Archive for November, 2011
Learning to Appreciate Classical Music
Posted by admin in Classic Music on November 4, 2011
The thought of listening to classical music might conjure up images of uptight, elitist snobs, but it’s entirely possible for you to acquire a taste for classical music. Just like any other type of music, you’ve got to spend a little time listening to it, you’ve got to expose yourself to several different variations and you’ve got to open yourself up if you ever want to appreciate it. Those unfamiliar with classical music may be surprised to find out that it is a truly diverse musical genre. If you’re ready to expand your musical tastes, check out my tips and suggestions for gaining an appreciation for classical music.
1. The easiest first step is to just go out a purchase a classical CD that contains a compilation of several different composers. If you really want to get a good feel for the wide variety, then you may want to purchase several different compilations.
2. Now just let the music play in the background during the day whilst you do other tasks. In most cases it won’t be incredibly distracting, so you’ll be able to listen o it at work or at home.
3. After you’ve been listening to it for a couple of days, start paying attention to specific composers that you enjoy. Take note of their names and begin seeking out additional classical music composed by them.
4. Once you’ve identified a particular style you like, start attending concerts that fit your tastes. This will greatly increase and enhance your appreciation for the music. You’ll get far more information about the premise and meaning of the music as the composer often will explain this between sets.
Learning to appreciate classical music is a process. You won’t love it over night, but in time you will certainly be able make an informed opinion on the music genre. Invite a friend to join in the process with you. Your tastes will mature much faster if you have someone curl up on a bar stool and chat about the concert you just saw or the CD your just purchased.
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The Joy of Listening to Classical Music in Digital Form
Posted by admin in Classic Music on November 4, 2011
Classical music is a traditional form. It can be quite complex and some basic knowledge is required to understand and appreciate it. It usually appeals less to the masses compared to light-music. The shops have better collections of popular-music CDs than that of Classical CDs. But these CDs endures longer than popular and its devotees continue to add to their collection with relentless zeal.
If you desire to understand and appreciate it then you need to cultivate a taste for classical. This can only be done by listening to a broad range of classical regularly. We are fortunate to be living in an age when CDs are available everywhere. However sometimes the prices of these CDs are quite high and it discourages people from buying them. But a collection of CDs is definitely a treasured possession for a true music lover.
Light music can be easily sung or played by anyone that’s why people forget about the richness of classical. But once you have developed a taste for it you would have much more pleasurable experiences than you can have while listening to popular music. It explores greater depths of emotions in a much more refined manner that is why its effects last much longer than popular.
Buying classical music CDs for yourself:
The choice of this varies from person to person. Keep the following tips in mind, before buying CDs.
o Make sure that you buy original classical CDs. You should always buy your CDs from reputed stores to ensure that you don’t end up with pirated and poor quality products.
o There are many magazines and books available in the market which would help you determine which CDs you should buy. You can also check out the internet and sample before buying it.
o Be on the lookout for discounts. Music companies frequently bring out excellent CDs for low costs, but you would have to keep checking out the reputed local stores and popular classical CDs sites regularly to take advantage of any such opportunities. Because if any store or website sells CDs at a heavy discount for any reason ranging from stock clearance to promotion, the best of the lot would always end up with the early birds.
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Classic Music by Composers – Gifts of Fine Art to Inspire the World
Posted by admin in Classic Music on November 4, 2011
Great classic music by composers throughout history has served as both educational and inspirational influence to new generations of musicians, composers and music lovers. Three composers of immense impact, inspiration and influence over the last few centuries are Johann Sebastian Bach, Fryderyk Chopin, and Franz Liszt. Their uniquely gifted talents of composition and performance place all three as icons representing the very heights of astute understanding and excellence in the world’s history and legends of classical music.
J.S. Bach was born into a dynasty of musicians in Weimar, Germany in 1685. Although his musical talents surpassed those of his ancestors and family, he was never afforded the level of acclaim he deserved within his lifetime. He was an organist in Weimar during his early career, later moving Leipzig to assume the position of Cantor at the Choir School of St. Thomas, which made him responsible for music in the five main city churches. Writing large volumes of choral music, he prepared complete cycles of cantatas and other compositions to be played throughout the church year. These included the “St. Matthew Passion”, and the “Christmas Oratorio.” Among Bach’s Secular Cantatas is the light of heart “Coffee Cantata”, about a father’s attempt to curb his daughter’s addiction to the even then, fashionable beverage. His most famous works include the six “English Suites”, the six “French Suites”, the “Goldberg Variations” (composed to soothe an insomniac who was his patron), “The Well-Tempered Clavier”, and his “Brandenburg Concertos”, written in honor of the Margrave of Brandenburg.
Another extremely influential musician when considering great classic music by composers is Fryderyk Chopin, born near Warsaw, Poland in 1810 to a French emigrant father and a Polish mother. He won acclaim during his youth, before moving to Paris to expand his career. There, his ill-fated alliance with the writer George Sand lasted ten years until he died from tuberculosis. His compositions for the piano were explorations of this relatively new musical instrument’s poetic capabilities. In the process, he created numerous new forms of piano music. He utilized the popular form and time signature of the Waltz in compositions, probably the best know of which is his “Minute Waltz.” And in his “Polonaise”, he took the Polish dance from village square to ballroom, writing the first of sixteen when he was seven years old. Also well known are his “62 Mazurkas” and four “Ballades,” his “Sonatas”, “Preludes”, and “Scherzos.”
A third musician of immense impact to the subject of classic music by composers is Franz Liszt, born in 1811 in Raiding, Hungary. Still a child, he moved to Vienna to study piano with Czerny and composition with Salieri. In 1823, he and his family moved to Paris, and he soon began touring extensively as a pianist. Greatly inspired by the virtuosity of violinist Paganini, Liszt strove to acquire a similar technique on the piano. About ten years later he left Paris with his mistress, the Comtesse d’Agoult, and they traveled together for the following years while Liszt’s reputation as an amazingly creative and astute pianist grew. Later in life, he returned to teaching in Weimar, and then in Budapest, where he was considered a national hero. In 1886, he died in Bayreuth, just four years following the death of his son-in-law, Wagner. As a pianist, he had no rivals and no equals, and as a composer he led the way for the next generation of gifted young musicians. Among his well-known works are his so-called “Faust Symphony in Three Character-Sketches” after Goethe, the “Hungarian Rhapsodies”, the “Transcendental Studies”, the “Harmonies du soir”, and his “Etudes.”
These three musicians continue to maintain the status of giants in reference to the subject of great classic music by composers. Each used his unique gifts and talents to expand and enrich the classical music arena, as well as the world at large.
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Everything You Need to Know About Classical Music Gear
Posted by admin in Classic Music on November 4, 2011
Classical music is a broad term that usually refers to music produced in, or rooted in the traditions of, Western art, or ecclesiastical and concert music, in the period from the 9th century to the 21st century. The central norms of this tradition became codified between 1550 and 1900, which is known as the common practice period.
Classic music is still played by many of today’s musicians. European classical music is largely distinguished from many other non-European and popular musical forms by its system of staff notation, in use since about the 16th century.
Classical and popular music are often distinguished by their choice of instruments. The instruments used in classical music were mostly invented before the middle of the 19th century. Some of them had been designed even earlier, and codified in the 18th and 19th centuries. They consist of the instruments found in an orchestra, together with a few other solo instruments such as the piano, harp, accordion, and organ.
The great majority of classical music gear fall into six major categories – bowed strings, woodwind, brass, percussion, keyboard, and the guitar family. The first four form the basis of the modern symphony orchestra.
The classical guitar was originally a Spanish-derived, six-stringed instrument. It is played using a plectrum or the finger-nails, with frets set into the fingerboard. Popular music tends to use amplification for both the six-stringed instruments and the four-string bass guitar. The guitar family gradually supplanted the lute which had come to prominence during the Renaissance.
The piano is widely used in Western music for solo performance, chamber music, and accompaniment. It is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal. Although not portable and often expensive, the piano’s versatility and ubiquity have made it one of the most familiar musical instruments.
The piano is sometimes classified as both a percussion and a string instrument. In the period from about 1790 to 1860, during the Mozart-era, piano underwent tremendous changes, which led to the modern form of the instrument. Early technological progress owed much to the English firm of Broadwood, which already had a reputation for the splendor and powerful tone of its harpsichords.
The accordion is played by compression and expansion of a bellows, which generates air flow across reeds. A keyboard or buttons control which reeds receive air flow and therefore determine the tones produced. The accordion’s basic form was invented in Berlin in 1822 by Friedrich Buschmann. The accordion is one of several European inventions of the early 19th century that used free reeds driven by a bellows.
The violin is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the family of string instruments, which also include the viola and cello. The oldest documented violin to have four strings, like the modern violin, was made in 1555.
Significant changes occurred in the shape and structure of the violin in the 18th century, particularly in the length and angle of the neck, as well as in the bass bar. Most of the old violins have undergone these modifications, and hence are in a significantly different shape than their forerunners, undoubtedlys with differences in sound and response.
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