Dramatic Lyrics

George Gershwin was born on September 26, 1898, in Brooklyn, New York. George The son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, George began his foray into music at age 11 when his family bought a secondhand piano for George’s older sibling, Ira. George was a natural talent with piano so eventually he began studying with the noted piano teacher Charles Hambitzer and impressed him so much that he wrote a letter saying that he found the new pupil who will make it successful and he was a genius. Gershwin…

The emphasis on the "grave" in the poem directs the reader's attention to the acts of violence and brutality. All of these images reaffirm a poetic insight communicated through directed ambiguity created by the poet; an ambiguity that must then be resolved by the individual reader’s interpretive visualization of the poem. The atmosphere of malevolence is further expounded through the introduction of an unknown Nazi guard from "Deutschland," who romanticizes the desire to meet “Margarete.” She is…

D’s comical self- inspired caricature sticker appears frequently in snaps (captured videos or photos from Snapchat), giving a dramatic cartoon effect to his viewers while his music ties the viewer into the scene that is taking place and allowing them to really feel apart of D’s life. Though the snaps of life’s hard and real work like maintaining two jobs as a seasonal tax preparer…

On Friday September 30th at 7:30pm in Weill Hall I watched the show called “A Concerted Effort.” The show was a collaborative effort between Jerome Fleg’s Santa Rosa Junior College Orchestra and Alexander Kahn’s Sonoma State Symphony Orchestra. The Sonoma State Music Director Alexander Kahn gave the introduction. Kahn in his intro explained how he collaborated with Jerome Fleg’s Orchestra for years. Khan also named each of soloist’s performing in the show. He mentioned how each of the two…

Human gender not only defines physical and biological differences between the sexes, but also unique roles and norms. These norms can manifest in differences in equality; pay, power, professional obstacles, as well as education. That hasn't changed through time and different cultures have different setbacks, however, a common image is men have more power than women. That “norm” is highlighted in relationships. This is seen in popular songs such as “Human”, written by Christina Perri which is…

everyone is born from a woman, no one is able to kill him. “U Can’t Touch This” also has an upbeat and jovial tune that matches Macbeth’s naive outlook on his future. The way Macbeth feels in the beginning of Act IV is summed-up in the song’s iconic lyric: “can’t touch this” (“U Can’t Touch This”). While the song accurately represents Act IV of Macbeth, it also covers one of the motifs seen throughout the play: clothing that is representative of power or social status. Towards the middle of the…

Two main forms of literature are found throughout Ancient, Classical, and Hellenistic periods—epic and lyrical poetry. Homer, author of the Odyssey and the Iliad, is a famous epic poet of the Ancient age, and Sappho is the greatest lyric poet of that same age who composed works about moods of romantic passion. Poetry was still written in Classical Greece but was emphasized in Hellenistic Greece with the works of Theocritus and Apollonius. Theocritus was a lyrical poet who wrote pastoral…

When comparing and contrasting the two poems “The Mother” and “The Planned Child” it is clear to see how selfish decisions are made in two totally different perspectives. In “The Mother” the reader see’s a mother who has had multiple abortions and suffers from regretting the decisions. This is one of the main differences in the two stories, how the character in “The Mother” see’s her selfish decisions and recognizes them. In “The Planned Child” we see the character in the story as the child,…

Apocalypse Now is a film that reflects on the ‘curse’ of the American involvement in the Vietnam War, a civil war that occurred in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos from the mid 1950’s until the 1970’s. It is a revisionary film produced in the post-war US by American director and producer Francis Ford Coppola, which was first shown at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival where it took home the prized Palme d’Or. The story follows Captain Benjamin L. Willard, an unstable, self-destructive, alcoholic ‘assassin’…

On May 21, 1972, Christopher Wallace was born. He grew up in Brooklyn and from a young age took on the nickname Biggie Smalls because of his six foot three and almost 400-pound frame. Biggie dropped out of school by the time he was 17 years old and began to live his life on the street, selling crack. After serving time in jail for selling drugs, Biggie made some demo recordings on a tape, which eventually reached Uptown Records producer Sean Combs. Combs signed Smalls immediately and they…