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Cardif – the music capital of Wales.
Well yes, it’s also the capital of Wales, but for a small city there is a lot going on music-wise. Cardiff and Newport combined have more bands and venues per square kilometre than many a city twice their size. Talented bands from the depths of the valleys also emerge blinking in the daylight every now and again to play the capital
Bet you didn’t know that South Wales was also the UK birthplace of nu-metal and emo, home to bands such as Lostprophets, Funeral for a Friend and Bullet for my Valentine
Cardiff sports many venues, from the usual 150-capacity pub to the internationally renowned Millennium stadium which can house over 60,000 people for a gig. In between there are a wealth of cosmopolitan bars, student venues, converted churches and all manner of halls where South Wales can play host to their own talent and the many visiting bands who want a piece of Welsh action.
In Cardiff, one of the smallest venues has to be the Buffalo Bar, although that doesn’t mean it’s one of the least popular. No, the Buffalo Bar is still one of the places to be ’scene’ amongst Cardiff’s better-off 20-somethings. Its younger brother, 10 Feet Tall, also showcases a range of local bands and regular club nights, and a wider clientele.
Another bijou venue is Clwb Tafod, in the bowels of the Riverbank Hotel on the banks of the Taff opposite the Millennium Stadium. Previously home to Cardiff’s crazy rock and metal night, Fuel, which didn’t take long to outgrow the venue, it now hosts eletronicness and various DJs.
Several pubs put on gigs regularly, such as Callaghan’s, O’Neill’s and Dempsey’s in the city centre. Dempsey’s rent their upstairs bar to various young, budding musical entrepreneurs and fortnightly to roaming indie night ‘Twisted by Design’.
Cardiff University has three ‘rooms’ of varying sizes for their gigs – CF10, Solus and The Great Hall (and that’s only if this year’s influx of students hasn’t voted to change the venues’ names again). Tommy’s Bar provides UWIC students with their fill of bands with regular gigs from promoters The Family.
The best known venues in the city centre for live music must be the Barfly, Clwb Ifor Bach (aka The Welsh Club) and Cardiff International Arena. The Barfly is the smallest of the three, underground with a single stage. But being part of the Barfly group with six venues across the country, it is never short of the latest headliners.
Clwb Ifor Bach has three floors and two stages, the middle floor usually being used as backstage or a chillout room on dance nights. It puts on a huge variety of gigs and is also available to rent for promoters wishing to put on their own bands.
Cardiff International Arena hosts large, well known touring bands from the UK and abroad. Sometimes they feel the need to seat their audiences, and not only for those bands where the fans would have trouble standing up for longer than an hour.
The Coal Exchange and The Point are both Cardiff Bay venues, by Mount Stuart Square. The Coal Exchange is currently undergoing repairs or refurbishment, and will be closed until 2009. Which is a shame as it’s a good sized venue, somewhere between the size of the University’s CF10 and the CIA. Although Cardiff has a good range of venues it’s lacking in ones of this size.
The Point is a converted church and for some inexplicable reason makes for a fantastic venue. The stage is more than big enough for a venue of its size, everyone gets a good view, and it always inspires a rather good atmosphere. It’s larger than the Barfly or a single floor of Clwb Ifor Bach so you get room to move (and breathe without inhaling someone else’s hair).
Newport has its share of good niche venues too. Following the demise of the original Mauringer pub and its rock dukebox, Le Pub on Caxton Place is now the only place with an ‘alternative’ dukebox. Gigs aplenty are held upstairs in the rather unsuitably shaped bar, where no one can see the band unless they are seven feet tall or standing in the front row.
TJ’s is the infamous venue at which Kurt Cobain was supposed to have proposed to Courtney Love. Lucky it has had a major facelift which although an improvement to the levels of human comfort, may have detracted from its pure punk charm.
Newport Arena is the larger venue for the town with a capacity of about 1500. This place was hopping in the heyday of Funeral for a Friend and Goldie Lookin’ Chain but now seems to be remarkably quiet apart from appearing in the locally filmed Doctor Who, maybe even shut.
Cardiff does have just about all the types and sizes of venue you could hope to find in one place, although there’s plenty of room for one of about 300-500 capacity…
The growing awareness of brand value is regarded as an indicator of the progress. Brand awareness has made buyers get back value of money and satisfaction. Brand names also come with authenticity and guarantee for the products or services provided. Brand names are important for every product available in the market. Brand names are very important for musical instruments also. Buying branded instruments is worth a lifetime investment. Popular brands of music gear hold great responsibility of delivering quality products. Here we will be discussing some major brands of different instruments.
For Pianos
The piano is widely used in Western music for solo performances, chamber music, and accompaniments. It is also very popular as an aid for composing and rehearsal. There are many piano brands floating around out there these days. There have been some technological developments in the world of piano that has made the task of browsing through brand names daunting. With some basic expertise and some information behind the names one can find no difficulty while searching for a piano.
Two things must be considered when looking at piano brands, the budget, and need and suitability. Money and motivation will be the key deciding factors in which piano brands to go for. Quality is often associated with expense. This does not always hold true. For over 60 years now Kawai has been balancing quality with affordability offering pianos to fit every budget and suit every taste.
Yamaha Piano rises above the rest for the most enjoyable playing experience for the money. Boasting over 100 years of innovation and tradition, this Japanese company has created some of the finest digital and acoustical instruments.
For over a century, Bosendorfer Pianos have been considered one of the superlative piano luxuries in the world. Proudly crafted in Vienna since 1828, Bosendorfer is known for manufacturing the finest in grand pianos.
For Drums
Yamaha first manufactured drums in 1968. Early Yamaha drum equipment borrowed concepts from Ludwig drum set models. But Yamaha soon acquired a place among the top drum manufacturers and led the industry with innovative shell construction and finish techniques. Yamaha is also a major manufacturer for best selling electronic drums.
Drum Workshop, or DW for short, is the leading new American drum company and offers a large variety of snare drum shell materials including aluminum, copper, steel, brass, brass or maple combination, a great selection of lacquered finishes, and various types of rims.
Pearl drums, manufactured by the Pearl Instrument Company, are the most widely used drum kits today. Katsumi Yanagisawa, the founder of Pearl, started his company in 1946 in Tokyo Japan. He did not start out by making Pearl drums and drum kits, but music stands.
For Synthesizers
Moog is the first name, which crosses our mind while talking about Synthesizers. Analog, modular synthesizers are of Moog specialties. After a few years of overwhelming success in the fields of synthesizers, Moog introduced another invention called Minimoog synthesizers. Yamaha, Korg and Casio are the other big players in the field of synthesizers. Though Moog has stopped producing synthesizers in the recent years, Yamaha, Korg and Casio are the rulers in the music market.
An iPod has become the best selling portable music player. Designed and marketed by Apple Inc., its sale has crossed 140 million pieces. This brand enjoys the market share of more than 60% in portable media players category.
There are many portable media players available in the market. Many big corporations world wide have many such products. Then, what is the reason for such a huge popularity of a single product called ipod?
Ease of use has been cited as the chief reason. An end user finds it difficult to accept a product that is complicated to use. He becomes dissatisfied, distraught and ultimately abandons it. Apple accomplished this factor beautifully. Despite new technologies, an ipod is very easy to use. It gives ample satisfaction to an end user.
iTunes software is required for music downloads from iTunes Store. Both are owned by Apple. Present versions support mac and windows computers. You can download pop music, rock or any type of music. It can play all iTunes Store music and other limited external sources.
An iPod can play mp3, AAc, AIFF and Apple Lossless file format and other limited standard file formats. Music files from Napster and MSN can not be played due to digital rights management issues.
Classic, Nano and Touch are main model line ups. Classic is based on hard drive storage and offer capacities ranging from 20 giga bytes to 160 giga bytes. Nano offers storage ranging from 1 to 8 giga bytes. Latest classic and nano models can play video and image files also. Nano and Touch models are based on Flash memory cards.
It has won many awards as Most Innovative Audio Product, Fourth Best Computer Product and Engineering Excellence. An iPod has become most reputed audio product.
A new colour variant has now been released to compliment the original Nokia 5800 in black and the more recently launched blue edition, this latest addition to the Xpress Music range has been made available as a SIM free mobile phone with no network ties or contract commitments.
The Nokia 5800 Red Edition SIM Free phone is unlocked to all networks allowing consumers to simply carry on using their existing SIM card to retain their account details, current mobile number and any saved contacts.
Because this is a SIM free handset there are no network credit checks for consumers to worry about which will please many who may usually struggle to pass these strict guidelines, there is also no extra line rental charges incurred as there is no new contract, the consumer simply continues using their existing service whether that be on Pay As You Go or on Pay Monthly contract.
The new Nokia 5800 Red edition offers exactly the same amaing features and technology as the original black version aswell as the more recent blue edition however this new models exchanges the colour of the surrounding exterior band to a vibrant red and the back and front casing closely resemble a more burgundy finish.
The Nokia 5800 XpressMusic is the first full touchscreen mobile phone from Nokia thanks to a 3.2 inch touchscreen. The 5800 is the perfect music phone thanks to support for MP3 and AAC files, a 3.5mm headphone jack, expandable memory up to 16GB for loads of storage and running on the Symbian series 60 operating system. Also included in the 5800 is a 3.2 Megapixel camera, HSDPA ad Wi-Fi connectivity for high speed browsing, GPS with Nokia maps pre-installed and Bluetooth v2.0.
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic supports Flash content, individuals can surf the entire web, not just pieces of it. In addition, the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic offers all the music essentials, including a graphic equalizer, 8GB memory for up to 6000 tracks and support for all main digital music formats, and a 3.5mm jack. Built-in surround sound stereo speakers offer the industry’s most powerful sound.
And with FREE Nokia downloads for a year; this is music paradise in the palm of your hand.The spec blows away competitors like the iphone with a 3.2MP camera with flash and video capabilities, and with high speed connectivity through 3G, HSDPA and wi-fi you can upload your photos and videos on the move, Facebook won’t know what’s hit it when you have this phone in your hand!!
And with handwriting recognition, you can write out your texts with the stylis that fits snug in the back of the phone. And with up to an impressive 35hrs music playback and support for a 16GB micro SD card your music can go on and on!
Although initially only available as a SIM Free mobile phone it is widely expected that the new Nokia 5800 red edition will be added to at least two of the major UK networks portfolios over the coming weeks.
The search “free sheet music” (without the inverted commas) on google spews out an impressive 17,300,000 pages. Even the most inexperienced internet-user will immediately realize that the truth cannot be quite so bountiful. I click on the first hit on google (results on yahoo and msn will differ) and am promised thousands of downloadable scores. On closer inspection this turns out to be a number of Irish tunes at most, with most of the promised pieces in fact consisting of links to more so called “free sites”. Funnily enough the owner of the website at one point even points out not to send him any nasty e-mails about the lack of free scores on the site.
So let’s try the second hit. After navigating round the site promising me free scores, I always end up on a page telling me that all of these scores are free to download – for a small fee of 20 Dollars a year. As a user I am starting to feel confused – I haven’t seen a single piece of sheet music. Can I trust this site? What would the quality of the scores be if I paid the 20 Dollars?
Frustrated, I move on to the next search engine result. This site at least has the courage to tell me on the main page that the so-called free scores will cost me 30 dollars a year, yet once again, I fail to detect a single quaver or treble clef. No scores are available for preview. This is starting to remind me of the “free DVD” I get with my Sunday paper. Only that I have to purchase the Sunday paper first.
Yet another site turns out to be just like the first, the promised pieces of sheet music being links to more so-called free sheet music sites. I am starting to get bored of being re-directed. Aren’t there any sheet music sites out there?
The story of my search continues in similar fashion, until I encounter a site that does offer sheet music, albeit a limited quantity. I download a score only to find that the graphics aren’t quite where they should be, and this makes me wonder about the general quality of the scores and the arrangements that are available. Indeed. Why should anyone create a score and put any effort into the arrangement and editing, if they aren’t making any money through direct sales?
Even other hits take me to a site where I am charged $1.60 for the “privilege” of downloading a badly scanned copy of a Bach composition. Hm.
Frighteningly, I also find a site that offers extremely basic versions of John Lennon’s “Imagine” and other music that is in fact still under copyright. This website is clearly an illegal operation, and one that might find itself in the crosshairs of the Music Publishers’ Association (MPA). The MPA, as highlighted in a recent article on the BBC Website (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4524086.stm) is intending to clamp down on websites selling music still under copyright, or where the arrangements are still under copyright. In a way the publishing world is doing what record labels started a few years ago by actively prosecuting those participating in illegal download of sheet music.
I eventually find a project similar to the Gutenberg Project where people contribute scores freely. The quality seems ok, but I am restricted to pieces by a handful of classical composers, and with anything relying on donations and free contributions, I doubt there are regular updates. However, as with Wikipedia, the authenticity of the product has to come into question. The standard review process that an encyclopaedia has and Wikipedia and other websites dependent on volunteers lack will have to be considered when downloading scores (or any other information for that matter) for free: does the end-user believe all the notes are accurate? When the founder of Wikipedia himself was found to manipulate information on the very site how much can these so-called democratic sites be trusted? Obviously no one would benefit from changing a note in a score, so no one would deliberately manipulate a piece of music. But what are the skill levels of those involved in the creation of these scores? It is highly unlikely that a trained musician would edit these – he would be destroying his own industry to a certain extent. Furthermore I will not be able to find simplified arrangements of a piece, as this is a time-consuming effort, and anyone engaging in such an operation would clearly charge for the service.
After many days of searching, I give up in my quest in search of good free scores.
But what is one to make of all this? Why are there so many sites that don’t actually sell anything, and what is the point of them?
The problem is created by advertising. The people who run these sites own the most obvious url titles (i.e. the web site address) that one might type in when looking for free scores. As an example: if you were looking for free glasses, one might type in www.freeglasses.com. Hence, these sites get a lot of direct traffic. Furthermore they have also done a very good job at search engine optimisation, which makes you wonder whether google and Co are actually missing a trick here. Yet as these sites have nothing to sell they try and get the frustrated user to click on one of the many adverts, and many of these are so-called google ads. Every time someone clicks on one of these ads or paid-for links, the aforementioned website earns a small amount of money (so-called click-through). What is even more disconcerting is that some of these ads lead to legitimate sheet music download sites, making it even harder for the user to distinguish between the real thing and some dodgy operation trying to make a buck on click-throughs. This clearly does not help the industry.
Well, what about those free scores then? Well, there are some out there, basically a handful to be found on the five or six legitimate sites that are out there. These sites have the highest quality in terms of the arrangements, the quality of the score both graphically and in print-out quality.
So why no free scores?
Think about it: why should anyone go through the effort of either
A) scanning hundreds and thousands of pages of music, and then offering them for free?
Or
B) creating hundreds and thousands of arrangements for free?
Exactly. If you were to upload loads of tunes, you’d want to make money out of it.
Lincoln Jaeger
Music genre games “Guitar Hero” and “Rock Band” are bona-fide smash hits, entering the rarefied air once reserved for only the elite first-person shooters, “Mario” games or sports titles. And success breeds imitation.
Music games seemed to be everywhere at this week’s E3 video game trade show and it wasn’t just Activision Blizzard Inc showing off its upcoming “Guitar Hero: World Tour” or MTV Games, a unit of Viacom Inc, providing a sneak peek at “Rock Band 2.” Both are due out later this year.
Nintendo Co Ltd debuted “Wii Music,” a game that lets you simulate playing over 60 different instruments, while Konami Corp and Microsoft Corp also showed off new music games of their own on the horizon.
“Music has really become the killer application,” said Don Mattrick, a Microsoft senior vice president, who runs the company’s Xbox business.
Music genre games accounted for 16 percent of U.S. video game software sales in 2007 and comprised a staggering 44 percent of last year’s software sales growth, according to research from investment bank UBS Securities.
Most suppliers are attempting to pass the costs on directly to consumers while keeping retail margins steady, so many are raising the actual minimum advertised price (MAP) on select products.
Subwoofers are hardest hit, as they are laden with metal, and they are heavy and expensive to ship. Speakers also use oil-based material in their driver cones. Many of the companies raising prices at present are speaker and amplifier brands.
The genre evolved out of the once popular rhythm game genre. In rhythm games like Konami’s “Dance Dance Revolution,” players score points by stepping on a touch sensitive pad in time with generic music.
In music games, the touch sensitive pad was replaced with a toy musical instrument and the generic songs were replaced with recognizable rock hits, giving players the simulated experience of playing real instruments.
Source: http://www.chinaqualitydigital.com/
Some say that the only difference between the rhythm and blues (R&B) and gospel is with gospel you sing “Oh Lord,” while with Rhythm and Blues soul music you sing “Oh Baby.” Gospel music was the root beginnings of soul music however it is not merely the root that make R&B what it is today.
R& B soul music came to life as its own genre during the 50’s. While its origins may have began around the northern cities of America like Chicago it wasn’t long before other cities followed suit like Memphis, Detroit, New York, Florence, and Philadelphia.
Many artists throughout the years helped develop what is known as R&B soul music such as artist like Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Barry White, Luther Vandrose, James Brown, and Issac Hayes to mention just a few.
Soul music origin’s came from the influence of gospel music and the more traditional R&B sounds. The R&B soul sound of Memphis was more influenced by the gospel mix in cities like Memphis, than was the rhythm and blues soul of Detroit, which came up to become the smooth, polished sounds of Motown by artist such as Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, and Marvin Gaye.
If were to have to pick the top ten all time best R&B Soul artists one would be hard pressed to limit the list to ten. You could take into consideration the artists contributions to the music industry, however, most R&B artists have contributed in one fashion or another.
Early top soul artists would have to include Ray Charles, Chuck Berry, Sam Cooke, and Elvis. Then as soul music took on a bit more groove to it and became known more by Motown/Soul in the late 60’s and 70’s you would have to add artists names such as Nina Simone, Jackie Wilson, Etta James, Ray Charles, Little Richard, and James Brown.
However, that leaves out a lot of influential R&B soul artists that have contributed so much to the still existing sound of rare soul music found in may of the more current soundtracks of today’s artists like Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Al Green, Gladys Knight, Chaka Kahn, Brian McKnight, Kenny G, and R. Kelly. The list could go on forever, as I am sure many of you are aware. That is not even mentioning the soul artist groups that helped to keep the love alive. There is something about some good old rare soul music that will never leave you, and always have you wanting more.
Some say that the only difference between the rhythm and blues (R&B) and gospel is with gospel you sing “Oh Lord,” while with Rhythm and Blues soul music you sing “Oh Baby.” Gospel music was the root beginnings of soul music however it is not merely the root that make R&B what it is today.
R& B soul music came to life as its own genre during the 50’s. While its origins may have began around the northern cities of America like Chicago it wasn’t long before other cities followed suit like Memphis, Detroit, New York, Florence, and Philadelphia.
Many artists throughout the years helped develop what is known as R&B soul music such as artist like Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Marvin Gaye, Barry White, Luther Vandrose, James Brown, and Issac Hayes to mention just a few.
Soul music origin’s came from the influence of gospel music and the more traditional R&B sounds. The R&B soul sound of Memphis was more influenced by the gospel mix in cities like Memphis, than was the rhythm and blues soul of Detroit, which came up to become the smooth, polished sounds of Motown by artist such as Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, and Marvin Gaye.
If were to have to pick the top ten all time best R&B Soul artists one would be hard pressed to limit the list to ten. You could take into consideration the artists contributions to the music industry, however, most R&B artists have contributed in one fashion or another.
Early top soul artists would have to include Ray Charles, Chuck Berry, Sam Cooke, and Elvis. Then as soul music took on a bit more groove to it and became known more by Motown/Soul in the late 60’s and 70’s you would have to add artists names such as Nina Simone, Jackie Wilson, Etta James, Ray Charles, Little Richard, and James Brown.
However, that leaves out a lot of influential R&B soul artists that have contributed so much to the still existing sound of rare soul music found in may of the more current soundtracks of today’s artists like Stevie Wonder, Donny Hathaway, Al Green, Gladys Knight, Chaka Kahn, Brian McKnight, Kenny G, and R. Kelly. The list could go on forever, as I am sure many of you are aware. That is not even mentioning the soul artist groups that helped to keep the love alive. There is something about some good old rare soul music that will never leave you, and always have you wanting more.
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