Sarah on Music Appreciation
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Artistic Embrace
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Sway: Swing Dance
Dean Martin - Mambo, Italiano .mp3 | ||
Found at bee mp3 search engine |
Friday, March 4, 2011
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
"Beauty and the Beast" is a fairytale about a girl who is trapped in a castle with a beast, and soon falls in love with him(much in the way Stockholm Syndrome affects kidnapping victims). But, unlike most kidnappers, the Beast turns into a prince. Tchaicovsky composed the music for this ballet.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
The Reality of Amadeus
In reality, however, Mozart and Salieri were aquaintances in good standing with one another, possibly even friends. Salieri was even a music teacher for one of Mozart's sons. Also, Mozart was ill for much of his life, and perished from, most scholars believe, a secondary flare up of an inflammatory disease, though he strongly believed he was poisoned in his last days. Salieri spent his final days still composing music for the court, and died peacefully.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Vivaldi's "Four Seasons"
The Four Seasons depicts moods and scenes from spring, summer, autumn, and winter. In the Baroque style, each concerto is built upon the sound of a solo violin, and other instruments come in and out to create drama, mood, and a forte/piano effect even though no volume is changed in any one instrument.
Vivaldi's inspiration for the concerti most likely came from the countryside near Mantua, where he was offered the position of Maestro di Cappella, basically a prestigious choir teacher, in the governor of Mantua's court.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Most art and literature was based on the Hinduism or the Buddhist philosophy. Art was mainly composed of sculpture and architecture, and Sanskrit literature of the Medievil Period was comprised of The Vedas, Sutra literature, The Epics, and Classical Sanskrit literature.
*While searching for information about Medieval India, I found a few very interesting websites; among them was iloveindia.com, and was especially interested in the articles on yoga, which I try to do everyday, so the link is to the yoga area. However, if you are interested, you can explore the rest of the website. :)
And, yes, I do realize that there is nothing about Indian music during the Medieval Period on this post, but here is a link to some very amazing traditional Indian music.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Music History
The two periods of music I am most interested in are the Baroque period and music of the 1930s-1940s. Vivaldi's "The Four Seasons" sparked my interest in the Baroque period because I really enjoyed the fast-slow changes with each change of season and the terraced dynamics, in which, instead of the first violin getting louder to create a forte, more violins play at different times to create a more dynamic, polyphonic texture. Also, the first time I heard "The Four Seasons" I was reading a very interesting book called The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant, and whose title is an allusion to Botticelli's painting. It was by remarkable coincidence that Vivaldi's music was written only one or two centuries after Botticelli painted "The Birth of Venus", the same time period in which the novel takes place.
I love Frank Sinatra. And Dean Martin. And Ella Fitzgerald. And Count Basie. So it's kind of natural for me to want to learn more about the period in which these great musicians did so much. The 1930s and 40s was host to big band and swing, two offshoots of jazz from the 1920s.
A big band usually consisted of 12-25 musicians, and had trumpets, saxophones, trombones, singers, and a piano. Big bands originally had very little improvisation, and included violins, but, in the mid-30s swing was introduced and became big bands' defining style. Swing music, also known as swing jazz, used a double bass and drums to create a strong rythmn for the lead section of brass and woodwinds. Swing often had a medium to fast tempo, and vocalists would often improvise a melody. A prime example of the merging of swing and big band was the collaboration of Frank Sinatra, one of the most amazing swing musicians, and Count Basie and his Orchestra. Together, they produced many hits, including: "Hello, Dolly!", "Come Fly With Me", and "The Best Is Yet To Come".