple deepening technique can be counting slowly from ten down to one, saying each number as the subject exhales. After trance induction and deepening, you can begin the demonstration.

Safety is the most important part of street hypnosis. Always protect your subject from injury, and never ask a subject to do something that could possibly harm her. The rule of thumb is, if the demonstration could possibly injure this person if she were not in hypnosis, it can still do the same damage when she is in hypnosis.

Most street hypnotists use even faster inductions known as instants and “super rapids”, and these will be the topic of future articles. The “three-minute routine” is a very reliable way to produce hypnosis and is especially suited to subjects who might not tolerate the faster inductions. As always, carefully read the safety chapter of any hypnosis book you study. Knowing how to safely induce and emerge a subject will give you a good base from which to build your performance.

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If you’ve decided to enhance your project by adding voice over, and you’re currently searching for a voice talent to record your script, you’ve probably gotten some interesting price quotes.

Talents offer various pricing schemes, but they all have one thing in common: they are not cheap.

Well, why shouldn’t a voice over be cheap? All the talent has to do is talk, right?

Not quite.

Voice over is a craft, and it requires certain skills that often must be learned in a class. In addition, a talent invests in specialized recording equipment. Training and equipment don’t come cheap.

Aside from the voice talent’s initial investment in their trade, each project - even a project that only requires a few minutes of recorded text - involves extensive work:

• The talent examines the script, searching for words or sentences that require further clarification. If such exist, then they must contact you.
  
• The voice talent warms up, checks the sound “level”, and records the script.
  
• The talent then edits the audio file, removing errors, breaths (if desired), and random sounds; adjusting the volume as needed; normalizing the file; converting the file to the desired format; and saving the file with the desired file name.
  As a single voice over may be recorded in multiple segments (files), it may be necessary to follow this procedure several times, once for each recorded segment.
  
  
• The voice talent then zips and sends you the finished work via FTP or email.
  
• If recuts are required, the talent must re-record the necessary parts of the script and resend them.
  
• The voice talent must also spend time discussing your project and payment terms with you.
  

In short, when you pay for a voice over, you’re paying not only for a skilled voice and quality equipment — you’re paying for quite a lot of work!

In fact, a 10 minute voice over will take a bare minimum of 40 minutes to record and edit (not including organizational work, time spent communicating with you, and potential recuts).

Now that you know what you’re paying for, those price quotes should make more sense.

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Anna Pavlova (1881 - 1931) was a Russian super star who put her life and soul into the interpretation of classical ballet. She is remembered still for the emotions she was able to communicate through her dancing.

Anna danced virtually all of her life. As a small child, she danced in the fields near her home with the butterflies, able to feel as she thought a butterfly might feel. When Anna was eight years old, her mother took her to see Tchaikovsky’s “Sleeping Beauty” at the Mariansky Theatre in St. Petersburg. The dance moved Anna so much, she decided to devote her own life to ballet and was, two years later, enrolled in the Imperial School of Ballet in the Czars’ Court in St. Petersburg.

Pavlova the ballerina emerged at the age of 22. At this time she began the ritual of performing, always performing; something she would continue to do until she died. Quite simply, her life was the dance, the dance her life. When she was not actually on the stage dancing, she would be mentally dancing and preparing herself for the physical dance. Even while talking to people her fingers would be flitting like butterflies.

It was not unusual for Pavlova to give nine or ten performances each week, and to practice for each performance at every ” spare” moment. She was a perfectionist, almost fanatical in her dancing. “Art is not a flower of leisure, or a relaxation. Art means work. It is useless to dabble in beauty. One must be utterly devoted to beauty, with every nerve of the body.” Pavlova truly lived these, her own words.

If her critics are to be believed, Pavlova was a ballet genius. Walford Hyden, her former musical director, said, “In her profession she was as technically perfect as it is possible for a human being to become.”

Pavlova’s technique and philosophy were one. “She was not a theoretical thinker. She philosophized with her feet; and with every line and curve of her body she showed beauty to the world in a practical, physical demonstration,” Hyden noted. Valerian Svetloff, a ballet critic, on seeing Pavlova dance had this to say: “Her ‘pirhouettes’ are absolutely ‘clear’ and her ‘pizzicati sur les pointes’ irreprovably elegant… Her ‘fermatas sur pointe’ are completely clear; they astonish and charm at the same time. The same can be said of her balance which reaches the almost impossible. This perfect technique does not in any way detract from the lightness and ethereality of her dancing, even when she executes the most complicated movements… With her all seems natural, and easy; no shadow of an effort anywhere. Never does she lose her elegance, her simplicity or her lightness… Even the most difficult of her variations never seems to cost her the slightest effort… Not only does she dance, but dancing she conjures up images which pass one by one before the eyes of the public. She not only executes her dances, she creates them.”

The use of her hands was one of Pavlova’s most remarkable accomplishments. She could express any emotion through the tiniest flits of her fingers. Also, she could do the “arabesque” pose, with one leg raised and pointed behind her, extremely well.

Anna Pavlova strove to dance fantastically to please her audience. “Her versatility was amazing,” said Hyden. “She could change from the tragedy of ‘Giselle’ or the poignant characterization of ‘Amarilla,’ to play a few minutes later the part of the skittish and mischievous daughter in ‘La Fille Mal Gardee,’ enrapturing the audience and the ballet company alike with her delicious pranks and coquettish ways. When one considers that she would be Greek in ‘Dionysius,’ Egyptian in ‘The Egyptian Mummy,’ a Hindu Goddess in ‘Krishna and Rada,’ the Spirit of Life in ‘Les Preludes,’ a Perisan Princess in ‘The Three Palms,’ a classical ballet-dancer in ‘Chopiniana,’ the magic bird in ‘Russian Folk Lore,’ a fairy doll in ‘The Fairy Doll,’ a debutante in ‘Invitation to the Valse,’ - to name at random but a few of her many ballets - one realizes to what extent she had schooled herself in adaptability. No other dancer could hope to portray so many dramatic characters in one repertoire, actually living the parts as she did.”

Pavlova never failed in the twenty years she danced to please an audience through her ballet.

Dance historian and critic, Cyril Beaumont once wrote, “She was first and last a great individual artist, a complete unity in herself, who had the supreme power of not only being able to breathe into a dance her own flame-like spirit, but no matter how many times she had danced it before, to invest it with an air of spontaneity, novelty and freshness, as though it had but just been born. She was something more than a great dancer. She made her features speak and her body sing.”

She died of pneumonia in 1931, three weeks prior to her 50th birthday. About a month earlier she had been onboard a train that had a minor derailment. She walked the length of the train in only pajamas and a light scarf to investigate the situation; many believe this compromised her health and caused the pneumonia. On her death bed, she reportedly said, “If I can’t dance then I’d rather be dead.” On the day of what would have been her next performance, the show went on as scheduled with a single spotlight trained on the empty space on the stage where she would have been.

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