Category Archives: Concerts

How to rehearse effectively with a rock band

Rock musicians are known more for their egos and attitudes than for their work ethic. This can make organized rehearsals nearly impossible. More often than not, rock band rehearsals are nothing more than a few hours of goofing off and horsing around. However, to make it in the music industry, a band needs to embrace dedication and hard work, which means that practice sessions need to taken seriously. Here are a few ways you can bring order back to your rehearsals:

1. Be consistent. Practices and rehearsals should be held at the same time on the same day every week. By making rehearsal time consistent, all of the band members can schedule other things around band practice. When rehearsal time isn’t consistent, however, band members may make other plans, making it nearly impossible to get everyone together at the same time.

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Music : Best of 2008: Music album

These albums were the cream of the crop of 2008. Put on your memory cap and travel back in time two years to rediscover these ten great albums!

10. Dido, Safe Trip Home

While it’s true that I think Dido always sounds like she has a bottle of pills at her side, she is good at what she does. She doesn’t ever attain the heights of Sarah McLachlan, and she really does NOT change the tempo up much, but her voice is smooth and appealing, her melodies are decent and distinguishable (a huge feat in light of the fact that she seems utterly incapable of delivering a speedy song), and her lyrics range from really vivid (“Grafton Street”) to somewhat pedestrian (“Don’t Believe In Love”). So while I wasn’t really eager to purchase this, her third album, I was definitely not disappointed, and I will continue to play it.

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Music : What is opera buffa?

Gioachino Rossini’s La Cenerentola

La Cenerentola was the last opera buffa Rossini wrote. The opera does, however, stray from traditional opera buffa in that the heroine, Angelina, suffers. Her own family treats her like a slave. This blending of opera seria characteristics with those of opera buffa is an example of one of Rossini’s reforms of opera. Another originality of Rossini’s found in La Cenerentola is his use of bel canto as a tool of character portrayal.

The life of Gioachino Rossini commenced on the 29th of February, 1792 in Pesaro, Italy. He was born to musician parents during an age of conflict and political turmoil. His father, Giuseppe Rossini, was a local horn player, and at one point taught at the Accademia Filarmonica in Bologna. He was also an unabashed republican in favor of Napoleon. This resulted in his frequent imprisonment. During Giuseppe Rossini’s times of incarceration, his wife, Anna, was obliged to provide for herself and her young son, Gioachino, by singing in operas. Consequently, Rossini heard plenty of opera growing up. He even appeared on stage himself as a boy soprano.

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Concerts: Recommendations and guidelines

The stars of the sixties, those that survived that decade, are getting older and this is time to take the chance to see live and in the flesh the guys (and occasional gal) that made the music you either grew up with or remember seeing in your parents’ album collections.

Why bother? Simple. The folk in these bands have been playing for so long they’ve got pretty good at it! They’re doing it now for the same reason they took up music, pure enjoyment – there’s no pretense. You’ll see them in smaller venues, be in closer contact with them while they’re playing, and they’ll hang around in the bar afterwards for a quick pint so you can catch a conversation or get an album or two autographed. The other, less happy, reason you should catch them while you can is that the grim reaper is catching up with them – you can find obituaries of people whose music you like in the papers almost every week.

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