Watch Classical Music Get Perfectly Visualized as an Emotional Roller Coaster Ride
CLASSICAL MUSIC
Charles Dutoit: ‘Today’s Young Musicians Have No Culture’
Charles Dutoit is one of the world’s greatest conductors – and most feared. Now he’s been awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society and is still in fighting spirit.
Dutoit feels this slow apprenticeship has stood him in good stead. “Nowadays young musicians have everything under their fingertips, they can learn a new piece just by listening to it on YouTube. They are amazingly well-informed but they have no culture. In my day everything was slow, but it meant that it was rooted,” he says. “You had to seek things out and work on them slowly with the score. That’s why at the beginning I was cautious about accepting big engagements. After I made my conducting debut in Berne I came to the attention of the Vienna State Opera, partly thanks to Karajan, and they made me the most amazing offer. ‘Come and conduct The Marriage of Figaro and then Carmen for us’, they said. No young conductor nowadays would turn down such an offer, but I said I wasn’t ready. They said ‘Well, how about Swan Lake with Nureyev and Fonteyn?, and I said, ‘Yes that I can manage’.” As consolation prizes go, that seems better than most.
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Why Classical Music Lovers Are Smarter
There are some unique qualities of classical music which do make it more effective all other things being equal, but that principle can also apply to 15-minute manifestation or some other similar technique.
Classical music is more musically complex compared to rock or pop songs, which means that the stimulant effect is greater as your brain processes these songs. Rather than directly boosting your brain’s power, classical music can create a more soothing environment which is more conducive to thinking.
But do not take this to mean that you should force yourself to listen to classical music if you find it boring and uninteresting. Music, no matter from whom or where it was created, is always enervating and beneficial to your brain. Forcing yourself to listen to uninteresting music will eventually turn yourself off from doing it completely, especially as the benefits and only accumulate over time. If you would rather listen to death metal than Mozart, do not feel ashamed and turn up the volume.
Photo Source: Classic FM
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5 Key Tips for Making a Classical Music Video
1 : Choose the piece, but film the moment
No matter how famous you are as a classical performer, you’re not going to rival Beethoven for recognition.The first step in getting views is knowing what your audience will click on.
2 : Set the scene & shoot it lean
We’ve found filming performers is more about what viewers don’t see than what they do.
3: Keep it real
It’s incredible how astute people are when they are watching video.
4: Tell a Story
We know the “Where?” and the “When?” from point 1. But what about the “Why?”
5: Get intimate
We all know what a person, sitting at a piano, playing, swaying backwards and forwards looks like.
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Why Classical singers Are Like Elite Athletes
Adrenaline, anticipation, and years of training culminating in just one chance to get it right; an evening at the opera has much more in common with a sporting event than you might expect. As well as a world-class musician, the singer is an athlete – and it’s a discipline that is by no means created by talent alone.
‘Opera singers need focus, stamina, flexibility, endurance, determination and adaptability,’ says Kevin Thraves, Deputy Head of Opera at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM). Most elite opera singers consider their training to be lifelong – undergoing years of studying with teachers at school and completing a postgraduate degree to hone their skill.
‘An athlete can compete when they have a cold or sore throat, but a singer shouldn’t,’ warns McCulloch. ‘Swellings develop on the vocal folds, nodules or cysts which prevent full vocal fold closure and means that singers are unable to phonate successfully.’
Photograph by William Goldsmith.
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Mashup Weaves Together 57 Famous Classical Pieces by 33 Composers: From Bach to Wagner
Was Prince Classical?
Richard Elliott, Lecturer in Popular Music at the University of Sussex, has this take on the purple icon:
… A truly eclectic and classical artist.
For this is what Prince was: not in the narrow sense of his interest in Western classical music, but in a far more liberated and liberating understanding and extension of the varied streams of a black classical music tradition that incorporated gospel, jazz, R&B, rock and roll, soul, funk, hip hop and more. Continue Reading.
Illustration by Benn Gunn Baker.