Performance Report II: Side Show the Musical

Performance Report II

Introduction:

I attended Side Show the musical April 16, Friday night at eight p.m. in UTD's Johnson Performance Hall. The performace Hall was almost, if not entirely full. The director of the performance
began with an introductory speech and spoke of the great efforts to put on the show, the music culture that surrounds this performance is unique.
Although not know to be a liberal arts college, UTD has talented students in the arts program. UTD has been criticized as a "engineering and science" university,
this music strives to break the mold on that stereotype.

Music:

The music of the entire performance was a musical, even broadway type performanc. There were lead vocalists singing melody or a solo with the accompaning chorus
behind them. The chorus consisted of approximately twenty or so performers, male and female, who gave a very full texture to the overall sound of the song. There
was an accompaning instrumental ensemble at the back of the set consisting of a few alto saxes, oboes, trumpets, a tuba, a rhythm section, and flutes. Most of the
dialogue between the actors was even sung instead of spoken with no accompinament. The twins often sung harmonized duets, with one singing melody and the other
harmony, sometimes switching parts. The instruments, since there werent very many in the ensemble, often had solo type parts, were maybe the trumpet would sound, so the instruments played a vital role in the overall performance, they weren't just background noise. The conductor of the ensemble had a television screen of the front of the stage in front of him, in order that he remained in time with the dancing and singing of the entire performance.

Performers:

The performers were dressed in various costumes. The twins wore dresses and matching attire, with wigs to help create the 1930's mood. There was the ring leader of the side show dressed up in his circus garb, and each freak dressed in a costume according to his "abnormality." The lizard man was covered in green paint and slivered around. he cannibal was is loins and pranced around like a ravenous beast. There was the snake lady with her snake costume on her, the womanizer with his two gypsies. there was also an assortment of "regular"people dressed in 1930's clothing to represent the crowd that came to see the "freak show." I was also intrigued by the microphone location. The performers seemed to have their microphones on their foreheads, the cannibal man had it taped to the side of his face, but the black dot on all of the performers foreheads was distracting. The performers also interacted heavily with each other on the stage, they danced together, moved around the stage, spoke and sang to each other to create the performance.

Audience:

Most of the audience were students, with some friends and families of the performers, anyone is welcome, the play was a very inclusive event, the audience stood in standing ovation at the end of the performance. The canninbal man actually jumped into the audience at one point during the performance right in front of me! Many of the friends of the performers also were quite exuberant during the performance, the girl beside me was laughing hysterically everytime her friend would sing.

Time and Space:

The Friday performance being the second performance seemed to bring some energy to the performance, yet I would argue that the final performance on Saturday was much more energetic.

Conclusion:

Side Show the musical was a performance that involved theatrics, choral performance, and instrumental accompaniament. The actors's sang, danced, and engaged with the audience. There were many visually appealing props and costumes to engange and intrigue the audience, and the large chorus of singers created a very rich texture for the musical performance.

Works Cited:

Performance:
Side Show. By Russell, Bill. Music By Henry Krieger Perf. Robin Clayton, Emily McCoy, Ruben Rosales, Bryan Thompson, Davis Rogers, Lakshman Kashyap Manjunath,. Cond. Winston Stone. University Theatre, Richardson. April 16 .
(Side Show).
Program Notes:
Russell, Bill. Program notes. Side Show. 4/19/10. Richardson: University Theatre.
(Russell).

extra blog posts

hopefully this doesnt take away from my blog grade!

me and my friend about a year ago maybe longer!


parody of the crossroads film...my friend is ralph macchio im steve vai...its supposed to be a joke guys...i can really do the bend at the end!

Blog post 12 : Alternative Rock

Although any attempt to try to draw a line at what any genre, sub-genre will have its critics I will attempt to at least give an example of a few bands that could be considered to fit within the "alternative" rock genre and I will explain why I have made these characterizations.

Some components of alternative rock would be majority of the time one or two guitars usually distorted. although not as much a a metal band. The distortion is either fairly light compared to metal, or more specifically an overdriven tone. This type of distortion is usually given by pushing a tube amp past its comfortable range an breaking up the tone, or distorting it with a mass amount of signal to create a very thick, warm tone to the distortion, differing much from a metal guitar tone that usually has extremely high gain, and drops the middle frequencies to help emphasize the low end, that gives the gut punching tone. Now of course this just a generalization, many alternative bands will really crank the distortion.

Another feature of alternative rock would be the emphasis on very lyrical and melodic type of vocals. Unlike metal for instance, the lyrics are very clearly articulated, and the lead vocalist sings very melodically. There is an emphasis on the chorus for the most part, this is where the line gets hazy between alternative rock and pop rock, the chorus is usually pretty catchy and easy for the crowd to remember and sing along too.

The musical aspects of the alternative music would include a rather simple rhythmic pattern, not to say its limited to that, but a solid 4/4 time signature with a subdivided snare hit every two beats with a sixteenth subdivided symbol can fit thousands of rock songs, of course so many variations occur here depending on the mood of the song, solo's in alternative music are rather limited. Unlike classic rock, metal, and glam metal from the eighties, there is a less emphasis on musical virtuosity. Not to say that alternative rock is not difficult to play, the standard type of rock, with a screaming guitar solo after the bridge that demonstrates the lead guitarists amazing speed at running scales, arpeggios, sweeping, tapping(Mr> Van Halen) these techniques are just generally not there. There might be a lead guitar solo, but generally it is a more simplistic powerfull melodic solo, the phrase less is more might fit here, the emphasis is less on technicality, and more on musical expression and dynamics.



here is a song by the almost that almost that incorperates many of the aspects of alternative rock I was speaking about, a catchy anthem like chorus, a simple drum pattern, mostly overdriven chords played by the guitars, and the lead guitar playing more expressive arpeggios with a very expressive, spacey type tone created by alot of reverb and delay



another example here is flyleaf-chasm
this song is a little "heavier" than the first, by that I mean the distortion and gain on the guitars are pushed up higher, the rhythm and lyrics are more agressive, yet it still retains that relatively catchy chorus and lyrical component.



lastly is thrice - in exile
here we see many of the same similarities, an overdriven guitar playing a repeated arpeggio, a catchy chorus, rather simple drum pattern

Robert Johnson: The crossroads: Delta blues

A little robert johnson




cool cigar box similar to delta blues slide




I actually have this amp at home!

Blog post 11: Music Culture of the Gullah People

The Gullah people are a culture of black Americans from South Carolina and Georgia. They were able to maintain there heritage from colonial times, where they were former slaves and rice cultivators. The Gullah tell African folk tales, weave African baskets and make walking sticks. Some aspects of the culture also include drum beats during burial services in order to call people in. The Gullah believe in spirits and many of their beliefs are from their African ancestors. They believe in witches and possession which is reflected in there ceremonial type of music.

The music is participatory in nature, where performers and audience are almost one in the same. There are multiple drums in the performance, with polyrhythmic beats going on. there is dancing and screaming from some women. All of the people are clapping and taking turns in the dancing circle. The Gullah are very charismatic and one can see the assimilation of cultures once the Gullah slaves embraced Christianity, yet maintained there worship style that can still be seen in the charismatic movements today.

Performance Report 1

Introduction:

The performance event that I attended was at my local church. While I am usually the one performing, I had the privilege to take the week off and analyze my friend Kyle for this report. I will discuss the various musical aspects of this essay and also address the fact that this was the first time our church did a bilingual service. Our church ministers to a government subsidized apartment complex that is predominantly Hispanic. So in their honor we held a service in their native tongue, which for many members of the church this was way out of their comfort zone, which added an interesting element to my report. The performance took place took place on Easter Sunday at ten in the morning in our church building. Although Kyle was the worship leader on acoustic guitar in front of the group, this performance is very participatory in nature. The style of worship in our church is much less watching say a rock concert, than it is to the leader directing his orchestra, in which you are a part of. Without people participating the performance is rather hollow. Many of the members were apprehensive about singing in a language they could neither understand or sing, and that anxiety somewhat permeated the atmosphere of the performance.

Music:

The performance repertoire consisted of many of our standard worship songs. Even the songs that were sung in Spanish were popular contemporary worship songs.(Performance notes) The contemporary worship genre is very broad but it generally means Christian artists performing songs of adoration or relation to God that are sung within a community of people, most of the songs are songs that have been written within the last 20 or so years, most of the songs can be heard on Christian radio today, and what is "contemporary" today will be "old school" tomorrow, so contemporary is relative, but there are some standard features of this music. Very common to this style of music is a strong, pulsatile, and repeating rhythm. The beat is generally designed so the group can "feel" the music, making it easy for clapping and dancing to. The chord progressions are generally in a I-IV-V progression, of course there are exceptions, and variations, but generally progressions are kept relatively basic so the audience, who may not be musically trained doesn't panic during a key change or and augmented chord or such, because harmonizing that with large numbers of people is difficult. The instruments that are generally used, and there are always exceptions are acoustic guitars (chordophones, with six strings) , electric guitars (electrophones, with six strings) a piano or keyboard, some form of rhythm such as a drum kit, a lead vocalist and potentially backup vocalists. The amount of instruments just depends on where you go, some church bands may be quite large, (Ive been in one that had four guitars) to one like the performance at my church that has only one acoustic guitar, each of which has its pros and cons and sets the mood for performance.

Audience:

By physical arrangement it appears that the guitarist is the performer (either sitting or standing facing the the group of people), and the church group audience,(Performance notes) which is true in a sense, but the mood of the performance is not focused on the performer or audience, it is sung to what Christians say " an audience of One" where the worship and singing is really a corporate praise and thank you to God. So it is entirely acceptable to never really even look at the performer because it is not so much about the individual but as the group as a whole coming together to sing one song, composed of many voices, to one Person.

Time and Space:

The time of the performance was ten in the morning on Easter Sunday in our church building which is a rented out space in a shopping center(Performance notes). Since it was Easter Sunday, the cornerstone of the Christian Faith, this performance was a particular one in general. The performance was also significant in that it was our first time to sing songs in Spanish and English. The crowd was apprehensive at first, but as the performance carried on, the mood lightened (especially during the English songs!)

Conclusion:

The bilingual service performance consisted of the typical contemporary worship style service, that added an element of variation to the culture, that demonstrates the cultures ability to adapt and change to accommodate to the people surrounding this culture in order to be as inclusive as possible without watering down why the culture gathers in the first place.

Works Cited:

Performance Notes taken from observation and past knowledge of music culture.

Blog Post 10: Rossini: The Barber of Seville

Rossini in his Barber of Seville uses the symphony and voice to write a story. Rossini's overture is crisp and clear, and gradually increases in intensity as the piece seems to be ushering "out of control" The timbre of opera is warm, sometimes dark to create an intense tone, but along with the strong brass, the complimentary winds create a "airy" timbre quality. The rhythm is strong and pulsatile, the phrases often repeat, and build up gradually in intensity. The "harmonies aren't complex" but are simply composed to create a strong and succinct tone. There also seems to be a quality of call and response going on within the piece to help create it dialogue effect for the story. The different timberal colors of the different instruments go back and forth with each other and respond in similar, yet slightly varied forms of the main melody. The higher winds might take the melody up an octave, or add a slight ornamentation to the melody, or extend the melodic phrase in response to the first simple phrase often initiated by the brass, low-winds, and percussion. There is a main melody or phrase that is repeated over and over that will have slight variations and might change its location from the tonal, say raised to a minor third for added tension, or a fifth for added color, but the melody is simple, and can be recognized by humming that one part to some one and they will instantly recognize it.

I could not get the embedded code to come up on Youtube, they changed their formatting and the code is taking until eternity to pull up so I'll just give the link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OloXRhesab0

Avatar

The movie Avatar was the largest grossing movie of all time. It will be particularly interesting when we discuss the music in the movie. The differences between the indigenous Na'vi people and the film score itself. Wonda Bryant was the consultant for the music of the Na'vi. She was looking for a sound scape that would capture the essence of an "otherworldly" people. Some of the samplings that Bryant include Swedish cattle herding calls, South African mining songs, Bolivian Aerophones, and Finnish female sings groups. Besides the Na'vi sounds, James Horner was the writer of the film score, many of his works include Braveheart, Titanic, and Legends of the Fall. There was even a book made for the survival of anyone who lived on Pandora, and it included a music section of the Na'vi which even consisted of one of the Na'vi's gourd drums.

There was also a distinction between the music of the Na'vi and the humans in the film. The Na'vi had a very tribal and indigenous tone, as well as being either non pulsatile or quasi-pulsatile, giving it a peaceful and serene tone. The humans on the other hand were symbolized with harsh, aggressive western symphonic music that seemed overbearing at times with loud timpinis and brass.

Music Culture Ethnography: Dallas Classical Guitar Scene

Introduction

I will be reporting on the classical guitar scene in the Dallas area. I recently attended the UTD Guitar Festival in which I received a taste of the rich historical, cultural, and social aspects of this culture. The guitar scene in Dallas is thriving at the university level and its members are truly devoted to its preservation and performance. The Dallas guitar scene offers rich ideas on the value of music in life, the style in which it’s played appreciation and use of all types of musical genres, and its promotion of public interest in this sophisticated music-culture.

Methodology

I had the privilege to conduct my research from an insider’s point of view, although I am no expert on the classical guitar scene in Dallas, I do have good knowledge of the guitar and I am currently enrolled in a classical guitar class on campus, so I had a plethora of resources at my disposal. I was able to gain many aspects into the culture and especially a primer for the concert I was going to attend from my guitar professor Randall Nye. He set the scene for the musicians that were going to perform and what some of their repertoire consisted of. I conducted my interview with now the chair professor of guitar at UTD, Enric Madriguera, where I asked him on some information on the classical guitar scene in Dallas in which he stated that: “At UTD we are celebrating our 9th season and next year makes a decade! stay tuned for a major celebration as we have a high level of programming at UT Dallas.”(Interview)
I also asked him what got him into the classical guitar scene, as well as guitar in general and he responded that he has been playing guitar from his youth. For my fieldwork I attended The UT Dallas 9th annual Texas Guitar Competition and Festival. The concert was held March 5-6, 2010 on the campus’ conference center and feature guest performances by Michael Craddock and William Kanengiser. I gained some knowledge about the history of guitar online from website.

Aspects of this music culture

Some ideas about this music culture would include that music is a way of life for people of this culture. Music is a very high form and expression of the arts and humanities in general. Aesthetic qualities are generally formal, although the concert in which I attended on campus wasn’t necessarily formal, generally speaking the dress is formal similar if one were to go see an orchestra perform. The technique of the instruments is in the classical guitar tradition. The guitar is a modern classical guitar though not limited to that. The classical guitar differs in comparison to the typical steel string acoustic in that the classical style guitar has nylon strings to where the steel string has invariably steel strings. The neck of the classical guitar is also much wider than that of a steel string acoustic, it has wider frets, and the strings are at a further distance from each other. In classical style guitar, generally no pick is used, everything is picked with the fingers, that is why you see the right hand of the classical guitarists with long fingernails on their right hands(If they play right handed!) because they use their fingernails as picks. Classical guitar is also generally performed sitting down with a foot stool to prop ones leg up for the guitar to rest in a position for proper classical technique and posture. One astonishing trick I learned during the Michael Craddock concert was that in between pieces he actually rubbed his picking figures in baby powder, I am not sure if that was to soothe them from being sore or to dry them off, but it was interesting to note. Many of the pieces that are played on a classical guitar are based more on finger picking arpeggios and alternating thumb bass notes played by the thumb. The reason for this is that much of the music in the repertoire is piano music arranged for guitar, so in order to get the left hand bass clef notes the guitarist must play the underlying bass melody or accompaniment with his thumb generally speaking. Music is a way of life for this culture and the music inspires creativity. The artists feed off of each other’s work and draw the inspiration from the great composers before them. The music is performed wherever there is a scheduled concert at any music hall or performance center.







this guy is playing a steel string guitar






this guy is playing a classical acoustic guitar notice the way he holds the guitar differently



A brief history of the classical guitar starts with the unknown time when the guitar really emerged within history. In the 15th century the Spanish vihuela was the closest instrument to the modern guitar. The advantage that guitars had over lutes was that they were easier to play. Around 1800 five courses were replaced with six single strings (Michael Craddock played a renaissance guitar with four courses). In 1840 Spanish carpenter Antonio de Torres began making guitars and few makers have been able to equal the tone of his instruments, Torres is considered by many to be the undisputed master of guitar craftsmanship.(taken from guitar-maker website)


Activities involving the music include the music being found all over the world, it is published; it can be bought on the internet and played for leisure and pleasure. Performers range all the way from professionally trained who make a living from it down to the layman who plays at the leisurely level. This type of music culture also transcends cultural barriers, at the competition there were many people from other parts of the world including South America, Japan, and Europe. For the music sometimes the performer will compose or arrange his own music, or will play other composers published works. The audience in this music culture remains silent during the performance, but gets interactive feedback from the performer between pieces that give the piece in its historical context, or what the piece is about, or why the composer wrote the piece. The classical guitar music culture welcomes all people; anyone can come who appreciates the music.

The classical guitar scene in Dallas repertoires of music would fit into the western classical genre, but it is certainly not limited to such, the concert I attended included pieces from traditional African sketches, Cuban folksongs, Jazz/Be-Bop/Boogie, and tributes. The music in this culture almost never has lyrics, the performer or professional composer usually composes the music and that music is generally transmitted through published works.

The material culture of music within the classical guitar scene is that they sell shirts, CD’s, of the concerts performer, classical guitars, also instructional DVD’s and published music.

Conclusion

The classical guitar scene in Dallas is culturally rich gathering that engages one not only musically, but emotionally, and intellectually. The technique of the playing is forthright and precise, the performers are masters of their instrument, and the music ranges from African sketches to Morlaye and Le Roy. Not only does this culture contain some very prominent musicians in our society, but people of this culture are able to engage with very personal one on one time with these world renowned artists. The classical guitar scene in Dallas is unique and offers a wide variety of music with many techniques that the audience can awe over.

Here is a link to the Allegro Guitar Society of Dallas for more information on the Classical Guitar scene in Dallas
www.dallas.guitarsociety.org

Works Cited

Email Interview with Professor Enric Madriguera

Information gained from my Guitar I class on campus

UTD Guitar Festival 2010 attended concert, information gathered from concert program and notes

A brief History of classical guitar obtained at Guitar-maker.com

UTD Guitar Festival

I recently attended the UTD Guitar Festival and was amazed by the rich music culture that was at my hsnds to take advantage of. I marveled at the ideas of the culture and how this music culture is deeply rooted in music history and the humanities, there is a rich historical, cultursl, philosophical context for all aspects of this culture, The repitiore of the music is a varied set of western classical pieces, african music, music from cuba, indian ragas, there are really no limits for this culture. To my amazment at the William Kanegiser concert, he actually mentioned terms that I knew, and had learned from my understanding music class, he played a traditional african piece on the guitar, but mentioned to the kora, or african type harp-lute, as well as the fundamental aspect of polyrhythm in traditional african music, kanengiser used a common household staple as he called it to change the timbre of the guitar to sound more like the kora, I was amazed!

I also got to attend a concert in which Micheal Craddock played a renaisance-guitar, which is kind of a lute-guitar hybrid. The body of the guitar was close in size to a standard violin, with a neck about 1/4 to 1/2 times longer than a violin neck, Craddock played many rennaisance style pieces from the 16th century.

Kanegiser played this piece at the concert


here is a rennaisance guitar almost exactly to what Craddock was playing at the concert

Difficulties in Analyzing the Culture

I would have to say that in anaylizing my culture, getting information and interiews and exposer is NOT the problem. I am amazed at how much of this culture is right in my own backyard (and local starbucks!) The difficulty that I am arriving at is the amount of information I must process, It has been somewhat overwhelming for I am not a guitar major at UNT, so I have a laymens knowledge at best, so when confronted mith the mass of a virtuoso like William Kanengiser, things become overwheling, I have thouroughly enjoyed mystudy so far in that, it has incorporated many aspects of music, I have seen the cultural imapact, such as men who take their wives on dates to see the concerts, the music theory side, the rich historical background, and the humanities in general. Learning all of the rules of engagement was interesting, especially the performer leaving the stage and then coming back for more applause every time surprised me, even being in band for five years and attending numerous concerts all over the states took me by surprise.

here is a great piece by kanengiser

My music culture: Dallas Classical Guitar Scene

I have decided to do my ethnographical research on the classical guitar scene in Dallas. Just recently I attended and volunteered at the UT Dallas ninth annual guitar festival, I had the pleasure to hear micheal craddock play a rennaissance guitar, as well as renowned guitarist william kanengieser solo and play with the dallas guitar orchestra. There is a deep and rich history behind the classical guitar and programs throughout the UT sysytem as well as at Collin College and UNT have taken this rich history of music,arts and made it a culture and way of life.


willian kanengieser


allegro guitar society of Dallas

Blog post 6 Japanese Noh

Japanese Noh is a classical theater production that has a long cultural history in japanese culture. The prouction is a highly refined and stylized performance that can seem to be quite reserved and distant from the lay audience. The props within the performance the ma principle. The movements of the actors are slow and weightless. The nohkan is a flute that helps to create a dreamlike-meditative mood. The noh's roots derive themselves from acrobatics, pantomime, and comic interludes. Noh's history reflected the culture of the upper ruling-class and they uphold buddhist and traditional values. Almost everything is stylized in noh, and the actors wear very elegant masks.
The stories of which noh plays are based on mythological stories, and they are based on a zen mood. The noh play has two to three principle actors, they are accompanied by a small male chorus, and a small instrumental ensemble. Most noh plays are not rehearsed because they are so uniform, there causing a great give-and-take between the actors and musicians.
Most of the noh music is nonpusatile, contributing to the meditative mood. The ensemble in noh generally is made of four instruments. They include the nohkan = bamboo flute,
and three small drums. The ko-tsuzumi is the smallest and most imortant drum in the ensemble. The drummers also make shouts and exclamations during the play which are called kakgoe. The noh singing style is most closely related to shomyo, or Buddhist chant, which is composed of kotoba, free recitative heightened speech song, or fushi, which are song melodies.

Blog Post 5: Indian Classical music

This musical piece of Indian Classical music is performed by Pandit Bhimsen Joshi. The comments from the youtube account describe him as the reigning king in hindustani classical music, especially vocals. Joshi demonstrates delicate vocal control even at age 82 with his strong vocal ornamentations. Some the elements recognized in this piece is the use of solo improvisionation. Joshi seems to improv most of the piece. The drummer accompaniament (tabla) is in the piece and it does create a very cyclical conception of meter within the piece (tala). The comments also speak of how Joshi was trained by prominent gurus from his youth to develop his soloistic vocal skills. There also seems to be an ensemble of sitars, tablas, The raga of the piece would be difficult for my naive eyes todetect but it is most likely their and probably contributes to a very devotional type mood to help emphasize the religious aspect of the musical piece.

blog post 4: googoosh

googoosh hejrat



Googoosh seems to fit into the style of popular music. She has the siren qualiteis that lure in her fans. The music is a heterophonic composition that features an entire symphony and googoosh's lead vocals. The chordophones and aerophones that accompany her help to create a sophisticated mood so the popular music could also be argued as more classical as well. Her vocals have a very distinct melodic contour that emphasizes her range and control. The tone of her voice is very warm and helps add to the entire mood of the composition. The harmonic melodic? minor scale that the piece is based in also contributes to the rather dark and warm tone. The harmonic minor scale can seem to be dangerously categorized as "world music" in the sense that it sounds "exotic" to the unfamiliar ear. I believe that this is the danger in judging the music because more than likely within googoosh's culture those scales sound like a I-IV-V progression to the American ear.

Solo acoustic guitar

Never has a style so captivated me than solo guitar in the style of say andy mckee or tommy emmanuel

andy mckee - rylynn



andy mckee - into the ocean HARP GUITAR!



tommy emmanuel - somewhere over the rainbow(beautiful)



tommy emmanuel- classical gas



al di meola

Cool Neo-Classical

here is a sweet video of a youtube sensation guitar player who composed one of the most popular neo-classical guitar pieces on the internet...

Canon in D has become Canon Rock



here is another song buy this jerry c character that I like

Ethnomusic culture proposal

The music culture that I am going to study is going to be the acoustic-chill scene in deep ellum. I had known deep ellum as the night scene with usually heavy guitar riffs and people moshing. I had a friend play a small set at a cafe in deep ellum and it was really cool. Many aspiring singer/songwriters gather at the small stage and pour out their hearts in front of total strangers sometimes. I would say the scene in dallas might be interesting compared to other acoustic chill scenes because of its small size compared to all of the events that occur at night, I would like to study the surroundings of the area and see how that affects the style of music expressed at the cafe. It seems inspiring to me to study this because many of the performers come from different backgrounds, there are many college students who play for fun, some who aspire for bigger dreams of being john mayer or something, and even older guys so im excited to see and hear many of the unique sounds an lyrics...I would kinda of but not restrict the style to the movie and music from ONCE, where for some of the performers, writing music is a way of life, they express themselves with it, and almost subside with it going meal to meal hoping one day to make it!

scene from once where the music store owner lets them play on a piano because the lady cant afford one and they realize they click after playing for the first time together...

Music-culture that has influenced me

I have been influenced and a part of a plethora of music cultures, but I will simply focus on at least one major one for this post. A music culture that I have been apart of is the guitar culture, I assume more specifically the western electric guitar culture, although with the internet I have become a part of an online guitar community that spans globally, the community I am apart of is based somewhere in Europe, an has members from all over europe, possibly Japan, China, etc.. The way the guitar culture has influenced me has been on my musical selections for casual listening, bands such as Van Halen-Eddie Van Halen, Steve Vai, John Petrucci, SRV, a I could run the entire gammit. Being apart of the guitar community I haave also developed a love for all types of guitars, valuing the instruments, as collectables and things to revel at. Like a grease monkey for cars, I have been influenced by the guitar culture, spending countless hours at guitarcenter, making jokes on how people should stop playing stairway to heaven and smoke on the water at guitarcenter( especially if they cant play) and attending the dallas guitar show when it comes into town. You get your typically harley guys with cool beards, and old guys who are still in the 80's with there really tight leather pants.