Sunday, April 27, 2008

Indian of North America's Music

The earliest known inhabitants of North America were a highly music and dance oriented people who responded to their environment by creating a vast repertoire of unwritten songs and dances were transmitted orally from generation to generation down to the present. Although many native Americans have been assimilated into modern society, several tribal group are making serious effort to preserve their traditional cultures.

The music of the north American Indians is primarily vocal-monodic (single melodic line). Some songs are conceived during visionary or dreamlike states, while others are consciously created for special functions. Extemporization is rare. Musical notation is nonexistent in the traditional culture, although isolated instances of mnemonic music aids have been found. Although there is free use of microtones (intervals smaller than a semitone), melodies are based predominantly on the pentatonic (5-tone) and modal scales with intervals of the fourth and fifth being the most common. Indian music and dance range widely in character, from vigorously rhythmic to smooth and melodious. Dance is nearly always accompanied by vocal music and some kind of percussive instruments.

European forms of harmony and counterpoint are absent, although instances of incidental harmony do occur. Accompaniment is mainly percussive: drums with animal skin heads and rattles, shakers, and scrapers made of various materials such as deer hooves, seashells, bird breaks, animal horns, and so on. Flutes, whistles, and some stringed instruments are also used. All music is functional and accompanies specific activities such as dance, work, games, prayer, harvesting, healing, hunting, whaling, burial ceremonies, etc.

Musical forms are often related to function. For example, the war dance songs of the plains Indians generally have a descending contour with an introduction followed by variations of A - as in the formula AA' BA' CA - ending with a "tail-dance" section that reiterates part of the principal section.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Indian Music

Indian music encompasses some of the richest musical traditions of the world. India's musical history begins in the second millennium BC with the advent of the Vedic period. The Samaveda, one of the sacred four Vedas ("four books of knowledge"), comprises the world's oldest notated melodies. Beginning the second century AD, complicated theoretical system developed, and the important raga principle was established. Islamic influences brought about the division, about 1200, of Indian music into the northern and southern systems that continue today.


The Raga
A raga is identified by a particular combination of musical phrases that gives it its distinctive melodies character. The pitches in a raga may be represented in the form of ascending and descending scales. Many of the standard phrases are so well known that the informed listener is able to tell immediately which raga is being performed. Regardless of whether the raga performance is vocal or
instrumental, a drone (a sustained tone of fixed pitch) is invariably heard in the background. The drone instrument is usually the tambura, which has a long neck and four strings tuned to the basic tones of the raga. Magical power is attributed to some ragas, and many ragas should be performed only at certain times of the day on night or during specific periods of the year.


The Tala
The other basic element of Indian art music, the tala, is a rhythmic cycle containing of fixed number of beats. Talas five the
rhythmic foundation of melodic structure and are performed on drums. Within the sequence of beats the drummer plays rhythmic patterns associated with a particular tala. The drummer may repeat the sequence more than a hundred times in a single performance. The tala divided into subsections, marked by accents on their first beat, the most important accent occurring on the very first beat of the tala cycle.

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Greek Music

The musical culture of ancient Greece is known more through literacy references than through preserve musical documents. About 20 fragments of music are extant, written in a relatively late Greek notational system, but references to music performed at various rites and social occasions abound in the work of ancient Greek autors. Homer's Iliad and Odyssey report vintners' song, dirges, and hymns of praise to Apollo (paeans). Music was described as an art exerting great string instrument, came to be linked with Apollo, the god of Sun and reason, while the aulos, a loud double reed instrument, was identified with Dionysus, the god of wine and ecstatic revelry.



Among the earliest known Greek musicians are Terpander of Lesbos (7th century BC), the founder of lyric khitara performance; Pindar of Thebes (6th – 5th Century BC), whose odes represent the rise of Greek choral music; and Timotheus of Miletus (5th – 4th century BC), a virtuoso performer on the khitara. In the Athenian drama of the 5th and 4th centuries BC. Solo and choral singing, instrumental music, and dance all played essential roles.


According to legend, the mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras of Samos (6th – 5th century BC) discovered the mathematical rationale of musical consonant from the weight of hammers used by smiths. He is thus given credit for discovering that the interval of an octave is rooted in the ratio 2:1, that of the fifth in 3:2, that of the fouth in 4:3, and that of the whole tone in 9:8. Followers of Pytagoras applied these ratios to lengths of a string on an instrument called a canon, or monochord, and thereby were able to determine mathematically the intonation of an entire musical system. The Pythagoreans saw these ratios as governing forces in the cosmos as well as in sounds, and Plato's Timaeus describe the soul of the world structured according to this same musical ratios. For the Pythagoreans as well as for Plato, music consequently became a branch of mathematics as well as an art; this tradition of musical thought flourished throughout antiquity in such theorists as Nicomachus of Gerasa (2d century AD) and Ptolemy (2d century AD) and was transmitted into the middle ages by Boethius (6th century AD). The mathematics and intonation of the fluence in the development of European music during the middle ages and after.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Flute

The flute is a woodwind instrument that dates from ancient times. Sound is produced from a flute by blowing onto a sharp edge, causing air enclosed in a tube to vibrate. In tropical regions and in the Orient flutes are commonly made from bamboo tubes. End blown flutes may be simple tube with a sharp edge or notch, or they may have an inserted block, as in Recorders and whisties. The widespread side blown or transverse flute is now common in the West.

About 1670 the transverse flute began to be made in three sections, the cylindrical head joint, the middle joint, and the foot joint with inverse conical bore, and had six finger holes plus one closed key. It was usually constructed of boxwood. The joints and ends strengthened by decorative ivory rings. The instrument's lovely, mellow tone inspire a large solo literature. Chromatic notes (sharped and flatted tones) were nevertheless difficult to play in tune in tonalities other than D Major and those closely related. The addition of more keys solved some of these problems.

Theobald Bohm experimented with the flute from 1832 to 1847, desiring to give it a bigger tone. He finally produced a modern flute with a parabolic (bowl-shaped) head joint attached to a cylindrical body with open standing keys and finger pads to cover large finger holes. The modern flute has a range from middle B upward for about three and one-half octaves. The basic instrument (without B key) is approximately 66 cm (26 in) long. In Europe flutes are often constructed of wood, silver is commonly used in the United States.
Other orchestral flutes are the Piccolo, a brilliant instrument pitches an octave higher than the standard flute, and the alto flute, pitched a fourth lower than the standard instrument. The rare bass flute, pitched an octave below the standard instrument, is not a regular member of the orchestra.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Double Bass

The double bass, also called bass viol or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched member of orchestral stringed instruments. The standard double bass has four strings and a range from E an Octave below the bass staff, upwards for nearly three octaves, some instruments may have five strings in order to extend the range downward. Some early double basses had only three strings. The instrument is played with a heavy bow and sounds an octave lower than is written notes. Its body shape differ from the other members of the violin family in having sloping rather than rounded shoulders and usually having a flat rather than a convex back.

The double bass, the lowest pitch members of the violin family, probably developed from the double bass viol. The double bass stands 1.8 m (6 ft) tall and has four strings tuned in fifths. It is played standing.

Monday, April 7, 2008

Recorder

The principal type of Europe flute from the 16th century was the end lown fipple flute called the recorder (German: Blockflote, French: flute a bec). It was usually built of wood and had eight finger hole. Its whistle mouthpiece made it easier to play than the transverse flute. Eight sizes were described in Michael Praetorius's Syntagma musicum (1615), but the largest and smallest were rarely used. Recorders were played in consorts, were used in chamber music and orchestras, and -treble recorders especially- were used in solo sonatas.

The instrument fell into disuse before the end of the strength to compete with other, newer instruments. Its 20th century revival derives from the interest of amateurs and performers of old music. Four sizes are now in common use, soprano and alto (called descant and treble in England), tenor and bass. The bass has a cook like a basson to bring the finger holes within reach. Some modern recorders are made of plastic, but serious performers prefer wooden instruments.

Friday, April 4, 2008

Jamie Lynn Marie Spears



Birth Name: Jamie Lynn Marie Spears
Birth Place: McComb, MS
Date of Birth / Zodiac Sign: 04/04/1991, Aries
Profession: Actor; singer

Jamie-Lynn Marie Spears (born April 4, 1991) is an American actress and singer. She is best known for starring in the Nickelodeon television series Zoey 101 and is the sister of Britney Spears. Jamie Lynn, the youngest of the family, also has a brother, Bryan.
She was a singer, television series film star, in Indonesia say “Sinetron.” She is very young for much glamour world activity; maybe she can’t detain herself for famous star environmental. The last gossip says that she was pregnant on 18 years old. But her family still closed about this news. Maybe she overshadowed with successfulness of her sister Britney Spears. She still don’t become a wide screen star, but on her activity show fantastic achievement.
She succeeds got some appreciation on her film career, even when she still a kid, here are her Award Winner and some nominations

Kids' Choice Awards, USA
  • Favorite Television Actress - Nominated on 2008
  • Favorite Television Actress - Nominated on 2007
  • Favorite Television Actress - Won on 2006
  • Favorite Television Actress - Nominated on 2004

Teen Choice Awards

  • Choice TV Breakout Performance-Female - Nominated on 2005
    Young Artist Awards
  • Best Young Ensemble Performance in a TV Series - Won on 2007
  • Best Young Ensemble Performance in a TV Series - Won on 2006
  • Best Young Ensemble Performance in a TV Series - Nominated on 2005

Lily Renata

Lily Renata sekarang Ulang tahun ke 20. Bagi kamu yang sudah menikah sebaiknya nggak usah lah lihat-lihat foto beginian, bikin nggak fokus a...