Rhapsody in Blue

Summertime, from the folk opera Porgy and Bess, is a haunting, languid melody created by the highly esteemed American composer and pianist, George Gershwin. Gershwin was one of the twentieth-century’s most influential, beloved composers, and a multitalented musical genius. He composed numerous orchestral works for piano and jazz orchestra, and created popular musical compositions for several stage works and films. Gershwin’s most famous piece, however, is undoubtedly Rhapsody in Blue. I have admired and revered Gershwin’s musical virtuosity for the greater portion of my life; thus, I was ecstatic when my piano instructor chose Rhapsody in Blue as my senior recital piece. The song was incredibly complicated, and took the greater part of a year…

World War II was not only a time of destruction, but also a time of creation. Many new music styles appeared during this time period. One of these great innovators was George Gershwin, who created Rhapsody in Blue. Gershwin’s introduction of a new music style in his first performance sent waves around the country that pulled in people of all music preference. The musical genius, Gershwin, created a new rhythm and style by combining Classical and Jazz music. In the time before Gershwin rose to…

In the late 1940s he was part of the style of jazz that was known as the Transition to Cool and West Coast. Cool jazz is a type of modern jazz that has a sound that is softer than the bop form of jazz. In the 1950s Miles Davis was known for his hard bop style. Hard bop is a style of jazz that fuses blues, gospel music, and rhythm and blues. In the late 1950s there was another transition style that Miles Davis was a part of. It was known as the Transition to Modal Jazz and Free Jazz. Modal…

As a kid, I was constantly watching Disney, Pixar, and superhero cartoons. Something about the way they can animate everything seamlessly and capture things that couldn’t exist in real life drew me in, pun fully intended. It stuck with me throughout life and it was a source of comfort when middle school and high school got too hard for me. Once sophomore year hit and I was in Honors English II, we were given a chance to study any subject freely. Of course, I jumped at the chance that I’d…

Americans, I am the only one who can read. It's mind boggling; my nine year old self had to sit down when she first learned it, mere hours after meeting the eyes of the astonished boy who was told that the note he was looking for was a B-flat. I have words running through my mind constantly, small phrases or whole pages on a loop, complete with percussion, until another strain catches my fancy. The pages of my conscious mind are never blank, and my pretentious self wonders how 99.99% of people…

to them, and that another persons preference has no relevance to another. That statement denies that there could objectively be a best singer of all time. Which can be a very dangerous slope to go down, for if one claims that no one could ever be the best, they are denying the fact that Freddie Mercury is indeed that greatest singer of all time. With his 4-octave vocal range to his vocal transparency, and with his vocal dynamics, proves that he is in fact the greatest of all time. “A killer…

I was asked to choose a commercially available piece of music and analyse the recording techniques used. The piece I have chosen is ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by Queen from their 1975 album ‘A Night at the Opera’ (Queen, 1975). Written by the band’s lead vocalist, Freddy Mercury, the song was recorded in 4 different studios between August and September of 1975. These were: - Rockfield Studio 1 - Roundhouse - SARM (East) - Scorpio Sound Bohemian Rhapsody was produced…

rest of the film depicts Julie’s coping in what begins in a reclusive turning away from life, but develops by the end of the film into an openness and affirmation of life, expressing itself particularly powerfully in Julie’s kindness and passion for music. The film is explicitly meant to express a perspective on the subject of liberty, the ideal corresponding to the blue portion of the French flag. However, Kieślowski approaches the subject not from the common political understanding of the term…

Without African music we would not have some of the most popular genres of music that we have today. African music influence helped create genres like jazz, gospel, blues, soul and even hip hop and reggae. The traditional song and dance created by native Africans spread all over the world as its fusion with other type of song helped create the music we all know and love today. The spread of the African music can be traced to the slave trade that shipped Africans all over the world. The one thing…

Langston Hughes Poems Langston Hughes born in Missouri around 1902 wrote many poems, which were evolved around the African American people. Rejected by the African American community for his thoughts, Hughes felt a deep sense of passion to poetically write of the struggles faced by many impoverished African Americans. During the Harlem Renaissance, Langston Hughes used poetry to convey the African American cultural through a rhythm and blues style about dreams, suffering, the soul, and America.…