The First Classic Christmas Carol

   To start off, I would just like to repeat the fact that CHRISTMAS TIME IS FINALLY AMONG US. Just take a minute to appreciate the joy is beginning to spread world wide. My apologies for the all caps, but I am very emotional when it comes to this holiday season. Christmas represents love, life, and the end of a year; It unites families and lets them enjoy and celebrate the holiday cheer. One way people unite and spread joy is by Christmas caroling. Classic Christmas caroling involves a group of people traveling from door to door, spreading the sound of music and holiday cheer. Classic Christmas carols range from "Angels we Have Heard on High" to "Deck the Halls" to "O Holy Night". However, when one hears people caroling or themselves sings the song, one might wonder, how did this tradition start and what was the first carol ever to be sung?
   Carols were first sung in Europe but were traditionally sung by pagans on the winter solstice. The word carol translates to dance or a song of praise and joy. Pagans would sing about the seasons and dance around a circle of stones. Soon after, Christians took over and gave Christian songs to people to sing.
   During the year AD 129, a Roman Bishop declared that a song titled, " Angels Hymn" should be sung at a Christmas service in Rome. Soon after this, Christian Christmas carols began to become popular with all the European composers writing them. However the fad ended soon after because all the carols were being written in latin; a language not many people new or spoke. Sadly, by the middle ages, people gave up on celebrating Christmas as a whole.
   Then, in 1223, St. Frances of Assisi started Nativity plays in Italy. Some were in latin but others were in more popular languages. The new carols soon spread to France, Spain, Germany, and other European countries.
   The earliest Christmas carol was first written in 1410. There are only remnants left today but it is known that it was about Mary and Jesus meeting different people in Bethlehem.


My source that I used was:

 "The History of Christmas Carols on Whychristmas?com." The History of Christmas Carols. James Cooper. Web. 1 Dec. 2015. 

I may not be in the acapella seminar, however I still love listening to covers, and even sometimes originals, by certain groups. The idea of making sounds and complete songs with nothing more than your bodies, even more specifically your mouths, are a great way to express yourself creatively. Ryan and Conall first introduced me to the concept in 9th grade, as they were both singing along to an original by Davinci’s Notebook. The group is no longer together, but it was comprised of four friends who created their own spoofs of other songs and singers, adding a comical twist upon them. As they are a comedic group, some of their songs can be a bit juvenile at times, but for the most part a lot of their lyrics are quite clever and get quite a laugh from most audiences. The group wrote songs, creating a parody of Meatloaf’s singing style (“Three Little Words”), a parody of Johnny River’s “Secret Agent Man” (“Secret Asian Man”), a comical interpretation of the average Irishman’s life (“Another Irish Drinking Song”) and many more alike. My personal favorite is their song “Kingdom in the Sky,” it's a song all about Disneyland, somewhat making fun of it and those who attend the parks, yet holding it upon a pedestal as if it is their salvation. I highly suggest taking a look at these guy’s stuff if you’re in for a laugh, but it isn’t for the faint of heart, be warned. (Also I hope if choir goes to Disneyland in the future for more performances, some people will agree to sing this hilarious song with me while running around the park. Here’s a link to the song)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VbSZN1XVNA&index=24&list=PLKhdEGqO4rT-70_wqaOPmmv3lsyVvGJ8z

For my blog, I actually got an idea from my aunt during a Thanksgiving dinner table conversation. Her daughter, my cousin, is deaf, blind, and immobile, but she really loves music. It turns out that besides just the vibrations, there are certain very low frequencies that she can hear, so I did some research, and I found this really cool article. It's about this dutch composer Ketyman, and his work on creating music for the deaf. He teamed up with Vodafone, a cellphone provider, to create a song that deaf people could enjoy. To test and make sure the music actually sounded enjoyable, he performed it to Vera Van Dijk, a 19 year old student who was born deaf. She was requested to pick a song, and then they would play it using the limited frequencies that she could hear through her cochlear implants (a type of hearing aid). She got her friends and family to choose since she had very limited musical experience, and they chose Stay with Me, by Sam Smith. After much work and fine-tuning, he performed the composition with an 18-piece orchestra, and according to Vera, "My night couldn't get any better!" She said for the first time she felt close to hearing the world the way the people around her hear it. with a lot of hard work, Ketyman was able to create music that could reach even deaf people. So anyway I thought that was super cool, and here is the link if any of you guys want to check this out :).

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2743263/The-music-DEAF-people-Musician-composes-song-specific-frequency-cochlear-implants-pick-melody.html

Choir sings set fire to the rain by Adele

http://youtu.be/vT4Ojxe4QCQ
Choir sings "Set Fire To The Rain" by Adele
I chose this video because I like this song so I wanted to see how I it would sound in a choir. I like that in the beginning they start making sounds that sounds like rain I like how they snapped and them when they were stopping they went back they want to clapping and then for the Sunder that they jumped to make that kind of big sound of thunder. I liked that they were all wearing black because it goes well with the song because it's kind of a motional. I liked all of the different voices in this song especially because you hear each individual one. I enjoyed mostly the beginning because of the sounds of rain, but I also like when they went back to the rain from their singing, I personally think it was a nice transition. Another thing I enjoyed that the choir did was that they moved with the song and seemed to be enjoying themselves and some of them stood nice and straight. I really liked the background that was blue and only showed images but not sound as the choir will do the sound. In conclusion I really like the performance and I think that I would've been really fun to see them in person.

Marina & The Diamonds

When I was in seventh grade, I went to the PCS dance company show and saw a dance to the song "I Am Not A Robot" by Marina & The Diamonds. I thought both the song and the dance were really beautiful, and it was stuck in my head the next few days. I then looked up Marina & the Diamonds and became pretty obsessed. I even was able to go to her concert when I was in 8th grade, and squished my way into the front row. Her voice was what I always considered very operatic, though I'm not sure if a choral director would exactly agree with that. She has a super wide range which makes it really fun to sing to. Her lyrics are also really refreshing, she sings a lot about the desire for success. As far as her vocal training, she said in an interview that she took choir when she was in middle school but otherwise just sang on her own. I've always felt that her songs would make great candidates for a choir to perform. I'm sure someone could transpose them into a SSA arrangement.
The song I think would work best for this is "Numb" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7367icMhuI).
I've always had her in the back of my mind as a topic to post about, her voice is so cool and totally influenced me in joining choir in the first place.
If you look up sheet music for Marina & The Diamonds you get a fair number of results, but not so much if you look up choral arrangements. Go take a listen to some of her songs though!

When I realized that all of the Teachers had named their classrooms I had fun reading the name of each and every room. One of the names I did not understand was Ms. Hughes's, which was named Jester Hairston. When I asked her who he/she was, she told me to write a blog post about him. No one can say I don't listen.

        Jester Hairston lived from 1902-2000, and was a famous choral director and actor. He went to college via a scholarship given by his Baptist church to study Landscape Architecture. After dropping out of college due to a lack of funds, a wealthy woman sponsored him after being impressed by his voice. He graduated Tufts University in 1929. His original character choices caused criticism as his characters were seen as representing racial stereotypes. He responded to these criticisms by replying that he took these roles in the hope that he could acquire better roles in the future for himself and future African-American actors.

        Russian conductor/composer Dimitri Tiomkin asked him to conduct the Choir for the film lost horizon in 1936. This film went on to win an Oscar for best score. Jester Hairston went on to direct choruses for several other films. He died in Los Angeles, January 18th, 2000.

http://www.umass.edu/chronicle/archives/00/01-28/Hairston18.html

ubers gebirg maria geht

Ubers Gebirg Maria Geht or Over the Hill Mary Goes is a religious song written in German by Johann Eccard. Eccard was born in Germany and worked as a composer. He writes mainly vocal compositions, sacred cantantas, and chorales for four-nine voices. His songs tend to have religious feeling to them.His music coincides with the  Protestant Reformation. Therefore, many of the songs he wrote work in accordance with Protestantism.

The song Ubers Gebirg Maria Geht is about Mary going over the hill to meet her cousin Elizabeth. Mary and Elizabeth are both extremely important names in the Protestant religion. Mary is the mother of Jesus Christ and Elizabeth is the cousin of Mary and the mother of Jesus' cousin, John the Baptist. This song is filled with excitement for the Lord and the Holy Spirit. Mary and Elizabeth rejoice in the Lord their Savior. The song also explains the importance of passing on the word of the Lord orally rather than in a Church. Protestants believed that they could worship and be devout religious people without attending church. Therefore, preaching by word of mouth held great importance in Protestantism and is expressed in this song.

Wait For It

I saw that someone's already made a post on Hamilton, but I actually found something related to that. There's this great cover of one of the best songs in the show, Wait For It, that Curie High School's Musicality Vocal Ensemble did and it's absolutely brilliant. I love how they gave multiple solos to different members of the choir, both boys and girls, even though the song is sung on Broadway by a man. I think honestly the message of this song is absolutely so important and heart-wrenching, and this choir takes every single beautiful lyric and somehow makes it even better than it is in the original recording. I especially love when it breaks into the bridge at 1:32 because that's when the harmonies start to kick in, and it's also when you hear the choir sing as a group for the first time. I don't know, it's just a really beautiful cover.

 I have a lot of favorite childhood musicians that I still listen to, but I decided to do my blog post on a group called "Sea Wolf". They have been one of my favorite bands since I was little because. I think that's because of how calming their music can be. I especially think of Sea Wolf when I'm driving home from somewhere far away because when I was younger, I would lay down in the backseat and listen to them on the way to or back from a long drive. "Leaves In The River" was my favorite song to fall asleep to because it starts off with the sound of rain before anyone starts singing (it's not as hippie as it sounds) and the singer, Alex Brown Church has a really relaxing voice. Besides sleeping, listening to their music helped me to focus on things like homework, especially in seventh grade when I was new to the work. Some of their songs can actually be pretty upbeat or more dramatic so I listen to those if I'm doing something that needs more energy than sleeping.
  Heres the link to the rain song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiTosJpIk_g

I want to tell you all about my new favorite musical, Hamilton. It's amazing. Amazing.

It's about Alexander Hamilton, (the founding father, yes) and it's a hip-hop/rap musical. Sounds ridiculous, right? Wrong. It's awesome. Sometimes the best innovators create things that sound ridiculous. It was written by one person, Lin-Manuel Miranda. He performed what is now the opener of the show, "Alexander Hamilton," in front of Barack and Michelle Obama in 2009 at the White House Poetry Slam. He thinks Alexander Hamilton perfectly embodies hip-hop. Weird, right? It is until you listen to his explanation. Hamilton was born penniless and illegitimate in the West Indies before being orphaned. He became one of the most influential men in the creation of our country, entirely because of his writing skills. He "embodies the words' ability to make a difference."

His story is even more powerful when set to music. One of my favorite things about it is how often the same melodies reoccur throughout the show. Sometimes doing that is risky, because it can take away from the music by making songs too repetitive, but it is done masterfully. Miranda uses the same lyrics or melodies when a specific character is going through something especially important. Characters often have their own hooks they sing during pivotal moments in their story. Somehow the transition from speaking to rapping to singing is done seamlessly, naturally. The music varies from hard rap to borderline operatic and the harmonies are beautiful.

Please please please listen to it you will not regret it I PROMISE

Adagio for Strings op.11- Barber

When I do my homework, I sometimes listen to Spotify’s “Classical Cafe” playlist. It has light, really pretty classical music which is perfect because it isn’t jolting or wordy and it’s really mellow. There are several pieces on it which have stood out, yet one in particular popped out the other day when I was doing my homework. I thought, “This would be a really cool choir piece!” It is so beautiful, with a full bodied yet high sound; just absolutely gorgeous. It has great movement, and just would be perfect for voices. A few days later, I was listening to it again and thought the same thing, and got really curious. So, I searched the name of the piece on youtube, but added in the search “choir.” Turns out, under a different name of "Agnus Dei", it was made into a choral piece. I couldn't believe I had actually guessed right; I must not be the only one who thought it would be great for choir. It is for a mixed choir, which is a bit of a bummer because I am in women’s. I tried to find a bella voce version but I don't think one exists. Maybe Ms. Hughes will use it one day for callista… Anyways, although I still like the piece better in instrument form, it really is a beautiful choir piece as well.

Choir Version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6eB20t4sAE

Orchestral: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBK30bJagEA

Alessia Cara- she's cool

Alessia Cara is a Canadian singer- songwriter and is one of my favorite artists. She writes song that the everyday girl can relate to, song that talk about boys, to talking about drugs and alcohol at parties. Cara’s songs allow for her audience to relate to her and not see her as a famous star but as a regular nineteen years old girl. Her songs are also really catchy, and makes you want to dance, at least that what I feel like when I listen to her songs. Her songs to me are really meaningful and don’t just talk about falling in love all the time. They have meaning full lyrics and as I said before, they are relatable. She is a new and upcoming singer and is very talented, I would defiantly recommend checking her out. “Here” is a really good song and has an awesome meaning about going to parities and getting drunk and high, so check her and I hope y’all like her.