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There are two parts to this website. One part, the English Without Borders part is to provide resources for those who will use Ogden's Basic English as an International language. The other part is in support of Live Music Is Healing.
Let me say first why I support Live Music Is Healing. Musicians when they perform for an audience want to please the audience. If the audience is pleased, their pleasure is seen by the performers. Often in this case the musicians perform better.
In this way live music is very much like a language. (I do not think that a recording that no one hears is a language). A language of communication requires at least three things:
1) There must be something to be communicated. In music this is the artistic creation of the song writer. In language this is the thought in one mind which is to be communicated to another mind.
2) There must be a means by which that something is to be communicated. In music this could be a recording but better yet a live performance for an appreciative audience. In language this could be words but better yet words which both understand. Ogden's B.A.S.I.C. English provides this vocabulary. The vocabulary word list consists of 850 words (with rules for expansion, adding _er and _ing to some words) and the rules of grammar(and "no" verbs, only "operators and directives) printed on one page.
3)There must be a way to show that the communication is received. In music of an incomplete language this means that the record is bought (perhaps without hearing it, perhaps because someone told you to buy it or better yet you are at a live performance and you show your pleasure with applause and at the end of the performance you buy the recording. Ogden's B.A.S.I.C. English is the best first way to learn a language and with the addition of a limited number words is expanded to cover the sciences. The Bible was translated into B.A.S.I.C. with the addition of only 150 words (some for verse and some for special word uses in the Bible).
In music my pleasure is in the song. David Hauck wrote his songs and played them for me with only his voice and guitar. He did not need to have a Symphony playing along for me to know that they were good songs. Simple is good.
In language, 850 words and their expansions allow the expression of all the needs of everyday life and the 20,000 words of The General Basic English Dictionary have already been put in Basic for further needs. B.A.S.I.C. is better.
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