Color

Color (American English) or colour (Commonwealth English) is the visual perceptual property corresponding in humans to the categories called red, blue, yellow, etc. Color derives from the spectrum of light (distribution of light power versus wavelength) interacting in the eye with the spectral sensitivities of the light receptors. Color categories and physical specifications of color are also associated with objects or materials based on their physical properties such as light absorption, reflection, or emission spectra. By defining a color space colors can be identified numerically by their coordinates.

Because perception of color stems from the varying spectral sensitivity of different types of cone cells in the retina to different parts of the spectrum, colors may be defined and quantified by the degree to which they stimulate these cells. These physical or physiological quantifications of color, however, do not fully explain the psychophysical perception of color appearance.

The science of color is sometimes called chromatics, colorimetry, or simply color science. It includes the perception of color by the human eye and brain, the origin of color in materials, color theory in art, and the physics of electromagnetic radiation in the visible range (that is, what we commonly refer to simply as light).

Nursery rhyme

A nursery rhyme is a traditional poem or song for young children in Britain and many other countries, but usage only dates from the late 18th /early 19th century. In North America the term Mother Goose Rhymes, introduced in the mid-18th century, is still often used.

History

Lullabies

The oldest children's songs of which we have records are lullabies, intended to help a child sleep. Lullabies can be found in every human culture. The English term lullaby is thought to come from "lu, lu" or "la la" sound made by mothers or nurses to calm children, and "by by" or "bye bye", either another lulling sound, or a term for good night. Until the modern era lullabies were usually only recorded incidentally in written sources. The Roman nurses' lullaby, "Lalla, Lalla, Lalla, aut dormi, aut lacta", is recorded in a scholium on Persius and may be the oldest to survive.

Many medieval English verses associated with the birth of Jesus take the form of a lullaby, including "Lullay, my liking, my dere son, my sweting" and may be versions of contemporary lullabies. However, most of those used today date from the 17th century. For example, a well known lullaby such as "Rock-a-bye, baby on a tree top", cannot be found in records until the late-18th century when it was printed by John Newbery (c. 1765).

For Children (Bartók)

For Children (Hungarian: A Gyermekeknek) is a cycle of short piano pieces composed by Béla Bartók. The collection was originally started in 1908 and completed in 1909, and comprised 85 pieces which were issued in four volumes. Each piece is based on a folk tune, Hungarian in the first two volumes (42 pieces), and Slovakian in the last two (43 pieces). In 1945, Bartók revised the set, removing six pieces which used tunes which had been inaccurately transcribed or found not to be original folk tunes, and substantially changing the harmonisation of a number of others; the cycle, now of 79 pieces, was reissued in two volumes (of 40 and 39 pieces).

The pieces were written as student works, and progress slightly in difficulty through each half of the cycle. However, in modern times, some concert pianists (notably Zoltán Kocsis) have begun including some of them on their recital programs, citing their musical value even apart from their pedagogical origins.

See also

Mikrokosmos

Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mouse is a funny animal cartoon character and the official mascot of The Walt Disney Company. He was created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at the Walt Disney Studios in 1928. An anthropomorphic mouse who typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves, Mickey has become the most recognizable cartoon character in the world.

Mickey first was seen in a single test screening (Plane Crazy). Mickey officially debuted in the short film Steamboat Willie (1928), one of the first sound cartoons. He went on to appear in over 130 films, including The Band Concert (1935), Brave Little Tailor (1938), and Fantasia (1940). Mickey appeared primarily in short films, but also occasionally in feature-length films. Ten of Mickey's cartoons were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, one of which, Lend a Paw, won the award in 1942. In 1978, Mickey became the first cartoon character to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Beginning in 1930, Mickey has also been featured extensively as a comic strip character. His self-titled newspaper strip, drawn primarily by Floyd Gottfredson, ran for 45 years. Mickey has also appeared in comic books and in television series such as The Mickey Mouse Club (1955–1996) and others. He also appears in other media such as video games as well as merchandising, and is a meetable character at the Disney parks.