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Posts Tagged ‘Music’

One of the greatest motivators of learning to play an instrument for most people is the thought of being able to compose their own music, to take their talent to a new level, and use their music to express their inner feelings. The first step to take to learn how to compose your own music is to learn the art of improvising. The good news is that it isn’t as hard as you think.
The sad thing about learning improvisation, is that many people put a lot of emphasis on the fact that they must first learn to master chords, notes, read music, and be able to play other peoples music well, before they can get onto the more important task of creating their own masterpieces. The result of these thoughts usually ends with the person becoming so caught up in getting everything right that they feel afraid to improvise, and compose simply because they fear getting it wrong, or creating something that sounds terrible.
Why Improvisation Is Important
Improvisation is vital to a musician, because it is a lesson taught in creativity, and it develops an ear for hearing music on a whole new level, and copying it. For those who want to learn to compose, creativity is the most important aspect of being a composer, it is even more important than knowing keys, notes, chords, or even reading music itself.
Improvisation at its greatest can be found in jazz music. If you want to learn about improvisation, be sure to listen to some of the classic jazz. Jazz is the type of music that was mostly improvised, and added to. It was rarely played to a set out strict music sheet, but evolved as it was being played, and only got better each time the musician played it.
How To Improvise
Improvisation is nothing more than experimentation, and creativity. We all have those two things. Don’t be fooled into thinking that, in order to improvise, you must first know all of the chords, or notes used to play your instrument. Improvisation can be started off as early as when you have learned your first couple of notes, or chords.
The best way to use improvisation is to experiment with the chords or notes as you are learning them. If you are taking lessons, use some your practice time to try out different chord, or note combinations. Try anything you like, experiment. Improvisation is all about learning the art of non-conformity to the average style of music, and how to learn to use your creative talents to make an expression of yourself.
How To Deal With The Internal Critic
Everyone’s a critic, but we are our own worst critic. Most people are afraid to try new and different things simply because they are afraid to fail. The first time that you improvise, you will probably sound terrible, and maybe even the second time, too. This isn’t failing, this is learning. As you get better at playing your instrument, you will also get better at improvising. If you start off learning how to improvise early, you will only get better at it as you learn more chords, or notes. By starting to improvise early on, you will never be concerned about when the right time to start improvising is, simply because right now is the best time to start.
Don’t be afraid of what other people will think, either. If you are afraid of someone criticizing your first attempts at improvising, just play your instrument when nobody is around, until you are more confident, and ready to share your music with others.
Taking Improvisation Into A Musical Composition
Once you have mastered improvisation, it is only a small step to take it to the next level, which is creating music of your own. Once again, composing music is a lot like improvisation, and to master it you need to be creative, and understand that it may not sound perfect at first. But with a little creativity and some tweaking, you have the potential to make the music in your head come to life through your instrument.
Conclusion
Composing is nothing more than letting yourself be creative, and letting that creativity to make your music unique. You don’t have to be able to play as well as Mozart to start to improvise, and from there begin to compose music. Mozart started out just like you, improvising, learning, and then composing. So let your creative talents flow, and remember that you don’t have to get it right every time. But you do have to want to succeed.

I don’t listen to music unless I’m somewhere it’s played for the masses – like supermarkets or shopping malls, places where pop songs are meant to sooth us savage beasts and keep us shopping. I’m a talk radio junkie. The only time I turn my radio to a music station is at Christmas.
Christmas carols fill me with feelings of peace on earth, good will to men – that is, if they’re played after Thanksgiving. Every year carols seem to be played earlier than the year before. This year I heard them before Halloween. If this trend continues, it’s going to change Christmas. Instead of singing Silent Night, children will sing Silent Fright. Instead of gold, frankincense and myrrh, the three Wise Men will bring ghouls, Frankenstein and mur-der. Oh yes, and when Joseph and Mary knock on the door of the inn to ask for a place to stay, they’ll say trick or treat.
Every Sunday I sang hymns at church. Abide With Me, Amazing Grace, Rock of Ages – I learned my favorites by heart; but the old standbys are being replaced by new hymns. These are 7/11 hymns. Instead of singing wonderfully descriptive phrases, the same seven lines are repeated eleven times.
I went to the opera several times before I realized opera is like the opposite sex. You don’t have to understand it. You just have to listen and applaud appropriately. In fact, understanding the opposite sex would be a lot easier if a libretto-type translation of what they were saying appeared over their heads.
Because jazz doesn’t have a libretto, I don’t have to understand it. I can just feel it. Every singer and musician seems to feel it differently. Jazz encourages spontaneity and individuality. It’s more than music. It’s a life message. We could all jazz up our lives a notch or two.
I do, however, understand country western songs. I understand the girl is going to leave, the truck is going to be repossessed and the dog is going to die. Country western puts my life in perspective. My worst day wouldn’t be bad enough for a country western song.
Then there’s soul. When I think soul, I think Ray Charles. Of course, when I think Ray Charles, I also think pop, country and jazz. Although soul is described as rhythm and blues mixed with gospel, maybe any music you feel is soul – soul-ly for pleasure.

A  neighbor and dear friend complained about the dreariness that often sets in during March on the North East Coast. Yes, I agreed, March can be an endless month with gray skies and still no promise of Spring.

Why don’t you go to Sanibel for a week or two I suggested, and shorten the month with some sunshine and balmy weather?

At first she resisted, saying that she might get bored, devoted as she is to classical music and relying on live performances to brighten her spirits in the gloom of winter.

When I sent her the link to the Sanibel Music Festival, she lit up. “Oh, I can have sunshine and warm weather AND great music, too!” I helped her make her plans, including those to attend the Music Festival.

In a nutshell, this outstanding Festival of Music will include:

Tuesday, March 3, Trio Solisti

Comprised of three instrumentalists,  the trio has drawn high praise from The New York Times and the Washington Post.

Saturday, March 7 – Biava Quartet

The Biava Quartet, winner of the 2003 Naumburg Chamber Music Award, is recognized as one of today’s top young American quartets.

Tuesday, March 10 – Natalie Zhu, Piano

This young Chinese pianist enrolled at the Curtis Institute at age 15. There, she received the prestigious Rachmaninoff award and later went on to join the faculty as staff pianist.

Saturday, March 14 – David Finckel & Wu Han

Cellist David Finckel and his pianist wife, Wu Han have served as the Artistic Directors of The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center since 2004.

Tuesday, March 17 – Prazak String Quartet

Now in its 35th year, the quartet is firmly established as one of chamber music’s pre-eminent string ensembles.

Saturday, March 21 – Opera Theater of Connecticut

Returning to SMF after triumphal appearances in 2007 and 2008, a select group of six of the company’s vocal artists will present an exciting new program of opera highlights.

Tuesday, March 24 – Pacifica String Quartet

The “brilliant Pacifica” (The New York Times) is the resident quartet at both the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago.

After I helped my friend with her accommodations and tickets, I had to ask myself why I was spending winter here in the northeast when sunshine and great music were so nearby.

This is a style that stays aside all the other music trends. Not aside, but somewhat deeper. The reason is it is a reflection of the race, the plurality of people united by roots and origin. Rap is the culture of Afro-Americans, the continuation of their language and traditions. Rap is a mixture of speech and music, actually it is speech laid on music or beat it’s better to say. And when we claim that people are united through music, meaning every single human being on this planet, rap unites the ones close to blood by music and then everybody else, either welcoming or being hostile to a newcomer. What attracts people in rap? Is it catchy? Maybe. Those non-natives to rap often state the flow of speech is too quick and it is difficult to differentiate the words. Sometimes it seems rap music is only for those from the cradle. Foreigners are not invited.

Rap is classified as urban poetry of lyrical resistance. Thus it is not the music for village like country music. It is the gathering power of those united by music in big cities. The aim is to resist the grieves because misfortunes are more dramatic and numerous in urban areas.

Rap does not only speak to the mind and emotions, but speaks to the society all around people, for people. If the words or courage to say those words are not there, the subconscious takes over and the Rap lyrics kick in.

But once captured by the beat, most people – mainly younger ones – begin to hear the words, and the words may describe just how they are feeling that day. If the boss came to work with an agenda to screw everyone, some people will “feel” the words and the beat, especially when enclosed in a car doing 70 on the freeway. It’s something about riding with the music turned full-blast that has a way of absorbing the mind and supplying a means of temporal escape.

Some songs have innocent words that impress upon the mind to be released later at the water cooler. Some choruses are catchy and when sung by certain artist will stay within the subconscious long after. Various rappers have unique voices that some people find attractive or along the same vocal tone as their own voice, which it makes it easier to sing along.

First goes the beat, and then goes the lyrics! It is not as smooth and tender as classical music, not as glossy as pop, but it has the scream of pain of real emotion of the world’s harshness. One may even state that rap is the most pain expressing music style. Those who sing it or it is better to say read it revive their feelings not only concerning love, as most of the other styles do. Their message is about life and the problems, especially the ones of the Afro-American people. The music of pain and oppression, rap is a remedy to the latter. Let all the pills be like that!

Article source: Rap Is More than Music article.

I would without difficulty believe that anyone loves music to a certain point. Each of us has their views. We begin forming likes and dislikes when we are very young. A lot of our opinions are formed because of our own experiences and others we form based on what we hear from the others around us. Kids readily pick up what the adults around them are saying. This is the reason why a lot of family members belong to the same political party and practice the same religion; it is what they grew up with. A great deal of what we appreciate comes from what we saw as children. Later we discover that we modify our opinion on something which we have experienced for ourselves because the opinion was based on what we were educated rather than from our own experience.

In the family I was raised in, my father wanted to have things quiet. He worked very hard at his carreer running a ranch so when he relaxed for the evening he did not like a great deal of noise or activity going on around him. We could have the t.v. set on low or he would put on albums of classical music. It was the only music he would listen to. If we had the radio on and country western music or rock and roll would play, he would tell us to turn it off. He did not understand rock and roll and he thought countrywesternmusic was a sport.

I was exposed to rock and roll through my friends, radio and dances and like it. I did not listen to country western music at all. I held my father’s view of it. Then I began dating a young man in highschool that listened to countrywesternmusic all the time. He liked the beat of the music and the stories that most of the lyrics was about.

I truly liked that guy so when we began dating I put up with the music and tuned it out. We then went to a big outdoor concert where performed a lot of the most popular country western groups. From that point on I was addicted. I found that I also appreciated the stories the songs was about and the music was fun to dance to. At the outdoor concert event I got together with a lot of my boyfriend’s friends. They showed me how to line dance to some of the music. After highschool I moved to another city and so I lost touch with my boyfriend. Eventually I married my current husband and we are raising our family. I still listen to all kinds of music, but every time I hear country western music I look back to that outdoor show and how I started to like it. I make an effort to let my children experience a lot of different things when they grow up and try not to influence their opinions.