Last weekend, a couple, Katie and Zack Watson, headed to Birmingham to see Garth Brooks’ concert. They were supposed to attend the show with an old friend, but their friend was in hospital because of his long-term staying up late to work and couldn’t go.

“We have the third ticket. We try to give it away. It is just sitting out there, no takers,” Katie said. They were staying in a Homewood hotel and thought a Uber would be the best way to get to the concert. Their first Uber driver canceled the order, and the clock was ticking. Katie called another Uber driver and hoped for the best. “Your driver is Vicky,” came the message from Uber.

On the way to the stadium, Vicky told the couple about how much she loved Garth Brooks. She was not even from Birmingham but came to drive people in the area. “I guess you’re heading to the Garth Brooks’ concert,” said Vicky. “I love Garth so much-seeing one of his concerts is on my dream list. Someday I might get a chance to see him in person. He has such a beautiful soul.”

Zack and Katie looked at one another and smiled. “Would you like to go to the concert with us?” Katie asked. Vicky’s heart jumped. A country girl from Guin, Alabama, got a chance to see Garth Brooks? “Look, there’s an empty parking spot!” shouted Katie. “Quick, Vicky! Pull in to the space and you can go to the concert with us!”

The three new friends sat together for hours at Protective Stadium-a memory of all three would last forever.

“There’s no doubt that getting to take Vicky to the concert makes me feel good,” Katie said. “It is the least we can do, and we believe it really made Vicky’s night.”

Vicky said she felt exultant, and she was reminded that there are good people in the world. “Zack and Katie are so kind. I still can’t believe I once was inside the stadium,” she said. “I’m just a country girl at heart. A country girl who achieved a dream.”

Tonal languages use pitch (音调) to distinguish words that otherwise might sound the same. In Mandarin, for instance, mă means horse whereas mã means mother. Nontonal languages like Spanish sometimes include pitch changes to suggest emotion, for example, but not to change a word’s meaning.

As a Mandarin speaker and musician, Jingxuan Liu wondered about the crossover (融合) between language and music. While studying at Duke University, Liu helped analyze the musical abilities of nearly half a million people from 203 countries. Her colleagues had launched an online game in which participants completed several musical tasks, including identifying matching melodies at different pitches and finding beat tracks that fit songs’ rhythms.

On average, native speakers of the 19 represented tonal languages were better at the melody task compared with speakers of 29 nontonal languages. And the effect wasn’t small a tonal first language strengthened melodic understanding by about half the amount that music lessons did, which was also surveyed. But tonal languages speakers tended to be worse at the rhythm task.

Humans must be choosy about what they pay attention to. Pitch patterns are quite important in tonal languages, which might explain the balancing act in music. “You’ve got a finite resource of attention, and you’ve got to divide up that somehow,” says study coauthor Courtney Hilton, a scientist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

Prior research on language and music often compared just two tongues, usually English and Mandarin. But other cultural influences, such as Eastern and Western music styles, could have affected results. By examining a wide range of people, the new study included languages never estimated in this way and reached more generalizable conclusion.

“Our result here is showing that the language someone speaks which is an important part of culture — also shapes cognition,” Hilton says.

There is a world of music out there! What you hear on the radio or see on TV is only a small part of all the wonderful music that is waiting for you. Most of you probably like pop music and have your favorite performers, stars or bands. 【小题1】. Here is a brief look at some of the exciting musical styles from around the world.

Blues music has a long history. The blues is a way for people to show who they are and what is in their heart. 【小题2】 The blues comes from African songs that people used to sing when they worked and during festivals. The African songs met American music when African slaves were brought to the US. The blues has been part of African-American culture since then, and it is an important part of American culture.【小题3】.

Besides, people also listen to hip-hop and rap. They have much in common with blues and rock, but they also have their own characteristics.【小题4】 It will help people hear new things in old music. And in rap music, the singer or “rapper” will speak or “rap” the words along with the beat.

【小题5】In the US, where there are many Spanish-speaking people, Latin music is a big part of the culture. It has always been popular in Spanish-speaking countries and today stars like Santana and Ricky Martin are known throughout the world.