The King of Strings

I would start off by saying that the keyboard has been a monumental asset to the music game. For thousands of years people have been plucking and/or hitting strings tensed between two fixings. Who knew so much sound could come from the plucking or hitting of a tense string. Granted most of these strings are made out of some sort of metallic substance, but strings are strings. The harpsichord one the best built preludes to the idea of a piano. With this instrument, I believe strings were plucked or hit in order to produce a sound. With the earlier models the glitch was that the hammer, or device used to hit the string, would touch it too long. This made every sound have the same loudness. It wasn't until the early pianos were created that the player could play each note with the intensity intended. Without the piano, a relative of the keyboard, we would not have such awesome compositions such as the ones produced by Bach, Beethoven, Revel, etc... I personally can't get enough of a good sound and I don't know what life would be like without the keyboard. It is a huge part of some cultures more than others, but it is present nonetheless. But who knows what other creation of sound would have taken its place? Would there be an instrument we've never seen which would be equally as pleasing? Could be, but there isn't. I won't complain.

Ideophone

I was sitting around my room wondering what I could make my instrument out of. I have been fairly sick lately so the trash can is definitely out of the question. Since I had no readily available supplies to work with, I searched my room looking for something to make an instrument with. I found my self with 2 of my partially empty cologne bottles. I also wanted a container that was empty but sturdy so I used a mason jar. Now that I had some high keys to play, I wanted some lower tones to play. I enlisted the help of my hair care products, lol. I was reaching an octave and wanted a unique sound. I saw a light bulb for my lamp- all I had to do was stabilize it. I used the top of the mason jar and some other knick-knacks from my room. It somewhat resembles a snare drum but higher pitched. Accompanied by my hair brush, the saga is complete. 2 cologne bottles, 2 jars/bottles of hair stuff, a brush, and a light bulb are the pieces to my ideophone. Sorry I couldn't upload a pic. My phone is worthless.

Maybach Music pt. 2 Instrumental

One of my recent favorites.
This is a piece that has a lot of emotion on its on. I know this isn't music speak, but this instrumental speaks volumes to me. The way it opens up with the saxophone or whatever horn that is; its awesome. It has a moderate to somewhat upbeat tempo. It slows down to a tortoise almost then picks right back up. Never a dull moment. I chose the instrumental, but the song is actually of verse-chorus form. The chorus in the actual song has some repetition with some changes throughout. The harmony is definitely major and makes me motivated which is happy, I guess. It has a very smooth rhythm with those tempo changes and different instrument combos like the sax I mentioned earlier. There is also a sick guitar piece that comes up towards the end of the piece. There is a pretty good balance of skips and stops which also helps accent certain instruments. And finally, I am not sure if this piece would be considered polyphonic, but if not it's definitely homophonic.

Music and Listening

For the past day and thirty minutes I have chronicled many sounds and music that I have heard. From the first minutes I was walking through campus I heard birds in the trees, making much commotion. As I walked further the sounds permeated my head from cars passing by, the brushing of people feet as they walked and the sound of wind as it rushed through different orifices like archways. Back to the traffic. I heard all sorts of different car noises such as the screeching of bad breaks, the hardworking engines of semi-trucks, and the different forms of music emitting from the windows of these passersby. From rock, to country, to punk, to R&B, to rap, I heard it all walking down Stewart St. And I almost forgot the loudest thing I heard walking through campus: the bell tower from the Immaculate Conception chapel. This sound resonates through all of campus.
After the first thirty minute period, I was done listening to just natural sounds around me. For this day, most of Saturday and into Sunday, I heard many types of music that I was able to notice better because I had not directly listened to these sounds before. For instance, I was doing some homework in my room, waiting to go out that evening. Besides the instrumentals/jazz I was already listening to I could hear heavy bass sounds coming from around me. What the song is, I can’t worry about because I must finish my homework. As I walked out of my room to leave the building a bombardment of sounds from every direction consumed the air. Rock, rap, and other silly tunes were being played, it seemed, as if it was coming from everywhere. This feeling only amplified as I probed the ghetto for some form of entertainment. A louder version of the same feeling I experience in my hall was felt as I walked past each house. This continued until 2 or 3 in the morning when all had finally tired. Moving into Sunday, the only tunes were really that of my speakers and some miscellaneous locations throughout my floor.