Hallyu Wave

Since the late 1990's, the rise of popularity of the South Korean culture is known as the Korean wave, or the Hallyu wave. At first, the popularity was raised through Korean dramas known as K-dramas. Currently, the Korean wave as flowed all over the world. Even in Canada, the Korean wave has overwhelmed the population.
Currently, the K-dramas have been replaced with K-pop. This genre of music is characterized by many different music genres, but all fall under the category of K-pop. The main source of popularity for K-pop are its many bands. There are boy bands, as well as girl bands. However, most of these bands do not play different instruments as you might imagine. Majority of these groups sing, and dance to their songs. Members of these groups are known for being handsome or pretty as well as multi-talented in music, or acting. 

These bands are only a few of the many girl and boy bands in Korea. These singers promote themselves through their social media as well as magazines and newspapers. Not only are these band members singers, but they are also called idols.
The Hallyu wave has hit most of the world through its K-pop and even earning a few spots on the Billboard music charts. In the future, the Hallyu wave will only continue to spread to the rest of the world.

L'amour est un oiseau rebelle

My personal favourite opera is Carmen by Bizet. It is a world-renowned opera that has been revived many times by many different opera groups. 

The composer, Bizet, was born and raised in France, but this opera was based on a story of Gypsy love that took place in Spain. As a French composer, Bizet used exoticism to evoke the atmosphere, magic, and colour of Spain in this opera. The melody of the Habanera is incredibly well known and is filled with Spanish flavour. The lyrics "l'amour est un oiseau rebelle" means that love is a rebellious bird. Through it lyrics, Bizet tells the story of the love that occurred between a cigarette girl, Carmen, and soldier, Don Jose. 

Not only is this opera revived through recreation of opera, but also through ballets and instrumental performances. 

Not Just More Idle Chatter

Electronic music is not for everyone. I remember listening to it for the first time and almost choking on my own saliva. It was not a pretty sight. I'm sure some of you will have the same impression of electronic music as I did, but after it grew on me after a while.
This genre of music is definitely not what most people would imagine it to be. I remember thinking that it would be music put together on the computer using recorded music played on instruments. Little did I know about electronic music before listening to Notjustmoreidlechatter by Paul Lansky. 

I remember thinking "it really isn't more than idle chatter, it sounds like a whole crowd of people in a conversation". Surprising, this song has harmony to it. Contrary to the noise-like nature of the song, Notjustmoreidlechatter is actually based on different chords with a "rock feel". It features a repeating bass chord progression and has thousands of random synthesized word fragments that are in completely unrecognizable text. Voices are synthesized and frames and used to filter artificial sounds produced by a buzz generator. Lansky also uses white noise to produce consonants while the buzz generator controls the pitch and the rhythm of the "chatter". This results in the computer generated sounds that have "human" qualities, similar to a voice. 

Composer Love Triangles

One of the most mysterious and controversial events in the history of what is considered "classical" music, was the love triangle between Schumann, Brahms, and Clara, the daughter of Wieck.  Was it really a love triangle?

Robert Schumann was a German composer who mainly published works for the piano. His most important and significant works were also written for the piano. When Clara Wieck, a famous pianist and composer, was 11, Schumann started to go to her house for piano lessons from her father Friederich Wieck. He realized that he loved her when Clara was 16 years old. Despite the objection of her father, Clara married Schumann the year she turned 21 and Schumann turned 30. 

Robert Schumann

They lived happily while both pursuing their musical careers until Schumann's depression and moodiness resulted in a mental breakdown. Later on, he even threw himself into the Rhine River, but was rescued by fishermen. At this, Clara felt that she did not have any choice but to place him in a mental asylum. Schumann lingered there for two years, then died.
Five months before Schumann's mental collapse, he and Clara often invited Brahms to their house. They offered their friendship as well as a place for him to live and compose without having to worry about his economical situation. For Brahms, his relationship with Schumann and Clara provided many opportunities for his musical career. After the mental collapse of Schumann, Brahms comforted Clara during the difficult times and also fell in love with her. He wrote that "You have taught me to marvel at the nature of love, affection, and self denial. I can do noting but think of you." Clara was fourteen years older and had 7 children, but according to Brahms, "her amazing musicality and devotion to music made her the ideal woman."

Johannes Brahms

This event has been discussed by many people over the years, and is still a controversial issue that is a common topic of debate, but I'll leave the decision up to you. Was there a love triangle between Clara, Brahms, and Schumann?

Clara Wieck

 

Music of the Past

When someone talks about the history of music, I'm sure we all immediately think "it's classical music" or even "that long and really boring stuff from a long time ago" or something else along those lines. But does anyone know the actual history of music? I'm not talking about knowing about Beethoven or for those who may play piano, Mozart or Bach. I'm talking about the real beginning of music. Has anyone even thought about how the 5-line score came to be? Or why music notes look like little black dots or circles on lines or between lines? Why does music only have 5-lines and not 4-lines of 6-lines? Why make the notes round and not square?

The beginning of music was NOT classical music. Music actually considered "classical" is only the music from between 1750 and 1830 that is written in that style. 
As you can see, the music that is actually "classical" is not very broad. The beginning of music that is known to us, is the medieval sacred music. During the reign of Pope Gregory the Great, priests began to sing the prayers of mass. These chant melodies were named Gregorian chants as they were created during his papacy. 

Gregorian chants became the liturgical chants of the Roman Catholic Church were not written down at first. There was no notation system at the time. Neumes were the created because it was too difficult for the priests to remember what to sing at what time while the melodies were so fancy. Neumes was the earliest medieval musical notation system with little ascending and descending square signs written on a four-line staff above the words. The square signs only suggested the general shape (rise or fall) of the melody.