MUSIC MATES

Archive for the ‘Music styles’ Category

Electro acoustic music and the composers at the international level, the dispersion of the different fields of sound and musical creation, the valorization of works and development of their careers. In International competitions, the syllabus provided for competitions in piano, strings, winds, and voice for the International Stepping Stones/Tremplin International competitions, allows the best candidates to prepare for the rigors of international competitions, both in repertoire and standards of participation. By the time a candidate reaches the national finals he has prepared three complete recitals. In international competitions, the first prize of the International Stepping Stones, awarded to the winning performer.

The academy is held during Trondheim Chamber Music Festival. The competition participants have free entry. ALL participants are invited to be honored guests at the festival’s closing concert on September, and to the following reception. The festival has, since it’s inception in international competitions, had young musicians as its main profile. With the academy and competition the festival has taken a further step in inspiring young musicians to play chamber music at a high level.

We are very excited to announce that “The Muse” Competition, which has already established and earned a good name among international and Conservatory pianists, invites musicians of a younger generation, the new contest – International Competition for Young Musicians “and young musician participate in international competition. I’m really happy that I was able to win the gold medal for the first time for India. This will help in promoting the rich cultural heritage of Assam and inspire the younger generation.

It has grown to become a prominent competition throughout the world, increasingly being known not only for its superior level of music but also for its management. In addition, the previous competition was broadcasted live over the International competitions.

If you desire some gratitude for your current level of piano and violin playing, then simplest and most feasible option is to take a graded exam. Generally these exams are conducted by Trinity Guildhall which is an associative board of royal schools of music. This is a well appreciated board which holds piano and violin exams all around the world for citizens to take.

Trinity guildhall board graded examination consists of 9 exams include initial grade, grade 1 and grade 2 and so on until the ending one is at grade 8. On the other hand, you must pass all the grade exams in and grade 8 exam is the most important one which is a theory exam.

Almost every trinity guildhall board exams you are marked on 7 different subjects include 3 pieces, arpeggios and scales, sight reading, ear tests (listening), viva voce (signing). Every subject has a maximum mark which adds up to 100. You can easily pass these tests, but 2 types of grades which you are able to attain. The two types of grades are distinction and merit that show you have passed the exam with a higher level score.

There are three levels of trinity diploma study commonly taken to become a good teacher. The qualifications in ascending order are:

-          ATCL Recital, or ATCL performance

-          LTCL Recital

-          FTCL Recital

The theory exams are all on the subject of understanding, writing, and analyzing music by knowing about different transposing, clefs, melodic intervals, naming chords, and naming keys.

Music is a god gift, and for passing this grade exam you require a suitable teacher. Whether you are a beginner or an advanced student possessing a qualified responsible music teacher is very important. If you clear all the above mentioned diplomas, you can start teaching from now.

Ilayaraja a great musician come singer from India composed more than 840 albums in film industry throughout his career of more than 25 years. He is famously known as ‘Isaingyani’ which means a musical genius in Tamil Film Industry. Ilayaraja was born on June 2, 1943 in a rural family in Panniapuram near Madurai, Tamil Nadu, India. As he was from a rural family he didn’t have good education but after recognition in Tamil film industry he did a course in Classical Guitar in Trinity College of Music, London. Ilayaraja got a gold medal in his course.

Ilayaraja‘s first movie was “Annakkili” in that he fused Tamil Folk Music and Tamil Film Music and he was the first to do that attempt and got succeeded. The National Best Film Music Composer award was bagged by him for three times and bagged many awards in regional level. Also he is the first Asian to compose a full symphony. He composed this to Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO). After his Symphony he was known to everybody in TamilNadu as Maestro Ilayaraja. His music was of great uniqueness as he blended Western and Indian instruments.

In his symphony for Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO), he composed Thiruvasagam, which is an old Tamil Literature. He did this symphony mainly to attract younger generations to India’s spiritual traditions. This was released on June 30, 2005 in a grand manner at the Music Academy in Chennai. The CD of this Symphony by Ilayaraja was also released in US in the Tamizhar Thiruvizha.

Ilayaraja composed this symphony with a high-profile team of musicians and sound engineers and they are Budapest Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Laszlo kovacs and Oscar winning Lyricist Stephen Schwartz along with five time Grammy-award winner for sound engineer, Richard King.
Ilayaraja is still composing music for Tamil films and he also composed many albums other than that of film albums which was also very popular among his fans.

Jordan Charles Rudess, a famous Rock Keyboardist member of the Metal band Dream Theatre. He was born on 4th November 1956 in a Jewish family. During his school days his second grade teacher identified his piano playing skill and from that onwards he was trained by the professionals. He entered into the Juilliard School of Music at his age of nine, which is a Pre-college Division for classical Piano training. Then Jordan Rudess turned his interest towards the progressive rock music and synthesizers. Even though his parents and tutors are not interested in rock music he tried his best as a solo progressive rock keyboardist.

His confidence, passion and continuing efforts made him to survive in this field with great compassion. He performed many programs from and did various projects during the 1980’s but he got his recognition only in 1994 for his solo album “Listen” which gained him the “Best New Talent” in the Keyboard Magazine Readers. After that two bands in America called The Dixie Dregs and The Dream Theatre offered him the chance. He chose to move with Dregs and performed many shows with Rod Morgenstein. Later they two performed together in all shows and became popular as Rudess/ Morgenstein Project or RMP.

Rudess and Morgenstein both got chance in Dream Theatre’s band as a support slot in their North America Tour and after that in 1997 Mike Portnoy formed a team for Dream Theatre in that he chose Jordan Rudess to fill the keyboardist place. Jordan Rudess also performed Liquid Tension Experiment’s two albums for Dream Theatre. He performed in a stunning manner hence Portnoy and John Petrucci, a colleague of Dream Theatre, decided to make Jordan Rudess as a permanent Keyboardist of Dream Theatre.

He became a full time Keyboardist in Dream Theatre from 1999 and from that onwards Jordan Rudess performed and composed many albums.

Michael Jackson was an artist, an icon and a legend. He was man who changed the look of pop culture everlastingly and he was currently referred as pop king Michael Jackson.

Michael Jackson was born in Gary Indiana, as the seventh of a family with nine children. He and four of his older brothers showed premature talents for singing, playing music as well as dancing, and all these were encouraged by their parents. When he was five, the later pop king Michael Jackson made his certified debut as the lead singer of a band named The Jackson Five. The band became working performers, and they had no time for some normal experiences or youthful pursuits. After a contest that was held at New York City’s famed Apollo Theater, Jackson Five began the collaboration with the prestigious Motown Records label. They sold more than 100 million records in their years together, from 1964 – 1981.

It seemed only normal that Michael Jackson would have a solo career. Michael Jackson went on to chase a career of amazing heights as a choreographer, writer and singer and many other activities. There were times when people were crowding around the TV set with friends and family every time Michael Jackson came out with an innovative video. Everyone would hurry home and discontinue no matter what they were doing, in order to see this icon. Each time he amazed us with his inexplicable talent and we were so much admiring this man they call the pop king Michael Jackson. As kids, many of us tries to imitate his moves and his dancing.

The personality of Michael Jackson was tremendously unique and he touched the souls of all people on this planet. He brought joy and excitement to the life of hundreds of millions of people and he will not be forgotten for that.

Many people haven’t heard about the World’s Fastest Drummers competition. You may think that the contest would look like some sort of head-banging heavy metal drumming. Speaking of this, you also can see that there are even contest for Girls of World’s Fastest Drummers.

World Fastest Drummers represents a sporting event that deals with self-claimed fastest drummers as well as mechanical instrument which is called the Drum meter. The Drum meter is an electronic machine that was created by Craig Alan and Boo McAfee and it is used for counting the drum strokes.

The Drum meter is well acknowledged by the Guinness World Records as well as by the World’s Fastest Drummer organization. This is the official tool that is used  in order to decide the World’s Fastest Drummer.

The most important objective of most WFD contests is to conclude who can hit the most single strokes in a measured period of time of sixty seconds. After testing with various WFD competition arrangements in the southern United States, the contest achieved global distinction when the appreciated clinic and studio drummer Johnny Rabb became the  very first person able to hit 1,000 single strokes in just 60 seconds, and thus receiving the title World’s Fastest Hands and acknowledgment from the record keepers from Guinness. Alan and McAfee then authoritatively certified their events and they copyrighted the expression World’s Fastest Drummer. Ads in Modern Drummer or Drum! magazines followed advertizeing Rabb’s achievement as well as their Drum meter device. Consequently they created some new divisiones of speed

drumming: bare hands, fastest feet and tag teams as well as many others. Drum meter orders then began to came and thus began the competition to beat Rabbs achievement. Several musical genres like country, death metal, screamo and jazz have battled since for dominance in some particular categories.

If you have played other musical instruments like the Spanish guitar, you might know how tough it is to play the chords. You have to contort your fingers in strange ways even to play even the simplest combination of different notes. This problem is not observed in the piano, the layout of whose keys are arranged in such a way that playing most chords are extremely easy. While you are learning to play the piano you will observe that you need to synchronize the movement of both your hands. While the right hand plays the main tune, the left hand plays the accompanying notes which are made up of a combination of different notes played at the same time.

These are known as chords and it is due to them that one is able to obtain the harmonious effect in a song. While the complicated chords are made out of a combination of 3 different notes, the basic chords are a combination of just two notes which are known as the dyads or intervals. These basic chords are not real chords in the technical sense, but are the simplest way for the player to get introduced to the world of chords. If you are interested in playing harmonious music, you need to have an idea of chords which are the foundation stones of harmonic music.

It is at this stage, when you are learning to play the basic chords that you should also learn about intervals since they form an integral and important part of music. There are different types of intervals in the Western music scale and the smallest of such intervals is known as the minor second. This is constituted by playing two notes that are half a step apart, simultaneously. There are many types of intervals and some of them are minor second, major second, minor and major third etc. There are many sites on the net from where you can purchase notation books for beginners that will help you to learn more about the basic piano chords. As you use them along with the normal music, you will observe the difference they make to the overall harmony of the music you are playing.

Dusty Springfield was really born as Mary O’Brien. We have seen the deep soul touching voice of Dusty Springfield being resurrected through the Pet Shop Boys number “What Have I Done to Deserve This?” in the late 1980s. Otherwise many of us could have long forgotten the throaty blues singe, bringing a different style and aura to the usual husky and soul touching blues singer. The blues singer has been a cusp of two worlds really. She comes from a culture which was not accustomed to be pronounced in blues singing. But as a child Dusty was always bent on becoming a blues singer. She wanted to change the way blues singing was perceived. Even with her catholic upbringing, her friends would recall, she could make blues singing sound raunchy as a child!

Springfield has always been specific with diction and pronunciation with some mainstream strictures maintained with blues singing. Though her followers were mainly an audience of white she did all the work to make it sound the authentic. From early school talent contests Dusty made it a point that her blues rendering was all for soul and jazz. Even when she went on to form the band The Lana Sisters, with Riss Chantelle and Lynne Abrams. They were doing busy pop rounds with a total soul route. So their dripping really sounded harmonious and breathy. However they had to compete with the likes of rock n roll boy groups and also pop singers like Cliff Richard and Tommy Steele during that time.

As a pronounced individual singer, Dusty’s talents continued to flourish with time. So even after the group she went on to be a solo crowd turner. She was later paid tribute to by likes of Elton John and Cher.

Rock as a genre of music may have been born relatively late as far as music is concerned, considering that they played the fiddle and the harp since Alexander the Great. But rock like the youngest kid of the family has been the most spoilt, most fickle (where sticking to rules is concerned) and also probably the most loved. The musical format can be best described as being “restless” and it is therefore extremely difficult to define. Electric guitars, drums, bass, strong vocals and deep lyrics are some of the terms that can be thrown together and somehow give a tentative definition. A closer look at the history would at the closest give one an idea of its evolution, interpretation of how that comes together to form the music genre is left entirely up to personal taste.

Rock music owes its origins to the 1940’s as a decade.  Country and Jazz was the order of the day at that time and the two morphed together aided by some electric guitars to produce a new kind of sound. 1950’s rock music pioneers like Chuck Berry were one of the first to merge some guitar with classic blues and be successful at entertaining the crowds at the same time. It was by the early 1960’s that Berry’s followers began to expand the scope of rock, these included The Rolling Stones. Rock music in their hands was beginning to become cultural symbols with their freedom with sex and youthful energy.

The 1970’s brought along new experiments as far as the sonic territory was concerned. Led Zeppelin helped kick start a new branch of rock that came to be known as Heavy metal, which was darker and heavier than what their predecessors were creating. Pink Floyd also began to gain popularity around that time and they added their psychedelic arrangements that have often been credited with egging on the progressive rock movement in music.

Punk was also soon born around the late 1970’s, when bands like The Sex Pilots and The Clash brought rock down to its basic instruments, loud singing and enraged playing of instruments and an over all attitude that spelt RUDE. Industrial rock soon came to the forefront with their unconventional use of instruments like drumming machines. However, the 1980’s again began to toy with the genre as every decade had been doing. English bands such as Depeche Mode began to demonstrate a post – punk style of song writing. REM as an American band began to absorb a similar style and these bands became popular as the “College rock” because of its popularity with the college radio stations.

It was in the 1990’s that rock began to settle into a different mould, one of an alternative style with bands like Nirvana and Soundgarden bringing the genre to mainstream music. The 1990’soon dwindled back to the past with a more traditional mainstream style of rock returning Linkin Park and 3Doors Down and Foo Fighters. Even though on the surface they might sound like hip hop-rock, contemporary and grunge, the spoilt kid remembers its roots.