Functions of a keyboard

There are three pedals on  a grand piano
1. On the right hands side we have got the Sustaining pedal, this pedal when in use it will lift the Dampers that touch the string in the piano so that they can vibrate longer. This pedal will also make vibrate the string near the note that is being played if the are in range of the frequency this is called sympathetically  vibration

2.In the middle we have got the sostenuto pedal, this pedal will lift the Dampers of the first notes played,sustaining only the notes played when the pedal is actioned, then future notes played won't sound sustained as the Dampers are still hitting the strings.

3. ON the left hand side we have got the Una Corda pedal ( one string ), what this pedal does is to move all the keys to right so that the hammers hit only a single string at the time making the sound of the note softer.

HALF TERM AURAL TEST

IN this piece of music i can hear

tambourine
synth
piano
trumpets
tuba
drums
flute
double bass
vocals

Landmark song writer

                                                     Øystein Aarseth (Euronymous)

Oysten  played at first on a band called Checker patrol, and then was the guitar player from Mayhem , a Norwegian black metal band located mainly in oslo,he was one of the co-founders of the band.

At the early 80's  , after the NWOBHM ( new wave of british heavy metal) the world saw how new bands were coming into stage with a different total approach, bringing into metal lyrics and images focused into satan's worshipping , this were bands like Venom from UK , Celtic frost  , or Bathory from Sweden. Venom's album called Black metal was the one that gave the name to the genre.

few years later Euronymous  co-founded a band called Mayhem, which started a new wave of Black metal in Norway, with faster blasts and faster guitar riffs, creating an devilish atmosphere. Also, Mayhem's lyrics were very extreme and Satanic , thing that called the attention from many you g people at the time. 

This are the words from Euronymous himself on an interview given to a Swedish radio station
"Black metal is satanic,heavy on way...it can be just ordinary heavy metal or just noise,what is important is that it is satanic, that is what makes it black metal.

Euronymous became the God father of black metal in Norway , soon Scandinavia , He was involved in the majority of the church burnings that were taking in place with his friend Varg Vikerness from Burzum.

Before the 90's started Euronymous was very popular , although he wanted his music and his name to stay underground he said. 

He on top of this , started a record label,called Deathlike Silence,he promoted and produced his band's music too, but also mainly dealt with Norwegian bands that were into Satanism or Anti-Christians activities

Black metal at this point was an extreme genre already, people in Norway feared this certain people at the time due to some murders and church burnings that had happened and rumours said that this "Black metallers" or "Satanists" were doing all of this .

Euronymous style of playing was very consistent and fast, but it had Brutal riffs that created such of obscure and beautiful songs.
This is Deathcrush,from the Deathcrush album,the first official album released by the band.

But the question is, what does  all of  this theatrical approach leagued with the music? well, in the early 80's the extreme metal scene was mainly  influenced by  death metal, which with the time it shined in the mainstream.
 Taking the classical song structures from rock and roll/ heavy rock, Euronymous way of composing explored faster tempos and challenging time signatures.like compound 7/8 .In order to create an atmosphere, riffs became more repetitive and longer, separating it from what was known at the time, were in Heavy rock we could hear the classical 4/4 rime signature, the 12 bar blues structure where the the 1st,4th,and 5th notes would be played in every other composition.
The tremolo  guitar picking became really common in the compositions too, which is a faster way of playing the guitar by using alternate picking ( down,up.down up or shuffle picking depending on what is being played )

But Øystein wasn't the only member of the band, Hellhammer,( Jan axel ) insisted that the drums should sound very different that the Death metal or any other genre known , he insisted that the should sound like a machine gun in the background. This made explore new ways of playing the drums, by taking the main punk beats and insert more bits on it, so the snare drum,and kick drums would be faster and repetitive. Double kick drum and the use of many more cymbals, also compound triple time signatures (9/16) appeared in Mayhems albums and demos.

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                                                                DEAD

Per Yngve Ohlin ( Dead was his artistic name ) was the singer that gave birth to a new style of singing,style used by almost 90% of  black metal bands.
His lyric content was very crucial in the development of the genre, he wrote about the obscurest topics, death, afterlife, melancholy ... all of this topics were leagued to his persona,as he was a very depressed guy, and was obsessed with death and afterlife, he even used to have dead animals in plastic bags under his bed  so he could smell death all the time.Self mutilation was present on stage, and his vocals was disturbing.

The mixture of all the lyric content, the anger, and all the rotten minds of this artist brought inspiration to many artist in the time line of black metal.
Freezing moon for example is one of the most recognized song within the scene ,with a wide exploration of tempo,even thought this is a rehearsal ,this is my personal favourite version of the song, as it sounds raw and pure . It reflects Euronymous style of playing, with slow/fast passages full of repetition , but the band agreed the their sound had a lot to do with ambience, so in pretty much all of their songs the target is to create an obscure atmosphere followed by some strong lyrics.
This technique asks a lot from your respiratory system and the body in total, as it consists in pushing air out of your lungs wih diafragma and making it hit the back of both throat and mouth, making in it sound distorted,also it is a very loud technique.

“Everything Here Is So ColdEverything Here Is So Dark

I Remember It As From A Dream

In The Corner Of This Time

Diabolic Shapes Float By

Out From The Dark

I Remember It Was Here I Died

By Following The Freezing Moon

It's Night Again, Night You Beautiful

I Please My Hunger, On Living Humans

Night Of Hunger Follow It's Call

Follow The Freezing Moon

Darkness Is Growing, Eternity Opens

The Cemetery Lights Up Again

As In Ancient Times

Fallen Souls Die Behind My Steps

By Following The Freezing Moon”

Lyrics like this inspired many Norse bands, creating a Black Metal movement , movement that gave birth to a second wave of Black Metal, and now days it is stronger than ever, bands like :
Enslaved,one of Viking metal pioneers ,next to Bathory
Burzum ,very influential and crucial for the development  of the genre and NSMB
Emperor ,one of the first bands to introduce the heavy use of keyboards on  songs within BM

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                                                      BLACK SABBATH
At the begging, the metal sound was created by one of the greatest bands that the world has seen , Black Sabbath, band that started up back in 1968 in the UK,birmingham to be precise , but their first album release would be in 1970 with Paranoid, an album that had a lot of influence in blues and  rock and roll. Using Blues structures and techniques like the famous and unmistakable "Call and response", also on many of the solos where played using blues scales.But this guys brought a faster drums and catchy guitar riffs in to the listeners ears, the guitars with what for that era was heavy distortion gave it an unique sound,something never heard of before , and if i am not wrong... the guitarist  Tony Lomy used Seymour Duncan guitar pick ups to achieve the desired distortion.
They also started with creating a dark atmosphere, with the introduction of sound effects before the beginning of a song,despite some bright parts on songs,on their first album, they showed a lot of very dark passages within it, by playing minor key dominated compositions mixed with dark/occult lyrics. Occultism,Satanism,Black magic were the main lyric topics used by the band in their early days, and still can be found on the generation.These topic are still heavily celebrated today, but back then few bands like Led Zeppelin, Black widow and Coven were celebrating this topics by bringing them into their music.
 Al thought Sabbath's influence was strong , bands like Coven were walking a step ahead them, when they released "Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls" in 1969, with the use of inverted crosses and the "horns" hand gesture ,having the pride to be the first band to be recorded doing so, and then used by the next next generations up to date.

The sound was something new to the world, it was a heavy, fat and distorted sound, but this had to go further into darkness with the appearance of Satanic lyrics in the genre, thing that would bring the attention of the youths that later on would become a new generation for the genre and would impact the entire world. 

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                                                           BOB DYLAN

Bob Dylan was born in Minnesota in 1941.  his lyrics topic are varied depending on the moment or situation he was living or seeing at the moment of writing, he said that there is a song for every occasion, some of his lyric topics are poverty,politics,racism and social issues.

At the moment of composing the music for his songs,he is been acclaimed for the simplicity of them, as he though that the songs were more about the lyrics , it would also make it a lot easier for him to sing when playing his songs,something that many artist now days still use, as the main target of many artist i to deliver a message onto an audience rather than them to focus on the musical side of the art.As his lyric topics are based in the topics here named and many more, it increased his popularity , using elements of narrative quiet often he is been catalogued within the "folk" genre.A very good example of his narrative is this song called "the hurricane" which mainly about a story, he is telling a story of  Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. which is a boxer that got sent to prison charged for murder.
In his songs structures you can hear that it is not like the way these structures are used in music, there is not an specific lyric topic and,with the absence of repetition, and there is hardly ever there presence of a chorus.
Instrumentation varies from song to song but mainly he uses an acoustic guitar, harmonica,piano, etc..although he is commonly catalogued as a folk artist,he is highly influenced by blues,jazz,gospel,country, and rock n' roll.. he is highly recognized for the use of the harmonica and acoustic guitar at the same time when playing live, and then again it comes back to the simplicity of his music, so he can use this two instruments at the same time while also singing in different parts of the song.His musical composition style comes very often to the heavily used chord progression 1-4-5 found in Blues.



sources:+ Black metal evolution of the cult
            + Wikipedia
        

understanding music for film and tv

DIEGETIC MUSIC

Diegetic music or sound is the the type of sound that can be heard within the film,like the voice of the characters,wind,music played in the scene and many other sounds that are present on the spot.

find here and example from the Film rock star
from 00:27 to 00:36 you can hear the actor talking,in the back ground you can hear the wind and the steps of people walking past, this are diegetic sounds.






A diegetic sound on a film is the sound present on a scene, if in the scene two actors are walking in the street this, you might hear the sound of other people talking,the movement of cars,people's steps etc, it can be from the smallest sound that you think like a bee or a fly to an airplane, it also can be music played in the scene. Usually this sounds are there to create an environment within the film, to make sense with the visuals  shown so in this case the interview is in the street so the put in sound that you will normally find in the streets.

from 1:01 onwards the band is playing music in the film,this a diegetic sound sound.

NON-DIEGETIC SOUND

A non-diegetic sound is the sound that it is not present at the scene,but it is added to it , as an example the narrator's coments or a piece of music placed to build an atmosphere, it can be the music added in the background, creating feelings or emotions like sadness happiness suspense among others
as an example here find the trailer of the film Titanic.





As you can hear there is music in the back ground, but is it not the same all the way though the trailer,as the scenes change quiet fast,you can hear high pitch songs , repetitive melodies or low pitch sounds for the sad or suspense moments.

Another way of understanding this can be achieve by bringing yourself into a film, any film! all the sounds that you might hear within it a diegetic sounds but you will not hear the narrators comments or any background music.

The intro to this song can be found also in many horror or suspense films,you might recognize it.




COMPOSITE TRACK ( SOUNDTRACK) 

A composite track is the the musical composition presented within the film, the sound track appears at least once in the film. as an example we have the begging of this film called Eurotrip ( sorry i couldn't find it in english )  the track is called My Generation from Chapeaumelon.




And here is the track on youtube




This is part of the soundtrack for the film

WILD TRACK

A wild track is the sound used to create an atmosphere of the location,generally is recorded separately,a wild track will be recorded in diferent locations depending on the scene, it can be open air in the forest,jungle,city, the beach,the sea among others.
This generally makes the listener believe that the scene is recorded live with the sound.
As an example we have got this part from the film called The triangle.When  the scene is taking place near the beach or the sea, we can hear birds,the sea waves,wind, these are examples of wild tracks.






FOLEY SOUNDS

This type of sounds are added after the visual recording to get the best sound out of the scene,these sounds can be  lighting a  cigar ( this can include the sound of the cigar burning,and the breathing of the person) foot steps,breathing,clothing,doors,physical contact,a punch etc. This sounds are recorded separately in order to get the right sound and for the audience to hear it properly to create an atmosphere.
In the fight they have here, the punches wouldn't be heard from a microphone as clear as you can hear them here, this is because the were recorded by people actually punching another materials to achieve the closest sound.

 

TEMP TRACK
A temp track is the musical composition given by the director to a music producer or composer, in order for this person to have an idea of what is the idea of the scene, as an example,if the director wants a scene to have full suspense he will put a known track so that the composer gets the idea.

Sometimes this will sound similar to another films final track because the ideas can be very close, in this video you can hear ( if you have seen this movies you will understand better) how the musuc is linked to the films as they are set on an Epic enviroment.

Gig review # 1: Hillsong worship band

Hillsong worship band

they are an Indie christian rock band, the gig took place at the Dominion theatre.

They are a worship band, they use visual aids to contribute to create a "holy atmosphere" using very bright colours on the stage lights,also on a big screen they put on the lyrics so that the audience can join in. 

The songs are very easy-listening , catchy and not very difficult to sing along to

The Musicians 

the band is formed by 11 people

-Drums

-Bass guitar

-Electric guitar/acoustic guitar

-Two keyboards

-Three lead vocals 

The timing is perfect, they use a 4/4 time signature , guitar and bass are tuned in standart tuning ( EADGBe for guitar, EADGB for bass) 

One of the lead singers is also the band leader,he communicates with the band just by moving his head and looking at them, this member also plays the acoustic guitar in some songs

They have an amazing stage presence although they are professionals, musicians and stage crew, i found some issues of performance and health and safety.

-  This is a cable that was not supposed to be there where the audience can reach it.

- One of the singers didn't use the microphone to it's maximum performance as she was singing far away from it throughout  the performamce. 

The music

verses and chorus are very repetitive, but it works for the audience, who will sing out loud relieving inner feelings,the lyrics are mainly about love and forgiveness.