The Death of Traditional Orchestras

Think about the typical orchestra goer. If you are like most people, you are thinking about someone with with white gloves and white hair, probably wearing some type of shawl. For centuries, nights at the orchestra have remained a tradition for the generally much older, rich upper class. Orchestras across the globe are currently living in fear that after the current generation of orchestra goers die, there will be no one to replace them. While the orchestras may disappear if things don't change, a group of people in Brooklyn are keeping the tradition of classical music preformed live. A company called Groupmuse, enables people to pay for a quartet to preform traditional classical music in their home. It not only benefits the orchestras, but it also benefits the young musicians studying at conservatories that can't find jobs in such a competitive field. For most paying for the service it is an entirely new experience, and the founder hopes that it will be the gateway for another generation of classical music lovers.

Uber, But for Millennials Who Want Orchestras In Their Living Rooms

We didn't start it

                                                          

In 1989 a song that is still heard today reached the billboard hot 100. This song created by Billy Joel is called “we didn't start the fire”. This song in my opinion had a nice beat but it did go really fast but still the chorus was catchy. However not everybody liked this song because Blender rated this song 41st on its list of the worst songs ever.  The song talks about major historical events that happened between and they are in chronological order. Joel said that the purpose was to help young people realize that things in the past might help us work in the present. So as Joel says “No matter how much you try the world is going to be a mess. All you can do is the best you can and maybe make the world immediately around you a better place.”

Phillips Breathless Choir

The very title seems misleading, "Phillips Breathless choir"- it is a paradox. Claire, a young woman who loved to sing at one point in her life, dropped into a coma for three weeks, and suffered from lung failure, needing to use an oxygen tank from that point forward in her life. Lawrence, a 9/11 first responder lost 1/3 of his lung function after the attacks and had not sung since 2001. There were many  others who had breathing difficulties resulting from, but not limited to: cystic fibrosis, vocal hemorrhages, asthma with an auto-immune conditions, collapsed lungs. These were people who had weakened lungs, who had never imagined that they would ever be able to sing. Garreth Malone, a 40 year old English choirmaster and broadcaster, put these people together in a choir, and taught them how to sing for the first time in their whole lives, or  to relearn it five days !  On the first day in the video, it's shown that inevitably, people were hardly able to get through a word or phrase of a song without coughing, their voice cracking, or end up wheezing at the end. He began doing vocal exercises with the choir, telling them that breathing for singing merely "needs a little bit of thought, and a little bit of warming up." After five days, they performed at the world famous Apollo Theater. Watching them sing is inspirational, moving, amazing- just something beyond what words can describe. In their performance they were a full fledged choir- they never thought they would be able to sing through a phrase, let alone flawlessly, in harmony, and even b e l t i n g. These are people who could hardly sing one word five days before. This is one of the most truly awe-inspiring things I have ever seen, showing what you can do with just a little bit of vocal coaching, and moreover, the boundless healing power of music.  If these people can do it in five days, there's no denying that anybody else can too. I encourage you all to watch this, it is definitely worth your time.

Don't Wanna Know by Maroon 5 and My Way by Calvin Harris | Alex Aiono Mashup ft Conor Maynard

I'm subscribed to Alex Aiono on YouTube.  He does covers of songs and sometimes posts his original work.  He recently collaborated with another YouTuber who does the same sort of stuff that he does.  I was listening to their collaboration and noticed how well their voices worked together.  Especially when the sung in unison, you could really hear the compatibility in their voices.  I find it very interesting and intriguing how voices just seem to click with each other.  Also how when voices are rearranged (how Ms. Hughes moves us around in class to get a perfect sound) they seem to just click.  The balance between voices is amazing sometimes.  I don't know exactly how this works, maybe Ms. Hughes can find something and show us in the beginning of class sometime.

If you want to watch the video, click here.

"In A Week" by Hozier

    I chose to write about this video because I love Hozier. I think he has a really unique sound and is a great guitarist. I love this song because even though it’s depressing I also think it’s really sweet. Just like all of his songs I love the guitar accompaniment.
    I think this video is better than a normal song clip because you can see the personality of the performers. It shows the casual-ness of the performance and breaks the wall between the performers and the audience. I love the description he gives for the song because you often don’t know where the inspiration came from for artists songs. I think it's really interesting to find out that it came from something very personalized but works for so many people on a lot of levels.
    I love that it doesn't feel like you're watching a performance it feels like you're just watching two friends just playing together. I think a big part of that is the intro that I already talked about and the fact that he has a mug of tea next to him and that he starts to play and then stops because he forgot to say the title of the song.
   
    See what you think: https://youtu.be/_iMiLEnZUFI 

Math in Music

I have written many blog posts about how science relates to music including what happens in your brain while listening to it, but I came across an article with a series of videos that explained how music relates to math and was quickly interested. A concert pianist named Eugenia Cheng, showed how a string instrument has many wavelengths that are created when it is played. She explained how half of a wavelength is an octave. Mathematicians did not know how to take the twelfth root of two for a while, but once they found out how, and the octaves were spaced evenly, people were able to write music in any key. She gave an example saying that Bach thought this was fascinating, and because of it, he wrote the “Preludes and Fugues” which encompassed every key. When I found the video, I thought it was very unique because when I have learned basics about music history in the past, it has never been about the way that octaves and scales were created, but the influential people that advanced music. As a person who likes math as well as choir, it was intriguing that without math, there would not have been the same breakthroughs in music that there have been.

Here is the article that I found (I focused my post on the third video down):

http://www.ams.org/samplings/math-and-music

How Some Music Is/Was Used In Africa

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdrPmZwsXiM

In my History class this year we were learning about Medieval Africa and about their culture, part of their culture is Oral History.  For a long time Sub- Saharan Africa in ancient and Medieval times had not yet developed a written language but instead they passed their history down orally through time. There would be storytellers called Griots who would memorize the history of a certain village or empire and pass it down to an apprentice. The stories were told in different ways one of them being through music.

    The Griots that told history with music normally played an instrument called the Kara (harp-lute) which looks like a harp like banjo. A reference to the video bellow (or above), only Griots that came from the music telling could play music and if you wanted to play music and you weren't from that family you were not allowed to but today we have more freedom to play music when and how ever we want.

Another fact about that Griots that I have learned in my history class is that maintaining this history in forms of storytelling , song, instruments, dancing and poetry can be miss told or lost. Griots in ancient and medieval times were hired by villages, rulers and wealthy patrons and most often changed their stories to please their patrons and only speak of the great doings and not of the misfortunes. Also if a Griot dies without fully passing down their knowledge to an apprentice a lot of history could be greatfull lost. Today our society is lucky that we wrote all of our accomplishments and failures that today we get to look back and learn from the past.

The Impact of Technology on Artists and Concerts

In the modern age, most people listen to music on their mobile devices. In fact, wherever you go, someone has earbuds (or earphones) on. With technology nowadays, many people can listen to music while doing daily activities such as exercising, relaxing, or working. After all, you can get whatever music you want, whenever you want it (though you may have to pay for it). But how does this affect concert sales? And how does it affect the relationship between an artist and their fans?

When my mom was a kid, the only way to listen to music was to buy albums and go to concerts. Now, if someone wants to listen to a song they don’t own, or they want to see a video of a live concert, they can just go to YouTube. And if they see an artist’s concert online, they are far less likely to see them performing live. This is a shame, because concerts are a huge part of the relationship between artist and fan. The joy and thrill of seeing your favorite artist, singing right in front of you, is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. In these moments, the artist is welcomed by crowds of fans, and the fans get to listen to the real voice of the artist. Personally, I feel that these relationships can’t be reciprocated. But maybe the internet indirectly helps create these relationships. After all, many upcoming artists “go big” on the internet before they could perform live. And the internet is a great way to advertise albums and concerts. In all, new technology is changing the way people interact with music, and we have yet to see whether this change is good or bad.

http://fusion.net/story/302587/concert-live-streaming-music-future/

Pentatonix

For about a two years my favorite band has been Pentatonix, they are an amazing Grammy winning accapella group. The group started with three high school choir nerds, like ourselves, Scott Hoying, Mitch Grassi, and Kirstin Maldonado. Back in high school they created an arrangement of Lady Gaga’s “Telephone”, which was uploaded to Youtube and quickly gained thousands of views ( I warn you the video is pretty cringy).

In 2011, they  auditioned for an acappella competition show called The Sing Off. Which is when they added their bass, Avi Kaplan and beat boxer, Kevin Olusola. They won the Sing Off, and their prize was a record deal. So all five of them moved out to L.A, where after only a week of living there they were dropped from their label. So they started to upload covers on Youtube, where they were discovered by Madison Gates Records, which is owned by Sony Pictures.

Flash forward to 2016, they have released three EPs, PTX Vol. 1-3, two Christmas albums, PTXmas and That’s Christmas to me, they are also releasing a new one this year. Their album, That’s Christmas to Me has went double platinum. In 2015, they released a self titled album consisting of mostly original music.

I personally love them because of their super tight arrangements, that also have interesting harmonies and unexpected twist on covers. The songs themselves are solid, but you can still pick one voice to follow throughout the song, which creates a really interesting experience. Actually Monday, I am going to their concert, and I am so excited, as I have been listening to them for so long.

Here are a few of my favorite covers and songs (for best results where with headphones):

They won their first Grammy for this melody of Daft Punk:

They won their second Grammy for this arrangement of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies:

This one has some really interesting harmonies:

This one is a cover from PTX Vol. II, which is a current favorite of mine:

Can't Sleep Love, is their most popular single off of their newest album:

My favorite songs of Pentatonix:

Rose Gold

Misbehavin'

Take me home

I just highly recommend you take the time to listen to them as they are AMAZING.

Hypocritical Role Models

Hypocritical Role Models

Often times when I’m in the car and listen to the radio, I hear these fake voices, and I wonder, how many of these singers voices would sound without autotune and how many would sound sort of the same. I also wonder how different the singers would sound. So I searched up singers without autotune and came up with a video showing me the true voices of five different singers. Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Lana Del Rey, Katy Perry and Britney Spears. The video showed an artist’s song with autotune and then without.

Justin Bieber sounded a lot younger without auto-tune and more like a normal person, he still sounded really good though. He just sounded less like a machine and like an actual normal person. They put so much autotune on him that it changed the song even. On the other hand, Ariana Grande sounded almost exactly the same, but you could tell there were two of her voices singing and the autotune made it sound like one. I would actually say she sounds better without autotune.

Unfortunately, for Lana Del Ray, it seems like autotune just about did her job for     

her. If you heard Lana’s voice with and without autotune not knowing they’re the same person, you would think they were completely different people. Her voice was low and whiney without auto-tune sounding nothing alike the fake version. Katy Perry sounded pretty good without auto-tune but also pretty different. You could definitely tell it was the same person, but her voice just sounded more scratchy, shaky, and unstable without autotune. Autotune made her voice sound a lot more smooth covering up all the falters. Like Ariana Grande, surprisingly Britney Spears natural voice sounded very familiar to her auto-tuned voice, and the only difference I could tell was that two of her voices were singing instead of the autotuned version sounding like one. This was surprising to me, because I was prejudice towards Britney and thought she would have the most autotune.

All in all watching this video was surprising and yet disappointing. It really lets you down seeing some of our inspirational idols who tell you not to be fake and what the good things you should do when they’re just being huge hypocrites. The people we look up to are doing what they tell us not to do right behind our backs. Now that is disappointing. But at least most of them are still amazing singers and (hopefully) nice people. ;)

The link to the video:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koQksuxzJ4w

Aneesh Blog - The Evolution of Michael Jackson

Once the blog post was assigned, I knew which topic I had to do it on. One of my favorite musical videos on Youtube is called, "The Evolution of Michael Jackson" by the Pentatonix. Pentatonix is a musical acapella group that produces fun and interesting covers and timelines of music. In this video they sing various Michael Jackson songs from when he was young to the near now. I thought this music was very interesting because Michael Jackson was such an influential musician and hearing his voice being produced in a new way was amazing. They used various groups like we do in choir, a bass, baritone, tenor, soprano and a beat boxer. I especially liked the powerful underlying sound of the bass. I really enjoyed the part where they went through Smooth Criminal because it was a climax that hit an amazing point. Hearing all their voices blend was beautiful and almost brought me to an uplifting state. The songs were so cool and really motivate me to put in so much work into singing so I could maybe one day have a voice like them. As a bass, I could only hope to one day be like the bass in this group. I would highly recommend watching this video to anybody and would suggest you watch more videos by them as well. 

HERE IS THE LINK:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJmFrLkc4Y8

How Music Affects the Brain

Any Chance I can get I’ll be listening to music in the car, with friends, while I’m doing homework, and even right now. I’m sure this is true for many people and I found an article that talks about eight ways music affects our brains. As I was reading this article I realized how much I could relate to it like second way it could affect our brains said it could improve creativity like a lot times I’ll be working on an essay and I’m totally stumped so I will usually turn on some music to try to get my brain working and most of the time the words will flowing out of my brain and onto the paper, but those other times it will also start distracting me which is another way music can affect our brains. The article said they had a test on driving and if people drove better when music is on or off and most of them drove much better with the music off. Which also happens to me where I’ll get too into a song and start sing or even dancing to it causing me to lose my focus. Also what can happen for me and I’m guessing other people as well is certain genres makes you happy or sad or angry or even just hard to focus. Another one I could relate to was how classical music can make you improve visual attention which happened to me yesterday because I was trying to focus on reading and annotating the Odyssey and I couldn’t focus and then my dad turned on classical music which I usually hate but it was nice because it made it so much easier to focus that i felt like I couldn’t even hear the music or anything else like I was in my own alternate universe with no noise. The last one was how music helps you exercise which I totally agree with like if I’m going for a run I usually am listening music with a good beat to keep me steady pace keeps me for longer. If you want to read the article into more detail it’s at the bottom.

https://blog.bufferapp.com/music-and-the-brain

Music Ex Machina

From a mix of folk and electronic music was born the Swedish band Wintergatan. Formed in 2013, the band is comprised of four members, Evelina Hägglund, Martin Molin, Marcus Sjöberg, and David Zandén. They produced a number of singles that same year, and two more in 2014 and 2016. In English-speaking countries, they are known for a YouTube video that went viral in 2016, Marble Machine. The video shows a contraption the band built that plays music by dropping metal marbles onto instruments including a vibraphone, bass guitar, and drum-like discs. The marbles are brought up to the top of the machine by a hand-cranked system of gears, pulleys, and legos. The sound created is rather lovely and resonant, but what is interesting about the video is how they use every part of the machine in the music. The chugging sound of the gears is a constant, time-keeping pulse in the background, and the snap of levers being flipped creates sharper, accented sounds. Wintergatan also considered the visual element of the performance, filming the machine from different angles to show how each sound is created. The marbles falling onto the vibraphone are especially enchanting to listen to- perhaps the closest sound to an instrument made of rain.

A Case for Hamilton

Hamilton is a musical that has taken Broadway by storm. Lin-Manuel Miranda, the creator and star of the show, began to write it after he read a biography of the Founding Father, Alexander Hamilton. Miranda has said that as he was reading it, he found striking similarities to hip-hop culture, and even looked up if someone had created a hip-hop Broadway musical about Hamilton. It won 11 out of its record-setting 16 nominations, and it won a Grammy and a Pulitzer Prize. The musical isn’t just about Hamilton’s economic policies; it goes through his life and his hardships, touching on his affairs, his children, and his relationships with other revolutionaries. Lafayette is quite prominent, especially in the song Guns and Ships which features Lafayette rapping (in a French accent, no less)- a lot. Daveed Diggs, who plays Lafayette, was dubbed the fastest rapper on Broadway. Most people don’t think that rapping, Broadway, and United States history can go to together, but Hamilton proves that this is possible. And Hamilton is another thing entirely, other than a musical. It’s politically charged. The songs speak of the double standards between men and women, social status, the morality of slavery, and so much more. It can be observed that Hamilton addresses current political woes, like the state of our nation and how we handle foreign affairs. Echoes of movements that have come much later than the Revolution pop up, like the fight for equal rights and abolition. It manages to combine romance, action, tragedy, comedy, and history. So if you like any of those things, check it out. The musical is currently in New York and has been sold out for a while now, but you can listen to the album. It’s still possible to understand the musical by just listening to the songs, and the entire album is on Youtube.

The Importance of Learning Music at an Early Age

I have known about music my entire life. My Cuban cousins and grandparents were all extremely musically inclined. The Romeu name is well known in Cuba for their orchestral skills and talents. Since I was a child, I have been going to their concerts and listening to jam sessions at my grandfather's house. I have always had a good ear for music. I believe that learning music at an early age is important for being cultured later on in life. Many people are surprised when they hear how well I know about other types of music.
My cousin Zenaida Romeu is a famous Cuban conductor who studied many years with my uncle Gonzalo Romeu. I have grown up watching her concerts and watching videos of her. She was the first woman in Cuba who was able to conduct. I am posting a link in which my cousin shares her story and shares some videos of her work. I was very lucky to be born in to a cultural Cuban family. The great thing about being in a musical Cuban family is that we appreciate how cultured Cuba was before the Revolution. Nowadays, when people think of Cuba, they think of poverty and Communism. My family praises musical advancements and the importance of ballet. I have grown up with classical music and ballet and I believe that it has really helped me become the person I am now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ5-Zt8u1Ck

Computer Animated Music, It's Really Cool

I love music, and I love animation, but what if they are put together? That’s exactly what I’m going to talk about. Meet Animusic, or computer animated music. This company make animations that are non age limited, non gender specific, nor specified to teens, toddlers, or adults. Many people enjoy it, and I think it’s pretty cool. First, they record the music. Next, using computer technology, they recreate the instruments to magically animate the music. Finally, they put it together to create an enjoyable, really cool animated music, like a record album where you can see the music. In the video below, uses a drum kit, pipe organs, a one string bass guitar, piano/harpsichord, clarinet, xylophone, pan flute, and pyrotechnics. The instruments play parts of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.  These parts include “Promenade”, parts of “Hut on Fowls Legs”, or “Baba Yaga”, and The Great Gate of Kiev”.  I hope you enjoy and comment if you really like it.

Supreme Court Over a Soundtrack

In early August I was driving home from my vocal lesson when I turned on the radio to listen to some music. Instead of music, I was listening to Music News on the Pulse and the first thing I heard was: “Atlantic Records goes to Supreme Court over Suicide Squad track.” They we talking about the then new 21 Pilots song Heathens for the movie soundtrack of Suicide Squad. They were talking about how technically the song hadn’t been released but leaked 9 days prior to the official release resulting in millions of downloads on thousands of platforms when it was supposed to be officially released on June 24.
Personally, I found it strange that platforms like Spotify and Google Play had already allowed people to listen to and/ or purchase the song and now, Atlantic Records was threatening to sue and/ or prosecute every fan that downloaded the track. However, Atlantic never looked at the fact that they had released the track to a select group of people beforehand making the leak an inside job and making their threats of a lawsuits on the fans go away.

The leak came from a Reddit user by the name of twentyoneheathens who released it through a Dropfile link and when Atlantic demanded Reddit to hand over the IP address of the user, Reddit refused and said that Dropfile should be responsible. What do you think they should do? Who do you think is truly responsible for the leak? And is Supreme Court really necessary?

Here is a link to the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UprcpdwuwCg

Study rap

I love rap music of all kinds. Fast paced, mellow, old school and even some occasional trap (quite rare being that most of modern hip hop is trap... and sucks in my opinion). I decided to do some digging around Spotify being that they have playlists for every activity, mood and even occasion. Being that I always listen to music while doing homework I decided to look for songs and albums that were not to intense and had nice mellow beats. After some listening I found that the Spotify playlist  "Mellow bars" was exactly what I was looking for. It Has over 70 songs ranging from Mac Millers Divine feminine, full of , mellow consistent beats to Kid Kudis Man on the moon, that has tons of strong quick beats combined with chilled out soft lyrics. You can't go wrong with this playlist that features some of the rap games most talented like Kendrick Lamar, , Kid Kudi, Wale, Travi$ Scott and many more. You don't just have to listen to it while studying, it's great for anything, from just chillin out to playing sports. I highly recommend it 👌. I'm actually listening to it as I write this.

King Krule

My friends and I often like to share new music with each other. One of my friends introduced me to an artist I had never heard of before--King Krule. Archy Marshall (King Krule being his stage name) is a 22 year old English indie rock artist. His first album, 6 Feet Beneath The Moon is truly unlike anything I’ve heard before. His quirky style is integrated with jazz instruments and even some electric and acoustic guitar. But what I find most amazing about his music is his voice. It’s so rich and deep, yet also slightly husky. It sounds brilliant in contrast to the instrumental components of his music which are really understated, allowing for his vocals to take center stage. Not only does it sound amazing, but his lyrics are full of meaning and worth listening to. I enjoy finding up-and-coming artists, because I feel like it’s the support of just a few random kids (like us!) that can help kickstart their musical career. I also think it’s cool to be able to find music that’s really distinctive, because it has the ability to spice up your usual playlist (if that makes sense).  This is a link to just one of his songs, but his whole album is on Spotify. Sharing music is an awesome thing, so I hope you guys check him out! :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR46jrwnhXY

Being a singer versus being a performer

As I mentioned at our choir retreat I really really really love Troye Sivan. For everyone who does not know him, he is a twenty-one year old, South African singer and songwriter, who lives in Australia. He recently came out with a new pop album called Blue Neighborhood and literally every song is fantastic and I highly recommend everyone checks him out. My obsession with his music started out slow, but then I soon just fell head over heels in love with it. I started wondering why all of I sudden I seemed to care so much about it and it made me realize that it is not only the music itself, but his personality and connection to the audience. I really love the lyrics in his songs because they are, at least for me, very relatable because they are about experiencing what it is like becoming an adult and testing your boundaries in unfamiliar terrain. And since I’m going off to college soon (yikes), I feel the same uncertainty that he describes. He also sings a lot about heartbreak over boys, and love and relationships. Also, he and his team write all his music so it feels even more from the heart. Additionally, when you watch him sing on stage he feels so genuinely passionate about his music and happy to share it with the audience that you can’t help but smile.

I think there is a real difference between being a singer and a performer, which really comes across with Troye. A singer may hit the right notes and have good rhythm (which is critical don’t get me wrong), but a performer brings the passion behind the song. Not only does this make it more fun for the artist, but the audience can really connect as well. I think we should bring this dynamic into our choir. Essentially, the point I am trying to make is that when we work on a piece in class we should not only think about the notes in the song, but what the piece is trying to convey. Obviously it is easier to connect to a modern song about heartbreak than feeling no cares and envy as we watch our flocks (How Merrily We Live), but what I’m trying to communicate is that the more we understand the piece, the better we can communicate the message through vocal dynamics and stage presence, and the stronger we will be.

(This is a link to my favorite song called Fools! Everyone should listen to it!!! But warning there is a little bit of swearing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfD96yRT8cs  )