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If you have a music lover in your life, you probably know how much music can affect people. It can bring great joy, creative expression, and positivity to people of all kinds. When a special day comes around, be it a birthday, anniversary, or Christmas, you want to make sure you get them something that speaks to them in a way similar to the way music does. If you are hunting for the perfect … Continue Reading

Indeed, there are many famous American composers whose work is popular globally. We have heard their music in TV shows, films, and festivals. They also create works at an early age which is later performed by orchestras or symphonies.

These famous American composers tend to work for Universities across the world. They also partner with other groups and individuals.

  1. Jay Greenberg

Greenberg is a famous American composer from New Haven, Connecticut. He … Continue Reading

Sight reading is an essential technique in learning how to play piano and it will improve your piano playing skills by leaps and bounds. Learning to sight read piano pieces will help you start to understand music theory and will improve your ability to read notes and pieces just by playing it one time. All-in-all, it will make you a more well-rounded piano player.

However, what is sight reading? Sight reading is being able to look at a piece of music and play the notes and rhythms the whole way through, without … Continue Reading

Jacques Offenbach

This is as much a story of the parodied as of the parodists. One cannot discuss one without the other. So fear not, Lady Gaga fans, we shall get to the object of your devotion in due time. But we will start, somewhat arbitrarily, a century and a half ago, in Paris. Jacques Offenbach was the great parodist to emerge from that time and place.

One fine example of his work in this field, his development of the form of an … Continue Reading

The Tenth Doctor (David Tennant)

There are a lot of people that can’t wait for the new upcoming Doctor Who series which is believed to be aired in about a month on August 25. In the first new upcoming episode it also seems like that the Daleks are gonna cause more trouble again since the title of the first new episode is revealed and called ‘Asylum of the Daleks‘.

As a great Doctor Who & Torchwood fan myself i came across a … Continue Reading

The Green Freak

I should say at the start that the headline of this post isn’t especially original. Mark Parisi, of the “Off the Mark” cartoons, drew a courtroom scene in which Santa Claus tells a judge that “this green freak” (the ‘Jolly Green Giant’ of vegetable-sales fame, pictured above) has ripped off Santa’s signature phrase.

And so it goes.

In 2005, Coldplay’s singer, Chris Martin, told a magazine interviewer, “We’re definitely good, but I don’t think you can say we’re that original. I … Continue Reading

The United States was at war with itself 150 years ago

The United States was at war with itself 150 years ago.

As the US commemorates the somber landmarks of the Civil War, its citizens might want to give some thought, too, to the music it occasioned: the music the fighting men marched to, or that which simply portioned off their daily routine.

John Brown’s Body comes to mind at once of course. Here is a link to Pete Seegar’s … Continue Reading

Mao's Last Dancer

Mao’s Last Dancer, the highest-grossing Australian movie of 2009, is a story about a Chinese ballet dancer who comes to America, and then refuses to return to his homeland. It was based on a memoir by the dancer in question, Li Cunxin.

Cunxin’s book has been very successful in itself: it has been published and marketed in more than 20 countries, and won the Christopher Award, an annual prize for works of art that “affirm the highest values of the human … Continue Reading

Madonna and the Super Bowl Halftime Show

The above cartoon was circulating around Facebook on the morning of the Superbowl.

As you can see, the cartoonist is playing on one of Madonna’s several personae in advance of the Super Bowl, the championship of what the United States calls “football” and what the rest of the world calls “American football,” (because it clearly isn’t soccer!), a central event on the pop-cultural calendar.

Before we, the viewers, got to the halftime … Continue Reading

Are you lacking the “umph” needed to bring your instrument practice sessions to the next level? You’re not alone: all musicians reach that point in time. It’s important to change things up when you hit a roadblock, and there are a few ways to do that. One of the best ways is to add a metronome into your music training periods to help you make quick gains in your speed and accuracy. In this article, we have reviewed several metronomes on the market right now and determined which one we feel is the best metronome available.   

… Continue Reading