from http://www.ielanguages.com/linguist.html

Linguistics 101: An Introduction to the Study of Language

Phonetics and Phonology

There are three types of the study of the sounds of language. Acoustic Phonetics is the study of the physical properties of sounds. Auditory Phonetics is the study of the way listeners perceive sounds. Articulatory Phonetics (the type this lesson is concerned with) is the study of how the vocal tracts produce the sounds.

The orthography (spelling) of words in misleading, especially in English. One sound can be represented by several different combinations of letters. For example, all of the following words contain the same vowel sound: he, believe, Lee, Caesar, key, amoeba, loudly, machine, people, and sea. The following poem illustrates this fact of English humorously (note the pronunciation of the bold words):

I take it you already know,
of tough and bough and cough and dough?
Some may stumble, but not you,
on hiccough, thorough, slough, and through?
So now you are ready, perhaps,
to learn of less familiar traps?
Beware of heard, a dreadful word,
that looks like beard, but sounds like bird.
And dead, it’s said like bed, not bead;
for goodness’ sake, don’t call it deed!
Watch out for meat and great and threat.
(They rhyme with suite and straight and debt.)
A moth is not a moth in mother,
nor both in bother, broth in brother.
And here is not a match for there,
nor dear and fear, for bear and pear.
And then there’s dose and rose and lose -
just look them up – and goose and choose
And cork and work and card and ward
and font and front and word and sword
And do and go, then thwart and cart,
come, come! I’ve hardly made a start.
A dreadful language? Why man alive!
I’ve learned to talk it when I was five.
And yet to write it, the more I tried,
I hadn’t learned it at fifty-five.

- Author Unknown

The Straight Dope – Fighting Ignorance Since 1973
http://www.straightdope.com/
A Straight Dope Classic
from Cecil’s Storehouse of Human Knowledge
Will saving pull tabs earn free kidney dialysis
for needy patients?

May 8, 1992
Dear Cecil:
A little over a year ago I was doing my coachly duty at a high school speech tournament when a fellow coach announced that she wanted the pull tabs from our empty soda cans. She said she was saving them for a woman who could turn them in to get cancer treatment. It sounded like an urban legend to me but I kept my mouth shut, since it’s uncool to dis one’s fellow coaches.

Not surprisingly, the story had legs. At the start of this school year my students started mentioning that we should be saving pull tabs to help someone get kidney dialysis. As it is OK to dis one’s students, I told them they were nuts and pressed them for evidence. None could name the generous hospital or even the needy kidney patient. I hoped I’d put an end to this goofy tale.

Sadly, the story has now appeared again, with the added authority endowed by the school public address system. Every day an announcement is read urging students to place their pull tabs in collection containers so they can be given to some poor nameless kidney patient. The kids are now convinced there must be some substance to this and my insistence to the contrary is losing credibility. Please, Cecil, find out what you can and restore my reputation.

— Lexy A. Green, Oakland, California

Cecil replies:
Don’t get your hopes up, teach. So-called redemption rumors have been floating around at least since the 1950s and probably earlier. Before kidney dialysis came along you typically were told to save cigarette packs to buy somebody time on an iron lung — one of your classic sick bargains.

Most such stories were false, but not all. For example, from 1948 till 1979 the makers of Vets Dog Food would make a one to two cent donation to an outfit that trained seeing-eye dogs for each Vets label redeemed. Today Heinz baby food labels can be redeemed to benefit children’s hospitals and Campbell’s soup labels can be used to buy school equipment.

The kidney dialysis legend may have started with the Betty Crocker coupon program run by General Mills. Most folks redeemed the coupons for kitchen utensils and stuff, but beginning in 1969 General Mills OK’d several fundraising campaigns in which coupons were used to purchase some 300 kidney dialysis machines. The company soon stopped dialysis drives due partly to complaints that it was “trading in human misery.”

But the idea evidently survived in the public mind, with one twist: the medium of exchange was somehow switched to pop can pull tabs.

The story was so persistent that in 1988 the kidney and pop can people decided to play along. Today if you walk into a Reynolds Aluminum recycling center with a pile of pull tabs and say they’re for “kidney dialysis,” the staff will nod knowingly, exchange winks, and send a donation equal to the salvage value of the aluminum to the National Kidney Foundation. However, the donation will not pay for dialysis, because there’s no need. Medicare picks up 80 percent of the cost of dialysis and state programs or private insurance typically cover the rest. Instead, the donation goes to kidney research, education/prevention programs, and patient services.

So saving pull tabs isn’t a complete waste of time. But let’s make one thing clear: there’s nothing special about pull tabs. You’d save yourself a heap o’ trouble and make a lot more money if you recycled the whole can. The Reynolds and kidney foundation people have tried to get that point across with a poster showing a red “Ghostbusters”-type slash through a cartoon of someone trying to detach a pull tab from a can. The headline says, “Keep Tabs on Your Cans.”

But the public hasn’t gotten the message. Supposedly responsible people — e.g., the honchoes at your school — will organize pull tab collection drives without ever bothering to get the whole story. Urban legends expert Jan Brunvand reports that in 1989 a Minneapolis VFW post organized a pull tab collection drive for the local Ronald McDonald House. When Brunvand asked the organizers why they didn’t tell people to save whole cans, they lamely replied that there were “hygiene problems” and that people liked mailing in the tabs, even though the postage often exceeded the value of the aluminum. In other words, it’s not important to DO good as long as people FEEL good. Excuse me while I grind my teeth.

— Cecil Adams

Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.

If you’re intelligent, you’re admired. If wealthy, you’re envied. If powerful, you’re feared. But if blessed with a good heart, you’re remembered.

Opposing a socialist agenda does not make you a racist. It makes you an American.

If you are afraid to speak against tyranny, then you already are a slave.

Give, but don’t allow yourself to be used. Love, but don’t allow your heart to be abused. Trust, but don’t be naive. Listen to others, but never lose your own voice.

The producers of zero percent of the things want to regulate 100 percent of the things others produce.

People ask why it is so hard to trust others when the real question is why is it so hard for people to tell the truth.

It’s only with the heart that one can see rightly.

The height of hypocrisy is to protest free enterprise and capitalism then invest your savings in a Wells Fargo Bank.

Some people think I say inappropriate things. I prefer to think of it as radical honesty.

Five simple rules for happiness:

Free your heart from hatred.

Free your mind from worries.

Live simply.

Give more.

Expect less.

Never ignore a person who loves you, cares for you and misses you. Because one day you might awaken from your sleep and realize you lost the moon while counting the stars.

When life gets too hard to stand, kneel.

Unless you are willing to push, fail miserably and push even harder, success won’t happen.

Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you’ll likely look back and realize they actually were the biggest things.

It’s in the toughest times that we discover the depth of our strengths.

A friend is someone who understands your past, believes in your future and accepts you today just the way you are.

Don’t try to understand everything because sometimes it’s not meant to be understood but to be accepted.

Never condemn someone based on a little something someone told you. There is always a lot more to the story.

Don’t live in the past thinking about mistakes or changes you made. Think of your life as a book. Move forward, close one chapter as you open another. Learn from your mistakes. Focus on your future, not on the past.

Judging someone else does not define who they are, but it does define who you are.

Only trust sees three things inside you: The sorrow behind your smile, the love behind your anger and the reason behind your silence.

Pilgrims didn’t come to America to get free health care. They came to get free.

People are made to be loved and things are made to be used. The confusion in this world arises because people are used and things are loved.

Never expect. Never assume. Never ask. Never demand. Just let it be because if it is meant to be, it will happen the way you want things to be.

The richest person isn’t the one with the most material wealth, but the one who needs it the least.

Don’t do something permanently stupid just because you’re temporarily upset.

The more anger toward the past you carry in your heart, the less capable you are of loving in the moment.

amen, Mike!

more from 12-2711

More Facebook wisdom

Mike Masterson

Several weeks back, I wrote about the quotations I see posted across Facebook every day.

That particular column brought a surprising number of positive responses. Some even said they planned on clipping and saving it, or mailing it to others.

So in this slow news period, here’s another offering of nuggets of wisdom as a New Year’s gift to each of you in hopes at least one might ring your bell.

Perhaps they also will prompt a bit of reflection and personal resolution.

I only wish I could remember and apply all of them in my own life.

A good life is when you assume nothing, do more, need less, smile often, dream big, laugh a lot and realize how blessed you truly are.

People will change but forget to tell each other. If you do it right, no one remembers, and when you do it wrong, no one forgets. A true friend sees the pain in your eyes while others are believing your smile. We should measure welfare’s success by how many people leave welfare, not by how many are added (especially to inflate a dependent voter base). You can’t make someone love you. All you can do is be someone who can be loved. The rest always is left to them. In three words and eight letters we can summarize everything we know about life: It goes on. The greatest barrier to success is fear of failure. Words easily lie, but actions tell you the truth. It’s most easy to judge the character of a person by how well he or she treats those who can do nothing for them. Blowing out another’s candle will never make you shine brighter. Only two others can really tell you the truth about yourself: An enemy who loses his temper and a friend who loves you dearly.

Don’t consider changing yourself to please someone else. However, they should be impressed that you don’t change to please others.

Sometimes you’ve just got to become your own hero because sometimes the people you can’t imagine living without can live without you. There is a story behind every person. There is a reason they are the way they are, so stop judging.

No matter how much I care, some people just don’t care back and it’s not the end of the world.

Your present circumstances don’t direct where you can go. They only direct where you begin.

Never look down on someone unless you are helping them up.

Respect the people who find time for you in their busy schedule. But love people who never look at their schedule when you need them. Everything happens for a reason. All things happen in God’s time, not ours. Remember that as one door closes, another will open.

To wish you were another is to waste the person you are.

Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong of spirit.

Always look first for hidden agendas when you see common sense is abandoned. Close your cuts, clear your heart, pray and let it go. When the heart and mind become confused, listen only to the heart. The mind knows everything. The heart knows only you. I’m responsible for what I say, not what you understand. If God brings you to it, he will pull you through it. Avoid criticism by saying, doing and being nothing. Every day we are given is a gift. And we should treat it that way. Only small minds desire to build cages for people. Love is giving everyone the freedom to be what they are, not what you want them to be. The more you trust your intuition, the more empowered you become and the stronger and happier you become. The most powerful relationship one ever will have is the relationship with one’s self.

Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

We too often discard genuine wisdom because we believe it comes from the “wrong” person or source, or because we happen to disagree with what’s presented and therefore with truth itself. You also are free to deny gravity until you leap headlong from a cliff in your disbelief.

And finally, all you who thrive on adding many others to your Facebook page: “He who hath many ‘friends’ hath none.”

This is from an article with the headline: Research suggests high fluid intake aids kidneys by ANAHAD O’CONNOR in the THE NEW YORK TIMES

The old saw about drinking eight glasses of water a day for overall health is widely considered a myth.

But research over the years has suggested that drinking extra water helps the kidneys clear sodium, urea and toxins from the body. And in the past year, two large studies found a lower risk of long-term kidney problems among people who drink more water and other fluids daily.

In a report published in the journal Nephrology in March, researchers at the University of Sydney in Australia and elsewhere followed more than 2,400 people older than 50. Those who drank the most fluids, about three liters (3.18 quarts) daily, had a “significantly lower risk” of chronic kidney disease than those who drank the least.

And in a study published last month in The Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, Canadian scientists followed 2,148 healthy men and women — average age 46 — for seven years. They looked at markers of kidney function and health and used urine volume to determine how much fluid the subjects drank daily. After controlling for diabetes, smoking, medication and other factors, they found that those who had the highest urine volume — in other words, those who drank the most fluids — were least susceptible to declines in kidney function.

The findings, the authors said, do not support “aggressive fluid loading,” which can cause side effects.

But they do provide evidence that moderately increased fluid intake, above two quarts daily, “may in fact benefit the kidney.”

“Believe it or not, there now does seem to be some merit and evidence to support the ‘myth’ that eight large glasses of fluid a day is good for your kidneys,” said Dr. William Clark, an author of the study and a nephrologist at the London Health Sciences Center in Ontario.

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We spend billions every year on over-the-counter health remedies for everything from canker sores to aching muscles, but in some cases there’s no need to shell out a lot of money to find relief. All you need to do is check your cupboards for some surprising home remedies.

The 10 we picked are cheap, easy to find, and there’s actual scientific proof that they work.

Because certain home remedies can interact with prescription medications, check with your doctor before trying something new.

1.    Honey.
Just one spoonful can help quiet a nighttime cough better than over-the-counter cough syrups or suppressants.

That’s what a Pennsylvania study of more than 100 children found. Study author Ian Paul, M.D., says honey can also help reduce coughs in older adults suffering from a cold.

Honey coats and soothes an irritated throat to help calm repeated coughing. “It is generally safe and can be used repeatedly as needed,” Paul says. He recommends two teaspoons per dose, but advises older adults to make sure their cough is because of a cold and not a more serious condition that may not respond to honey.

Also, honey does have a high sugar content, “which may be inappropriate for older adults with diabetes.”

2.    Liquid dish soap.
If you come into contact with poison ivy or poison oak, washing the affected area with liquid dish soap within two hours of contact may prevent you from getting an itching red rash. Arkansas dermatologist Adam Stibich wanted to see if liquid dish-washing soap, which is formulated to remove oil, would be a cost-effective way to get rid of the plant oil on poison ivy leaves that causes a rash when it gets on your skin.

Volunteer medical students rubbed poison ivy leaves on their forearms and then washed with dish-washing soap for 25 seconds before rinsing. The soap prevented a reaction in almost half the volunteers and reduced the inflammation in the rest by 56 percent.

In his study, Stibich used Dial dishwashing soap, but any brand will work.

3.    Tart cherry juice.
Drinking tart cherry juice can help prevent gout attacks, relieve muscle soreness after exercise, and possibly help with arthritis pain because of its natural anti-inflammatory proper ties.

Gout expert Naomi Schlesinger, M.D., says the juice seems to reduce the joint inflammation that gout causes. Schlesinger led a study that found patients who took a tablespoon of tart cherry juice concentrate twice a day for four months cut the frequency of their gout attacks in half.

More than a third remained gout attack-free. Other studies have shown that drinking tart cherry juice daily helps runners reduce muscle soreness and reduces inflammation in overweight patients.

Unlike its sweeter cousins, the Bing and black cherry, the tart cherry is bright red and higher in antioxidants.

4.    Baby shampoo.
A half-and-half solution of baby shampoo and warm water is a simple, effective way to clean eyelids that are itchy, red or crusty. The condition could be blepharitis, a common eye problem in older adults. It can cause scaling and crustiness along the base of the eyelashes.

Gently cleaning the eyelid with a baby shampoo wash helps get rid of oil and bacteria but won’t sting your eyes.

Try diluting a little baby shampoo with an equal amount of water twice a day, then gently rubbing the mixture with clean fingertips on the closed eyelid and along the eyelashes for one minute. Rinse well with water.

Philip Hagen, M.D., medical editor of the Mayo Clinic Book of Home Remedies, cautions that baby shampoo should only be used on the lid, and never on the surface of the eye.

5.   Menthol rub.
Applying mentholated ointments such as strong-smelling Vicks VapoRub has been shown to be a safe, cost-effective treatment for toenail fungus, often more effective than over-the-counter products.

A small study this year found that applying Vicks to the affected nails once daily helped 15 of 18 adults either cure or partially clear up their fungus.

Sally Stroud, professor of nursing at the Medical University of South Carolina, says Vicks is easy to apply and worth trying “before turning to more costly alternatives.”

Stroud also suggests first wiping the affected nails with a cotton ball soaked in white vinegar, then applying the VapoRub.

6.   Witch hazel.
Witch hazel is derived from the leaves and twigs of a flowering shrub. For more than a century, the clear, refined extract has been used as an astringent to help tighten the skin and relieve inflammation.

It is the main ingredient in commercial hemorrhoid pads, used to relieve mild itching and irritation, but you can do the same at home with pads you moisten with witch hazel, according to Hagen. For even more relief, use chilled witch hazel.

7.   Ginger.
Ginger can help reduce nausea and relieve motion sickness.

Some studies have shown that taking one gram of ginger an hour before surgery can reduce nausea and vomiting during the first 24 hours after surgery.

In addition, a large National Cancer Institute-funded study found that people undergoing chemotherapy who take as little as one-quarter of a teaspoon of ginger daily for three days before chemo cut their nausea by 40 percent.

The study found that a small amount of fresh or powdered ginger worked better than a larger dose, and that ginger taken with anti-vomiting drugs worked better to control nausea than drugs alone.

For older adults prone to motion sickness, Suzanna Zick of the University of Michigan recommends eating one or two pieces of crystallized ginger, available in most supermarkets, before traveling. She cautions that ginger extract capsules are much stronger and may actually cause stomach upset. “Don’t go above two grams of ginger,” she advises.

8.   Water.
Daily gargling with plain tap water can help cut the number of colds and respiratory infections you get, as well as relieve symptoms if you’re already sick.

A 2005 study of nearly 400 healthy volunteers ages 18 to 65 in Japan found that those who gargled three times a day with tap water had nearly 40 percent fewer respiratory infections during cold and flu season than did the control group. When the subjects did get sick, gargling reduced bronchial irritation, researchers reported.

Other studies also support gargling, whether with salt water or water with lemon and honey, as a safe, effective way to soothe and cleanse a sore throat.

Hagen says the salt in the water also draws out excess fluid from the throat’s inflamed tissues, “and warm water may help cleanse them a bit better.”

9.   Milk of magnesia.
Dabbing this milky liquid on canker sores — small ulcers that typically appear inside the mouth — can temporarily soothe their pain. “Milk of magnesia won’t heal the sores, but it does give relief from the symptoms,” Hagen says. Experts at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) suggest first dabbing the sore with a mixture of half water and half hydrogen peroxide, then dabbing on the milk of magnesia.

10.   Cranberries.
If you’re prone to bladder infections, drinking cranberry juice daily won’t cure them, but it can help prevent them, say the urologic disease experts at NIH.

Just be careful if you are taking blood-thinning medication like warfarin (Coumadin), Plavix or aspirin, warns Hagen: “Possible interactions between cranberry juice and warfarin may lead to bleeding.”

Taking a 500 mg cranberry extract pill twice a day is also effective at preventing urinary tract infections.

A Dutch study published this year compared women who took a daily low dose of an antibiotic to prevent infections and women who took the cranberry pills. The antibiotic was somewhat more effective, but it also caused more antibiotic resistance in the bloodstream.

Unlike antibiotics, which kill bacteria, cranberries keep bacteria from attaching to the bladder walls.

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BY PETE FORNATALE IN NEWSDAY

Rock ’n’ roll music is littered with larger-than-life pronouncements about youth, aging and mortality. Here’s an update on some of the most famous:

“Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?”

Paul McCartney wrote that for the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album back in 1967. Well, Sir Paul passed that significant birthday more than five years ago and still basks in the warm glow of love, respect and admiration from his international fan base. He filled Yankee Stadium twice in July, and just wed for a third time this month.

“Too old to rock ’n’ roll, too young to die.”

Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull turned 64 in August and has tour dates listed on his website that will carry him and the group through 2012, performing their Thick as a Brick album in its entirety for the first time in 40 years.

Then there’s the oldest, boldest, prematurest proclamation of them all: “I hope I die before I get old!” Pete Townshend is far beyond fulfilling the arrogance-of-youth declaration he wrote in 1965 at age 20. He turned 66 in May and is still productive in rock ’n’ roll. To paraphrase the kind affirmation by septuagenarian Bob Dylan: “Pete was so much older then, he’s younger than that now.”

Finally, there’s this one: “Can you imagine us years from today sharing a park bench quietly? How terribly strange to be 70.” Twenty-something songwriter Paul Simon penned those words for the song “Old Friends” on Simon & Garfunkel’s classic Bookends album back in 1968. Well, hold on to your AARP card, everybody: Simon turned 70 last week. And Art Garfunkel reaches that same milestone on November 5th.

What are we aging baby boomers to make of all this? How about: “Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.” That quote from Groucho Marx should lighten up this subject, which furrows the brow of many soon-to-be or already-are senior citizens. Let’s face it. Any self-respecting boomer who isn’t thinking about mortality is just fooling himself. The clock is ticking. The days are dwindling down to a precious few. And the conveyor belt to the dustbin of eternity is picking up speed. But I still say our collective generational response to all of this should be a loud and clear:

Carpe diem!

Or in the more recent, equivalent, phrase of a dying Warren Zevon, in his last interview on Letterman: “Enjoy every sandwich.”

The best antidote to age anxiety can be found in the writings of Viktor Frankl, the late Holocaust survivor and originator of the school of psychotherapy known as logotherapy. In his ageless book Man’s Search for Meaning, he included a passage describing why young people should envy their elders: “Instead of possibilities in the future, they have realities in the past — the potentialities they have actualized, the meanings they have fulfilled, the value they have realized — and nothing and nobody can ever remove these assets from the past.”

Amen to that.

Remember the million-dollar quartet? Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis gathered to record together at Sun Records in Memphis on a December day in 1956—a session that inspired the recent Broadway musical. Only Lewis is still alive, so he called the album he released 50 years later Last Man Standing. One of his best songs is “Rockin’ My Life Away.”

Those are words to live by. And, by the way, when Lewis (aka The Killer) made an appearance on American Bandstand on Thanksgiving Day 1957, the other guests on the show were a couple of kids from Queens who called themselves Tom and Jerry, promoting their teen hit “Hey Schoolgirl.” Their real names? Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel.

How terribly strange to be 70? Not so much. Writing this has made me hungry. I think I’ll turn on Dylan and make myself a sandwich.

Pete Fornatale, a longtime New York radio personality, is author of Back to the Garden: The Story of Woodstock.

Zyndall Raney

From first note to finished product

BY JEANNI BROSIUS
Staff Writer

Zyndall Raney sat on the bench at his black Yamaha grand piano and began to play a medley of songs in his studio in Drasco.
“A little boogie-woogie,” he said with a laugh, never missing a note as he continued to play more snippets of songs. “That was an old Floyd Cramer song; he was a good friend of mine.”
For his lifetime of achievements, Raney, 64, was recently inducted into the George D. Hay Foundation and Music Hall of Fame. Raney said his father, Wayne Raney, had been inducted into five halls of fame.

Following in the footsteps of his father, Raney made his career in almost every aspect of the music business, from performing to producing to manufacturing. Another thing Raney and his father had in common was that they were both born in the same log cabin in Wolf Bayou. The cabin is now at the William Carl Garner Visitor Center in Heber Springs, not because two famous men were born there, but because it was the first cabin built in Cleburne County that had windows, Raney said.

The Raney men worked together hosting a radio program that was broadcast on 126 stations. Also in the mid’50s, Zyndall and Wayne were on another show in California called California Hayride.

Zyndall said he played rhythm guitar for his father, who had his own segment on the show. Also on the show were Cal Smith, who was known for his 1974 hit “Country Bumpkin”; George Hayes, who was better known as Gabby Hayes in Western movies; and Johnny Rivers.

Meanwhile, in Concord, Wayne had set up Rimrock Manufacturing Co., which was not only a recording studio, but also manufactured LPs and 45s. In 1961, when Zyndall was 16, he moved back to Concord to help build the family business.

Also a sideman for several bands, Zyndall said he joined the McCoys and played organ and sang third-part harmony in the band’s song “Hang on Sloopy,” which was a No. 1 hit in October 1965.

Working for performers such as Charlie Rich, Jerry Lee Lewis and Mel Tillis, Zyndall was not only the opening and closing act for them, but he kept their pianos tuned. He also played piano on the demo cut for Rich’s hit “Behind Closed Doors.”

In 1974, Stax Records in Memphis, Tenn., bought Rimrock, but Zyndall continued to work with the company.

“We would commute back and forth from the Batesville airport to the Memphis airport in a Cessna 410 as much as six times a day,” Zyndall said. “We did some demo cuts for Aretha Franklin to decide if we wanted to contract her or not.” Zyndall said that although he voted for her, the majority of the board members decided not to contract Franklin. “The rest voted her out,” he said. “The rest is history. She went to Atlantic.” He said because it would cost about $1 million to record and promote an artist, the board didn’t believe she was a good risk. “I told them, ‘This lady is unique enough — she can sell.’ Well, their opinion was different,” he said.

After Stax bought out Rimrock, the Raneys signed a noncompete agreement for seven years.

“I got serious about building this company on June 12, 1990,” he said about his current Raney Recording Studio, which he runs with his son, Jon. “I got busy and worked day and night and had 35 employees at one point.”

Because Jon’s mother, Mary, helped Zyndall in the business, Jon literally grew up in a recording studio. He said he got to witness history. “I got to see Elvis in the early 1970s do some dubbing,” Jon said about growing up at Rimrock in Concord. “He could come up here at midnight, and nobody would know.” In fact, Jon said, he still has the 1957-era 667 Neumann microphone that Elvis used. “I still use it at the studio,” he said.

He also recalled when Ike and Tina Turner came to Concord to make a recording. “ They had to smuggle them out of town,” Jon said, “because the KKK had gotten wind that they were here. Several black people had to come in at night [to record] and leave,” Zyndall added. “Cleburne County didn’t accept blacks at all. That’s changed now, for the good. The younger folks are more accepting.”

Another achievement of which Zyndall is quite proud is a song he wrote with his father. “My dad and me wrote a gospel song, ‘We Need a Whole Lot More of Jesus (And a Lot Less Rock and Roll),’ he said. “Linda Ronstadt thought enough of it to record it.”

Jon said the reason the Raneys set up shop in Drasco is because it’s home. “Most of our business is out of state, and in the last two months, I’ve recorded six to eight albums,” Jon said.

Raney Recording Studio is still going strong, but in the 1990s, it produced more than 90 albums a year and manufactured more than a quarter million cassettes per year.

“ Times have changed, people have changed, and the way you do business has changed,” Zyndall said.

Staff writer Jeanni Brosius can be reached at (501) 244-4307 or jbrosius@arkansasonline. com.

Up close – getting to know Zyndall Raney

• Birth date: Feb. 9, 1944
• Birthplace: Wolf Bayou, Ark.
• First musical instrument: A Bigsby guitar given to me when I was 7 by Lefty Frizzell
• Which side of the music business I like best: Whichever side the money is on

You know the old saying: “It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.” That might be true in an old analog world, but in the digital domain if you don’t have permission, you just might be up a creek. Access to the resources that you need on a computer or network requires that you have the proper permissions – but many folks don’t understand how that works, and get confused by talk of rights, permissions and privileges. This week, we’re going to attempt to straighten out some of that confusion.

In Windows, in general, users have rights and privileges set on them; resources (files, folders, printers, entire drives) have permissions set on them (although access permissions are actually a type of user right). You need a user account to log on, and each user is identified by his/her account. There are some built-in user accounts, including the Administrator account and accounts that are used by Windows itself to run its services, but here we’re talking about individual user accounts that you create.

To make administration easier, user accounts are members of groups. That way, rights can be assigned to a whole group, or you can set a file’s permissions to apply to a whole group. The two most-used groups are the administrative group and the standard users group, but there are other built-in groups such as backup operators, print operators, power users, guests, etc. The built-in groups have certain pre-defined rights. You can also create your own groups. For purposes of this discussion, we’re talking about local users and groups, which apply to a specific computer. In a business network based on Windows Server Active Directory, you also have network-wide user and group accounts called domain accounts, but we’ll keep it simple and not get into that this time.

User rights refer to what all users with that type of user account can do. For example, you have standard user rights and administrative rights. Privileges are a type of user right that allows the user to do specific administrative tasks, such as shutting down the system or installing new software. To further confuse matters, the type of user right that defines what operations a user can perform on network resources (for example, creating files in a folder) is called access permissions.

File and folder permissions, printer permissions, etc. are set on the individual resource. There are two kinds of these: share permissions (also called shared folder permissions) and file-level permissions (also called NTFS permissions or security permissions). The latter apply only to files and folders on partitions that are formatted in NTFS. Shared folder permissions, as the name implies, can only be set on folders (or entire drives), not individual files. To set share permissions: In Windows 7, right click a folder or drive letter in Explorer and select Share with, then Specific people … . In the dialog box, you can select the users on your network with whom you want to share.

NTFS or file level permissions are entirely separate from the shared folder permissions. A big difference is that the shared folder permissions only apply to someone accessing the folder across the network. NTFS or file level permissions apply to persons accessing across the network, too, but also to persons logged onto your local computer.

So if another user sits down there and logs on with a different user account from yours, the NTFS permissions can prevent him/her from accessing the file or folder. To set NTFS permissions, right click the file or folder and click Properties. Then click the Security tab. Here you can select the users and/or groups with which you want to share the file or folder. You can see in the screenshot that there are a number of different permissions you can assign to each user or group: ranging from read only to full control. Here is a YouTube video that shows you how to configure NTFS permissions in Windows 7.

Don’t see a Security tab when you right click a file or folder? If you have simple file sharing enabled on XP, you won’t see it. You also won’t see it if you’re using a Home Edition of Vista, when you’re logged on normally. However, you can set file level permissions by logging on in Safe Mode; then the Security tab will appear in the file or folder’s Properties dialog box. The Security tab is back by popular demand in Windows 7 Home Premium.

In order to set permissions on files and folders, you have to either be the owner of it (the one who created it or an administrator who took ownership of it) or be assigned the special “Change permissions” permission by a user who has permission to change permissions. Confused yet? Here’s an article on how to take ownership of a file or folder in Windows 7.

Rights, privileges and permissions can be a complicated topic, but it’s important to understand them because the wrong settings can keep you from being able to do what you need to do in order to get your work done. Have you ever been locked out of files and other resources you need because of a problem with permissions? Ever received an error message telling you that you don’t have permission to perform a specific task? Do you think rights and permissions are overly complicated in Windows, or do you think the added layers of protection are necessary to keep the wrong people from accessing your data? Let us know what you think!

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Iconic songs come in all shapes and flavors: from Kermit the Frog’s plaintive rendition of “The Rainbow Connection” to AC/DC raging with “Back In Black,” from Thelonious Monk’s wistful meanderings on “’Round Midnight” to John Lennon’s utopian dreaming with “Imagine.” Obviously, the list goes on an on – and wonderfully enough, on a regular basis, inspired songwriters add new entries to the pantheon of timeless compositions.Creating a memorable song is rarely as easy as just humming a pretty melody and writing down some lyrics, though. And just like writers of prose or non-fiction, even the most successful songwriters hit creative walls.

So where do you turn when you can’t seem to remember how to write a song? What do you do if you’ve got an explosive first verse but can’t come up with a chorus? What if you’re stuck with a blank page in front of you and don’t know where to start? Here are some tips from a range of experienced songwriters to help you overcome your own writer’s block.

1. Start with a title
“Find an interesting title and most of the song will often write itself,” says songwriter, guitarist, and producer Tommy Marolda, who has written tunes with Richie Sambora and Rod Stewart. “That’s something I’ve used in a lot of my songwriting.” Successful song-crafters like Bon Jovi and Diane Warren have used this strategy, and songs like “Living’ On A Prayer,” “Bed Of Roses,” and “Dead Or Alive” were written this way. “With most songs, the title tells the whole story,” he continues.

But where can you get an intriguing song title if the ideas just aren’t flowing? “Try looking at magazines,” says Marolda. “You can flip through the table of contents and sometimes they use interesting hyperbole or plays on words that can spark something in you. Or go to a poetry section in a book store and look at the titles of poems.”

Marolda strongly recommends adapting phrases to make them your own before using them as your song title. “Sometimes you can just substitute one word for another,” he says. “If you substitute words inside the framework of an already clever title, you can often come up with something original.”

2. Look and listen everywhere
“Whether you’re on a train, walking around, or just having a conversation, you never know what you’re going to hear,” says independent singer/songwriter Natalie Gelman. “When I’m really in the moment and paying attention to what’s happening around me, sometimes I’ll hear someone say something random and think, ‘That’s a great line! I should use that.’”

For Marolda, “listening everywhere” includes checking out pre-fabricated drum grooves from music production libraries for musical inspiration. Guitarist, producer, and composer Chris Munger, who has worked with bands like Public Enemy and networks such as Comedy Central, uses his native surroundings to spark inspiration. “Since I live in New York City, I love to go out and people watch and make up stories about the people I see,” he says.

3. Carry a notebook, voice recorder, or both
This may seem basic, but since you never know when inspiration will strike, it’s important to have a way to document a great musical idea whenever it comes along.

If you’re comfortable with traditional musical notation, a small notebook with staff lines can be all you need. If you prefer to sing your melodies, a voice recorder on a smart phone or another small recording device can do the trick.

Gelman recalls one time when she came up with a great musical idea, but had neither pen and paper nor any sort of recording device nearby to document it. Her solution? Borrowing a friend’s phone, calling her own voicemail, and singing the fresh lick to her own voice mail.

4. Keep unfinished ideas
Even if you’re only able to come up with a verse here and a chorus there, save everything you write, recommends Marolda. “A lot of famous songwriters have a suitcase full of ideas that they pull for different songs when they get stuck,” he says. “Go back into your own catalog of unfinished work and see what’s hanging out. You’d be surprised that a bridge you wrote years ago might fit perfectly with a song you’re working on now.”

Marolda’s trove of songwriting bits and pieces includes writing pads with lyrics and melodies, some finished, some unfinished. He also saves pages filled with unused song titles. “When I was writing for Richie Sambora’s solo records, all he would ask for were titles and ideas,” says Marolda. “There are hundreds of things that he didn’t use and I still have them here. I’ve turned them into songs for Rod Stewart and other people.”

5. Write a lot
For Gelman, more hours spent writing music means an easier overall creative process. “Writing constantly helps you become comfortable with the act of crafting songs — and with yourself as a songwriter,” she says. “As songwriters, we have to accept the good, the bad, and the ugly that comes out when we write. It’s important not to reject anything that you write, and to keep writing.”

Part and parcel of writing a lot is working on whatever inspires you at any given moment, regardless of whether or not it fits into your genre of choice. Are you a shred-metal guitarist who suddenly comes up with a great Zydeco accordion line? Write it down. Even if it’s totally unusable for your current band or project, you never know when such a creative tidbit might come in handy down the road.

6. Identify your own clichés
“When there’s a block, it’s not because you hear nothing,” says keyboardist Danny Louis, who plays and writes for groundbreaking blues-rock band Gov’t Mule. “It’s that you’re hearing your old clichés. You’re just getting that same old bridge and pre-chorus that you’ve written a million times.” In moments of creative frustration, it can be easy to fall back on those comfortable licks, melodies, and chord progressions you’ve been using for years. But being able to smell your own clichés can also give you the awareness you need to do something truly unique.

7. Keep your inner critic at bay
Self-criticism can be a crippling force when you’re trying to write a song, and anything you can do to turn down the volume while penning words or melodies will be well worth it. “Good writing, just like acting or singing, is a marriage of heart, talent, and skill,” says Aurora Barnes, who writes music for Dramatico Entertainment. “If it’s meaningful to you, it will be to someone else as well.”

“The biggest problem songwriters face is fear,” asserts Gelman. “You can get scared of any number of things — but the most common one is, will my stuff be any good? You really just have to be present when you’re writing, honor whatever comes out, and make sure to capture or record it. Judging yourself in the moment won’t get you anywhere.”

8. Ask for help
“I usually have a three-to-seven day window in which I find I can finish a song myself,” says Gelman. “If I don’t finish something by then, I usually bring in someone to help me.”

Rather than seeing a co-writer as a crutch, Gelman sees it as an opportunity to push herself as a songwriter. “My friend Brad Yoder once described co-writing as looking at someone else’s crossword puzzle and filling in the gaps,” she says. “I love co-writing. As a songwriter, it can help you go where you’re scared to go by yourself.”

Choosing the right co-writer can be as challenging as choosing the right band mate or producer, so proceed with caution. Ask trusted colleagues for referrals and try to pick collaborators who you think will give your work the respect and attention it deserves.

9. Write on a secondary instrument
For Louis, creating fresh musical ideas often means writing songs on more unfamiliar instruments; in fact, much of his writing for Gov’t Mule happens on guitar, even though he plays keys for the band. “One thing I try that totally throws me for a loop is to pick up a bass guitar, improvise melodies on the bass, and sing a bass line at the same time,” he says. “The less familiar you are with the instrument you’re playing, the better. It really helps you break out of your own clichés.”

Louis also recommends spending a few hours with a drum kit, especially if you’re not a drummer. “A lot of times, the pitches of the drums, and cymbals, can be inspiring,” he says. “You can fart around on the drums to create melodic ideas that you could never pick out on a guitar or keyboard. If you just play the drums as notes, you can come up with both rhythms and note patterns that can be really inspiring.”

10. Take a break
“Sometimes you just need to eat,” says Barnes. “You need to be re-inspired. Sometimes I listen to music, read a book, go for a walk, or maybe even turn on the TV for a bit.”

For Munger, physical exercise often does the trick. “I feel like that’s a great way to clear your head and inspire you,” he says, also pointing towards watching a good movie as a useful mental reprise. “You have to walk away from your instrument when you’re having a writing block,” he continues. “Songwriting is like anything in life. Time away makes coming back that much better.”

11. Use your favorite artists for inspiration
“Sit down with recordings of some of your favorite songs and jam along with them, regardless of what instrument you play,” recommends Marolda. “Doing so may spark ideas for you instrumentally, relating to chord structure or chord progression, or may give something that will then turn into a full song of your own.”

Marolda is not advocating ripping off your idols. “You’d think that you’re just copying someone else’s work, but your interpretation is going to be completely different,” he promises. “Just stop the original piece of music and record the chords that you were playing, or the piano part that you came up with, and use that as a seed for something new. Ask yourself, ‘What if I went here instead of using this chord that they used?’”

Michael Gallant writes, produces, sings, and plays keyboards for the indie rock band Aurical. He is also the founder of Gallant Music, a custom content and music creation firm based out of New York City. For more, visit auricalmusic.com and gallantmusic.com.