Dan Bau (Đàn Bầu) of Vietnam

Dan Bau (Đàn Bầu, Độc Huyền Cầm) is a Vietnamese monochord - a traditional one-string musical instrument. Dan Bau is the most unique musical instrument in the world because it has only one string but can deliver wonderful, captivating sound for any notes you like in a tonal range up to 3 octaves. The Dan Bau, played solo, is central to Vietnamese folk music, a genre still popular today in the country. Its other traditional application is as an accompaniment to poetry readings. For modern music, Dan Bau is played as the lead instrument, sharing the same spot light as lead guitar, saxophone, etc.

A popular legend of its beginning tells of a blind woman playing it in the market to earn a living for her family while her husband was at war. Whether this tale is based in fact or not, it remains true that Dan Bau is historically played by blind musicians. At its first appearance, it was a very simple instrument comprised of a bamboo section, a flexible rod, a calabash or half a coconut. After a process of evolution and improvement, the present form of the Dan Bau is a bit more sophisticated, yet still quite simple.

K-POP

Korean music consists of a wide variety of genres however the genre K-pop is what Korean music is known as. K-pop originates from South Korea. The music that kpop consists of has changed over time but now it is a blend of hip hop, electronic, pop, rock and R&B. K-pop music has been regarded as being too heavily manufactured and controlled by the recording companies in order for them to gain the most money. Kpop music has started to realise the potential of using Youtube to reach more international markets.

The K-pop industry is a highly selective and competitive market. The three biggest recording companies control most of the industry by producing highly successful kpop singers and groups. K-pop music has over time become dominated by girl and boy groups. Recording companies spend millions of dollars to train people to become successful in the market so that they can earn the most profit. Training consists of learning multiple languages, singing lessons, dancing lessons, keeping their bodies fit as well as going to school. Training is a very difficult process in which many people drop out.

Some of the most successful Kpop groups:

Big Bang

Girls' Generation (aka SNSD, SoShi)

Lyrics - the soul of a song

popular words in lyrics

Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of expression.

Some lyrics can be considered a form of social commentary.                                          

It contains political, social, economic themes, and aesthetic elements.

SOUL MUSIC !

Soul music emerged during the 1950's which originated in the United States by African American Musicians. It originally started off with gospel music and later blended with early rock n roll and rhythm and blues.

The famous Ray Charles has often been attributed for the birth of the Soul Genre with his continuing string of hits that took of in 1954 starting with " I Got a Woman". Another famous musician we can identify soul music with is James Brown, otherwise known as the 'Godfather of Soul'! Throughout the 1970s soul music had continued to develop and it had became more- message-based, it incorporated styles of psychedelic rock & also jumped to styles of disco and funk!

Australian Aboriginal Music

 

Australian Aboriginal music (aka Indigenous Australian music) includes the music of Australian aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders, who are collectively called Indigenous Australians. The music is very much part of the social fabric of their life, their history and their culture. It has a haunting and mysterious quality that draws the listener into the history, culture and the ancient dreamtime of the Aboriginal people. In other words, music is a vital part of Indigenous Australians' cultural maintenance.

Freestyle Rap

Freestyle rap commonly refers to rap lyrics which are improvised through a cappella or with instrumental beats.

It is similar to other improvisational music such as jazz. A rap group from Los Angeles describes it as being "like a jazz solo". Rap battles are sometimes improvised in this way.

In the book How to Rap, Big Daddy Kane and one member of Freestyle Fellowship note that originally a freestyle was a written rap on no particular subject – Big Daddy Kane says, “in the ’80s when we said we wrote a freestyle rap, that meant that it was a rhyme that you wrote that was free of style… it’s basically a rhyme just bragging about yourself.”

HOUSE TECHNO TRANCE MUSIC !

IS THAT THE TYPE OF MUSIC WHERE THE BEAT GOES: 'iXST iXST iXST iXST DOOF DOOF DOOF DOOF ♪ LOL... YOU KNOW THE ONES THAT WE HEAR IN THE CLUBS ?

YUPP :) Your on the right track!

 

Tiesto Rave Concert 

 House music, techno and trance are all genres within electronic dance music

Popera

IL Divo is probably the most well known popera band

Popera, as its name suggests, is Pop + Opera - it is pop music performed in an operatic style or classical music styled as pop. According to Wikipedia, the word popera was first coined by Scott Paul-Young, a British theatre agent, to best describe the music that was being created by producer Malcolm Middleton and performed by the opera girl band Milan for the first time at The Hippodrome, London in August, 2001. Middleton created the idea of an opera band mixing traditional opera with contemporary pop and dance music earlier in 2000.

However, some critics consider popera as 'commercialized operatic music'.

Contemporary Rhythm and Blues

Rhythm and Blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. In the 1980s, a newer style of R&B developed, becoming known as contemporary R&B.

Contemporary R&B is a music genre that combines

• Hip Hop
• Soul
• R&B  
• Funk

Although the abbreviation “R&B” originates from traditionalrhythm and blues music, today the term

R&B is most often used to describe a style of African American music originating. Some sources

refer to the style as urban contemporary.

Indian Music

I bet when you think of indian music you can picture an indian lady running around a field or a tree, singing and dancing with her love helplessly running after her. YEP ! thats pretty much indian music for you !

  

 Indian music can range from:

• Folk           
• Tribal/Folk
• Bhajans or Devotional
• Ghazels or Qawwalis
• Bhangra
• Film songs
• Rajasthan
• Indi-pop
• Remix songs
• Fusion/Dance

                                                                               
 Indian music can be viewed as an expression of culture and also religion- it is said to be one of the oldest unbroken musical traditions in the world ! It can be traced back through its orgins in the Vedas which is a sacred acient hindu text- and im telling you now- thats pretty old!

Symphonic Metal

Front cover of Dark Passion Play by symphonic metal band Nightwish

What is Symphonic Metal?

According to Wikipedia, it is a term used to describe heavy metal music that has symphonic elements (classical music material, operatic lead vocals, participation of acoustic guitars, various kinds of keyboards or an orchestra rather than just electric guitars, etc.)

Storyboard

This blog will be about music from all around the world. It will include blog posts about various different genres of music that many people may not have heard about before. This blog will explore the the intricacies of the music composition of different muysical tunes.

Our furture blog will look like this:

Aim: This blog should inform people of more diverse and different kinds of music. The blog would allow people to appreciate the unique sounds made by different instruments, styles and genre from all around the world. The blog should also be able to inform people about the latest music and videos from artists all over the world. Related sites will also be shown to inform readers about other sites for more information or functions.

[Link to our report on Wikispaces] 

Hong Kong Music (Cantopop)

In 1960, Hong Kong English pop had peaked until the mid-1970s. After the Chinese language had become an official language in 1974, Cantopop's popularity increased dramatically due to the improved status of the language and the large Cantonese Chinese population in the city.

Eason Chan is a prominent male singer in Hong Kong's music industry. There is no doubt that he is one of the most dominant male singers in the post-1997 era of Hong Kong music industry. 

• Praised by Time magazine as a front runner in the next generation of Cantopop
• Considered by some to be Hong Kong's third "god of song"
• Album "U87" was nominated by Time Magazine as "Five Asian Albums Worth Buying" in 2005

In 2010, Eason Chan comes to Melbourne and Sydney for his Duo concert series.

In his earlier years, the artist trained to be an architect, but gave this career path away after being signed to record label 'Capital Artists'. He has written at least 29 songs of note. Eason Chan is the second non-Taiwanese singer to win Taiwan's Golden Melody Award. 

A new style music video which is sand drawing :)!!



References:

• Trea, W. (2003). Old Hong Kong. Asia books Ltd
• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eason_Chan

RAP



Most people always seem to caterogise rap into the stereotypical view- "YO THATS BLACK MUSIC!". They create the stereotype that rap is only for black people but why ? Yes I'll admit that majority of rap songs these days rap about drugs, sex, money, gats, shooting the cops and what not - but we should draw the line right now and make it clear that, that is 'gangster rap' - a specific genre within rap - there is SO much more to rap than what people perceive it to be.

• Rap is an expression, it allows one to express one self -our ideoligies, emotions, values, life, hopes and dreams. 
• Rap is poetry it is lyrical.
• Rap is intelligence.
• Rap is genius- in the sense that it is all constructed in a manner to be tuned within a beat.
• Rap is meaningful music. Something in which people can relate to and identify with.

Just for laughs- Chris Rock's Comedy Skit on Rap :) lol!



Reference:

• http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Rap