Report 2

The event that I attended for the second performance report was Side Show: The Musical. Musical theatre is a form of theatre that combines music, songs, spoken dialogue and dance. This event took place at the University Theatre on April 17, 2010 at 8p.m. The story that was being performed by the artists was a true story of the lives of conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton. The twins had move to Texas in 1920 but where abused by their manager. Later on they get there freedom and become very popular with some training in singing and dance. At the end they get marriage for publicity reasons and get divorced.
As the Musical stated there was an introduction of each of the characters in the freak show. The background music consisted of a fast tempo to provide the effect of anxiety to the audience as the performers entered the stage. All the numbers that were performed by the play were either of one of the following themes: Love, Life of the twins, or acceptance of the freaks in a whole. The dialogues amongst the performers were mainly phrases from songs rather than them talking. The music during the play used to accompany the dialogue of the actors to add more expression and feeling to the play. If the part was something intense in acting and dialogue the band would play a fast tempo song in the high octave. Another interesting thing I noticed was the pitch at which the notes were being played was matched by the volume of the actor. Suppose the actor had a very low voice the band used to play the same octave but in a softer volume and wise versa. I feel this was done such that the dialogue between does not get over shadowed by the music in the background. When the mood was meant to be a sad / dark atmosphere to the stage the rhythm and volume were slow and soft respectively. At times the music from the band was in time with the dialogue to provide emphases on the phrases; hence the band would not play anything when the performer is not saying anything. The pit band was directed by a director who used to instruct the performers whether they should play louder, softer, or stops.
The performers in this event consisted of the actors and the pit band. Unlike other Musical theatre the pit band was not hidden from the view of the audience rather they were set at the back of the stage where the audience could see some parts of the band. The performers at times interacted with the audience to provide a live feeling of what would have really happened in the past. The main focus of the play was around the twins and there love life. Even if the characters in the side were not the focus they still would provide the facial and body expression to help the main characters set the mood and tone of the scene. Throughout the play actors would change their customs to match the setting of the scene. This helped the audience understand the change in place and location.
The audience at the play mainly consisted of students, families, and friends of the performers. When the performance started the director informed us that this play was the biggest success they have ever had in their history with respect to the number of audience present. Since this was the last performance most of the audience was anxious to see the performance of the twins since they had heard great things about it from friends who had come to the play previously. Some of the audience members started to clap hands in between songs when someone did an extraordinary job. The audience had a very positive and energetic appearance. At the end of the show I was surprise by the number of people whistling to show their likeness of the show. All the audience at the end gave a standing ovation to the performers to acknowledge that they had done a great job. The loudest claps came in when the twins bowed down to show their thanks.
Since this was the last show of their two week of shows the audience had knowledge about the show prior to the start of the show. Since the seats were filled with audience I feel that if was an engorgement for the performers to show their best. Since the audiences were so supportive of the show, people at times would cheer the performers at the end of each scene such that they are motivated to perform.
In conclusion, the Side Show was a great success in terms of talent and audience. It was a show with multiple moods such as: humor, sadness, joy, and fear. This was a great platform of the Arts major to show their families and friends that they are able to provide us the audience with great shows to watch.

Source:
Side Show. By Bill Russell and Henry Krieger. Dir. Kathryn Evans. Perf. UTD Cast. Con. Winston Stone. University Theatre, Richardson. April 17 2010.

Rock Music

The Rock subgenre I am going to be focusing on today would be from the time frame of Eddie Fisher, Perry Como, Patti Page, and Elvis Presley. This time frame was named to era of Rock and Roll music. The foundations of rock music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and quickly spread to the rest of the world. The song I will using as an example is by Elves Presley is called “My Way”.
Some of the distinctive characterizes that usually defines this genre is the use if electric guitars. The use of electric guitars where prominent since artists found it easier to create variations in the tone, pitch, and distortion which added to the performance by the artist. Another characteristic of this genre is the existence of small ensembles that play the entire song unlike in Jazz where there are a large number of players playing the song. Usually a rock and roll band consisted of around 3 – 6 players. Thirdly, rock and rock music tends to have a special emphasis on the lyrics that is being sung by the sing. The singer tends to dress in fashionable clothes such that people would be appealed by the clothes they were. There is also a strong presents of a four-beat cycle in all songs. This is usually kept by the drums using the snare and the bass.
As you can see from the start of the song there is a constant presents of electric guitar throughout entire song. Secondly, there are a very limit number of people in the band; there are only 6 in total band players in the entire group. Throughout the song you can notice an equal importance for both the lyrics and the music by providing them at almost equal volume to the listeners. When the drums joins the groups the for- beat cycle can be noticed if you listen to the drummer. The second and forth beat are louder than the first and second beat.
This is the video I have been using to talk about Rock and Roll:

Gullah Music

The Gullah are people that have descended from an African origin. As noticed in the three videos displayed below you could notice that the culture and music are very similar to that found in Africa. There is a strong existence of drums are the major instruments being used to create music. Even if there are no other instruments present people still dance to the music that the drummers create. Since Gullah culture has slowly started to vanish the music mainly takes place during festivals or in churches. It was interesting to notice that the drums were used as rebel calls against racism. Since Gullah people where originally farmers some of their songs consisted lyrics that explains and portrays their culture by using various things that are related to farming. The dance done by the Gullah people seemed to be very similar to that of Africa. The steps that were performed during funerals and festivals seemed coordinated by someone since not ever one would dance at the same time, one group comes on the dance and then the next group with a different step comes to the front. Since Gullah heritage is being destroyed by development there is an annual festival that tries to bring back all the people with Gullah connections back to where their ancestries lived. During there are fast drumming music were people get to dance and times were people sing old Gullah songs they know. Since the population of Gullah people is so little I would not be surprised to see this culture of African – Americans disappear.
The Videos I used are:

UT Dallas: Shakespeare in Song

Introduction
The performers for the UTD Chamber Singers performed the event, Shakespeare in Song on the Saturday, March 27th at 8 pm at the Jonsson Performance Hall. Shakespeare in Song is a concept where different plays of Shakespeare are performed with a combination of Opera and Dialogue. These plays do not contain complete stories rather parts of various stories by Shakespeare. The group used to rehearse on campus at UT Dallas’s Arts and Humanities Building where they have their own room.

Music
According to the director of the event she mentions that the plays that where performed during that day originated from three different sources. One of them being the authentic songs by Shakespeare, the solo songs had been composed by a British composer Roger Quilter, and the choral arrangements for the plays were composed by Julliard graduate Matthew Harris. Even though the various songs had different composer they all had a Shakespearean flavor and element of 17th century music. The lyrics of the songs where sung in Old English, which was mainly used during the time period of Shakespeare. All the songs in the play either had a very happy mood or a dull mood to it. When the music wanted to express a happy mood the rhythm of the song was faster whilst for a sad song the piano had a very slow and melodic rhythm. The choral arrangements during the play were done in a way that two different groups would sing the same phrase but at different timings. The melody in the two groups would start of initially and then would be joined by another group and together they would finish the phrase together. This difference in timing of the two groups provided an echo effect and made each line stand out more due to the repetition. These groups were divided into four main categories: Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass. Each of these divisions would sing in response to another group in a different pitch level to distinguish the groups. Some of the songs consist of solo performances with the accompaniment of the piano. The piano gave different ready marks during the performance to indicate that he was ready, if it was a group song he would play one note and for a solo performance would play the introduction without any indication he is ready. The solo performers used a lot of vibrato to provide expressions to the song by varying the hand gestures and facial expressions. Usually all the songs in the performance ended on a very low pitch and long note.

Performers
On the stage, there were the UT Dallas Chamber Singers, the pianist and the director. The singers on the stage were a bunch of UT Dallas students that had signed up for this class. The names of the pianist and the director are Michael Mc Vay and Kathryn Evans respectively. To bring forward the time frame during which it is set, all the personal on stage were dressed in costumes that fit that time period. The singers followed the director to guide them through the song, since she can indicate changes that needs to be done during the songs by hand gestures such as pitch changes, tempo, and keeps beat for the singers. The pianist also follows the director since she has the freedom to such the tempo at her discretion. Since piano is the only instrument on stage it often starts the song before the singers join in. In between the various songs there were dialogues between different characters such that the audience gets background knowledge of the performance. This technique used by the cast helped them transition from one story to another.

Audience
Since the play I attended took place during a Saturday night the audience was very limited, at most there would have been about 30 people in the hall at any given point. From the present audience consists mostly of students from various music classed taking notes, families of the performers, and a few Shakespeare in song listeners. Surprisingly no one tried to clap in between the various songs until the director bowed down to thank you for listening. One thing I noticed was that entire audience was surprised to find out that one of the singers was actually blind. Once she had finished her solo performance people started to cheer and clap loudly to show their appreciation for what a beautiful performance she had done.

Time and Space
Due to the lack of audience the mood was very dull. Most of the students were just there such that they can take notes and the families were just there to provide support. Since there were no real music lover there was absence of energy from the audience. Due to the size of the hall the audiences were able to visually see the singer from a near distance. To help the audience keep track of the song currently being played there were power point slide shows that showed the title of the song and a picture related to the song.

Conclusion
The Shakespeare in Song event helped spread the works of Shakespeare. To provide the audience with a realistic feeling of what would have been present during Shakespeare’s time they used a combination of Old English and costumes to showcase a 17th century play in today’s world.


Works Cited:

• Shakespeare in Song. Dir. Director Kathryn Evans. Perf.
UTD Chamber Singers. University of Texas atDallas,
Jonsson Performance Hall, Richardson, 27 Mar. 2010.

• Program notes. Shakespeare in Song. Mar. 27. Richardson,
University of Texas at Dallas Jonsson Performance Hall.

Comment blog 10

The author whom I am commenting on is Mohammad Abotteen. The composer he had chosen to write about was Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville”. I feel that the repetition of the “Figaro” keeps help reinforce the point that the main character is barber for the song. I do agree with Mo that since he is the main character is the only one singing all the lines even though there are other characters in the scene. One thing I noticed from the song was that the tempo of the music increases and decreases as different stanzas start. I feel this is done to gradually increase the tension as the song progresses. Since Mohammad had covered all the things that can be said about the play I can only agree or disagree with his statements. One thing I also noticed that the actors where dressed as poor during the time frame it is set. This shows the audience that the barber is talking to a certain class of people. Agreeing with Mohammad this performance was unique compared to others since there were only two colors that were used: Black and White.

Blog 10 Opera

The opera that I choose for my blog was composed by Rossini namely “The Barber of Seville”. This performance was performed in Dallas. Since there where two clips from the play I would like to contrast between the two to show how different musical variations where used to portray different moods. The first clip consists of a man (guessing the barber) who seems to be in a very happy mood. To create this happy mood the orchestra provides the singing with a fast tempo which is also known as cabaletta. During the first act the singer repeats a certain work “Figaro” which I do not know the meaning of but this word in way it is repeated creates an element of tension and excitement in the play. The voice of the singing is very high pitch and has almost a nasal tone. The actor also uses facial expression to display the mood of the setting. Various instruments are used to provide the emphases of the phrases being sung by the singer. These instruments vary in octaves and tempo depending of the mood. In contrast the second act, the lady gets soon kind package but the mood is set to be somber, hence there is a slow tempo and tone for the songs. As the lady in the scene gets closer to opening the package the pitch and speed at which the song is played and sung at increases to provide tension in the play. The props in the background also play a role since Rossini’s opera was based on theater rather than on music only.

blog 9 : Avatar Music

Composer James Horner will score the film, his third collaboration with Cameron after Aliens and Titanic. Horner recorded parts of the score with a small chorus singing in the alien language Na'vi in March 2008.He is also working with Wanda Bryant, an ethnomusicologist, to create a music culture for the alien race. James Horner composes a fine music score that has a fusion blend of both Oriental and the Occidental notes. From my past music knowledge I am able to come to the conclusion that the composer of the soundtracks for Avatar took various music groups into one. Two of the most striking ones where: Japanese and Western- Music. For the Navi people they had more of the Japanese tones such as tribal drums and high pitch flutes. Were as the human had a combination of orchestral music with vocals. One point I was able to notice from these soundtracks was that the Navi music had very few instruments and a lot of vocals; maybe due to the lack of technology for them wiliest, the human music was majorly instrumental especially electrical instruments such as guitar. Some of the other elements he has used was the Chinese chanting but in the Navi language. He used the same method related it the story line. But since I am not a expert at identifying the types of music cultures that were used but will say that he used the Western-Music with a mixture of different foreign music instrument to make a new genre for the navi people.