History of Music | Biography | Guitar

Free Jazz - It's Concept

2012-11-08T04:48:00.001-08:00

Jazz Since 1960

Charles Mingus - Free Jazz

As emerging new styles joined without replacing established trends in jazz, the jazz experience increased in complexity and sophistication, although hardly in popularity. From the time bebop entered the fray - well before rock and roll swept the popular music industry off its feet - jazz has belonged as much to the classical as to the popular music world. Jazz pianist, composer, and scholar Billy Taylor refers to jazz, in fact, as American's classical music.

Throughout the sixties jazz musicians explored relationships between classical and popular music, placing less emphasis on outstanding solo performances accompanied by players who obligingly yielded the spotlight until it became their turn to take it, and favoring instead collective improvisation by several, or even by all, the ensemble members at the same time.

Charles Mingus (1922 - 1979)

Charles Mingus - Double Bass Player

Charles Mingus, a double bass player intimately involved with progressive jazz in the fifties made important contributions to jazz history both as a bass player and as a composer with unprecedented ideas of jazz composition. Mingus made the bass line significantly more interesting and important than it had been in early or traditional jazz styles, his magnificent bass solos sometimes imitating saxophone or piano lines.

During the 1960s, his ideas concerning jazz composition made Mingus on extremely controversial, although ultimately influential, figure. Perhaps more than any other jazz musician, Mingus explored the complex relationships between jazz composition and improvisation, for which purpose he established the Charles Mingus Jazz Workshop in New York in 1955. Although he prescribed a formal framework for each composition, Mingus encouraged individual freedom and creativity within that framework, disapproving for that reason, of a written score.

Mingus "unwritten compositions," in the tradition of progressive jazz, are rhythmically very complex. Instead of the requsite steady beat of earlier jazz styles, his rhythmic pulse is flexible, and he changed meters frequently. Further, he defined the traditional steady tempo of jazz, sometimes prescribing a gradual accelerando (increase in tempo) throughout a piece of through part of a piece. His bass line is sometimes modal, precluding the use of traditional chord changes and requiring musicians to improvise new kinds of melody lines instead of those based on given tunes. In short, Mingus revolutionized the conception of jazz as well of jazz composition.

Free Jazz

The innovations of Charles Mingus and others during the fifties encouraged a number of jazz musicians to seek new approaches to improvisation which remained at the core of the concept of jazz. Some shared with Mingus the conviction that jazz was not necessarily - or primarily - about individual solos, but about rhythm and interplay best expressed by the collective improvisation of several or all members of the ensemble. In 1960, Ornette Coleman (b.1930) introduced free collective improvisations in an album title Free Jazz, which defied the perception of as generally accessible to the ordinary listener, for free jazz was a difficult music, challenging to performers and listeners alike, with no familiar chord changes, no references to popular songs or blues, and no steady beat. In free jazz, each musicians improvised independently, aware of and responsive to the other players but bound by no present obligations. Even the initial phrases of a composition, played by the ensemble's soloists together, were not necessarily in unison.

Ornette Coleman - Free Jazz

Free jazz further released musicians from the strictures of tonality, of recurring rhythmic patterns and / or a fixed pulse, and of predetermined themes. The new music also bore a relationship to chance music, and Coleman stated that he thought his playing had some rapport with abstract expressions art.

Free jazz also reflects the interest in some non-Western music that intrigued many 20th Century composers of classical music. Having no chord changes to played relieved free jazz ensembles from including a piano, with its restrictive keyboard limited to the tones of the black and white keys. This freed musicians to explore non-Western scales and encouraged them to include instruments from other cultures in their ensembles and to play Western instruments in non-traditional ways. The use of micro-tones (lying between the tones of a piano keyboard) and certain rhythmic techniques derived from the music of India heighten the emotional effect and intellectual challenge of Coleman's performance.

Movies and Music

2012-10-31T07:09:00.000-07:00

Music for films

Music, Moves and The Memories

Music closely associated with and highly important to theatrical performances since well before the ancient Greeks staged their magnificent choral dramas, has been inextricably intertwined with film since the motion picture industry began, about 1895. In fact, as the famous American composer Aaron Copland pointed out, a film score is simply a new form of dramatic music.

Whereas movie musicals, such as West Side Story or A Chorus Line, and film stories of great composers, such as Rhapsody In Blue (Gershwin) or Amadeus (Mozart), are best known and remembered for their music, audiences seldom pay much attention to the music of documentaries, cartoons, and feature films having no inherent musical content. Yet for these, too, music serves as far more than accessory to the finished product, continually pushing our emotional buttons in subliminal fashion whether we “hear” it or not while accomplishing a number of mundane technical chores as well. Image Gone with the Wind without “Tara’s Theme,” Lawrence of Arabia without Maurice Jarre’s sweeping score, the Third man without its prickly little zither theme – or the shower scene in Psycho without Bernard Herrmann’s shrill, stabbing strings.

Functions of Music in Film

Film music evokes moods, defines cultures, authenticates historical periods, and reveals personality traits in a manner more subtle but more often more telling than that of spoken dialogue. A movie’s music, called the film score, based as is any work of art upon principles of variety and repetition, builds a sense of continuity throughout the movie while filling “holes” or awkward pauses in action or dialogue. Music alters the pace of action by changes in tempo, and the sense of space by altering the level of volume, while decorating dull scenes and holding shaky ones together. Musically mimicking, or Mickey Mousing, a character’s actions add sub- or semiconscious humor to a scene, while suggestive melodic lines or harmonies effectively foretell or reinforce dramatic events. Sometimes music actually negates a visual image in ironic denial of what appears or is said on the screen.

Movie and Music - Relation

Having drawn the viewer from reality into the atmosphere of a film, music subtly identifies the movie’s structural units indicating the beginning and conclusion of significant scenes and bringing the film to an effective close. But while the show goes on, by lessening our defenses and increasing our susceptibility to suggestion, a good film score suspends disbelief and allows us to become gloriously immersed in the unreal – the super real – world of cinema.

Source versus Functional Music

Some film music emanates from a source, such as a radio, phonograph, or musical instrument, apparent to characters and movie audience alike. Such source or digestive music, as it is called, often provides a thematic anchor for the images onscreen.

History of Music in Films

Even before movie theaters were wired for sound, music constituted an essential enhancement of viewing pleasure, and thousands of musicians made their living in movie theater orchestras. Live musical shows performed before the film began, on a scale less lavish than but related to the concept of today’s Radio City Music Hall extravaganzas, had much to do with attracting audiences, and a pianist, theater organist, or even a chamber orchestra accompanying silent films not only heightened the dramatic tension, but also disguised the noise of the projector.

Musical Theater - Vaudeville, Revues, Burlesque

2012-10-25T21:20:00.000-07:00

Musical Theater

History of Musical Theater Performance - Vaudeville, Revues, Burlesque

A Musical Theater Performance

A variety of songs by European and American composers, including selections from popular English ballad operas and tuneful melodies from the Italian opera repertory, occasional art songs, sentimental ballads, and patriotic tunes, enriched early nineteenth-century theatrical performances in America.
Although composers had begun to distinguish between music intended for professional performance and music to be sung and played at home, for general public the differences between popular and classical, or formal and informal, music reminded much less distinct than we find them today.

Variety Shows

As prosperity returned after the turbulent Civil War years, theater especially music theater – became increasingly popular in America. Then, as now, theater activity centered in New York City, and by turn of the twentieth century several kinds of musical shows vied for popularity with the Broadway audience. Full-length music performances imported from abroad enjoyed popularity and critical acclaim, but most American musical shows between the Civil War and World War I had a variety format with little, if any, plot.

Most popular by far of all the musical shows representative of the period leading up to and succeeding the Civil War were minstrel shows; but before the turn of the century vaudeville shows vied with minstrelsy for popularity.

Vaudeville – It closely resembled minstrel shows and often included blackface acts; but whereas the member of a minstrel troupe remained on stage throughout a performance, each act of vaudeville show involved different performers. Vaudeville also featured a much wider variety of entertainment than minstrelsy afforded. Circus stunts, jugglers, dog acts, comedy teams, songs, dances – virtually anything conceived to amaze and delight an eager but unsophisticated audience occurred on the vaudeville stage.

Vaudeville Performance - One of the main attraction

Among the most popular performers of the post-Civil War, or indeed of any, age was the zany comedy and song team of Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart. Depicting scenes of everyday American life, including “ethnic” comedy sketches of Irish and German urban immigrants, Harrigan and Hart captured the devotion of New York City vaudeville audiences, who readily related to the topical humor of their shows.

A Burlesque Dance

Burlesque, another kind of variety show popular in the last half of the 19th Century is a form of satire in which something important is ridiculed or conversely, something silly is treated with mock dignity for humorous effects; the burlesque shows of the later 19th century were strings of comic scenes of this type. Striptease performance inserted between the acts, however, of tend to drew more applause than the comedy scenes themselves so that burlesque gradually degenerated from a rather risqué to a fairly crude – although immensely popular – form of entertainment. For a modern example, in Sugar Babies, a rollicking performance of the best in burlesque that opened in Broadway in 1979, Mickey Rooney and Ann Miller sang and danced their way through an uproarious evening of nonsense that delighted Broadway audiences for more than a thousand performances and then toured until mid-1986.

Revues, A common theme rather than a plot relates the scene of a revue, till another form of musical variety show. The music may be by one composer, or the song lyrics by one lyricist, even though the songs are taken from several different shows; or each scene of the revue may address the same topic, such as love through women’s eyes, or relations between the sexes, or married life – with music selected from various sources. In Irving Berlin’s review as thousands cheer, for example (successfully revived on Broadway in 1998), each sketch or songs was supposedly torn from a newspaper headline of 1933, the year the show was produced.

The lavishly staged revues of the early 19th century featured lovely costumes, extravagant sets, and – especially – beautiful young woman, or “girls” as they were called. Such spectacles, title “Follies” or “Scandals” or “Vanities,” staged every year from the early 1900s to the 1930s, provide generous job opportunities for composers, singers, dancers, stage and costume designers, and orchestra musicians.

History of Rock 'n' Roll - It's emergence

2012-10-18T02:54:00.003-07:00

How did Rock and Roll Ignited ?

Rock n Roll Legends

The baby boom of World War II produced a fifties teen boom of unprecedented numbers, wealth, and influence. Little interested in the sentimental popular music of the depression and war years, these numerous young people craved excitement and music expressive of their frustrations and needs, a music to which they could dance.
And for the first time in American history, the teenage population had money enough to command the attention of the popular music history.

The Generation Gap

Several postwar conditions fostered an unprecedented sense of independent and even rebellion among American youth. Many failed to understand in such prosperous times the frugal ways of their parents, who had survived but not forgotten the Great Depression and years in the history of rock n roll of wartime austerity. Military families experienced frequent relocation, particularly unsettling to children and teens, whereas youths in more stable conditions often had mothers working outside the home, filling jobs vacated by meant still in the military, or continuing jobs to which they had become accustomed during the war or economic conditions caused a serious, unprecedented gap in communication and understanding between adolescents and their parents.

Rock n Roll Spirit

The spirit of rebellion also waxed strong among young African Americans returning from war to find the equality they had experienced on the battlefield bluntly denied them in the domestic workforce. Spurred by the injustice of social discrimination, the civil rights movement steadily gained momentum, and black power became a force to be reckoned with.

Meanwhile, popular music after World War II became increasingly diversified, generally moving away from the instrumental music back to song. This young generation perceived swing bands as too polished, the performers’ dress to formal, and the shows too structured to please them. The history of rock n roll started with Mainstream pop’s sentimental ballads, suitable for slow dances popular among young adults, could not satisfy the restless teenage audience, and the complexity of modern jazz- primarily instrumental, often dissonant, intended more for listening than for dancing – simply antagonized them. More and more young white people preferred the vital, stirring sounds of black gospel music and rhythm and blues to the music their parents had enjoyed.

Gospel

Gospel music, also called the religious blues, descends from the religious spirituals developed by the slave culture, later celebrated in camp meetings, and later yet in concert environments. Gospel actually refers to a family of religious music’s, white and black, including the white spirituals ; however, only black gospel music has profoundly affected popular music, becoming in effect a branch of rhythm and blues and contributing visually to both jazz and rock and the emergence of the same.

Rhythm and Blues

Blues music originated from the Blacks

For many years, The popular music recording industry, as mentioned previously, applied the term “race records” to popular music’s, ranging from the county and urban blues to jazz, white-style ballads, and gospel, performed by and market primarily for blacks. Much black popular music was based on the form and harmonic pattern of the blues; most of it was in quadruple meter, with strong backbeats on the normally weak sound and fourth beats of the measure; and most of it was danceable. Religious or secular, it generally involved syncopated rhythmic improvisations, call-and-response between the history of rock n roll a leader and a group/congregation, and vocalizations utilizing African techniques – extremely high and low ranges, the use of falsetto, numerous blues notes, and expressive vocal catches strengthening the emotional characters of the music.

Although performed in an idiom deemed unacceptable for mainstream markets, black popular music steadily developed in an enthusiastic audience among young white listeners. Finally, in 1949, the industry trade journal Bill-Board abandoned the offensive term “race records,” grouping all the popular music intended for a black audience under the term rhythm and blues and for several years that was the phrase generally applied to black popular music.

Rhythm and blues ensembles whether swing-style bands or small combos, where loud, usually featuring an electric guitar and sometimes other electrified instruments as well. The music had a strong vocal orientation, with at least one singer and often an all-male vocal group involved, the need for singers to shout or scream to be heard above the instrumentalists contributing to the emotional intensity of the music. The lyrics of most r&b songs – though frankly, oneself-consciously, and even blatantly sexual – remained primarily good-nature.

Although white listeners readily accepted the soothing of music of certain black male ensembles, they did not yet accept black music per se: The performances of such doo-wop ensembles as the Mills brothers and the Ink Spots, featuring high falsetto voices, smooth harmonies, and subtle rhythmic backgrounds sung to nonsense syllables, were relatively white in style. The Platter’ doo-wop recording “Only You” and “My Prayer” are other well-known examples of early doo-wop music. The black soloists Lena Horne, Nat “King” Cole, and Ella Fitzgerald also had hits on the pop charts in the later 40s and early 50s, but most of their reportage was from Tin Pan Alley, and their performances, too, generally conformed to white practice. Black listeners tended to prefer rhythm and blues, and by 1950, increasing numbers of young whites did, too.

Finally, the unexpected but quite congenial blending of rhythm and blues and country –western – each lying outside the mainstream – invigorated and in-fact revolutionized American popular music.

Latin Music - A popular genre in the history

2012-10-15T20:54:00.001-07:00

Latin Popular Music’s

Latin Music - An Illustrative Art

Music from Latin America, having enriched the popular and concert music of the United States for at least a century and a half, is of more significance to North American popular music today than ever before. In the Southwest, where venerable Spanish traditions remain strong, traditional dance music is played much as it has been for many generations.

In other parts of country, Latin American dance music has strongly affected North American Pop and jazz. And today “Latin Pop” is a category in its own right – a strong one- on the Billboard trade magazine popular music charts.

Early in the 20th century, Latin popular dances took the United States by storm, first as exotic curiosities, next as fads, finally entering the main stream of American popular music. The first of the Latin rhythms to affect American pop was the Argentinian tango, a graceful dance, sedate in tempo but highly sensuous in performance. Introduced to Broadway audiences in 1911 and made widely popular as danced by Irene and Veron Castle in a 1913 musical, the tango represents a sophisticated fusion of European and African ingredients.

Lyrical tango melodies often suggest the influence of Argentina’s large Italian population, whereas the basic tango rhythm is that of an older Cuban dance, the habanera (name for Havana, Cuba), which subdivides eight eighth-notes (four beats) into 3 + 3 + 2. The habanera beat has been of enormous significance to popular music in the United States ; for example, in the mid-19th century, Louis Moreau Gottschalk used in rhythm in several of his popular piano pieces ; Jelly Roll Morton claimed that New Orleans rag-time players often applied the “Spanish tinge,” as he called this beat, to their left-hand accomplishments ; and in 1914, W.C. Handy used the rhythm in the four-line-verse - the “tango section” – interspersed between the blues stanza of St. Louis Blues. Since those early days, the habanera beat has been heard as the basic rhythm of numerous pop styles.

In the thirties several Latin dances entered American pop through big band music, especially that of popular bandleader Xavier Coat, who was born in Spain but raised in Cuba. Several renowned Latin performers, including Desi Arnaz and Carmen Miranda, began their careers about that time, appearing in popular stage shows in the thirties and later in film musicals.

Three Latin areas – the Caribbean, Brazil and Mexico – have particular influenced the popular, classical and religious music of the North America.

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History of Jazz - II

2012-10-14T04:17:00.002-07:00

History of Jazz and its emergence Part II –Emergence Of Swing

A Jazz Swing Band

Jazz 1930-1960

Jazz reached a peak of popularity in the mid-1930s, a relatively optimistic period when the Great depression was finally receding and America’s involvement in World War II lay ahead. Recordings and radio programs having made t ends of sweet jazz widely familiar been, multitudes o people craved more adventurous
listening, and with Prohibition ended, real jazz came to be performed in an atmosphere more congenial to the general public than the small, illegal speakeasies of the twenties. Crowds flocked to hear the big bands play, and by 1935 big band music resounded from radios, recording, juke-boxes, and dance halls all over the country.

Big Band Swing

While sweet and symphonic “jazz” soothed more timid listeners, black jazz musicians were adding instruments to their small combos and developing the vibrant sound that came to be known as big band jazz, or swing. The new sound was of such huge appeal to whites and blacks of virtually every stratum in society that jazz and popular music came together for a time and swing continued the popular music of the thirties.

Both “big band” and “swing” need clarification. The earliest big bands actually had only five or six members, but the standard soon became twelve to eighteen players, in three sections of instruments:

1. Brass (trumpets, trombones).

2. Woodwinds, called reeds, in which player causes small flexible pieces of cane to vibrate

3. Rhythm ( a guitar and/or double bass, piano, drums)

Big Band Swing

“Swing” like many terms in art, has several meanings, some rather technical : For example, swing eights are strings of eighth notes performed in uneven rhythm, alternating long and short notes of subjective rather than of measured length. This contributes to the flexible give-and-take, or expressive rubato, with the steady jazz beat. But “swing” also refers to a mood, a lilt, a magical effect that great jazz achieves and that sympathetic listeners recognize and respond to. When every element of a jazz performance comes together and works, the music swings.

Eventually the big, or swing, bands experienced the stimulating interaction between black and white musicians characteristic of many developments of jazz, for although the makers of recordings and the mangers of commercial radio stations still severely segregated popular music intended for blacks or whites, African American music inevitably became more familiar to and popular with a greatly widening audience. White people often traveled to Harlem, a black neighborhood in uptown New York City, where they could hear the finest jazz musicians in the world collectively improvise, or jam. And even people who hardly understood the complex new music found themselves intoxicated with its nearly indefinable trait called swing.

History Of Jazz - Importance and emergence Part 1

2012-10-12T23:12:00.001-07:00

Jazz Age

New Orleans Jazz – It’s History and Emergence – Part I

As music instruments left over from Civil War military bands became readily and cheaply available, black musicians began playing them in their own manner, improvising freely on favorite familiar tunes. In New Orleans, small brass bands for parades, concerts, and even for funerals, developing a famous tradition that survives today:
Having performed solemn music to accompany the funeral party both to the cemetery and – for a dignified interval – on the way back to town, the band breaks into joyous music whose familiar tunes and hot rhythms virtually compel the mourners’ healthy return to the normalcy of everyday life.

In time, the bands’ instrumental techniques became more individual, the tempos faster, and the mood more high-powered and intense. Although some of the musicians read music, most did not simply improvised freely on familiar tunes. In a word, they were playing jazz. Soon small bands or combos of black musicians were providing indoor entertainment, their hot new dance music combing in the steady beat and string tempo of European march and dance tunes with the subtle and compel syncopation of black African and Caribbean effects.

As already noted, New Orleans, which had alternately been under French and Spanish rule and to which many Afro-Latin people had fled from Caribbean settlements such as Haiti and Cuba, offered a rich cultural climate, whose music included popular French, Spanish, Creole, and black tunes ; serious and comic opera ; and airs from marching, dance, and concert bands. The city generously nourished the exciting new vernacular sound, with the notorious Stormville red-light district of gambling saloons, bordellos, and dance halls offering ample job opportunities for jazz musicians. Thus it is not surprising that New Orleans produced a large number of astonishingly talented jazz musicians who soon attracted other to their city, making it the first important center of jazz.

New Orleans Jazz - It's Emergence

Most New Orleans jazz combos contained three to eight people playing clarinet, cornet or trumpet, and trombone, with a rhythm section including banjo, tuba, and drums. Later, combos playing inside rather than on the streets added a piano and sometimes replaced the tuba with a string bass. Having selected a hymn, rag, march, popular song, or blues and agreed upon vising around the tune: The cornet handled the melody; the clarinet wove the rhythm section market the beat, a straight four-to-the-bar, with an accent on ONE and a secondary accent on THREE. Early New Orleans performances were basically collective improvisations played in this manner, the soloists taking turns improvising complex variations on given melodies while the other musicians provided rhythmic and harmonic support.

Jazz Piano

Jazz pianists, whose instrument sounded its own harmonies and who could practice independently of other musicians, enjoyed greater opportunity than other jazz instrumentalists to maximize their individuality; and indeed a number of jazz pianists developed distinctive styles extremely influential in the transition from ragtime to jazz. Jelly Roll Morton combined ragtime and boogie-woogie techniques to produce his own inimitable jazz piano style, with rhythms looser and melodies less embellished than those of ragtime. Earl Hines (1903-1983) played with a swinging, flexible style usually associated with band instruments rather than with his piano. And Art Tatum (1910-1956), one of the most admired pianists in jazz history, combined his gifts for complex and ingenious harmonic changes and incredibly powerful technique with element of piano style called “stride”.

Boogie-Woogie –

As accompanying instruments assumed ever more significant roles in performing the blues, the next logical step was adapting the blues to instrumental forms. Thus before 1920, certain ragtime pianists carried the twelve-bar structure, and often the characteristic harmonic progressions of the blues as well, to the piano.

Unlike the written ragtime pieces, the piano blues or boogie-woogie was freely improvised, the new jazz pianists accompanying a syncopated melody in the right hand with a characteristic highly rhythmic left-hand ostinato. This eight-to-the-bar accompanying pattern (subdividing the four beats of a measure into eight pulses, usually in the patter LONG-short-LONG-short-LONG-short-LONG-short) resulted in complex cross rhythms, which – combined with a brisk tempo and a new dividing intensity – quickly made boogie a music popular to dance and listening to.

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Beethoven's work and story

2012-10-08T21:33:00.000-07:00

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

Beethoven - A Sketch

The Composer and His Music

In 1792 George Washington was president of the United States; Goethe, at Weimar, was directing the ducal theater and publishing studies in the science of optics; Haydn was at the height of his fame; and Mozart had been dead since the previous December. Early in November, an ambitious young composer and pianist named Ludwig Van Beethoven, then just under twenty-two years of age, traveled from the city of Bonn on the Rhine to Vienna, a five-hundred-mile journey that took a week by stagecoach.

He ran short of money and for a while kept a detailed account of his finances. One of the entries in his notebook records an expenditure of twenty-five grouches for “coffee for Haydn and me.”

Haydn has stopped off at Bonn on his way to London in December 1790. He must have heard some of Beethoven’s compositions, because he urged the archbishop elector of Cologne to send his young charge to Vienna for further study. Beethoven’s lessons with Haydn continued from later 1792 until Haydn left in 1794 on his second visit to London. Meanwhile, Beethoven also revived help from Johann Schenk (1753-1809), the author of a famous treatise on composition and one of the leading teachers of his day. Beethoven also received informal lessons in vocal composition from Antonio Salieri, who had been living in Vienna since 1766. But his earliest music teacher was his father, a singer in the chapel at Bonn, who pushed the boy’s progress in the hope of making a second Mozart of him.

When he was seventeen, Beethoven actually played for Mozart, who prophesied a bright future for him. Finally, he also took lessons in Bonn from the court organist Christian Gottlob Neefe (1748-1798), who was known for his Singspiel and songs.

Beethoven came on the scene at a time when new and powerful forces were pressing society. Like Napoleon and Goethe, Beethoven witnessed the tremendous upheaval that burst forth in the French Revolution. Although he built on the musical conventions, genres, and styles of the Classical period, he transformed this heritage in creating a body of works that would become models for composers of the Romantic period.

Output - His Works

His compositions include 9 symphonies, 11 overtures, incidental music to plays, a violin concerto, 5 piano concertos, 16 string quartets, 9 piano trios, 10 violin sonatas, 5 cello sonatas, 32 large piano sonatas, many sets of piano variations, an oratorio, an opera, and two Masses, as well as arias, songs, and numerous lesser compositions. There is an obvious disparity when we compare these figures with the output of Haydn and Mozart: 9 symphonies, for example, to Haydn’s 100-plus or Mozart’s 60-plus. A partial explanation, of course, is that Beethoven’s symphonies are longer and grander, but another reason is that Beethoven wrote music with great deliberation. He kept notebooks in which he jotted down themes and plan for compositions, and thanks to these sketch-books we can follow the progress of a musical idea through various stages until it reaches the final form. The sketches for the Quartet Op. 131 are three times as long as the finished work.

The impression Beethoven gave of being moody and unsociable had much to do with his increasing deafness. He began to lose his hearing around 1796, and by 1820 he could hardly hear at all. In the autumn of 1802 Beethoven wrote a letter, now known as the Heiligenstadt Testament, intended to read by his brothers after his death. In it he describes in maven terms how he suffered when he realized that his malady was incurable:

Instrumental Music - Sixteenth 16th Century

2012-10-08T02:21:00.001-07:00

Instrumental Music of the Sixteenth Century

An art illustrating wide ranges of musical instruments

The Rise of Instrumental Music

During the hundred years between 1450 and 1550, distinct styles, genres, and forms of instrumental music emerged. Independent instrumental music-existed earlier, of course, in the form of dances, fanfares, and the like, but since it was played from memory or improvised, it has not survived.

Much of the early written instrumental music that is extant consists of transcriptions for keyboard. Medieval manuscripts, such as the Roberts Bridge and Faenza codices, which include keyboard arrangements and elaborations of cantilenas and motets, un-doubted represent only a fraction of the music that was transcribed in the way. Moreover, a great deal of music written for voices was often performed instrumentally, and instruments had participated with voices in the performances of polyphonic music since the middle Ages.

So, the seeming increase in instrumental music after 1450 is an illusion: it means just that more of it was being written down. Even so, the manuscripts and prints preserve only a small portion of the instrumental music of the Renaissance and that only approximately, because it was usually elaborated in performance by improvised embellishments.

Books on Instruments

The most popular instrument - Piano

Publications that describe instruments or give instructions for playing them are another sign of the 16^th century’s growing regard for instrumental music. From these books we can learn about the problems of pitch, temperament, and tuning in this period and about the art of embellishing a melodic line. From the illustrations of an extraordinary number and variety of wind instruments we learn that instruments were built in sets of families, so that one uniform timbre was available throughout the entire range from soprano to bass. A complete set, called a “chest” or “consort” – of visols or recorders, for example – consisted of four to seven instruments.

Besides recorders, the principal wind instruments were shawms (double-reed forerunners of the oboe); the capped-reed instruments, such as the krummhorn, kortholt, and rauschpfeife: transverse flutes, and cornets of wood or ivory, with cup-shaped mouth pieces.

Organ

An Organ - Instrument

The organ had the advantage of a full-bodied sound that covered a broad range by itself with a uniform sonority. The tone of the organ was gradually varied by the addition of solo and other stops that could be combined with the principals and mixtures of the medieval instrument. By about 1500, the large church organ was similar to essentials to the instrument we know today, although the pedal keyboard was employed in Germany and the Low Countries long before it was adopted elsewhere.

The medieval portative organ had gone out of fashion, but there were small positive organs (without pedals), including the regal, which had reed pipes of a quietly strident tone.

Opera Music - The Base Of Classical Music

2012-10-07T07:15:00.000-07:00

Opera Music

OPERA

Many of the stylistic traits that we associate with the Classic period had their origin in the Italian musical theater of the first decades of the 18^th Century. Because tradition weighted less heavily on cosmic opera, it was more hospitable to innovations than serious opera.

Early Italian Cosmic Opera

Opera buffa is one of the single terms, which has wider meaning. It is / was used mostly in the 18^th Century period for the purpose of Italy - comic opera; other terms were drama giocoso (jocular drama). An opera buffa was defined as a full-length work with a combination of 6 and or more singing characters and, unlike the terms of comic opera in other countries, it was sung throughout the whole meter and was made up of multiple ranges and signatures. It was being served as a moral purpose by caricaturing the foibles of aristocrats and those of commoners, vain ladies, miserly old men, awkward and clever servants, deceitful husbands and wives, pedantic lawyers and notaries, bungling physicians, and pompous military commanders. These often resemble the stock characters of the commedia dell’arte, the improvised comedy popular in Italy from the 16^th Century on.

Opera Music Performance

The comic characters often spoke or sang in dialect, as they did in some of the Venetian comedies, or the entire play might be in the local dialect as the Naples. The comic cast was usually complemented by a number of serious characters around whom the main plot revolved and who interacted with the comic characters, particularly in amorous intrigues. The dialogue was set in rapidly delivered recitative that was accompanied by the keyboard only.

Arias

Arias Collection

The Arias in the comic operas arfe made up of short tuneful phrases, often repeated, accompanied by simple harmonies, and organized into tidy periods. One of the pioneers of this style was Leonardo Vinci. Many of Vinci’s arias in this work are substantial – in da capo form, accompanied by a four-part string ensemble – while others are brief and supported only by continuo. An example of the latter type is the aria, which opens a scene between Beluccia, who is a disguised as a man, and Ciommatella, a young woman who has fallen in love with “him”.

It is constructed of one-measure phrases in antecedent-consequent pairs. But some of the phrases are extended or interrupted, propelling the melody and its text directly into a recitative dialogue. The modulation of the dominant that ushers in the reactive is momentarily delayed by a deceptive cadence on the lowered sixth degree of the new key. These techniques help to overcome the static effort of a series of balanced phrases with the text repetitions and result in a dynamic melody that moves the drama forward.

History Of Piano

2012-10-07T02:13:00.000-07:00

A Grand Piano

THE PIANO

The piano of the nineteenth century was quite different from the one for which Mozart had written. It had been reshaped, enlarged to seven octaves, provided with felt-covered hammers, and strengthened by metal plates and braces. It was capable of producing a full, firm tone at any dynamic level, of responding in every way to demands for both expressiveness and virtuosity. The piano was the supreme Romantic instrument.

Performing Styles

Playing Style

At the beginning of the century there were two distinct schools of piano playing. One, represented by Mozart’s talented pupil Johann Nepomuk Humel (1788-1837), emphasized clarity of texture and fluency of technique. The other school, to which Beethoven certainly belonged, emphasized fullness of tone, wide dynamic range, orchestral effects, dramatic execution, and an abundance of technical equipment. Both styles and present in the works of Muzio Clementi, influential Italian composer, pianist, teacher, and manufacturer of pianos.

Composers and Performers

Several important schools of piano playing and composition emerged later in the 19^th century. Elegance, sentiment, brightness and clarity were achieved by Clementi’s pupil John Field (1782-1837), whose nocturnes would serve as models for Chopin. Hummel’s pupil Adolf von Henselt (1814-1899) was noted for his skill in legato playing of fast arpeggios. Chopin’s early works also show his influence of Hummel’s style. Other pianists aimed rather at impressiveness, audacity, and showmanship; the most conspicuous were Friedrich Kalkbrenner (1785-1849), Henri Herz (1803-1888), Sigismund Thalberg (1812-1871), and the globe-trotting American Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869) – all successful display pianists but second-rank-composers whose works, nevertheless, were published widely in Europe and America. A third group were the “Titans of the piano”, outstanding for both technical and imperceptive gifts.

Music for Piano

The 19^th century cult of expressive, songful melody presented a challenge to composers of piano music. The long lyrical lines so natural to the voice had to be contained within the length of ten fingers without sacrificing the active accompaniments that had become fashionable in lieder and in piano arrangement of opera arias. One way to accommodate both was by splitting the accompaniment between the two hands; deft fingerings and pedaling enabled the player to bring out a legato melody with the part of the hand while remaining fingers provided harmonic figuration. An inner “alto” or “tenor” voice could also be projected by this means.

Mendelssohn’s Lieder one Worte abound with examples of this tactic.

By embedding the melody in harmonic figuration spanning an octave, we get an illusion of orchestral doubling at the octave, while a hornlike part provides an inner voice paralleling the melody. The resonance and power of the modern piano invited exploration in loud, full chords with variety of touch, shadings and accents.

Progression Of Music - A History

2012-09-29T23:24:00.020-07:00

Progression Of Music

The Progression Of Music - From Ancient Era

The discovery of music dates back as easy as Prehistoric ages. Cultures worldwide own to independent music origins of varied genres. The trend is a derivative from earlier times to present-day.

Nevertheless, Music development is an evolving process, and directly relates to the development and history of music all-around the world, and is considered to be the main part of the history of music arena and should be noted for it's development and the facts for the same as well. Maintaining it's etiquette and the impersonation of the habitation and the acquaintances should be done.. in order to get the best out of this practice of the music and it's practice all over the world.

Music has over 50, 000 years history, and Africa is the motherland where ancient music originated. As the world ages, so does music and people today, have a wider selection of genres to enjoy. There are several factors that influence music; the notable includes climate, technological accessibility, culture, experience as well as economic and social organization.

This article serves as a guide, directing individuals through the music timeline for the prehistoric ages to what people listen to nowadays. According to biblical reference Jubal is the inventor of the instruments used to compose music in the Bible age. According to literature in the bible, history of music goes as far back as the bible ages. In support of this, bible history refers to the “Song of Deliverance”, which the children of Israel rendition; while passing the “Red Sea” with “Moses”. When comparing the times of David, Solomon and Samuel, one has to be in awe, as the poetic selections in Hebrew music is Golden.

History Of Music - Progress and Development

Many scholastic training sessions for prophets included music lessons as a vital ingredient. Later, professional singers became the evolving product of biblical services, festive performances and involved instrumental experts that embraced musical pride. This continued and the history of music gained relevance in numerous cultures; thus the forming of theatrical arts and music in schools developed. Though bible literature indicates Jubal was first to invent the musical instruments such as the pipe and harp, Israel has the ancient history in early ages, according to “The Pentateuch”, which is indicative that music instruction and practice started in Israel, at the first phase in history of music

Prehistoric music became obsolete as innovative musical compositions surfaced, given the popularity of history of music writing increased. Nonetheless, the walls and vases still manifest proof, as many cultures inscribe drawings of ancient musical instruments. Archives of archaeology discoveries produce ancient instruments relating to the world of Indus valley civilization, such as the “Seven holed flute”; in addition to several other stringed instruments. Persians, are among other renowned countries contributes lively music to society, which shows with works of “Ramtin”, “Barbod” and “Nakissa”.

Early music includes a number of genres such as Greek, Egyptian, Asian, Mesopotamian, Muslim, Jewish, Persian, Roman and Indian music. The history of music in this age was diverse, entailing multi cultural traditions in wide reaching geographic regions. In particular, medieval Europe gained recognition during this period, but record about this is unavailable. With the Roman Catholic Church unifying Middle Age cultures, developments in music became the main concentration. Considering the lack of notation, most non Christian music died in the early ages, because suppression was a technique the Church pursued. Folk music still survives as a Modern European genre and is one rooting back to the middle ages in the history of music.

Medieval music also has a rich history, which writings, records and various instruments of artistic reference provide. The “ars nova” style is quite popular in European music history. This involves the grouping of medieval music, relating to Renaissance aesthetics and ideals. Renaissance of music history hails from northern Europe, particularly Belgium, and the Netherlands as well as northern and central France. As time aged, this like other music choices indulges in continuous evolution. The institutional musical forms consist of the Laude, the Mass and Motet while the Frottola, Chanson and Madrigal gained relevance later. These prevailed in the 15th century, but the mid 16th century commences the breakdown in international music styles, while various innovations also surfaced in the history of music and it's important in the global presence.

The Development in
Readable Notations

The approach was necessary to achieve a simplified form of sacred music with proportion to the “Counter Reformation Council of Trent”. The Baroque enabled instrumental music to dominate; however, the larger proportion of music forms own to definition. With the innovative modifications in history of music forms, concerto grosso, sonata and concerto forms became relevant in the music world.

The Classical music is another music form, including homophonic texture; more often than not the delivery might include melody. Most of these are singable or voice like compositions, which allowed the exclusion of singers. Rapidly, “Opera” became popular, including many other historical musical selections. While other forms dissolved, Opera has gained a strong reputation in the commerce to this day. By far, Opera music has a long-standing history, and as the music world evolves with technological instruments enhancing production, the market has changed for better.

On aspects regarding the history of “Romantic music”, emotional and expressive melodies are common traits to expect in this form, given that philosophy, literature and art are essential in this category. Bellini, Schumann, Berlioz, Mendelssohn and Chopin exist as famous musicians for the excellent work contributed. While development in different areas was necessary, expansion in the orchestra in the late nineteenth century was evident, which involved concerts in the urban society. Conversely, ancient history of music is valuable to today’s society, considering the ancient masterpieces offer the most genuine compositions that are difficult to master, even with esteemed secularism, and the history of music

It may well be that the exceedingly primitive music of the modern pygmies of Africa and Malaysia, the Bushmen, the Veda of Ceylon, and the natives of Tierra del Fuego; can throw light on the very beginnings of the art. But it is an uncertain light. Primitive music is a vast and fascinating field of study for its own sake but it belongs to the providence of ethnomusicologist, not that of the musical historian; remembering that culture can retrogress as well as progress, the historian should listen to his colleague’s arguments with respectful skepticism. The pre-historian is a more welcome helper, for he can bring such tangible and approximately datable evidence as Neolithic bone flutes with finger-holes, but we must now welcome him too eagerly. At least we must not be more eager than he is.

There is, for instance, a mouse engraved drawing in the Magdalenian cave of Les Trios Freres (Ariege) dating from c. 13,500 B.C., which includes a figure half-bison, half-man, whom Jacquetta Hawkes thinks may possible be a disguised hunter, though ‘on the whole he seems more likely to be taking part in a ritual’.

The twentieth century is a milestone for the development of high-tech music, considering the advanced, methods of delivery and artistic arrangements. There are several ways to listening music nowadays, since technologies, media and radios provide futuristic approaches to visualizing the history of music. This has caused an increase in concerts held, since broadcast now promote music with visual additives and the use of technological devices to boost quality. In prehistory, man did not have accessibility to such resources, so music encompassed authentic instruments, which still create melodies well, in contrast to mechanical tools,in the history of music.

Today, people can access music anywhere and at any time, which is also a weak link in middle age, but history indicates the music produced earlier has prevailing values in contrast to the product humans become accustomed to listening or viewing. On the other hand, this alteration to music has enabled musicians to explore a wide range of concepts to diversify performances and develop prominence. However, the process is challenging because certain rules exist, and ignoring relevant standards can result in defamation of character.

How Did Rock 'n' Roll Started

2012-09-29T23:23:00.001-07:00

The Pioneers Of Rock 'n' Roll

Rock ‘n’ Roll - It's origin

In the early part of the 20^th Century, children were expected simply to assume the attitudes of their parents. Teenagers were seen as young adults. Their clothes, while youthful in appearance, were similar to what older people wore. And their responses to similar situations were like their parents’. For example, in the late 1940s, both mother and daughter swooned – Mom over Clark Gable and daughter over Frank Sinatra. Both Dad and junior spend hours under the hood – Pop with the family car and junior with an old jalopy. Mom, apple pipe, and Archie and Jug head were symbols of the American Way.

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By 1955, teenage life in America took a standard direction: high school, dating and going steady, the prom or the hop, graduation, and adulthood. Most people viewed these young people as happy, hard-working, athletic, and church-going in short, they were the hope for the future.

The move “Blackboard Jungle” shocked everybody. Here was a portrayal of teenagers who talked back to teachers, who didn’t want to learn, who attempted rape, and who responded to discipline by trying to beat two teachers to death. While “Blackboard Jungle” focused on an urban school setting and a group of “juvenile delinquents,” it nonetheless revealed feelings toward authority that became the new symbols of teenage rebellion. The film’s portrayal of musical attitudes was prophetic, too. When an involved teacher tries to “reach” his class by paying a treasured collection of rare jazz records, the students respond by laughing at the “old fashioned” music; in a game of “catch” they smash the records, one by one.

Bill Haley and the Comets

Bill Haley and the Comets

The theme of the song “Blackboard Jungle” was “Rock around the clock” by Bill Haley and the comets. The song was simple “it sang of twenty – four – hour party time. Its musical form was simple, too: twelve-bar blues without alterations. Haley was guitarist and singer from the country – western field. After selling over one million copies of “Rock around the clock”, he became the leader of the new teenage music. His music was extraordinarily simple. And he was a rather bland-looking man with a constant grin. What, then, was the rage about? For the first time, music spoke to, about, and for teenage life. with no references to the adult world. As far as teenagers were concerned, now they had something that was completely theirs. This fact did not escape the watchful eyes of the recording industry.

Costumes and staging became an integral part of the rock ‘n’ roll formula. Haley and the comets, for example, imitated the adult world by wearing tuxedos, the customer of establishment entertainers like dean Martin and Bob Hope ; but the Tuxedos were of blazing colors – fire engine red, chartreuse, glittering gold. Solos were staged to emphasize physical movement, rather than musical content. For example, the keyboard player half jumped up and down while playing; Haley used the neck of his guitar to emphasize whatever riff he was playing; the saxophone player performed while lying on his back; and the bass player laid his instrument on its side and used it as a mattress while he pulled the strings as hard as possible. This was all part of the show.

If togetherness had been the American family image during the 30s and 40s, alienation became the image for teenagers in the mid-fifties. “Don’t bug me” and “just leave me alone” were main themes of teen life. They were aimed at the adult world, and they sprang from years of repressed anger. From the movies, a new antihero emerged. Marion Brando led a roaming motorcycle gang in the Wild ones. He was alienated, angry, and tough. He rode a fast bike and a black leather jacket and boots and spoke in one-syllable words. This image found its way into rock ‘n’ roll. Once and for all, the adult world was confronted with what it never spoke about in public: sex.

Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley (b.1935) caught the essence of early rock ‘n’ roll sexual revolution. On stage, there was no doubt about the focus of attention. He offered sex appeal. While his view of women was hardly liberated. “You Ain’t Nothin’ But a Hound Dog” kept women swooning. “Love me Tender” offered a softer, warmer, almost affectionate side that contrasted with his blatant sexuality. Presley changed his costume to “superflash” – pink suits – and drove a gold Cadillac. In a rock ‘n’ roll revival show in 1972; his fans still came to see him, helping him retain the title “Elvis the Pelvis.”

The Rolling Stones

The Image Of Rock 'n' Roll - The Rolling Stones

The Rolling stones illustrate rock’s most basic qualities. They discard any image associated with causes. No Brando or James Dean here. They are angry, detached, and exclusive. Their dress varies from T-Shirts to Superman Costumes. Their music is loud. The Decibel level they reach (along with other rock groups) is so high that prolonged exposure to it can result to deafness. Rock groups take full advantage of technological advances in amplification.

Mick Jagger, is perhaps, the most fascinating pop star. He exudes sexuality. His bumps and grinds with the microphone and his wriggles and shakes make Elvis Presley and Little Richard look tame. He whips his long hair around his sweating face, propelling his body to higher and higher energy levels. Although sex is unquestionably flaunted, the gender is unspecified. Energy is all-consuming. “Get off my cloud”, “Sympathy for the Devil”, and “Street Fighting Man” sum up the Rolling Stones’ philosophy” What’s mine is mine ; I’ll sell my soul for it and fight to death to keep it.

Top 10 Greatest Guitarists Of All Time

2012-09-29T23:22:00.024-07:00

Jimi Hendrix - 1

Jimi Hendrix - The best of all

Jimi Hendrix, one of the greatest guitarist was born on 27th November, 1942 in Seattle, Washington. He was born to seventeen year old James Allen "Al" Hendrix, an army soldier and Lucille Jeter. Jimi was one of five the siblings; three were physically challenged and given to state custody which made Jimi Hendrix shy and secluded boy. His childhood was tragic, he lost his mother at the age of 15, and was grown up between relatives but he loved and was attracted towards guitar music.

At the age of 17, Jimi received a first electronic guitar, there after his life story changed forever. Jimi Hendrix started his carrier in musical guitar within Seattle local areas. But his talent was unquestionable and played with different angles like left hander, back and by his teeth. With his reputation growing and the rising star traveled to London and soon hit the graphs. His first album became best seller. Later he was arrested for legal and drug possession . His last concert was in United States, 1970 in his childhood place Seattle. He died in September 18, 1970 at the age of just 27 in an apartment due to intake of high amount of sleeping pills and with heavy drinks. Some stories claimed suicide and murder.

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Mark Knopfler - 2

Mark Knopfler - The greatest finger
picking guitarist.

Mark Knopfler was born on 8 December 1949 in Glasgow, Scotland. His carrier started initially as journalist and a teacher. Before Dire Straits and successful hit of ‘Sultans of Swing” in 1997, He was biased by ample variety of American artists such as Bob Dylan, Elvis Presley and few others. In 1976, he extended vacation of states. He stayed with friends, spoke with unfamiliar person and drenched with overload. In this time Mark Knopfler was gaining his confidence to leave his journalism and teaching and pursue in guitar music in big way. The third album was a big hit and became more personal and has become his very best loved song, the ‘Romeo and Juliet’ of failed love story. In 1995 after termination form the Dire Straits, he comes back again to his more personal passion of first solo album in 1996, ‘Golden Heart’. He also performed of his songs for many movies as a guitarist and music director as well for ‘Wag the Dog’ in 1997. Other his own film makes ‘The Princess Bride’ and ‘Last Exit to Brooklyn’.

Buckethead (Brian Caroll) -3

Real image of Brian Caroll

Brian Caroll best known by his leg name Buckethead born on May 13, 1969 in Southern California is a talented guitarist and multi musician and has worked many geniuses. The Buckethead back story starts with a child named Brian Caroll budding up in a Southern California village and not very far from Disneyland. He was a diffident kid and spended more time in room, with comic books, video games, belligerent arts and more stuff. He also spended an entire time at Disneyland. Unlike his icons, Carroll was colourful. In reality, in model world, he would go onstage with anyone and to become hide behind. He executed more than 50 albums by other artists and also his release includes 35 studio albums. His music covers such varied areas as progressive metal, funk, blues Jazz, bluegrass and ambient. Buckethead is famous for electric guitar playing. In the Guitar One magazine, he voted number 8 as the top 10 greatest guitar of all time. He was also recognized as “25 all-time weirdest guitarists” and "50 fastest guitarists of all time lists"

Jimmy Page - 4

Jimmy Page - With double neck
guitar (He was the first one
to use it)

Jimmy Page was born on 9 January, 1944 birth name as James Patrick Page in Heston Middlesex, London England. Jimmy father worked as manufacturing staff manager and his mother as Doctor's Secretary with well educated background. He started playing with guitar at the age of 12 years old; it was his main thought, though he took sessions in Kingston. He was influenced by Scooty Moore and James Burton in the early stages. He joined The Crusaders band after he left the school at the age of 14 and travelled around for 2 years with this band. He sustained to record in the 1980's and 1990's. In 90’s, 'Walking Into to Clarksdale' and 'No Quarter' two albums were recorded with earlier dirigible main singer Robert Plant. His for the most part recorded toil was on a exist album with the band The Black Crowes in 2000. Jimmy Page was quite immersed with occult and also published secret and supernatural powers called as occult.

Eric Clapton - 5

Eric Clapton - The
greatest blues
guitarist.

Eric Patric Clapton was born on 30^th March 1945. He started as a blue guitarist in his early age and he released his very first album “Bluesbreakers” at the age of 21. His fan who was so much inspired from him gave him a tile as “Clapton is God” and it became a trade mark in his entire music carrier. He spent over the time with "John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers" band which helped him as a grown up guitarist. Eric Patric Clapton contributed above 40 years of to music industry in his life and in December 22, 1991 he scored music for the movie release “Rush". His music most of into instrumental and also contributed for movie soundtracks and six Grammy Awards winner song "Tears in Heaven". Eric Clapton, in 2010 was spotted with number 4 “Gibson's Top 50 Guitarists of All Time list”. Kim Jong-Il's second son is a big fan of the rock star.

Ritchie Blackmore - 6

Master of the picking
technique.

Ritchie Blackmore was born on April 14, 1945 Weston Super Mare, England UK. He is also known as first guitarist to combine classical musical elements with blues rock. He started his carrier as studio guitarist and has become a Deep Purple member. When Dio's band Elf serving as Deep Purple's opening act early 70s, He met Ronnie James Dio. In 1975, Blackmore left Purple and he created Rainbow around the Elf line up. He voted as South West’s joint best guitarist with Matt Bellamy in Total Guitar Magazine's poll of the greatest 12 British guitarists in July 2001. Again Total Guitar Magazine readers voted as "Smoke on the Water", fourth greatest guitar riff ever in June 2004. Blackmore basically added creative hold in the band. Blackmore last album was Battle Rages On with Deep Purple. Currently he plays with medieval-style group, Blackmore's Night. His trend mark includes Fender Stratocaster and Long Guitar Solos.

Dimebag Darrell (Pantera) - 7

The symbol of metal
guitarist \m/

Dimebag Darrell was born on August 20, 1966 Dallas Texas. His father was a musician and producer. He was grown with his father in a recording studio. He started playing guitar at the age of 12. He won series of local guitar compilations. He formed Pantera in 1981 with his brother on drums. Pantera consequently became a main formulator of the place beat subgenre of "groove" metal. Pantera was successful of its first bit of mercantile success in its 1990 major label debut, Cowboys from Hell after 9 years. Pantera started to endure from increasing tensions between band members in the mid of 1990s, due to vocalist Phil Anselmo's uncontrolled drug violence. Soon after a year, Vinnie and "Dimebag formed Damageplan, its large metal band and also used for the Pantera style groove metal sound. In February 10, 2004 United States, Damageplan released their debut album New Found Power, which was debuted at number 38 on the Billboard 200. Abbott was shot dead onstage in December 8, 2004, when performing with Damageplan at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio.

Eddie Van Halen - 8

Master of the tapping
technique.

Eddie Van Halen born on January 26 1955, Gelderland Netherlands. His family moved to Pasadena, California. Eddie started learning classical piano and Alex took up the guitar. In their early ages, Eddie was playing guitar and Alex switched to drums. In 1978, the band had released its first debut album. Eddie Van Halen and his band enjoyed success with over 80 million albums worldwide sold till 2007, Van Halen and the nearly all number one hits on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart. Van Halen is the 19th best selling band or artist of all time and with over 56 million albums sales in the United States alone according to the Recording Industry Association of America and one in five rock bands that have 2 albums sold over 10 million copies in U.S. RIAA qualified their first appearance album diamond for 10 million dolor in U.S in 1999. After years of conjecture, Van Halen started a tour along with Roth across North America from 2007 into 2008. Van Halen declared a tour for 2012 On December 26th, 2011.

John Mayer - 9

Multi Talented - Pop artist
+ Blues + Rock music.

John Clayton Mayer was born October 16, 1977, in Fairfield, Connecticut, USA. He enthused by a Stevie Ray Vaughan tape and started playing guitar at the age of 13. In year 2003, he won the Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for "Your Body Is a Wonderland" from Room for Squares album. He released third studio album, Continuum in September 2006. This was written and produced solely by Mayer. John Clayton Mayer was nominated five 2007 Grammys, along with "Album of the Year in December 7, 2006. John began his 2010 tour, performing to sell out mass and continuing collaboration with the music industries. John also collaborated many times with country music mega star Keith Urban co-headlining a show with town at the Gorge in Washington and performed as Keith's visitor at "We're All for the Hall" benefit program on October

On October 20, 2011 Mayer fell with throat granuloma and passed information to his fans about this happening and had to cancel his up-coming concert.

David Gilmour (Pink Floyd) - 10

The most talented
musician in guitar
the soul of pink floyd

David Jon Gilmour was born on March 6, 1946, in Grantchester Meadows, Cambridge. Since he was a Pink Floyd lead guitarist and many considered him as one of the major powerful guitarists on the rock stage. During 1970s, David Gilmour’s guitar playing had contributed major things to Pink Floyd’s worldwide success. Till up to "The Dark Side of The Moon", He wrote his own songs, but from then up to "The Final Cut", Roger Waters wrote all the lyrics. David Jon Gilmour produced some brilliant guitar work, particularly on the songs Shine On You Crazy Diamond from "Wish You Were Here" and Comfortably Numb from "The Wall". He also did vocals at great amount. Gilmour divorced his wife Ginger in the early 90s. Now he lives with girl friend called Polly Samson a journalist and also put in to some of The Division Bell's lyrics. He has a classic aircraft, Intrepid Aviation Company collection and he enjoys flying on his planes.

These are my personal opinions, any feedback, comments, likes, dislikes is always welcome. I am always passionate about music and have a wide perspective. Not the best list, but I have putted my effort. Hope you like it. Thanks - Umbilicall Noose

History of Chinese Music

2012-09-29T23:19:00.008-07:00

Old Chinese Traditional Music

The Music of Eastern Asia

EARLY CHINESE MUSIC

Of the high-culture music’s of Eastern Asia the one with the longest documented history is that of China with its near relatives in Japan, Korea and Vietnam. Some of the others are more distantly related, some – those of Cambodia, Thailand and Indonesia – hardly at all. None, not even Burmese, has any but tenuous or occasional connection with Indian.

Although the Chinese have a double-reed wind instrument called so-an, they are more likely to have acquired it directly from the Persian surna along the Central Asian trade-route followed by Marco Polo than from the Hindustani shannai. Only belief in the transcendental nature and power of music was shared by the Chinese with the Indians (and Greeks).

As early as c. 250 BC a treatise systematized the relationship of musical sounds to the cosmic order – a relationship almost certainly recognized by the ancient Babylonians and possibly Egyptians and later by the Persians and the Arabs – and at nearly the same time another treatise showed that the notes of the scale could be arithmetically derived from bamboo pitch-pipes. Long before this we have texts referring to instruments and even surviving instruments: egg-shaped ceramic flutes, a zither-like instrument, various kinds of drum, and L-shaped ‘sounding stones’ (ching) suspended from a frame and struck with a stick. Melodic percussion and instruments of the zither type are characteristic of Eastern Asian music generally.

According to the Encyclopedia Ch’un-ch’iu (spring and autumn) (239 B.C) of Lu Pu-wei, the note given by the first pitch –pipe became the basis of the entire Chinese musical system. It was called huang-chuang (literally ‘yellow bell’) and Jesuit missionary, Joseph Amiot, the earliest European to write extensively about Chinese music, reckoned that it sounded F below middle C, probably a might miscalculation. From the ‘yellow bell’ two series of notes were computed in the ratios of 2:3 and 4:3, rising in perfect fifths and descending in perfect fourths – F C G D a E etc. The six notes (lu) of the lower series, F. G. A B C# D#, were female (yin), the six (lu) of the upper series, C D E F# G# A#, male (yang). But this was theory, or, rather, the basis of theory; the oldest practical scale was Pentatonic, taking a look at the history of Chinese Music.

Traditional Chinese instrument

There were very early references to ‘five notes’ and the names – kung (F), Shang (G), chiao (A), chih (C), yu (D) – appear before the Lu-shih Ch’un-ch’iu, as also did two auxiliary notes, probably pien-chih (B) and pien-kung (E). It is characteristic of the Chinese scholar’s conception of the relation to music to social as well as cosmic order that even ‘five notes’ were symbolic, kung of the Emperor, Shang of chief minister, chiao of his subjects, chih of state affairs, and yu of material things; they also corresponded to the ‘five virtues’, ‘five colors’, ‘five elements’, ‘five planets’, and ‘five directions’ (the main points of the compass plus center). They could be played in the ritual music on the strings of the oldest form of ch’in, a long, narrow species of zither, together with a large zither, se, two panpipe-like instruments, the p’ai Hsiao or true panpipes and the sheng with free reed pipes and a small wind-chest, and tuned stones and bells on the history of Chinese Music.

We owe practically all this information to Lu Pu-Wei, whose treatise escaped the holocaust of books on Chinese culture ordered by the last of Ch’in emperors in 212 B.C. Under the Han Dynasty (206 B.C. – A.D. 220) various theorists tried to close the gap between the twelfth fifth, and the octave of the fundamental by continuing the cycle of perfect fifths, arriving by working back and forth within the octave at infinitesimal intervals, 60 to the octave. The pentatonic scale could begin on any of the five notes, giving five different ‘modes’ named after the initial/final melody in the mode in accordance with the season. However this practice of ritual transposition according to month and hour was not a constant feature of Chinese ritual music but fell into disuse again and again only to be revived. Under the Han emperors an Imperial Bureau of Music was established to supervise all these matters and maintain an archive of nation ritual melodies - indicating the existence of system of notation (probably the name of the notes as listed on the history of Chinese Music)

Bebop And Modern Jazz

2012-09-29T23:19:00.007-07:00

The Fusion Of Jazz and Bebop

BEBOP AND MODERN JAZZ - A FUSION

In the 1940s, Jazz musicians developed a complex new style called bebop (or bop). It was abstract music that required attentive listening and was not mean to “entertain”. To its early audiences, bebop seemed to lack melody, organization, and a clearly defined beat. Bop drummers did not play all four beats of the bar on the bass drum, as in the swing style.

Instead, they used the other drums for very asymmetrical accents sometimes called “dropping bombs,” and played a constant rhythm on the ride cymbal. This took away the listener’s familiar frame of reference – the beat – the drummer wasn’t stating the beat but only referring to it.

There is, in fact, as much organization in bebop as in swing or the New Orleans music. The forms are exactly the same: the twelve-bar blues and thirty two bar A A B A. The boppers kept the basic harmonic structure of the forms, but they composed a new melody (called a “line” or “head”) to substitute for provocations. The elaborate melodic improvisations contained tones that suggested substitute chord or series of chords that refers to the original chord or chords; it has either additional or altered notes that usually correspond with the melody. Complex bebop harmonies were generated by the horn players’ melodies.

Charlie “Bird” Parker

Charlie Parker

Bebop was not only a new style of music, but a distinct lifestyle as well. Shades, berets, and goatees were the “official” dress, and “hip” or “jive” talk was the vernacular. The man who epitomized this revolution and was, in fact, its musical and spiritual leader was Charlie “Bird” Parker (1920-1955)

Parker was born in Kansas City. He played Baritone horn in the school marching band but soon switched to alto saxophone. By fifteen, he was a high school dropout, a professional musician, and a heroin addict. He worked around Kansas City and there heard Lester Young play with the Basie Band. Young was Parker’s most profound early influence. Parker then lived in New York for some time. Along with the trumpet player Dizzy Gillespie, he became a standard figure in the Harlem Jam sessions. Both he and Gillespie worked with Earl-Hines in traditional swing band until they were fired for playing their “weird” music.

The first bebop records were made in late 1944 and early 1945 for the new and exclusively Jazz Savoy record company. Parker recorded as sideman with Tiny Grimes, with Dizzy Gillespie, and finally under his own name. Most of those recording had typically (for bebop) deceptive titles like “Billie’s Bounce” (twelve bar blues) “Thriving on a Riff” (“I got rhythm”), “KoKo” (a strange version of “Cherokee”). These records had a hostile reception, with critics using such glowing adjectives as “comical”, “ugly”, “squealing”, “honking”, and “non-“ Ant music”.

Lyricism, intensity, and timing were the three major elements of Parkers’ style. His melodic line was extremely long and used intervals that implied so many substitutions that the harmonic background of the original tune was changed forever. He had a great sense of humor and quoted melodies from outside the jazz repertoire in the middle of his improvisations. The Habanera from Bizet’s opera Carmen and “Popeye the Sailor Man” were two favorites.

John Coltrane

John Coltrane left bebop to emerge as the new spiritual
leader of the modern jazz (United Press International)

John Coltrane (1926-1967) and Sonny Rollins were the most influential saxophone players after 1955. Coleman Hawkins had inspired both of these aggressive tenor sax players. While Rollins was still perfecting his post-bop style, Coltrane left bebop and emerged as the new spiritual leader of modern jazz.

Coltrane’s first break came while he was with Miles Davis Quintet, 1955-1957. This band played bebop standards, non-jazz standards, and the blues. The driving force behind the band was the rhythm section. Red Garland (piano), Paul Chambers (bass), and Philly Joe Jones (drums). They provided a solid background for Coltrane’s solos, which were characterized by a bebop rhythmic feeling, melodic lines punctuated by “cries” in the upper register, and some of the double-time passages. Perhaps his most outstanding characteristics is that- unlike Young, who created new melodies on the top of simple harmonies – Coltrane “ran the changes”, creating patterns that extended of the harmonies. This new approach to improvising was fully realized when he left Davies Quintet in 1958. Substitution, in the bebop sense, had meant altering the chord progression to fit the soloist’s melodic line. But Coltrane’s “Giant steps” goes beyond this and starts out with substitutions as the original harmonies. The harmonic vocabulary is complex in this tune, and Coltrane changes chords every two beats.

With Coltrane’s death in 1967, Jazz completed a full cycle. Today Jazz is heading towards a fusion with rock music. This seems inevitable, with more and more rock bands playing jazz with jazz musicians using rock tunes and forms for improvising. Only time can tell whether the fusion will produce artists whose creativity matches that of the musicians we have briefly examined here.

African Music

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African Music

The Music of Black Africa and America

> General Characteristics

‘Black Africa’ is by no means a simple contradistinction from ‘white Africa’, least of all where music is cornered. Much of Africa belongs culturally to the Arab world; Indonesia has left its mark on Madagascar: and there is an enclave, Ethiopia, preserving – like Armenia – its own dialect of early Christian Music.

Unlike European, Arabic, Indian, and Chinese music, that of black Africa has no age-old theories, no notation; all we know of it is based on direct observation of practices, observation of little scientific value until little more than only half a century ago. Black Africa includes very many peoples whose languages are often quite distinct, yet one authority has detected ‘underlying unities’ in their music’s and attempted to ‘give an overview of the characteristics of this musical system’ which is ‘reasonably cohesive’ and another has declared roundly that ‘the music of Africa south of Sahara is one single main system’, modified in varying degrees in some areas by Arab Influence, e.g. among the Swahili-speaking peoples along the east coast.

Instruments serviced from Arab models, such as the rabbi are found in these areas, and the songs of the Tutsi in Ruanda and Hama in Uganda use a hummed introduction which sets the general modality for the music and text which follow, clearly a kin to the Arabic magma. The style of voice production, ornamentation of melodic line, general melodic characteristics, and the use of intervals smaller than half tones all suggest Arabic influence.

The same influence is apparent here and there on the West coast’ in Nigeria it is overwhelmingly preponderant with Hausa, less so with Yaruba, and non-existent among the Ibo.

Whereas Arabic music, indeed Asian music generally, is remarkable for its concentration on successive pitch-sounds with exquisitely subtle distinctions and ornaments – and European music for its luxuriant exploitation of simultaneous pitch sounds – the most obvious aspect of pure black African Music is the primary of rhythm. All African music rests on a rhythmic basis that includes the rich and complex polyrhythms essential to what is commonly known as ‘hot’ rhythm. The nickname itself is serviced from a ‘linguistic concept of West African tribesmen’:

A compelling rhythm is termed as ‘hot’; the more exciting the rhythms, the ‘hotter’ the music … The essential criteria of Negro musical rhythm may all be understood as overt manifestations of the concept ‘hot’. Everywhere, Negro music differs from the music of impinging non-Negro groups in being ‘hotter’.

Hence the most important African instruments are percussive; the numerous ones which are not actually percussion instruments are played percussively – and dance, even hand-clapping is as important as song.

AFRICAN INSTRUMENTS

African Musical Instruments

There are innumerable types of drum, the names and uses of which vary from tribe to tribe, of rattles, gongs, etc. Xylophones with calabash resonators, sometimes so large as to need more than one player, are called timbila or malimba by the Chopi or Mozambique, who have orchestras of them. Related to the Xylophone, though not percussive, is the peculiarly African sansa, a sound-board to which are fastened metal or sometimes bamboo tongues capable of quickly altered tuning, freely vibrating and played by thumbs and first fingers. In southern Africa the sansa is known as mbira, which in some versions is mounted inside a ground resonator. Besides vertical and transverse flutes and panpipes, there are ‘musical bows’, such as the Ruanda ununaki and southern African cipendari, which are struck or plucked, the bow being held to open mouth which acts as resonator – though many types have calabash resonators.

In West Africa metals bells, called gankogui by the Ewe of Ghana, are used to establish a fundamental rhythm for an ensemble; they are sometimes accompanied by a calabash rattle (axatse). But the most important instruments are the drums, for which the Ewe names are atismevu, the ‘master-drum’.

On the drum music are superimposed the rhythms of hand-clapping which, like the drum-rhythms take their time from the fundamental rhythm of the gankogui – as do the seemingly free rhythms of the song. The commonest patter of hand clapping all over black Africa is of the variant.

The sung melody is essentially, but by no means always, a free stylization of spoken intonation; there is ‘a constant conflict and accommodation between musical tendencies and the curves traced by the speech-tones of the song-text’; and the vocal rhythms are freely elaborated from the clapping rhythms. The numerous scales are sometimes close to, but never identical with, Western diatonic scales; for instance the Ghanaian Ewe tied to sing in a ‘major’ scale which avoids the fourth degree and slightly flattens the seventh. Another African scale flattens the third as well as the seventh. And these are different styles of chorus-singing; there is singing not only in unison and parallel thirds but in parallel fifths and fourths. Sometimes polyphony is produced by overlapping of chorus-leader and chorus and canon has been observed in West African xylophone music.

Greatest Country Rock Bands

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The Country Rock Music

MAIN BANDS OF COUNTRY ROCK - THE GREATEST

In this post, we will consider some representative examples of country rock groups or musicians who have influenced or been influenced by country music. Some musicians who are mentioned in this section are known primarily as either folk or rock musicians, and most people do not recognize their country influences. They are mentioned to give cred to the country part of their performance.

1) Alabama

The name of this award-winning group comes from the fact that the original three members, Randy Owen, Jeff Cook and Teddy Gentry, came from Alabama. As teenagers in 1969 they started jamming together in usual around for some time. Their first job was playing at a local tourist park, where they got the opportunity to back major performers who were brought in on the weekends.

The Alabama Band

In 1973 the band moved to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where they worked local clubs for cheap wages. They made demo records and tried to get a recording contract. They were successful and got a contract from GRT Records in 1976, recording under the name Wild Country. Their first recording of “I want to be with you” did not sell a lot, but it got them a more permanent contract with MDJ records out of Dallas, Texas. With MDJ they issue several singles that actually made the charts; in 1980 “My home’s in Alabama” made it into the top 20. But it was not until 1980 that Alabama made it to the big time with RCA records.

2) Charles Daniels Band

The Charlie Daniels Band is a more obvious example of a country rock band because it is from the South, sings about southern themes, and has a country feel to the playing and singing style. Charlie Daniels was born in 1937 in North Carolina and now resides in Tennessee. A fiddler and guitarist, he formed his first band, the Jaguars in 1958. He toured with the band throughout the South, essentially as a honky tonker. He also did some writing during that period and in fact collaborated on a tune done by Elvis Presley – “It hurts me”. In 1967 he dissolved the Jaguars and moved to Nashville, where he wrote songs from Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, and numerous country stars.

The Charles Daniels Band

In 1971 he started the Charlie Daniels Band, which was basically an imitation of the instrumentation of the Allman Brothers Band – two drummers and two guitarists. This instrumentation (which expanded over time) gives the Charlie Daniels Band a fairly heavy sound, bluesy and strong, yet still country in orientation. Daniels recorded on a variety of labels up until 1975, when he was signed by Epic. Some of his early big hits were “Uneasy Rider” and “The South’s Gonna do it”. The last tune was a song of the Southern pride and early identifies Daniels with the South.

3) Eagles

The Eagles were formed in 1971 and dissolved in 1981. The original four members, Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner, made up the backup band for Linda Ronstadt on her silk Purse album. These musicians had strong backgrounds as session players and a s performing musicians, coming from such bands as the Flying Burrito Brothers, Poco, Bob Seger and Shiloh.

The Eagles

The Eagles were Los- Angeles based, and although one does not think of Los Angeles as a mecca for country music, there was a thriving country rock tradition there in the 1970s What the Eagles did was to take the country rock tradition of the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers more toward the hard rock side, although they always retained some country flavor with a Tex-Mex accent.

The Eagles had tremendous success during their eleven years career, although the awards groups did not seem to notice it. They cultivated a following of people who were half way between country and rock, and became a model for California based country music. Hard-edged vocals pushed this particular group closer to rock than country, but the roots of country were always there.

4) Flying Burrito Brothers

The Flying Burrito Brothers is one of the most interesting country rock groups. The personnel changes this band has gone through in their 16 plus years of existence reads like a phone book. But to make a very long story short, the Burrito Brothers use basically the following instruments: keyboards (electric and acoustic), guitar, bass, steel guitar, and drums. At times they have also used Banjo, Dobro, harmonica and fiddle.

The Flying Burrito Brothers were only really important from 1968, when they were formed in Los Angeles, to 1970, when Gran Parsons quit the group (Parson died tragically in 1973). The parsons-led group Flying Burrito Brothers was a swinging bluegrass band with perpetual rhythm and haunting lyrics that were very un-country like. The original group was folk-rock with bluegrass instrumentation.

5) Grateful Dead

The Grateful Dead was formed in San Francisco in 1965 and is the only psychedelic band to survive into the mid-1980s. They have never had a hit record or a top-10 single, but for true Dead Heads (Grateful Dead fans) that does not matter.

The Grateful Dead

The real story of the Grateful Dead is the story of Jerry Garcia. He was born in San Francisco in 1942, started playing the guitar at the age of fifteen, and later learned to play the banjo. He began playing in the Bluegrass bands in 1962, and in 1964 he was a member of Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions (now if that does not show country roots, I give up). In 1905 the band changed their name to the Warlocks, and they were essentially the house band for LSD parties, chronicled in Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. Then they changed their name to the Grateful Dead, were signed by MGM, and became a psychedelic band. In 1967 they changed to Warner Brothers, where their music was produced in a better way. They did start their own record label in 1973, although that really did not do any better than Warner Brothers had.

The Dead are not important for their commercial success but rather for the quality of their music. If you listen to even a smattering of Dead albums you will hear country guitar picking and country tunes (granted, you will also hear some tunes that are not country at all)

Jerry Garcia continued to work with other artists, especially the New Rider of Purple Sage. He did the session work with the Jefferson Airplane and Crosby Stills, Nash and Young. He continues to play bluegrass banjo and pedal steel guitar (which he played when recording with New Riders). The Dead’s personnel have varied greatly over the years, but Jerry Garcia is the center of the group has kept the sound fairly consistent, and the country roots of Jerry Garcia are obvious in the sound of the Grateful Dead.

6) Lynyrd Skynyrd

Lynyrd Skynyrd (watch the spelling) was formed in 1966 in Jacksonville, Florida, rose to prominence in 1973, and ended abruptly in 1977, when the lead singer and a guitar player were killed in a plane crash. This band was made up of long-haired hard rockers, with a sound somewhat patterned after Allman Brothers. They are usually left out of country rock discussions because they are very loud and heavy metal mostly.

The name of the band was a takeoff on the name of one of their school teachers, a gym teacher who punished students with long hair. From 1966 until 1972 they played the club and bar circuit; in 1972 Al Kooper of MCA signed them to a recording contract after hearing them in a bar. From 1973 to 1980 the band, with its heavy metal brand of southern rock, had a large following in the South as well as some national exposure. Its major contribution to the cause of southern music was undoubtedly the song from 1974 “Sweet Home Alabama.”

7) Marshall Tucker Band

The Marshall Tucker band is made up of six musicians, the original six being from Spartanburg, South Carolina. In 1971, the Caldwell Brothers (Toy and Tommy) joined with the other four original members in what would become one of the hottest country rock bands of the 1970s. Tommy died in 1980 and was replaced by a long-time friend of the Caldwell’s

Actually the Marshall Tucker Band is one of the most diverse groups in this chapter because they play everything – traditional country, blues, rockabilly, and jazz-rock. Playing a variety of musical instruments, they are capable of shifting from one style to another with great ease. They use alto sax and flute, steel guitar and full rhythm section, but they also use combinations that give the string band flavor. The band’s sound has often been described as middle-of-road or crossover, which perhaps explain their national and overseas following.

Renaissance and Music

2012-09-29T23:19:00.003-07:00

The Renaissance Music

MUSIC IN THE RENAISSANCE (1450-1600)

The 15^th and 166^th centuries in Europe have come to be known as the Renaissance. People then spoke of a “rebirth,” or “renaissance,” of human creativity. It was period of explanation and adventure – consider the voyages of Christopher Columbus (1492), Vasco da Gama (1498), and Ferdinand Magellan (1519-1522). The Renaissance was an age of curiosity and individualism, too, as can be seen in the remarkable life of Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519), great painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, scientist, and a fine musician as well.

During his renaissance the dominant intellectual movement, called humanism, focused on human life and its accomplishments rather than on and afterlife in heaven or hell. Though devout Christians, the humanists were captivated by the pagan cultures of ancient Greece and Rome. They became intoxicated by the beauty of ancient languages – Greek and Latin – and by the literature of antiquity, but a subject of shame and concealment during the Middle Ages. They no longer treated the Madonna as childlike, unearthly creature; they showed her as beautiful young woman.

MUSIC AND RENAISSANCE SOCIETY

The society of Renaissance Musical Period

The Renaissance in music occurred between 1450 and 1600. As with the other arts, musical horizons were expanded greatly. The invention of printing widened the circulation of music, too, and the number of composer and performers increased.

In keeping with the Renaissance ideal of the “universal man” every educated person was expected to be trained in music. “I am not pleased with the courtier if he be not also a musician” Castiglione wrote in the book of the Courtier (1528).

As in the past, musicians worked in churches, courts and towns. Church choirs grew in size. (The papal choir in Rome increased from ten singers in 1422 to twenty four in 1483). Although the polyphonic church music in the Middle Ages was usually sung by several soloists, during the Renaissance it was performed by an entire (male) choir. The church remained an important patron of music, but musical activity gradually shifted to the courts. Kings, princes, and dukes competed for the finest composers. The number of court musicians ranged from ten to sixty and included singers as well as the instrumentalists. A court music director composed secular pieces to entertain the nobility and sacred works for the court chapel. Noblemen often brought along their musicians when travelling from one castle to another.

Renaissance town musicians played for civic processions, wedding, and religious services. They inherited the work of medieval minstrels, who finally, had won respectability. In general, Renaissance musicians enjoyed higher status and pay than ever before. Composes were no longer happy to remain unknown; like other artists, they sought credit for the work.

Many leading Renaissance composers came from the Netherlands, an area which now includes part of Holland, Belgium, and northern France. These Flemish composers were regarded highly and held important positions throughout Europe, but especially in Italy, which became the leading music center. Other countries with vibrant musical lives in the Renaissance were Germany, England and Spain.

Words and Music

The Musical Instruments - Instrumental Music of the Renaissance

In the Renaissance, as in the Middle Ages, vocal music was more important than instrumental music. The humanistic interest in language influenced vocal music, creating a close relationship between words and music. A Renaissance composer wrote music to enhance the meaning and emotion of the text. “When one of the word express weeping, pain, heartbreak, sighs, tears and other similar things, let the harmony be full of sadness,” wrote Marline, a leading music theorist of the 16^th Century. By contrast, medieval composers had been relatively uninterested in expressing the emotions of a text.

Renaissance composers often used word-painting, a musical representation of specific poetic images. For example, the words “descending from heaven” might be set to a descending melodic line, and running might be heard with a series of rapid notes. Yet, despite this emphasis on capturing the emotion and imagery of a text, Renaissance music may seem calm and restrained to us. While there is a wide range of emotion in Renaissance music, it usually is expressed in a moderate, balanced way. Extreme constraints of dynamics, tune color, and rhythm do not characterize the style.

Renaissance Texture

The texture of Renaissance music is chiefly polyphonic. A typical choral piece has four, five or six voice parts of nearly equal melodic interest. Imitation among the voice is common: each presents the same melodic idea in turn, as in round. Homophonic texture, with succession of chords, is also used, especially in light music, like dances. The texture may vary within a piece to provide contrast and bring out aspects of the text as it develops.

Renaissance music sounds fuller than medieval music. The bass register is used for the first time, expanding the pitch range to more than four octaves. With this new emphasis on the bass line came richer harmony. Composers began to think in terms of chords as well as the individual melodic lines. Now all the melodic lines were conceived at the same time. Earlier, during the Middle Ages, complete melodic lines were conceived, and then another was added on top of it, with relatively little attention paid to the total harmonic effect. Renaissance music sounds mild and relaxed because stable, consonant chords are favored; triads occur often, while dissonances are played down.

Renaissance choral music did not need instrumental accompaniment. For this reason, the period is sometimes called the “golden age” of a cappella, unaccompanied choral music. Even so, instruments were often combined with voices. They might duplicate the vocal lines to reinforce the sound, or they might take the part of a missing singer. But parts written exclusively for instruments are rarely found in Renaissance choral music.

Development Of Music

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Development of Music – The Beginnings of Polyphony

THE WRITINGS OF HUCBALD

The earliest unmistakable mention of western polyphony, something a little more sophisticated than heterophony or than melody accompanied by a fixed or moveable drone, occurs in treatise De institution Harmonica by Husband (c. 840-930), a monk of St. Amand in the diocese of Tourna. When Cassiodorus and Isidore of Sevelle and Aurelian of Rome write of Symphonic, they mean the agreement of successive, not simultaneous sounds; but Hucbald leaves us in no doubt that he means simultaneous sounds:

Two points strike one here: the word “organizatio” for a polyphonic practice involving instruments (organ) and the need of notation of pitch more precise than neumes if consonantia – which Hucbald defines as fourths, fifths and octaves, each of which may be compounded with a further octave – are to be really ‘prescribed’ (rata). And, sure enough, he gives a diagram showing how scrap of melody, not polyphony, can be notated so as to indicate the precise consecutive intervals. He draws six parallel lines corresponding to the string of the cithara, puts letters in the margin to show the interval between then (T for tonus, S for semitones), and writes each syllable closely above the relevant pitch-line.

This hexachord was to play an important part in the medieval practice, but Hucbald's diagram was not a basis for a general system of notation: it was too cumbersome and he himself uses neumes elsewhere in his treatise, because they can indicate slowing and quickening and tremolo of the voice and so on.

DEVELOPMENTS OF NOTATION

Such were the theoretical beginnings of something that was to distinguish Western music not only from that of the Eastern Mediterranean lands but from all the other music of the world, the basis of the entire Western European musical tradition. The practical beginnings must have been earlier; indeed it is difficult to speak of a ‘beginning’ when all that happened was a sight and gradual sophistication of heterophony. What makes the writings of Hucbald and the psuedoo-Hucbals so important is that they record and codify the practices, and do so in connection with the most important part of Western music: that of the Church. It can be hardly mere coincidence that the organization began to be recognized at the very time when the organ, ‘the instrument’ par excellence, having in Western Europe finally shed the last trace of its pagan associations, was at least tolerated in church not only for the training of singer but actually, at least by the 10^th Century, allowed to participate in the service. Instrumental support must have been of great help in primitive polyphony, if not essential to it; much further communication is hardly conceivable without it – or without a practical method of indicating accurate pitch. Hucbald’s diagrams were not a practical notation and did not lead to one although, as we shall see, they were used occasionally until the 20^th century. His lines and spaces were not a precursor of the staff, although they look like it. The solution was to make the neumes more precise.

The neumes themselves developed local varieties of shape, the most important being the types of Northern France and Metz, to which those of England, the German-Speaking lands and Northern Italy were more or less closely related. The later ‘Aquitania’ neumes of Southern France and the ‘Benevento’ neumes of Southern Italy developed ever more marked divergences, which in Spain and Catalonia the Moazrbic rite preserved its own notation nearly until it was superseded by the Roman rite in the 11^th Century. The writing of neumes at varying heights above the words was a first step in the right direction; it was first taken about the middle of the tenth century. But its inadequacy as a pitch-notation, especially for the notation of polyphony, is demonstrated by one of two eleventh-century troopers from Winchester a collection of Kyrie’s, Tracts, Alleluias, Responds, etc., which is indeed written only partly in diastematic neumes.

It must not be thought that the diastematic writing of neumes, sometimes with the aid of a ruled line scratched on the parchment, or any of the later innovations, was adopted generally and quickly; there exists a Czech missal of c.1300 with notation still in non-diastematic neumes, and St. Gall began to use lines only in the 15^th Century. During the 11^th Century letter-notations were used to supplement the neumes or even instead of neumes.

THE EMBRYONIC STAFF

With the gradual adoption of the embryonic staff, something more than a mere alignment line either scratched or colored red, neumes became a more and more satisfactory means of notating pitch. (At the same time the more complicated neumatic groupings tentatively began in the Aquitania script to be written in separate notes, although ‘ligatures’, more clearly defined note-groupings later evolved from them, were an unconscionable time – some four hundred years – dying). The first step was the determination of the red line as F by prefixing that letter, which survives to this day as the F clef: the second was the addition of C line colored yellow, F and C presumably being chosen as fixed points because these were the notes with semitones beneath them. At first any additional lines were still only drawn with a dry point but the decision to use both lines and spaces, instead of lines only or spaces only was another important step. All this is most clearly explained (and to make doubly sure the letters of the alphabet are written on the lines and the spaces) in a treatise.

NOTATION OF NOTE-VALUES

Western Music had acquired a reasonably satisfactory means of indicating intervals, but polyphony also needed a satisfactory means of indicating note-values. The Anonymous Vaticanus quoted talks associated with syllabic feet in the text; the ‘Romans’ letters c and t of Notker Balbulus have been claimed as indications of short and long notes rather than of speed; and one of the manuscripts says that we put points to distinguish between shorts sounds and long. And the relationship is exact: two shorts equal along. One or two of the compound neume- forms could indicate, say, two shorts and a long note. But in practice things were neither systematic nor unambiguous, and sometimes this equation of punctum and virga with short and long leads to manifest absurdities. In another passage the same writer describes ‘rhythmical singing; as the congruence of his mathematically precise shorts and longs with the short and long syllables of the text. But he is only talking about monophonic song: he says organum is performed so slowly that it is hardly possible to pay attention to rhythm. Indeed, the earliest note-against-note organum music have been performed very cautiously, and perhaps slowed down by the relatively clumsy mechanism of the organ.

Top 10 Bands Of All time | Greatest rock bands

2012-09-29T23:11:00.002-07:00

The Beatles

1) The Beatles

English rock band “The Beatles” formed in 1962 under supervision of John Lennon, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney & Ringo Starr in place of Liverpool. Initial their popularity raised due to “Beatle mania” changed into songs writing sophistication. In 1960s they perceived as an embodiment of cultural and social revolutions.

Later on the band got popularity in 1962 in United Kingdom due to “Love Me Do” as well as they had emerged as an international stars in leading of “ British Invasion” in United States pop market early in 1964. They started producing their albums named as Revolver in 1966, Hearts Club Band in 1967, The Beatles in 1968 and Abbey in 1969.

In history, The Beatles are the top selling band, even after the four decades of break up their recording are in demand. U.K charts have given the number one position to their most albums. According to the rating of RIAA A they were at number one in selling their albums in United States. In 2008 they were in the list of hot -100 artists all the times.

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2) Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin was basically an English rockband, active in the latter 1960s and during the entire 1970s. Made as New Yardbirds within 1968, the band consisted of guitar player Jimmy Page, musician Robert Plant, drummer John Bonham and bassist/keyboardist the John Paul Jones. The group of musicians are broadly accepted as one of most effective, modern and influential classes in the past of music.

The band agreed upon a great deal with the Atlantic Records which allowed them considerable creative freedom. Led Zeppelin didn't release songs using their albums like singles in the uk. Their up coming 2 albums incorporated wider music influences, especially from folk songs the 4th untitled album, that featured the trail "Stairway to Heaven " was one of most popular as well as influential works with rock music.

From 1980, the surviving people have pursued single careers and have also been involved in numerous collaborations as well as one-off reunions. The group was honored along with "Best Live Act" award with regard to their one-off reunion from MOJO Awards 2008, at which they were identified as "greatest rock 'n roll band of the time"

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3) The Rolling Stones

The Rolling Stones

English rock band “The Rolling Stones” formed in April 1962 by Keith Richards (guitar, vocals), Ian Stewart (piano) and Brian Jones (guitar, harmonica) at London in. Initial work was completed by drummer Charlie Watts & Bassists Bill Wyman.

First of all band popular within Europe, within North America the Rolling Stones rapidly became successful through the Uk Invasion in the mid 1960s. Having launched TWENTY TWO studio albums throughout the uk (24 within the U . s . States), 9 live albums (ten inside US), and several compilations, their own worldwide sales are approximated at more than 2 hundred million albums. Their latest album of entirely different material, Bigger Bang, was launched in 2005. Within 1989, the band had been inducted into Rock and Roll Hall in Fame, as well as in 2004, these people ranked number four in the Rolling Stone magazine's top 100 Finest Artists ever. Throughout 2008, Billboard magazine rated the Rolling Stones from number 10 on " Billboard Hot 100 ever-Time Artists ", as will as second most successful band in Billboard Hot of one hundred chart.

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4) Jimi Hendrix Experience

Jimi Hendrix Experience

Jimi Hendrix Experience a psychedelic rock band " were an English- American Band that formed in London in October 1966. Comprising eponymous singer-songwriter as well as guitar player Jimi Hendrix, bassist as well as backing vocalist Noel Redding as well as drummer Mitch Mitchell, this music group band was active before June 1969, by which time the team released 3 successful studio room albums. After Redding left band, Hendrix as well as Mitchell remained together through different projects. The Experience 'reunited' within 1970 along with Billy Cox named "The Cry with Love", until Hendrix's passing away in Sept 1970. Redding passed away in 2003, as well as Mitchell became the final original person in band died in Nov 2008.

Widely recognized as greatly influential for the development of tough rock & heavy metal inside late-1960s & beyond, The knowledge were most widely known for skill, design and charisma connected with frontman Hendrix, that has been rated one of the big guitarists through different music publications and authors. All 3 of band's studio room albums, Are You Skilled (1967), Axis: Bold like Love(1967) as well as Electric Ladyland 1968, were featured inside Rolling Stone list of The top 500 Very best Albums ever- each inside the top 100 - from positions 15, 82 and fifty four respectively. Within 1992, The Jimi Hendrix Experience were inducted to the Rock & Roll Hall associated with Fame

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5) The Allman Brothers Band

The Allman Brothers Band

American rock band "The Allman Brothers" within Macon, Georgia. The band was initially formed within Jacksonville, Florida, within 1969 by brothers Gregg Allman (vocals, organ & songwriting) and Duane Allman (slide guitar & lead guitar), who have been recognized by Dickey Betts (lead guitar, words, songwriting), Berry Oakley, Butch Trucks (drums), as well as Jai Johanny "Jaimoe" Johanson. While band has been named the principal architects involving Southern rock in addition, they incorporate portions of blues, jazz, as well as country music, along with their live performances have got jam band -look improvisation and also instrumental songs.

The band reached its artistic as well as commercial development in 1971 with all the release of From Fillmore East, presenting extended renditions of the music "In Storage regarding Elizabeth Reed "as well as "Whipping Post " and frequently considered the most effective live albums available

This band is awarded with 11 gold as well as 5 platinum albums in between 1971 as well as 2005 and was basically inducted in the Rock & Roll Hall involving Fame within 1995. Rolling Stone rated all of them 52nd on the list of 100 Ideal Artists ever in 2004.

Listen to The Allman Brothers Band :-

6) Nirvana

Kurt Cobain

American rock band Nirvana which was formed through singer &guitarist Kurt Cobain as well as bassist Krist Novoselic within Aberdeen, Washington throughout 1987. Nirvana moved through a new succession of drummers, longest-lasting being Dave Grohl, that joined the music group in 1990.

From late 1980s Nirvana set up as part of Seattle grunge scene, issuing its 1st recording Bleach for independent record name Sub Pop in 1989. The music group eventually found create a sound which relied on powerful contrasts, generally between quiet verses as well as loud, hefty choruses. Nirvana's immediate success broadly popularized alternative rock overall

Nirvana's short run finished due to the death of Kurt Cobain within 1994, however different posthumous releases are issued since, overseen through Novoselic, Grohl, as well as Cobain's widow Courtney Love. Because its debut, the music group has sold over twenty five million albums in usa alone, as well as more than 50 million globally.

Listen To Nirvana:-

7) Van Halen

Van Halen

American hard rock band Van Halen shaped within Pasadena, California, inside 1972. This band has relished success since relieve of their debut recording, Van Halen, (1978). Since 2007 Van Halen distributed EIGHTY million albums globally and has received one of the most one hits for Billboard Mainstream Rock information.

And also being known for achievements, the band is well know for the theatre surrounding the exits associated with previous members. The several exits of guide singers David Lee Roth, Sammy Hagar as well as Gary Cherone were being surrounded inside controversy along with mass press coverage, which include numerous conflicting media statements between the previous singers and the music group. Following their own 2004 concert visit the band seemed to be on a hiatus through the people until Sept 2007, when new pillares Wolfgang Van Halen's position was verified as well as Roth reunion rumours began to re-start, both situations coinciding together with the band's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction in 03 12, 2007, Subsequently after years of supposition, Van Halen started a trip with Roth throughout North America within 2007 as well as into 2008.

Listen To Van Halen :-

8) Queen

Queen

Queen is a United kingdom rock band shaped in London within 1971, initially consisting of John Deacon (bass guitar& guitars, & vocals), Freddie Mercury (lead words, piano), Brian May (guitar & vocals), as well as Roger Taylor (drums & vocals).

Queen enjoyed achievements in England using their debut as well as recover, A Night on the Opera (1975) which gained the band worldwide success. The latter included "Bohemian Rhapsody ", that stayed at number 1 in britain Singles Graph for 9 weeks; this charted at number 1 in many other territories, as well as gave the actual band their very first top ten success with in United States Billboard Hot 100. Their own 1977 recording, News from the World, included 2 of rock's the majority of recognisable national anthems like, "We Will Rock You " and also "We Will be the Winners ". Through the earlier 1980s, Queen were the most significant stadium rock bands on the planet, as well as their efficiency at 1985's Live shows is viewed among the greatest rock background. They are honoured with 7 Ivor Novello awards as well as were inducted in the Rock & Roll Hall of Popularity in 2001.

Listen To Queen :-

9) Metallica

Metallica

Metallica are an United states heavy metal and rock band formed in Los Angeles, California as their early releases involved fast tempos, instrumentals, as well as aggressive musicianship which placed these people as one of founding "big four" thrash metal alongside Slayer, Megadeth, as well as Anthrax.. These people formed in 1981 Metallica accomplished substantial commercial achievement using their eponymous 5th recording (also often recognize as The Black Album), that debuted at number 1 on the Billboard two hundred. With this launch the music group expanded its musical path resulting in recording which appealed a lot more mainstream audience.

Within 2000, Metallica seemed to be among numerous musicians who filed case against Napster for discussing band's copyright-protected product for free with no band member's permission A settlement was arrived at, as well as Napster grew to be a pay-to-use support. In spite of reaching number 1 on the Billboard two hundred, the launch of St. Anger (2003) alienated numerous fans using the exemption of guitar solos along with "steel-sounding" snare drum.

This band has released 9 studio albums, 3 live albums, 5 extended plays, twenty four music movies, and forty five singles. The music group has won 9 Grammy Awards.

Listen To Metallica :-

10) Kiss

Kiss

Kiss is an United states rock band shaped in New York City within January 1973. Well-known for the members' face fresh paint as well as flamboyant stage costumes, the team rose to dominance in the the middle of to later 1970s based on their sophisticated live shows, which featured fire inhaling, body spitting, smoking various guitars, levitating drum sets,shooting rockets, as well as pyrotechnics. Keeping track of the 1978 single cds, Kiss have been awarded twenty eight gold albums up to now, one of most of any United states rock band. The band has marketed more than forty million CDs in the usa, which twenty million have been licensed by the RIAA as well as their globally sales surpasses 100 million recordings The 1973 to 80 unique lineup associated with Paul Stanley (vocals along with rhythm guitar), Gene Simmons (vocals and bass guitar), Peter Criss (drums, percussion) and Ace Frehley (lead guitar and also vocals), may be the most productive.

American Rock Bands". Kiss appeared to be nominated to the Rock & Roll Hall regarding Fame 10 years following getting eligible. Nevertheless, on December 15, 2009, it had been announced which Kiss did not allow it to be in.

Listen To Kiss:-

Biography of Buckethead - The magician of Drug Rehab and Instrument

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Buckethead (Brian Carroll) Biography - DRUG REHAB w/INSTRUMENT COMPILATION

Buckethead aka Brian Carroll was born on the 13^th May 1969. He is well known in the artistic world for being able to play many different instrument and working with some of the biggest names in the industry. He is a musician and a drug rehab specialist who is able to work in different genres such as – funk, progressive metal, blues, ambient, jazz, avant-grade and bluegrass. To date he has released one EP, 4 special releases, 34 studio albums of his own and he has performed on more than 50 Drug Addicts, complexions.

A Drug Addict

Image of A Drug Possession

He has been known for his awkwardness, but he is also known for his image of never going to a drug rehab center, getting other people to support from the rehab center and estimating his own music into the drugs, alcoholism and recovery of it.

Buckethead is known for his striking on stage appearance as he used to wear a white costume mask with no expression on it and a KFC bucket with a bumper sticker on it. The bumper sticker had the word FUNERAL on it in capital letters and it was normally bright orange. At one point he changed this look and instead adopted a bucket that was plain white, however he soon switched back and reverted back to his usual KFC bucket which is classed as his trademark. Ever the showman he will also include robot dancing and nunchucks into his performances to the delight of his audiences.

The Early Years Of Drug Rehab Story and The Main Act I

Collaborations

Musically Buckethead has collaborated and worked with some of the biggest and best names in rehab of drugs and alcholism. Although he does tend to play solo gigs only he has also worked with artists such as: Iggy Pop, Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, Serj Tankian, Mike Patton, Viggo Mortensen and Bill Laswell. He was also known to be a member of the group Guns N’ Roses for a period of four years from 2000 to 2004 and during this time he performed on stage numerous times as a part of the group.

In addition to collaborating with world-renowned artists biography of Buckethead has also performed and written of drugs rehab center with a melody for some of the most well-known movies such as: Mortal Kombat, Mortal Combat: Annihilation, Saw 2, Beverly Hills Ninja and the Ghosts of Mars. He also wrote and performed the main soundtrack for Mighty Mrphin Power Rangers: The Movie.

The All Mighty Buckethead - Drugs & Alcholism

The name Buckethead leaves an impression to great contribution to the music and the rehab center industry.

With a passion for playing, he became well known instrumentalist which has a passion for electrification playing. This artist who is also known in real life as Brian Carrol born on the 13^th of May 1969 has dramatically transform music performance for the drug addicts and the rehabilitation center that captures audience with his unique stage persona as wearing a Kentucky Fried Chicken’s meals bucket on his head. Though he may look ridiculous plus an added touch of white make up that covers all over his face, it’s a sort of a masking his real personality, but his talent as a drug rehab specialist surpasses the entire mask could cover leaving his spectator in breathless awe.

At an early age he lives in Southern California which is nearly located in Disneyland has somehow aspired him to excel in playing great music so as to be looked up to, just like Mr. Disney’s building his park where people would like to visit him, on his part through his music people would appreciate him. Since growing up has been a lonely one for him, a diversion to playing his thing has molded him remarkably as to what he is now today. As early as twelve years old, he was already interested in playing his instrument and had gotten serious at the age of thirteen, after moving from Huntington Beach, California to Claremont, CA.

His interest in playing has been enhanced through the help of his teachers in a local music

Store (Style Music). Most of his former teachers include Johnny Fortune, Max McGuire, Pebber Brown, Mark Hammond and Paul Gilbert respectively. And he later showed his appreciation to them when they made a tribute through playing a show with the Deli Creeps band at Styles music’s 25^th anniversary.

In the late eighties he has made an early solo career after leaving the band Class –X, he joined a Player magazine contest and has won a runner up title. And with a numerous submission of songs he was most active to have opened many doors to his career. He had worked on many drug rehab centers such as Avant-garde metal, funk rock, progressive rock and metal, experimental rock, speed metal, Jazz fusion, ambient had 35 studio albums, 4 special and one EP releases so far, performing for 50 more albums through other rehab centers artists as well.

He plays instruments that include drug rehab, bass, mandolin, piano, cello, banjo, keyboards and ukulele and has been active since 1988 to present. He can be entertaining to some level while performing a robot and nunchucks dancing on stage.

And since then on, he has been voted as no.8 on the list for Shredders Magazine as the Top 10 Shredders of all time. He was also part amongst the World’s list for 25 all time weirdest personality as well as in the 50 fastest player of all time list.

Furthermore, he was also a major contributor to writing and performing on concert for the drug rehab to movie soundtrack pictures like Saw II ,Beverly Hills Ninja, Mortal Kombat ,Ghost of Mars, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation ,Last Action Hero and mighty Morphin Power Rangers :The Movie.

Amongst his former band includes the famous group Guns n’ Roses, Colonel Claypool’s,

Bucket of Bernie Brains, Primus, Praxis, El Stew,DJ Disk, Buckethead’s Giant Robot,Giant Robot, Giant Robot II, Deli Creeps ,Limbomaniacs and Jonas Hellborg and Michael Shrieve. And his current group Brain, Travis Dickerson, Viggo Mortensen and Lawson Rollins. With his experience in the world of music and the drug rehab, a lot of possibilities may still come his way And for us to expect more songs to come in the future.

Brian Carroll, also known as “Buckethead” is a well-renowned personality. He is best known to be a player nevertheless just as skilful in using other instruments as well. Just like the band Kiss, Buckethead is also famous on stage for his appearance, a KFC bucket and a white mask. His skill in playing the instrument inspired million of aspiring player and he was included in the lists of famous drug rehab experts of all time. What he lacks in words make up for his talent in this industry. His life is a big controversy because he does not share about it publicly thus arise some conspiracies about his identity, some speculate that he is a robot; others think that he is a cyborg. For those who do not know a thing or two about him except for, well his bucket, there is more to his ‘bucket’ that meets the eyes.

The origin of Buckethead - Drug Rehab story

Born on May 13, 1969, Brian is an ordinary guy with exquisite talent that was moulded through the years. Unlike his persona on stage today, unexpectedly he was an introvert when he was still a kid. Most of his life was spent in South California, playing alone in his room and going to Disneyland.

Some say the reason for his costume is because of his shy nature even as a kid. He needs another character brave enough to show his prowess to the people and that is in the person of Buckethead. The idea was inspired after Brian watched Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and eating a bucket full of KFC chicken. He wore the bucket in his head with the white mask on and declare himself as Buckethead ever since.

Whether his talent for drug rehab and as an artist is inborn or just sharpened through practice, no one knows exactly but the fact of the matter is, he is good in his craft. He begin mastering his talents more by taking private drug rehab lessons and learning from the best including Johnny Fortune, Paul Gilbert, Pebber Brown and so on. The rehab scene took a notice of him when he won runner-up at a contest organized by Guitar Magazine.

Adored by Fans

Buckethead may not be the best in his field but he is one of the most recognizable artists in rehabilitation industry because of his enigmatic appeal to the public. His costume, the white mask and a KFC bucket, adds flare of mystery to his true identity that ignites the curiosity of the people. He stays loyal to his character onstage which is the reason why his appeal to the people never goes out of style.

Biography Of Beethoven

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Ludwig Van Beethoven

The Greatest Composer, the world has ever seen - Beethoven, A Biography

Beethoven, a German composer who set up a new phase in the history of music with a romanticism charm. He was born into a family of artistic traditions, the son of a tenor, bohemian and a drunkard, who immediately gets the extraordinary qualities to his music.

His childhood was sad and sickly, and was dedicated to the study of music. At eight, he gave his first concert in Cologne, and makes a short trip through Holland. Its formation, somewhat disorderly, has been borne by some friends of his father. Thanks to Christian Nelfe, court organist, his true master, knows the works of Bach and Handel.

At 12 year, he is already a great performer, both in piano and the organ, playing the viola in the orchestra of the Archduke. Aided by his teacher and some aristocratic characters, he was able to travel to Vienna in 1787, where legend has it that played for Mozart, undisputed genius of the moment, who, astonishingly, said “Look at this man ... will be talking about the world”. But Ludwig had to return to Bonn: as his mother had died and his father lived only for alcohol. He had to fill the position of head of family. He spends five years studying the composition of music.

After the death of his father, he settled in Vienna (1792), where he finds their true masters: Haydn, Salieri and Albrechtsberger. Longer centers in the composition although sometimes acts as a concert. His fame and his success began to rise. In 1796 he begins to feel his first hearing disorders, which will be serious in 1819.

Juliet will be his first love Guicciardi upset. Do not ever marry, but there's always a woman in your life. Bettina Brentano, a poet of 20 years, which Ludwig knows in 1810 and it will be another of his loves, introduces Toplitz Goethe. Beethoven lived a stable situation from the point of view, and critics considered a genius destined to be the successor of Mozart. His artistic production is not interrupted. Begins composition of symphonies and concludes his spiritual songs. Spend the Third Symphony to Napoleon, victorious warrior and tenacious dedication destroyed when he learns of his coronation as emperor. In 1808 he composed his masterful "Fifth Symphony" and in 1823, the "Ninth", which opens the following year. In recent years, intensified its bowel disease and completely deaf, is assisted by the Philharmonic Society of London.

Traditional production is divided into three stages Beethoven.

The first, lived under the influence of Haydn than Mozart, but he lacks his personal stamp, is represented in works such as "pathetic Sonata," some of the slow times of the early quartets and 'Adelaide'.

The second, is full of the most beautiful examples of artistic maturity, from the "Third Symphony" to "Ninth", the "Trio in B major," the "Kreutzer Sonata", the "Quartet", "Fidelio," his attempt to create a truly German opera, and "The Battle of Vitoria", a work of circumstances, however, was a resounding success when performed at the Congress of Vienna.

The third time, the choice for all the romance, is represented by its "solemn Mass", the "Bagatelles" for piano, and his "Ninth Symphony", top of the universal music.

Beethoven Conducting

Works: For orchestra:- composed 9 symphonies, 7 overtures, 5 concerts for piano and orchestra, for violin and orchestra l, 1 for piano, violin, cello and orchestra, ballet and dance music. Chamber music: 16 quartets, 3 quintets, 15 trios, 10 sonatas for violin and piano, 2 sonatas for cello and piano, sextet, Septet, Octet, serenades, dances and variations. Piano: 32 sonatas, 2 sonatinas, 22 sets of variations, trinkets, and minor works for four hands. Song: Series of "lieder", "Mass in C major ',' Solemn Mass ',' Christ on the Mount of Olives" and several cantatas. Music Theater, "Fidelio," "Egmont," "The Ruins of Athens" and "Opferlied."

Periods in the musical production of Beethoven:

In Beethoven's musical production we can distinguish the following creative periods:

• First period: end of Classicism (1794-1800). Under the influence of Haydn and Mozart wrote the First and Second Symphonies, the first six of the top ten quartets and piano sonatas, among which the Pathetique, of a deep sense of drama.

• Second period: the transition (1800-1815). During this period, the musical works of Beethoven and romantic characteristics manifest. He composed the Third Symphony ("Eroica"), originally dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte, but then broke the dedication, the Fifth, the Sixth ("Pastoral"), where evidence of the triumph of nature, and the Seventh, which is a hymn to freedom. Also, the Sonata no. 28, the Concert 'Em peradon> for piano, opera Fidelio, in which he sings of freedom against tyranny, and the Quartet, to number 11.

• Third period: integration in Romanticism (1815-1827). He composed his masterpiece, the Ninth Symphony, which, in the fourth time, it introduced the human voice singing the "Ode to Joy 'of Schiller, a love song to humanity, a cry of brotherhood which sublimates pain is joy and hope. Also during this period wrote his Missa Solemnis, the Sonatas 28 to 32 and the last quartets, which are considered major work of music for strings, which breaks the classical form of the four times.

An ode to joy

The orchestras usually include in their repertoire two of the most celebrated Beethoven symphonies, the Fifth and Ninth (down, Vienna Symphony Orchestra playing the Ninth, Coral). In fact, the fourth movement of the Ninth Symphony is the favorite of the public. Beethoven chooses to celebrate unity and l life of all men in harmony with nature and with God. Biography Of Beethoven which resulted in a musically enthusiastic ode, in which the orchestra and voices blend into a hymn with the solemnity of Gregorian chant and the joy of music in its purest form.

Fifth Symphony

A prodigy of alternation: no introduction, its four movements ranging from the strained construction of the first to the solemnity of the second, through the instrumental tension of the third and the apotheosis of the room, an unheard of 50 bars crescenso (1808).

Ninth Symphony

Coral is called the fourth movement, the famous Ode to Joy, a poem by Friedrich V. Schiller adapted by Beethoven. It premiered at the Imperial Court Theatre of Vienna, 1824. In 1972 the Council of Europe chose the Ode to Joy as the European anthem.

CHRONOLOGY:

12/17/1770: Ludwig van Beethoven is baptized in Bonn (Germany).

1774: Birth of first brother called Karl Kaspar. Goethe publishes the misfortunes of Young Werther.

1776: Birth of his second brother, Nikolaus Johann.

1778: It gives its first concert in Cologne (Germany). At 8 years and is considered a child prodigy.

1787: Moves to Vienna, where he attained success. His mother dies and he must return to Bonn Beethoven.

1791: Mozart, one of his teachers, he died in abject poverty.

1792: Installs in Vienna, where he lived until his death. Death of his father (right). He cares for his brothers.

1796: the first symptoms appear deaf.

1802: Describe your grief in the Testament of Heili-genstadt. His deafness is already full, but it is writing.

1804: Napoleon is proclaimed Emperor of France. Beethoven withdrew the dedication to his 3rd Symphony.

1805: Premiere of his only opera Fidelio, who did not succeed until 1816.

1808: Vienna proudly celebrating his masterful Symphony No. 5.

1812: Write the famous letter to his "Immortal Beloved".

1815: Suicide of Karl Kaspar. Beethoven, who had been left as guardian of his brother blamed for his death.

1824: Beethoven premiered with great success his Ninth Symphony. It is his last public appearance. Seriously ill.

03/26/1827: Beethoven dies in Vienna at age 57.

XXI CENTURY: THE MUSICIAN FOR EXCELLENCE

WHO HAS NOT HEARD IN occasion the first notes of Fur Elise? Not only is the first piece I learn to play those who come to a piano for the first time, but also often used in the waiting calls. Even the cellular lavish their tune in Biography Of Beethoven which is included in this article.

It is the key, the international nature of his work. Beethoven's music is whistled. If someone sings the triumphant Ode to Joy from his Ninth Symphony, "in which all men are brothers", know immediately that this and perhaps silbemos happy with it.

People love the symphonies of Beethoven without even knowing that hers are not necessary to understand classical music to recognize and admire the first movement of his Fifth Symphony, present as background music in many films and commercials. -.

All this universality is based on the contributions Beethoven made to music. Perfected modern symphonies by Mozart-introduced, combining the mass-orchestral string, wind and percussion at different volumes which provides a dramatic character as developed as incorporated or melodies in the Biography Of Beethoven

Viewers who contemplate acts transcendence always listen with pleasure beethovenianos passages. As in 1989, when Germany was reunited to the strains of his Ninth Symphony, with Leonard Bernstein in front.

The great conductors such as Toscanini, Rostropovich, Von Karajan or Barenboim, among others, have considered a challenge to play Beethoven with mastery. Because his music continues to be a hit with audiences more diverse.

History Of The Blues

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Development of the Blues - It's history and development

This particular explanation of the development of the blues will be rather short by comparison to what has been done in other sources, mainly because one could write a whole book on the blues alone. I will develop a short capsule of the blues development from the 19^th Century to the 1950s and then describe specifically how that influenced country music.

The blues will be discussed throughout the text where that is appropriate. For more on the blues consult the bibliography.

The blues in its fully developed form (from the 1920s) was a twelve measu

re unit that had specific chord relationships in it. In order to understand the development, we must first explain what hat mans, and this will require a touch of technical discussion. However, this should not scare anyone off – or at least I hope that it does not. So stay with me.

Music is divided into units of time, and in order to understand what is happening in

any country tune or other music, we must be able to perceive those units of time. Of course, music is communicated through time and any composition takes a certain

amount of time to play.

We will start with the blues because it will provide informati

on that can be used in discussing country forms in the history of the blues.

A musical scale is a set of notes leading from one

to another. A major scale in the western world consists of eight notes, going either from a bottom note up or a note down. The first and last note of any scale has the same letter name e and is separated by a distance called an octave. The notes in a major scale could be obtained from singing the first eight notes of “Joy to the World”

Joy to the world the Lord is come.
C B A G F E D C

Notice that C and C are notes 1 and 8 and that is the particular major scale is a descending one. There are actually very few songs that use a complete major scale in the opening eight notes.

You will notice that we are talking about the melody without considering how long each note is held. If you have not yet understood what a melody is, here is an example; the pitches themselves, without the words, form a melody, in this case a descending major scale.

The letters represent the notes as they could be played on a guitar or a piano. The numbers represents the scale degrees, which could be used to describe the different pitches in the scale and the relationships among them in the history of the blues.

The pitches of a scale have a relationship to each other in forming a melody or a progression of notes, such as the progression of notes which form the basis of the blues. A progression is a set of occurrences which happens more than once. It should not be confused with progressing from one place to another, although that is a meaning of the word as well. In music, progression usually refers to a set of chord changes which occurs over and over, serving as a basis for versed of a song or for improvisation. We will first set up the blues progression, explain a method by which to count it, and then refer to it as an example of a progression used in country music.

The basic blues progression normally consists of twelve measures, each of which has for pulsations. To produce a measure we simply clap our hands four times, keeping the distance between the claps to be the same. We can use the second hand on a clock if we wish to keep the beats even. Next, we sing the same note at the same time that we clap our hands - for instance C, C, and C, C or 1,1,1,1.

We have produced a measure with four notes and then we can go on to create groups of two, four, eight and twelve measures in the history of blues music.

The blues progression follows a certain pattern of scale notes. Using both letters and numbers, we can represent the blues progression as follows.

CCCC/CCCC/CCCC/CCCC/FFFF/FFFF/CCCC/CCCC/GGGG/GGGG/CCCC

1111/1111/11111/1111/4444/4444/1111/1111/5555/5555/1111

Although this is a scaled down version of a complete explanation of the blues progression, it should suffice as a model for understanding progression and for counting bests. As we get to the actual analysis of music, we will give more suggestions on how to do this. It is important to understand one basic progression and how it works, and the blues progression is good one to start with.

The history of the blues is significant, especially as we slowly work our way toward country music. Early blues was rural blues, performed by rural musician in rural setting, usually as a solo (with a guitar accompaniment played by the singer). It quite often followed patters which were marginally like the blues progression presented as the basic mode. Early blues forms had eight-measure length, ten-measure lengths, 12, 13, 14, 16, 24 and other odd lengths. Some were influenced by European dance forms and others were simply produced spontaneously. The only overriding consistency was that they began as simple songs and then were improvised (made up on the spot), both in lyrics and accompaniment, to fill out the remainder of the song. Improvisation is probably the most important trait of the blues.

Primitive blues was the primary form at the end of the 19^th century. Classic blues (as defined by Leroy Jones in Urban Blues), the form that followed primitive blues, was the acculturated form. It was still not urban blues in the commercial sense, but it did begin to solidify the style and move toward a standard blues form, according to it's history.

By the beginning of the 20^th Century, there were significant blues singers and instrumentalists, who were influential both in blues and in most other forms available: Bill Broonzy, Leadbelly, and Lightnin’ Hopkins, MaRainey, Ethel Waters, and Bessie Smith. Some later musicians in the same developments are T-Bone Walker, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Muddy Waters, and B.B King. Interestingly, some of these singers continued to employ eight-bar blues forms as well as the more standard twelve-measure blues. The point is that each of these musicians did things that influenced other blues singers and, parenthetically, country music. Even when they used progressions that did not follow the twelve-bar patters, they used one to five changes and blue melodies.

The basic chronology of the blues is as follows:-

1) Primitive Blues - 1800s

2) Classic Blues - 1900-1930

3) Boogie Woogie - 1926

4) Urban Blues - 1930

5) Jump Blues - 1940s

6) Rhythm and Blues - 1940

These various form were influential in country music in the early period, during rockabilly and in various instrumental styles. Although the blues is thought to be primarily a development of black musicians. It is certain that white influences were present and that country music came from an interesting amalgam of traditional folk music, blues, and salon music of the 19^th Century.

Instruments used in country music

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Instruments of country music

Guitar

The guitar is undoubtedly the most important instrument in country music and certainly has had the most applications. It is derived from the lute and is a very ancient instrument. In the 15^th and 16^th Centuries, the lute went through various transformations; the Spanish version of the experimental lute was called a vihuela. This particular instrument was not oval in shape like the lute, but was rather a flat-bodies instrument. Ultimately called the guitarra by folk musicians of Spain, this instrument was transported to the new World by the conquistadors.

The guitar, then, is a flat-bodies instrument with strings running the course of the body and up a reinforced neck. There is a sounding hole in the center of the body, which is hollow (except in a later development in the 1950s – electric guitars). The guitar can have from four to twelve strings; twelve-string guitar is usually tuned like the six-string, only there are two strings tuned to the same note.

The guitar is played by plucking the strings with the right hand (either strumming of picking) while the left hand stops the strings at various points (separated by frets) on the neck board, effectively shortening the strings by one-half pitch per fret and raising the pitch. Various sliding techniques are employed, and a number of special effects can be achieved by modifying the guitar, the tuning or the normal playing technique.

The guitar is used for simple accompaniment, often just strumming chords. It is also used for countermelodies in back of sung melody or as a part of an instrumental ensemble. It can also be a solo instrument, especially in the hands of a fine technician. It is found in every type of country music and has been one of the most important American folk and popular instruments of the last two centuries.

The mandolin and the ukulele are guitar variants which have been important in some styles of country music. The mandolin is a smaller guitar that produces a different sound and is higher in pitch. The ukulele has four strings and is a poor person’s guitar. Originally a Hawaiian instrument, it found favor with a few country musicians, although not as many as ultimately embraced the other Hawaiian instrument in country music, the steel guitar.

The steel guitar is one of the most important instrument sin country music; often the character of the country sound is defined by the steel guitar. Also important from Hawaii, the steel guitar was developed substantially in the United States, with pedal and electronic effects added. It has been used since the honky tonk period. It is played with a picking technique in combination with the use of a metal cylinder to stop the strings and produces a bending sound, similar in style to the bottleneck guitar playing of early blues musicians. The steel guitar is used as a rhythm instrument and as a solo instrument.

Dobro

The Dobro is a 20^th Century invention of John Dobyera, who in 1925 developed a guitar with a raised bridge and a resonator cone placed in the traditional sounding hole. The resonator cone causes the new instrument to sound like a cross between a guitar and a steel guitar. In 1929 John and his two brothers formed a company specializing in Dobros; the name came from Dopyera Brothers. Variants of the dobro use four, six and eight strings. The instrument has enjoyed a great deal of popularity in country music.

Banjo

The Banjo is one of the most interesting instruments in American folk music because it is really a cross between a string instrument and a percussion instrument. Shaped like a guitar, it has a long neck and a round body. The body which is really a circle of wood, has a membrane stretched over it like a drum, and quite often the head or membrane struck like a drum during playing. As a folk instrument, the banjo was most important in the 19^th century. More recently, its main use has been in bluegrass music, although most country fans would consider a banjo player to be imperative in country music. Actually, it is not used in all styles, but is one of those instruments clearly associated with country music. When the banjo is included in bluegrass tune or other country ensemble its presence is obvious.

The banjo probably came to the New World in the 18^th Century or even earlier. It is debatable whether it is an instrument of African or European origin, but most accept the theory of African origin. The banjo was used by African slaves and was picked up by white musicians in the 19^th Century. The five-string banjo was invented by Joe Sweeney, a Virginian, who lived from 1810 to 1860. In the 20^th century, the four-string banjo was reintroduced as a tenor banjo and used in Jazz Bands.

Fiddle

Fiddle is the term applied to the violin when it is used as a folk instrument. Actually the term goes quite far back in time, when it was used by the ancestor of the violin. In country music, the fiddle is a standard violin as would be used in symphony orchestra. However, the playing technique is rather different.

The violin has four strings tuned a fourth apart and is played with a bow or, occasional plucked. The violin can be played smoothly and slowly, or it can be played with amazing speed in what some musicians refer to as pyrotechnics. The fiddle is important to most country music styles, and until post-World war II it was the most lead instrument. After 1945 the fiddle became a background instrument, playing counter melodies.

The important of the fiddle should not be understood: for much of the 19^th Century and into the 20^th Century, the solo fiddle provided all of the music necessary for a barn dance or country get-together. There were and still are fiddling contests held throughout the United States, and the virtuosity of a good fiddle player is amazing. Some of the noted practitioners have been Vern Dalhart, John Carson, and again, Boy Clark.

Dulcimer

The Dulcimer is a European Instrument, although The American Dulcimer is really quite different from its European ancestor. The Europe dulcimer is a flat box with many metal strings strung across the entire instrument. The strings are then struck with small wooden hammers. In this sense it is an early piano, although clearly the piano has a different striking action.

The Appalachian or mountain dulcimer is a smaller instrument with from three to six strings (must have three or four); It is a plucked instrument and in its shaped and playing style it is a kind of steel guitar. It is primarily used in southern mountain music.

Harmonica

The harmonica is a small wind instrument that produces sound by blowing wind through small metal reeds. Normally, blowing in will produce one note at any point on the instrument’s surface, and drawing out will produce another note. There are some harmonicas that have various buttons which allow the player to produce complex chords, but the harmonica used in most country music is a simpler kind.

Other popular instruments used:-

Accordion

Jug

Piano

Drums

Electric Bass

Sexes, Trumpets and Trombones