Research blog post #3

After my research, I have more interest about music than ever before. I found out that music is more interesting for me. From my point of view, music is something that I will hold on to it my whole life, and I will never stop playing the piano. I really enjoy it. A lot of people asked me that, did I feel boring or painful when I practice piano? Well, my answer is absolutely. Before you can play a whole song, you need to practice basic skills and divide the piece part by part, even sentence by sentence. You need to recognize the melody and each note on the sheet. It takes time and tons of patience, plus keep repeating and practicing. When it becomes a kind of muscle memory, then it means you have some progress already. I had some experiences about this process for more than 7 years and I am really willing to share this with other people. And also, during these years, I already listened to thousands of English songs from all kinds of style. I like pop, hip-hop, R&B, blues, even jazz. I like pieces from the classical period, but I also like EDM a lot. There is no boundary or limitation between them. And I kind of have some my own analysis and I divide them into categories. I want to share my collections and introduce some of the famous ones and invite people to listen together, and I will explain what does the song really want to express.

     So, I decide to do a concert event. And everyone in the campus can come and join, only if you listen to music. It doesn’t matter what kind of music you like; you can always find the right spot that fits you. The place I think will be inside the Voxman music building, and it will probably last for 3 to 4 days. I will host the event by myself, or with a partner. The thing I need will be a projector, a computer and a piano. I will play the piano for instrumental performance. I will play some famous piece from the classical period, like Chopin’s pieces, or Mozart’s pieces. And I will play some famous piece created in modern time. I will also play some popular songs that everyone should hear about before, like see you again, for example. These songs will be performed twice a day. Everyone who comes to this event can play the piano as well. They can share their own experience or their own favorite pieces. It is very welcome to do that, and I’m really looking forward to meet more master during this event, this is a great way to make new friends. We don’t need to come from same culture background or speak same language, I do believe that music can bring us together. I already some people that can play different instruments, I will invite them as well. If I have the chance to form a band then I will try to get it done before the event start.

     I have gone to two events before. The first one is held in Voxman, it is an opera, and I really enjoyed it. I think Voxman is a really good building and that’s why I want to try to hold my event inside the Voxman building. The environment and equipment in there are really nice and I can’t wait to do something on my own in there. The second event I went to is the German Iowan in Old Capitol museum. I really learned a lot about the German Iowan in the past, especially during the World War I and World War II period. Their living conditions and their contributions to this state and the whole country are the main things they talked about during the exhibit. And I realized that electronic devices are little bit better than the traditional posters. So I decide to use computers and projectors inside of the traditional printed poster boards. Plus, using computer is easier for me to do presentations. That’s what I learned from the past two events I went to. They provide experience about my own event. I will make right decisions.

     For another part of my event, I will play couple song lists, and all the songs in the lists are different styles. Some of them will be hip-hop, some will be pop, some will be R&B, some will be blues, some will be jazz. And people can browse the list and pick the song they want to listen as well. Each one of them will wear a headphone that has color on it. For example, when you listen to pop music, your headphone’s light will turn green, if you are listen to Blues, then it will turn into blue. Then you can find someone has the same color on their headphone, you can dance together, you can chat together, you share your opinions about the song, there are plenty of things you can do if you have the same interest. If you want to change the channel, there is a switch on the headphone, you can just change it and listen to totally different songs. My goal is to let people who come to this event to share their experience and opinions about music, and also listen to my presentations about music. We can talk and exchange thoughts, and this will bring people more interest about music and they should be able to know more about other kinds of music. They can even sing during the event, they can feel free to do that, and it is not a competition. It is just something they can share with others.

     All in all, I just hope that if I have chance I can hold this event, and I will invite my friends and people from everywhere to come to this event on campus and hopefully they will enjoy it and have fun with it. I hope you all can come to the event. 

Personal research blog post #2

As I continued to research on music, I begin to know a lot more details about pop music, rap and country music. This is a continuous research on the topic I chose before.

First of all, I want to talk about pop music. Pop music's style is changing through time but the definition of it remains the same. People have different flavors as the time period changes. One single song can combine lots of styles and mix them together. For example, the song Fade and Faded have more than 10 versions, DJs from all over the world did their own remix for the song, even fans make great remix for the song as well. Alan Walker, the author himself reaches the top of EDM because of these two songs. Remix is one way to mix a song, sometimes, people will just put different styles into the song. Take No pressure from Justin Bieber as an example. This song comes from his album Purpose, and it is mainly R&B style. The content is about love and relationship. But Justin Bieber decides to add a section of rap. He invites Big Sean to corporate and rap for him. Rap was considered as a type of underground music for a long time, and lots of people have stereotype about rap. They think rap is all dirty words and only complains about life. In this song, Big Sean uses rap to express the feeling in a deeper level and it gives people a surprise.

Billboard is a very important thing we need to talk about. It is a list that updating weekly to show what are the top popular songs around the world. It is the most influential music list for a long time and it is a glory to be a song on this list. This list is based on the quality and popularity of the songs, and we can tell how people's flavor changes over time. The Beatles used to be the top, but right now, Gucci Mane is on the top for the newest list. People's attitude toward different types of music is changing all the time and Billboard is a reflection of it. Most of the songs I talked about this time was on the list, and some of them got No.1 on this list.  
Rap is another thing I focused on. Rap came from underground black people in New York City, and they came up with blues as well. But this doesn't mean rap only belongs to black people and it can only be negative about life. There are many aspects of rap today that should be respected and praised. There are some famous rappers I mentioned last post, and the one I want to focus the most is Eminem. Eminem is one of the most famous rapper all over the world, and the most special thing about him is that he is a white person, not a black person. There is nothing racist about it, it's just a very classical example that can break people's stereotype. Personally, Eminem is my favorite rapper and I listen to his song for more than 5 years already. I still remember the day that one of my middle school classmate played his song in the classroom, that was the time we first got our smartphones. The first song I listened was love the way you lie, and he feats Rihanna for that song. Like I said before, a rap song has more than just rap, the main part of it is rap, but it include other elements of pop music as well. Of course, this song became one of the most popular song even until today.It has more than 5 Grammy nominations and it wonBillboard 2011 Top Rap Song, 2010 Best Hip Hop song.

Another song from Eminem, called I need a doctor is another perfect example. In this song, Eminem express his mental support and appreciation to his mentor, Dr,Dre. Even though he used some dirty word, but these won't affect his emotion and the theme of this song. These dirty words, with Skylar Grey's feat, made this song perfect. People can easily understand the content and the spirit of this song. From this we can see that, rap is not just for complaining about life, it can give people positive powers and encourage them to face and beat the difficulties in their life. Eminem was not successful until Dr.Dre gives him the chance, and he had a terrible grow-up experience as well. But he didn't give up and he use his talent plus his effort to produce best hip hop songs in this world.

The last example I will give is a song from the singer I talked before, Big Sean. The song is called One man can change the world. In this song, Big Sean talked about his own view of life and he used his experience and his grandma's experience to encourage people to fight against everything that stop them to achieve what they want. This song is full of gratefulness and positive attitude towards life. Big Sean realizes the truth and he shared with the fans, and this is truly powerful. I'm deeply moved by this song, I never listened to a hip hop song that is so quiet but strong. Love, gratefulness, respect,if you get these, you gonna be successful, it is just a matter of time.  

All in All, the main thing I focused this time is about the combination of different type of pop music in a single song and how rap music, or hip hop music developed and people's view about it. I want to correct some stereotype about hip hop music, I hope more and more people will enjoy them and understand what the singers want to express in the song instead of just focusing on the dirty words, because those dirty words are not the points. Popular music is developing super fast and I wish there will be more and more great songs being produced in the future. I will talk about country next time. 

Person Research post#1 : music

My research question is about the similarities and differences of the modern popular music in the United States. First of all, I want to do a brief background introduction to explain why and how did I choose this topic. I started to listen to English song when I was 12 years old, it is already 7 years until now. Even though English is not my first language but still I really enjoy them. I started to play the piano 8 years ago and this gave much more interest than before. The interest in both music and the language made me addicted to English songs. This is where and how I started.

       So, right after I decided to listen to English songs, I began to search online. Popular music, or pop music, is the first kind of music that appears on my screen. In general, popular music is a huge criterion that includes every kind of music, it is just different from what we called “classical music”. Popular music is very random, there is no certain limit for pop music. It can include any kind of instruments or music style it needs or wants. Pop music is what most of the people love in the modern time, and it is developing very fast since the 20^th century. There are couple special characteristics about pop music. First of all, pop music is very easy to understand and you will feel relax when you listen to it. You may not get what a musician wants to express when you listen to a classical piano piece from the 1700s, but you will definitely understand what does Justin Bieber mean when you listen to his songs. Another thing is that pop music is very people-based and it is related to our daily life a lot. It can reflect our feeling or our experience during daily life and people can easily find something in common. Last thing about pop music is that pop music is more like products and it is updating every single day. The song that is popular in last week will drop to rank 10 in this week. That is how fast pop music updating. People are living in a fast pace world and they always want something new, something fresh, something that can give them stimulations. This is why pop music develops so fast and becomes dominant in today’s music market. The representative for pop music I choose is Michael Jackson. He is very popular and famous all over the world and his music combines all kind of music that exists in the world. He is a warrior that explores and creates a new era for pop music. His music includes pop, jazz, R&B, and so on, also his dance is fantastic as well. If we look closer, then Justin Bieber will be another good example. His most recent album, Purpose, is an excellent album that includes pop, R&B, soul, and even rap. The melody, the text, and the meaning of the text are amazing.

      The next kind of music is Rap. Rap is first emerged among the blacks in New York City. This kind music is very special because it doesn’t need melody, it just needs rhythm for most of the time. The spirit of rap is that people are expressing their true feeling and their true experience in the daily life. Rap may have dirty words or complaining about life, but it is a kind of music for no doubt. There is no rank or discriminations between music. I want to say that rap music is the same as pop music or country music or R&B music. And nowadays more and more pop songs will have a section that feat a rapper. It gives the song a new life. Rap in pop music breaks the traditional limit and stereotype of rap. Also, there is a song called one man can change the world. This song is produced by Big Sean and it encourages people to be positive and consistent to face and come over all the difficulties in life. It gives people hope about life, instead of complaining about life. Another good example will be the empire state of mind produced by Jay-Z. This song just describes what does New York City looks like and people’s perspective about this city. This city is very mixed, developed, you can experience cultures all around the globe in one single city. Rap is more like a part of the culture, not only for black people but also for the all human race. It is a strong musical way to express one’s opinion and attitude towards life.

          Another kind of music I want to talk about is country music. Country music first emerged from the Southern countries in the United States. It is also a music form that people use to express their feeling about life. But the melody and music is very instrumental and most of the country music is accompanied by guitar. But of course there are tons of different instruments in country music just like in pop music. As times goes on, the country music from the 21^st century is actually a little bit different from the traditional country music when it first appeared. It has more elements from the pop music, the form of the music doesn’t have to be the A+B form. It has more freedom and the rhythm and content are varied from singer to singer. The most famous representative for modern country music is Tylor Swift. Tylor Swift is very popular and her style is considered under country music. Her song is mostly based on the personal experience and the content are about relationships or love and so on. This shows that country music is getting closer to pop music and what people want to hear is actually about the feelings or experiences that express in a country music form. But there are traditional country music singers as well and I really enjoy them.

       All in all, different kinds of music are equal with each other and they are all fantastic. English songs are very pleasant to me and I will try to updating more examples in the future. You can talk about music with me any time you want, just leave a comment below and I will reply. Hope we all enjoy our music!