Articles » Popular Music Trends
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What do you talk About in Music Chat Rooms?
Have you wondered if playing a musical instrument is really for you? Or, have you wished you could talk to someone who could help you figure out that guitar riff you are having so much trouble with. What about trying to decide if a career singing is really what you hope it will be. Does your voice play rock and roll or should you consider singing opera. What about wood instruments, do you have the power to blow a flute or a trombone?
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Twelve Top Performers of the Twentieth Century
Music is a difficult field to get into. It is not always how good your performance is that makes you a recognizable performer it is also how popular what you are singing becomes and how your audience views you; the performer. There are many different methods of gaining recognition. There is how well your albums sell, how well tickets to your performance sell; any awards you may win and what lists you get on.
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Top Twenty Record Artists Based on Record Sales
An artist knows their album has done well if it goes platinum. But what exactly does that mean? For an album to go platinum it would have to sell at least one million units. But, as well, it must go through a process of certification to prove that this number of copies have been sold for it to get the award. In the United States, the Recording Industry Association of America, known as the RIAA, collects this information.
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Top Seven Reasons Your Music Demo Might be Rejected
The dream of so many musicians is to cut a demo and after sending it around to find that their music has been accepted and they have been offered a contract to record. It may be a dream, but it is very often an impossible one. Whether it’s an independent or a well known recording label the first step is to get listened to. All too often musicians make so many errors with their demos that they never get the attention they may deserve. Here are some of the pitfalls that must be avoided.
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Top Five Ways the MP3 Player Has Permanently Changed the Way We Listen to Music
Just over ten years ago the MP3 player was deemed the new file extension of an audio format that a company had been pursuing since the 1980s. They were ecstatic that they had finally and successfully completed nearly fifteen years of hard work. This incredible invention, along with the Internet and its access to the world, has changed the music industry and how the average person listens to their music in a permanent way.
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The Top Seven Reasons to Buy a Digital Piano Instead of a Traditional One
A digital piano is one that is electronic. It is played like a regular piano, but it does not have the soundboard, hammers or strings that commonly make the sounds of an acoustic piano. Even with the high technology we have available to us today a traditional acoustic piano cannot really have its sweet sound duplicated even by an expensive high tech digital instrument. Still there are many reasons that so many musicians prefer the digital one.
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Like so many other things, music has a long history in China. The beginnings can be traced as far back as the year 1000 BC. Artifacts have been found that show the beginnings of well-developed musical traditions. During 221-87 BC these traditions were further expanded and the Imperial Music Bureau was put in charge of how music should be played in the military and the Emperor’s courts.
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Originating in New Orleans jazz is a musical genre that is a combination of blues, call and response, swing, improvisation and African musical styles. Much of the sound of jazz is the combination of many musical traditions including hymns, military band music and hillbilly music. Add to that ragtime, and spirituals from various African counties and you have the jumbled origins of this music.
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Country music has its origins in a variety of musical genres that began in the south of the United States. It seems to have taken its sources from folk music, blues, gospel, and Celtic music. It started in the 1920s not long after, by the 1930s, it became known as hillbilly music. Eventually this term was said to be degrading, an insult to the music field, and it became known instead as country music in the 1940s.
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The Greatest Hoax in Music History
Some say it was true, but just as many believed it to be the greatest hoax ever conceived in music history. The publicity generated by this rumor increased the sales of their records and brought more interest in the group. What was the hoax? It was the rumor that Paul McCartney died in a car accident in the early hours of November 1966. The claims go on to say that there are many hints in the both pictures and lyrics of Beatles albums to prove this was true.
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The Beatles and What They Were
Which Beatle was your favorite? You may suppose that this question is horribly outdated since the only ones who could really give an informed opinion are those that are baby boomers. The Beatles have not recorded as a group since August twentieth of 1970. They all had their solo careers and though many fans hoped that they would one day play together again, John Lennon’s untimely death at the hands of a madman in 1980, certainly put an end to that possibility.
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The Beat of Native American Music
Just as there are many languages spoken by the Native American population, there are many musical styles. The interesting thing is that I modern times they have also taken the music styles of America, like rock, classical and hip hop and melded them with the tribal music, sometimes called chicken scratch. The music of our native cultures has a sound all its own, born of tribal life and traditional ceremonies their music continues to grow.
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There are so many different kinds of music that a person can enjoy and each kind of music often has sub genres that divide it into categories of each genre. This is because music spins its own tunes and what one person writes may spur someone else on to write another similar piece, and so it divides into types. If this did not happen we would not have the many different styles of music that we listen to.
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Over the years there has been a steady stream of lists showing which songs are the most popular in various genres. There are lists that are broken down into best of a decade, genre, solo artist or groups. Sometimes the same songs will appear in many lists because of their lasting quality and endearing popularity. Here is one list of the top ten best rock and roll songs of all time. These were put together by the votes of music lovers.
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Six Reasons to Choose a Band Instead of a DJ
When planning your corporate event, wedding, bar mitzvah or country club social, one of the questions that is always asked is what to do about the music. This question can be difficult to answer because it depends on so many things. For example, the size of the place you are having the event, the time of year, inside or outside and what kind of music you want played are all factors.
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She Loves You at First Unnoticed In America
The Beatles were a very versatile group yet it was not just heir versatility that everyone loved it was the way they played their music for their audiences. This was shown when they recoded one of their biggest hits into German. The story behind this is unknown to many Beatles fans.
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When Russia was still part of the USSR, the music that people were allowed to listen to was not free to choose. The communist government kept tight control on what was considered acceptable music for its people to listen to. This included controlling what their youth was allowed to hear. This meant no western rock and roll. When the USSR fell near the end of 1991, this all began to change. But up to that time Russia still had quite a music industry.
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Of the many genres of music available for people to listen and dance to there is one with a flair all its own. Having part of its origins in Puerto Rico from the Cuban population, it also takes from the Spanish Caribbean. This style was begun in the late 1960s into the 1970s and uses many styles combined to get its particular musical techniques. Some people refer to this genre as salsa romantica or musica tropical. It can also be called Latin jazz.
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Music can be explained by saying that it is the combination of instruments and vocals to make a sound that is both beautiful to listen to and entertaining. In the Western part of the world, this music is made by an arrangement of melody, harmony, timbre and rhythm. When you talk about a genre of music we are talking about the category that a particular type of music will fall into.
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Music is divided into different groups based on the types of instrumental and vocal sounds that are made. These categories of music are called genres. There are many genres of music that take in sounds that are made to entertain and delight us. They range from classical to funk, rock and roll to country, pop to alternative. Each has something special about them that make them a unique style.
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Music comes in many genres and each has its origins and its distinctive style. This is no different with hip hop. This genre of music, also known as rap, came to life in the United States in the middle 1970s catapulting into the music culture though the 1980s. Hip hop is made up of four forms combined into one genre of music. But all of these forms are not in themselves music. Its components are rapping, dancing, art, usually called graffiti and dee-jaying.
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Five Top Music Legends and Misconceptions
As celebrities musicians are often in the public eye. This means that sometimes things they say or do can be misconstrued or misreported. Sometimes they are even done so purposely to create publicity like the Paul McCartney is dead hoax. Other times things that are reported may seem nothing but a rumor but turn out to be true like the events surrounding the truth about Milli Vanilli and the fact that they were not singing on their own records.
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Five Methods of Improving Your Drumming Skills
Playing the drums is like playing any other instrument, it requires you to work hard and try your best to continually develop those skills. No matter how long you have been playing, there is always room to improve. But there are some basics that will help even the most practiced drummer to hone their skills.
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Eight Reasons to Acknowledge that Ringo Starr was a Good Drummer
How many fans of the Beatles have thought about the changes to drumming made by drummer Ringo Starr? So many of those who analyze music have called Starr a mediocre drummer who lucked into the best gig in history, however, many others disagree.
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How many times have you gone into a bar and seen some drunk slurring their way through their turn at the karaoke machine? Do you sit back confidentially in your chair knowing that you would never do such a foolish thing? Or do you secretly long to get up there yourself to belt out your favorite musical number? Either way you will see that the karaoke machine has come a long way since its acceptance into the American music scene in the 1990s.
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Barbershop Quartets Still Going Strong
Though some people may find this surprising, the groups known as barbershop quartets are still very much alive and regularly performing. Their popularity had waned for a few years until the 1940s when it picked up again and this continued popularity is still going strong to this day. The music sung by these groups is called a cappella. That means that they sing their songs without any music to accompany them. The songs must commonly sung by these quartets are four part harmonies.
