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A Guide To Cuban Music: Instrumentation and Clave

Categories Drums

The caribbean island of Cuba is a nation with a rich musical heritage. This is largely due to the rich diversity of its people and the vast amounts of migration that characterise its history. The mixture of indigenous peoples, Spanish settlers, and the African slaves transported across the Atlantic have given Cuban music a unique voice, a voice that has in more recent times been exported the world over. While there are many different styles of Cuban music, the majority share one thing in common: clave. Clave is at once an instrument, a specific rhythm, and a rhythmic concept that … Read more

International Women’s Day in Music: Overcoming Obstacles and Taking Career Control

Categories Arts and Entertainment Music in General

It’s International Women’s Day 2018 and the 2017/2018 news cycle has contained a lot of bleak headlines. There’ve been increasingly tense international political conflicts, massive natural disasters, and the threat of rolling back rights for women and the LGBTQIA community. With the rise of the #MeToo movement, vast numbers of women and men have come forward, exposing systemic sexual harassment and discrimination, causing entire industries to be re-evaluated for how they conduct business. So, to celebrate this year’s International Women’s Day, we discuss obstacles that women face in creating music and tell some fascinating stories from the lives of women … Read more

Top 10 Chopin Preludes for Intermediate Pianists

Categories Piano

“You are to sing if you wish to play!” Chopin: The Poet Pianist and His Preludes The Romantic era (1800-1900) was a new age for the piano. It was finally in this era that the pianoforte, or as it is more commonly known today, the piano, evolved into its modern design, which challenged this first generation of modern pianists to compose new music. Chopin, one of these inventors, created a completely new method of piano playing. His core belief? Three hours of practice a day was the maximum amount. Anymore than that and your brain is no longer engaged, only … Read more

Guitar Effect Pedals – Overdrive Pedals

Categories Guitar

Overdrive pedals are often the first guitar pedal that guitarists buy. I remember that my first guitar pedal was a Fulltone Full-Drive2 Overdrive and my second was a Paul Cochrane Timmy Overdrive. I’ve since bought and traded countless other overdrive pedals. You really can’t get enough of them, and I can say pretty confidently that overdrive pedals have the most number of different models on the market compared to the other categories of pedals. With such a large number of models on the market, it’s easy to get confused and overwhelmed when looking to buy your first overdrive pedal. In … Read more

Introduction To Guitar Effect Pedals – Achieve The Desired Sound Effects With the Right Pedals

Categories Guitar

Guitar effects pedals, also known as “stomp-boxes,” are yet another useful tool in the guitar player’s toolbox for tone shaping. They are foot-pedal boxes that provide sound effects for the guitar. The key to getting that guitar tone you strive for comes down to an effects unit of some sort, especially if you’re going for the kind of sound The Edge (David Howell Evans, the guitar player from U2) has. Many worship-music guitarists also use several effects pedals to achieve their lush soundscapes. It’s amazing how these pedals can make a single instrument sound so full. Other notable displays of … Read more

Top 10 Easy Piano Songs

Categories Piano

Want to impress your audiences, even with your simple piano skills? Give one of these easy, yet iconic melodies a go, with the help of our piano instructors Alwyn & Michelle Huang. Grab your keyboard and start practicing!   Flower Dance by DJ Okawari Topping the list is a soundtrack composed and produced by DJ Okawari from Shizuoka, Japan! Mixed with oriental melodies, this pop song creates a lasting nostalgic feeling. Learn how to play Flower Dance made easy by our piano instructor with basic 4/4 time signature and light left-hand accompaniment. Always by Yoon Mi Rae From the 2016 … Read more

A Guide to Drum Kit Notation for Latin Music: Bossa Nova

Categories Drums

Bossa Nova (translated as “new wave” or “new trend”) is a style of music that became popular globally during the 1960s. While it was popular in Brazil to a lesser extent in the 50s, it wasn’t until Stan Getz and João Gilberto collaborated for their groundbreaking album Getz/Gilberto in 1963 that the style gained international recognition. At its core, bossa nova is a fusion of Brazilian samba and American jazz music. It takes the rhythmic ideas present in samba while adopting much of the harmonic and melodic vocabulary as well as the song forms of jazz music. Our previous article explored … Read more

Romeo and Juliet in Classical Music: Prokofiev’s Ballet in Four Acts (1936)

Categories Arts and Entertainment Classical Music

Sergei Prokofiev’s rendition of the love story is a ballet, performed by an orchestra and dancers. The history and first performances of the work connect music to its context, in this case the ideology and state control. Born in 1891, Sergei Prokofiev moved to the United States in 1918 and then Germany and France. He started visiting the Soviet Union in 1927, 1929, and 1932. In 1932 he rented a flat in Moscow but still main resided in Paris. In the summer of 1936 he moved back to the Soviet Union with his wife and two sons. Romeo and Juliet … Read more

Romeo and Juliet in Classical Music: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Categories Arts and Entertainment Classical Music

Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet was a fantasy-overture, as the composer himself called it. It was first completed and premiered in 1870. The lukewarm reception made Tchaikovsky take up the suggestions of Balakirev, who suggested the composition and revise the work. The second version was premiered in 1872 and published in Germany. Balakirev, however, was not satisfied with the version, and Tchaikovsky continued to revise it. In 1880, the version that became what we know today was finished, but it was not until 1886 when this final version was premiered. Similar to Berlioz’s use of motives, Tchaikovsky used themes to symbolize … Read more

Romeo and Juliet in Classical Music: Hector Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette

Categories Arts and Entertainment Classical Music

Valentine’s Day is coming. What is your favorite love story? While not necessarily the most memorable one, Romeo and Juliet is definitely one of the most well-known love stories. The story itself originated from an Italian tale, and many literary versions appeared in the sixteenth century, among which was Shakespeare’s tragedy. The story has been adapted by novels, movies, and musical works. In this article, we’ll take a look at three musical works based on Romeo and Juliet by Hector Berlioz, Sergei Prokofiev, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, as listed in the table below. Table 1: Dates, Genres, Instrumentations, Movements, and … Read more