• Kanye West: in just a few short years, he has emerged as one of music's premiere behind-the-scenes hitmakers. But it took a near-fatal car crash—and one of the year's most inventive songs—for him to take center stage

• MTNA: Music Teachers National Association

• MTNA Bylaws - Music Teachers National Association

• Celebrating certification - parents on why they chose a Nationally Certified Teacher of Music

• Directory of summer programs - music programs - Directory

• The Music Lesson, by Katharine Weber, New York, Crown Publishers, 1998; 178 pages, $21 hardcover. - Review - book review

• MTNA bylaws - Music Teachers National Association

Apple reshapes core of music marketing

When the pop vocalist Toni Childs released her Emmy-winning song "Because You're Beautiful" as a single this month, she didn't need a record label affiliation or an album to back it up.

What she did have was a deal to offer the tune exclusively to Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes Music Store, which sells it at 99 cents per download. "This format is going to change the way we can do business across the board," she said. "It's not as necessary to have the same major kind of distributor and money behind you."

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Elvis Costello: he's gone from being the "angriest man in music" to one of the busiest,collaborating with bigwigs, composing orchestral pieces, and continuing to rock like it's 1977. Now, with his credibility still intact, music's most restless troubadour stops to smell the roses with the rocket man

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Highway 61 Revisited: the Tangled Roots of American Jazz, Blues

Rock and Country Music, Highway 61 Revisited: The Tangled Roots of American Jazz, Blues, Rock and Country Music By Gene Santoro Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2004, ISBN 019154819, 336 pages, hbk., $30.00

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From jailhouse to suburban rock: music once had the ability to appal and shock. Now the most radical symbol worn by fans on the streets is the iPod. As rock'n'roll reaches its 50th birthday, it has become unbearably middle-of-the-road, writes Sarfraz Manzoor

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The Song Is Ended - analysis of pop music today

On a fine summer day the inhabitants of the Wiltshire valley where I live gathered in a neighbor's garden to celebrate the Queen's jubilee. There was beer, barbecue, flags -- and, of course, the singing of our three national anthems: Welsh, Scottish, and British.

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