Sharps ‘n Flats

Thursday, April 16th, in Los Angeles, Bruce Springsteen helped to make a terminally ill fan’s dream come true with the assistance of the Dream Foundation. Ms. Karen Marquadt has ovarian cancer, and recently her doctor’s told her that she only has a few weeks to live.

Karen has always had a dream to attend one of Bruce Springsteen’s concerts and to meet the Boss in person.

With the assistance of the Dream Foundation – an organization that specializes in making dreams come true for adults with terminal illnesses – they were able to grant Karen her wish. She attended Bruce’s show on Thursday at the L.A. Sports Arena with her friends. To top off her special evening, she was also able to meet her idol in person and spend some quality time talking with him and taking photos.

Jazz was born in the United States in the early 20th century, but originated in the l9th century in the South. The Atlantic Slave Trade brought over half a million Africans to America and with them came musical influences from their native land. As African americans learned to play European instruments in the 19th century and developed their own styles of music, like the cakewalk. The Cakewalk is a combination of harmony and syncopation. It became very popular and caught on among white folk, and was played in minstrel shows.

Toward the end of the 19th century, a new style of music emerged called ragtime. After the abolition of slavery, opportunities to learn opened up to many African americans. However, there were not many job openings. Many talented African-americans took jobs as musicians in minstral shows, in bars and clubs. Ragtime was created in the red-light districts of New Orleans and was a modifcation of the march, characterized by polyrhythms and syncopation. It was very upbeat and perfect for dancing. Ernest Hogan was a black entertainer who first recorded ragtime on sheet music in 1895. It became very popular new music and was even adopted by white musicians in America and in Europe. The ragtime is considered the first type of jazz music.

The ragtime carried its popularity into the 20th century. Small jazz groups began to travel and eventually spread the music from coast to coast. Jazz even traveled across the seas. During World War I, the “Hellfighters” infantry band carried ragtime to Europe. By the 1920’s Jazz had become the dominant genre of music in America. Jazz was associated with parties, extravagent behavior and drinking. The peak of Jazz music in the first half of the century lasted from 1920 to 1933. Many believed it was the cause of moral decay in American society. This period was the dubbed “The Jazz Age.”
By the 1930’s, ragtime had lost its novelty. A new grand and exaggerated form of jazz was introduced, the big band swing. Big band or swing jazz was composed of a very large section of brass and reed instruments and was headed by a bandleader or an arranger. Two of the most famous bandleaders were Duke Ellington and Glenn Miller.

In the 1940’s Swing Jazz introduced a string section and vocals to the big band. Swing jazz was broadcasted over the radio and soon travled to other countries. During World War II, for example, a collection of dissenting german youth known as the swing kids adopted swing jazz and swing culture. They would dance and play swing music in defiance to Hitler. He had forbidden any Swing Jazz or swing dancing because of its ties with African Americans and Jews.

During the 1950’s a type of jazz called “cool jazz” was preferred. The 1950’s was a decade of conservatism and the jazz music of the period definitely reflected that. Cool jazz was a toned-down version of jazz, where the big band reduced in size and sound.

The 1960’s and 1970’s saw a new form of jazz with the introduction of Latin cultural influence, rock and roll and soul. In the 1960’s, Afro-cuban jazz became popular, but was soon replaced by Brazilian Jazz. Latin jazz combined traditional jazz with unconventional instruments like bongos, morracas and different types of flute. Into the 1970’s soul jazz was formed from a mixture of soul, blues and gospel music. The unique thing about soul jazz was that the solo instrument was typically an organ, which was very new to jazz music. Finally, the 1970’s saw an explosive rise in rock and roll. Jimmy Hendrix was famous for infusing jazz with rock and roll and established a form of jazz – jazz infusion. In the recent history jazz has been experimented with and a plethora of subgenres have emerged like, pop fusion or “smooth jazz,” jazz rap, nu jazz and even vocal jazz.

The Romantic Era was the music of Western civilization in the 19th century. Some of the most notable composers of the Romantic Era were Beethoven, Berlioz, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Schumann, Schubert, Chopin, and Wagner. Beethoven is the most difficult to place because much of his earlier compositions were in the classical style, while his later compositions were romantic. The ultimate goal of Romantic music was to attain freedom of design to express powerful human emotions through music.

Romantic music had its foundations in classical music, or music written in the classical style. Unlike much of the rock music of today, Romantic composers did not seek to create a new sound or stray from classical form, but to manipulate the rules in order to create more expressive and passionate new music. The structure of the classical form was very strict and limiting with what the composer could do musically. The romantics appreciated the form, but broke the limitations, adding or expanding sections of music that would not normally be allowed. Beethoven, for example, was the leader of separating from the classical form and tradition. In his controversial Symphony No. 9, Beethoven introduced vocalists, and a chorus into his final movement. In the classical form, this would not have been allowed. If a piece began as an instrumental piece, it was to remain and end as an instrumental piece.

The Romantic era did not only try the limits of classical form, but it also changed the form of the orchestra. As the musical range of work increased, the size of the orchestra increased with the addition of new instruments and larger sections. The tuba was added to the brass section. New valves for brass instruments were introduced and utilized to give the instruments a more flexible sound. The string section was enlarged to accentuate the sound and dramatic richness of the strings. Bongos and other less conventional percussion instruments were added to the orchestra as well.
Another aspect of Romantic music that separated it from its predecessor was its integration of literature and art into the pieces. This was called Program Music, or music that tells a story. There are three types of program music; the program symphony, the concert overture and the symphonic poem.

The program symphony is characterized by a recurring theme, as in Berlioz’s Symphonic Fantastique where a young man dreams about a woman who comes in the form of a melody which recurs in his mind indefinitely. The concert overture is a one movement piece intended for a performance at a concert. An example would be Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, or Romeo and Juliet. The final type is the symphonic poem. The symphonic poem was invented by the romantic composer Franz Liszt. It is a one movement piece for orchestra, but the main theme is transformed (thematic transformation) in mood and character. The piece which introduced this type of program music was called Hamlet.

Two very popular forms of music during the Romantic Era were suites and waltzes. Suites were related pieces gathered together for a performance of a play, such as Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, The Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty. The waltz was the most popular dance in the nineteen century, so the composers responded to demand and produced many.

The chief characteristics of the Romantic Era are the dramatic contrasts of dynamics and pitch, large orchestra (due mostly to brass), the freedom of powerful emotional expression, new shape and form from recurring and transforming themes and nationalism.

Most of our days are spent on work and other serious endeavors. Humans are creative by nature and so they need an emotional and non-logic based release though in order to stay sane.

One of the top two ways of doing that is via music. Humans have been attracted to music almost since the beginning of mankind. The reasons are very clear. Music is very soothing and helps evoke emotions.

The Internet has helped advance music even further by giving people access to an incredible variety and depth of new music on the cheap. People have developed an incredible infrastructure around music and the ability to consume music. The latest songs all have very popular music video renditions.

Music news is widely followed and musical artists are held in idol like status. The reason for this is clear. They fill a very important need in our lives. Top artists produce tunes that we are drawn to and tunes that entertain us. They also lead seemingly interesting lives and so we want to know what is going on in their lives. Music is such a big business exactly because it fills an important human need and given the central role music plays it is bound to remain important for generations to come.

Hollywood and the music world in America are known to leave no stone unturned when it comes to kindling the imagination of their fans and retaining their presence in the popularity charts. Kanye West, the popular rapper is trying out new strategies to remain in public limelight. He has decided to cast his new girlfriend in the next music video, to mutual advantage.

Amber Rose, his girlfriend accompanied him in all the shows at Paris Fashion Week. The shining pate model has been cast as robotic police official in his next video release “Robocop”, making the people wonder, if this latest relationship of theirs is only a ploy to promote their video. The waning popularity of Kanye West could very well be the reason behind his going around with her and having her in his video, to arouse people’s curiosity to watch the chemistry between the two. Whatever be the doubts in the minds of the public, Amber Rose seems to be rating Kanye high and her friends seem to approve of their relationship. They feel that both of them being popular figures, should be good for each other. A typical case of who is promoting whom. Her friends also opine that travelling with Kanye all the time is not going to be easy, what with the gossip-hungry paparazzi surrounding him wherever he goes. But knowing the nature of Rose, she will take them in her stride and remain unaffected and they felt that since she shares good vibes with him, she is not going to complain. Here is wishing the two of them good luck.