week 8 post

How to learn in music field?

          Somebody told me before that music field is the field requires your mouth and skill. After I played band for several years, I feel that really deeply. There is almost no written skill required in this field except you are a lyric writer. I think the main idea of this field is “practice makes perfect. I personally have an experience about this sentence.

           Everyone will get nervous on the stage even they are really familiar with what they did. I still remember the first time that I went to stage in my high school. Before the performance, I practice what I will show lots of times. I think everything is going to be fine on the stage. But when I was on the stage, I saw lots of eyes were focusing on me. I started to get nervous and forgot everything. After that I know the key sentence of play instrument on the stage. Even you feel good about it, you still need more practice. Because this is the beginning of learn this instrument.

         Learn in music field is really different than learn in writing. In writing you also need more and more practice, but the most important point is being creative. If we can see something differently, we can write something differently. But in the music field, all you need to do is practicing. Every extra skill is based on that. That’s why most rock stars can improvisation, because they have practice the same melody thousands of times.

week 7 post

Is rock music dead?

         The resource that I found is a debate website. When I first look at this website, I found it’s really interesting. They are talking about is rock music dead or not. They have really strong both sides about this topic. This debate is mostly like a cultural conflict.

Pro side: rock music has dead. As long as the time passed, there are less teenagers  go to rock concert. Rock music is really popular at 60’s, but that all become history. The kids will ask a laptop or something popular as a Christmas give but not rock concert ticket. It’s just an art form, and there are tons of art forms in this modern world. People never need rock music to relax themselves, but more of popular events. The inventiveness that comes with optimism, the swagger that comes from knowing the world is your oyster is gone. And also, you can’t find any rock band that so creative like before. So rock music is dead.

Con side: rock music never dead. It depends on how you treat with the rock music. If you treat them like a part of your body, it’s never going to die. You can also put your soul into the rock instrument which cannot be done on an imac.  And also there are lots of creative bands all over the world. Rock music is rooted in the spirit of youthful rebellion, which will never die. The reason for why rock is not that popular now is fickleness. Rock is something can let you relax and see something clearly. So rock music never dead.

work cited

      "Is rock music dead?" debate.org. web. Oct 17 2013

week 7 free post

Is lip-synch good for a show?

          These days in China, the singing competition “The Voice of China” is ended.  There are lots of comments about this show. The most serious problem about this show is “Lip-synch”.  Most of audience got upset because of that.

           “Lip-synch”is a technical term for matching lip movements with sung or spoken vocals. In another word, it is kind of recording skill that put the audio which have recorded before and play it with the actual show synchronously. Today I just want to discuss my own opinion about it. Some people think it’s bad because it’s the result that already happened. People love to see something unusual happened. So they think this kind of technical make them disappointed. But I think this is a good idea to use this technical to improve the quality of the show. As an audience, we need to stand more on the producer and performer’s position. They did that in order to give their audience a good feeling of the show. And also, as an audience, we also wish to see a perfect show. From the appreciation’s point of view, I think it’s a good technical to use. But the producer is better to tell all audience is this real or not. Some audience think it’s a kind of cheat. So we need to face this as dual characters. 

Week 6 Free Post

Entertainment is the primary function of music

                        Entertainment is the primary function of music. In my point of view, different kinds of music have different functions. For example, hip-hop music makes people feel intense, and jazz and blue make people feel relax and calm. For different occasions, people like to listen to different kinds music, too. When I’m running in a gym, I would like to listen to pop music, which gave me a lot of “power”. When I am doing my homework, I would like to listen to some light music. If I were sitting down with a cup of coffee, reading my favorite book, then I would prefer some jazz or blue. Sometimes I listen to some soft piano music before I go to bed, and I found this could help me to improve my quality of sleep. When I were on a road trip with my girlfriend, we would prefer some romantic music which can make us feel more relax and cozy staying together. One more secret I want to share with everybody is the music in the restaurant. I am not sure if you mentioned or not, but in some fine dinning restaurants, they play very soft music which makes you feel relax and comfortable, however in some fast food restaurants they play some pop or even R&B songs, which can make you feel rush and eat faster unconsciously. Music is playing a very important role in a lot of aspects of our daily life. The functions of music can be applied everywhere around us.

Week 6 Evaluating Sources

                The resource that I found is an article that talks about The Voice of China. The Voice is a music show like American idol. It gives different kinds of people a chance to perform on the stage and show themselves. Now The Voice of China season two just finished and the champion is already been decided.  But there are some people have different sound on the internet that said the champion is selected not decided. Some people also called “Fake Voice of China”. This article mostly said packaging skill is more important than singing skills.

               But for my own opinion, music is like packaging. People love music because the music can show what they thought and their mood. I think the correct way to being a good singer is show who you are but not pretend who you are.  I am not an experience singer but I really don't think packaging is important than singing skill. I am not saying that packaging yourself is not important, but as a singer or a band member we need to focus the singing parts. Package yourself is just a way to makes you look better, but what you have inside makes you win the champion.

              This season, the champion Li Qi is a really wonderful singer. He did package himself a little, but I think the singing skill is way important than packaging.

 

Work Cited

"The Fake Voice Of China" Chinabyte. Chinabyte website., republishing department. Fall 2013.Web.10 Oct .2013

Week 5 Free Post

Why music makes people happy?

dopamin!!!

              “People love music for much the same reason they’re drawn to sex, drugs, gambling, and delicious food.”  According to new research, when you listen to music, your brain release dopamine, a chemical involved in both motivation and addiction. The finding also offers a biological explanation for why people love music so much.

             I have read a experiment that made by Salimpoor, it shows why music has been around for so long. “The intense pleasure we got from it is actually biologically reinforcing in the brain.”Salimpoor measure a group of people about shanges in heart rate, pulse, breathing rate and other measurement. Salimpoor’s group have found evidence that blood flows to regions in the brain involved in dopamine release.

          This is a really important discover for music field. Dr. Salimpoor use more scientific way to explain why music can make people so happy when people listen to it. But in my own opinion, music is like heroin. It can make you exciting when you play it and you will feel the world never stop. This is the feeling that most of music players will have. Music makes people happy, also in science field.

work cited

Sohn, Emily. " Why music makes you happy." News. Discovery Communications LLC. Spring 2011. web. 6 Oct 2013

week 5 "Defining Ethics"

                          It seems like music and ethics didn’t have more relationships. But it you can pay more attention to your daily life, music plays more than just an aesthetic role in contemporary. It have more influence on social, political, emancipator, and economic. I can give a really simple example for that. It doesn’t matter where you came from; you need to remember your national anthem. That is a kind of influence in social, political, and emancipator. The way in which music engages with ethics are more relevant than ever, and require sustained attention. Music can also teach us how to listen carefully without bias. It teaches us how to cooperate with others and how to represent myself in order to reach the goal. However, on the other hand, music also plays an important role in disciplining and controlling of human beings.

              In addition, in our daily life, music always plays a really important role and nobody even notice that. For instance, American nation love to watch and play football. Also, if there is a home field football match, there should be so exciting for MSU student. When MSU team got a touchdown, the “Flight Song” will get played and everyone will get more exciting. That’s how music plays in our daily life. It makes people believe what they believe, and even more concern about that.

              I also think we can prepare more work about music in order to make it as a belief. First, the most popular way is creating the band like me. I can join more music club and get more familiar with it. Second, always giving a music show in public will also help you, you will get fun and even more experience about music. Third, you may take some professional class to study music; it will improve your music background and let you get familiar with it.               

               

Work cited

Cobussen, Marcel. "Music and Ethics."  Thinking sounds. The Wu Wei Theme., Spring 2012. Web. 6 Oct 2013.