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A Kid Named Carl Stirs Up The Bach Musical Dynasty

When it comes to musical dynasties, it's tough to top the Bach family. From town fiddlers to court composers, the Bachs dominated German music for seven generations. Today, towers above all his relatives, but there's another important Bach we shouldn't forget especially today, on the 300th anniversary of his birth. Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, C.P.E. for short, was the second surviving son of Johann Sebastian, whose sturdy, impeccably built music made a great impression on the young composer. Still, C.P.E. seemed to chafe against the old Baroque restraints by forging an innovative and dramatic new sound, especially in his keyboard music and symphonies. So where did C.P.E. get all his radical ideas? Not from his father. Although Johann Sebastian personally gave his son a complete music education and moral support Harvard professor and Bach scholar says C.P.E. had a mind of his own. "I think he became fascinated by modern trends," Wolff says. "His father actually supported that, and that was, I think, part of his educational concept not to make clones. And C.P.E. Bach became his very own character." One of the modern trends C.P.E. helped design while he was bored with his 27-year job as harpsichordist to Frederick the Great in Berlin was something the Germans called empfindsamer Stil. The literal translation is "sentimental style." But it's not about being delicate, Wolff says. It's more about plugging raw emotions into music by pivoting from one mood and dynamic shade to another. "With staccato and slurred phrases, small motifs are pitted against each other," Wolff explains. "And that is something completely new in the compositional style of the mid-18th century and had a huge impact on European music." Pianist , who has recorded two albums of keyboard sonatas by C.P.E., says the music have felt like a roller coaster to people listening at the time. "The most striking thing about it is the very quick change of character and the very quick change of harmony," Driver says. "It's like a stream of consciousness internal dialogue in a way." While listening to C.P.E.'s F-sharp minor sonata, Driver noted some of the composer's quirky characteristics: "Well, here you've got this rather manic, energetic fantasia-like passage that suddenly, abruptly stops. And then, a lovely aria melody comes in, like a singer with a light accompaniment. And because the juxtaposition happens so quickly we're left guessing as to what comes next. Are we

going to carry on in this sort of vein? And again, the way the harmony suddenly changes, he just changes a single note in a chord that completely turns the emotional effect upside down." Hans-Christoph Rademann, who's just released an album of C.P.E.'s sacred choral music, says that Bach's restless, radical new style fits within history with the upheaval of the Seven Years' War, the shifting of nations and the Enlightenment, which encouraged individualism. "I think it was a question of this time," Rademann says. "The time was also a time of change and new ideas. And this music, it was a new feeling, a very good feeling." Writing a dull piece of music didn't seem to be part of C.P.E.'s playbook, even if he did fall into that peculiar crack between the old-fashioned Baroque period of his father and the newfangled freedom of the Classical era, which would star and . In his double concerto, C.P.E. actually bridges that gap. It's for harpsichord old school and fortepiano, the keyboard of the future. Driver, who performed the concerto recently in London, says the two instruments chase each other's tails. "It's literally, from the very first movement, one bar piano, one bar harpsichord, a little bit of orchestra, then something else. The exchange of ideas is so quick," he says. The music is old but Driver insists it's relevant: "It's not postmodern, but it almost feels postmodern in the sense that there's this sort of collation of different ideas and different feelings all sort of rolled into one. I think it's of today as it was of its time." And who would have thought that all those weird juxtapositions and breakneck mood swings in the music of Johann Sebastian Bach's son C.P.E. would end up, some three centuries later, making a surprisingly apt soundtrack for our fractured, multi-tasked, 21st-century lives.

Matt Bellamy Plans Stripped Back New Muse Album


Written by Greg Moskovitch on 6th January, 2014 Muse frontman Matt Bellamy has elaborated further on the plans for a follow-up to 2012s The 2nd Law, which Bellamy previously said would steer the bands sound back to guitar, bass and drums. Bellamy suggested to Rolling Stone that Muses seventh album would be a stripped back affair. Ive got a pretty good picture of what Id like the next album to be like, Bellamy said. Its the comedown and the sort of waking up the next day being like, What the fuck? I kind of feel like it will be nice to reconnect and remind ourselves of just the basics of who we are, he continued. Speaking on the sound of the record, he said, I have this strong feeling that the next album should be something that really does strip away the additional things that weve experimented with on the last two albums, which is electronics, symphonics and orchestral work and all that kind of stuff. In November last year, Bellamy said that the new album would see the band veer back towards musicianship again and focusing on our own instruments: guitar, bass and drums, adding, Its probably going to be a bit of a rawer album, and definitely a bit more rock, Id say. Last month Bellamy told Triple Js The Doctor that the album would most likely be ready for release early 2015 or late 2015, with Christmas 2014 likely to see the release of the albums first single. He said the band would enter the studio this year following a few months break.

Muse sign new deal with Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers management
Matt Bellamy and co have been managed Brontone founder Anthony Addis outside North America for over a decade, but have now left to sign an international deal with Q Prime - who have managed the band in North America since they released Absolution in 2003. "After a successful 12-year relationship, Muse will be parting company with Brontone, until now their manager for all territories outside North America," a Muse spokeperson told Music Week. "As of March 2014 Muse will be managed worldwide by Q Prime, who have been managing the group in North America since 2003. Muse wish to thank Brontone for its support in developing the groups hugely successful career so far, and Brontone wish Muse every success for the future." The future looks interesting for the Devonshire trio. Not only is there a great deal of speculation around whether the band will act on rumours of them celebrating their 20th anniversary with an intimate tour in 2014, but last year the band revealed that they had 'no concrete plans' regarding what to do now that their six album record deal is up. Warner Bros. Records bought Muse's six album deal from original label Taste Media in 2005 meaning that The 2nd Law will be their last contracted record with them. Now in a new interview with Billboard, frontman Matt Bellamy said that the band were 'at a crossroads' and planned to take time off to think about where to go from here. "Early next year I think we'll probably take a break for a few months and at some point next year we'll start writing new music," he said. "I think if everyone is up for it, we'll start recording music sometime next year." Many believe that Muse are likely to release future music via their own record label, Helium-3. Helium-3 is a sub-division of Warner formed by the band before the release of Blackholes And Revelations.

Motorhead Cancel Dates After Lemmy Suffers a Hematoma


Motorhead has nixed a handful of live shows after the British heavy metal bands iconic frontman Lemmy Kilmister suffered a hematoma. Word of Lemmys latest ailment came from Barley Arts Promotion, the promoter behind the scheduled -- and subsequently canceled -- June 25 show in Milan, Italy. In a Facebook post, the live events firm explain that the cancelation was caused by a severe hematoma which makes it impossible at the moment on stage. The groups June 21 See-Rock Festival in Graz, Austria was also canned. Although the groups official Website hasnt confirmed Lemmys hematoma -- a mass of localized blood collected outside the blood vessels -- the Motorhead homepage is circulating reports which confirm his ailment. The rocker was recently fitted with a implantable defibrillator to correct an irregular heartbeat . Motorhead have previously announced plans to release their 21st studio album Aftershock, which was tentatively due this September. Itll be the follow-up to "The World is Yours" from 2010, which marked the debut of the trio's own Motorhead Music label. In an interview last year, the 35th anniversary of Motorheads debut album, Lemmy told Billboard his group was looking forward to the 40th anniversary of their formation in 2015. "We'll probably all stand in a line and let our heads explode. We'll think of something; we always do -- probably involving naked women or something, he quipped.

Civilian Killed in Violence in Indonesia


Asia: Three soldiers are abducted in fighting between the military and separatists in Aceh province. Mobil is evacuating families from the area.
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia A civilian was killed in a mob attack and three soldiers were abducted in a clash between separatists and security forces in Indonesia's Aceh province, police and army sources said Thursday. The violence came as President Abdurrahman Wahid flew to the United States to meet with President Clinton before traveling to Japan. Indonesia's Minister for Human Rights Hasballah Saad was also on the way to Aceh, preparing the way for a visit by Wahid after he returns from his trip. Also Thursday, Mobil Oil Indonesia Inc. announced that it has started evacuating families of employees working in the oil-rich region because of the potential for further bloodshed. The clashes followed a protest by hundreds of thousands of independence supporters on Monday in the regional capital of Banda Aceh to press for a referendum on the future of their province. The demonstration, the biggest in Indonesia's recent history, sparked fears that the country was beginning to unravel in the aftermath of East Timor's secession. That territory recently voted for independence. 2,768 Have Died in Past 10 Years While East Timor, a former Portuguese colony that Indonesia invaded in 1975, is overwhelmingly Catholic, Aceh is staunchly Islamic. Most Indonesians are also Muslim, but not so fundamentalist as the Acehnese. Aceh was part of Indonesia when the country was established in 1945. Human rights groups say 2,768 civilians have died and 3,862 have disappeared at the hands of Indonesian security forces since the Aceh separatist rebellion escalated 10 years ago. In the most recent violence, a civilian was killed and three were injured late Wednesday when a mob attacked and set ablaze a police post in the town of Samadua, 165 miles southeast of Banda Aceh, police Maj. Tassar said. Tassar, who like many Indonesians uses only one name, said the attack happened after officers arrested four people at a nearby checkpoint. This angered some townspeople, who attacked the local police station. Also in Samadua, unidentified assailants abducted three soldiers guarding a military petroleum dump, said army spokesman Maj. Sunarto.

Wahid, who was elected president three weeks ago, has said he would consider allowing a referendum in Aceh, but he has emphasized that the province would be better off if it opts to remain part of Indonesia as an autonomous region. Analysts say that while Wahid is in the United States, he will try to persuade Clinton to resume military ties that Washington suspended following the outbreak of Indonesian-backed violence in East Timor in September. "Indonesia is a very important country that we want to help move forward both in terms of democracy and economic reforms," said one U.S. official who asked not to be named. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was also due to participate in the meeting. "Now that we see progress is being made in East Timor, I think the president is looking toward improving those relations, to restoring better relations," said another U.S. official who asked not to be named.

Blues History Overview


The blues is a musical style created in response to the hardships endured by generations of African American people. It originated in the rural Mississippi Delta region at the beginning of the 20th century. Descended from earlier work shouts (arhoolies), blues is primarily a vocal narrative style featuring solo voice with instrumental accompaniment. Blues has contributed significantly to the development of jazz, rock music, and country and western music. Blues Form By the 1920s, the blues style had acquired its distinguishing characteristics of text, harmonic structure, and melodic shape. Blues lyrics contain a number of three-line rhymed stanzas in which each stanza consists of a line of verse which is repeated and then concluded with a final line. Harmony is based on a repeating blues chord progression, with a 12-bar pattern using the three major chords of a scale. Each stanza of text is set to one 12-bar chorus, with the typical blues ranging from four to eight stanzas in length. Melody is strongly influenced by "blues notes that sound like "bent" or flattened third, fifth, and seventh notes of the major scale. Blues notes have a bittersweet emotional impact. Although vocals are the focus, performers usually improvise instrumental solos over blues chord progressions. In addition, performers can also contribute improvised "fills" at the end of a sung line in a kind of "call and response" style. One musical innovation was the development of the "bottleneck slide" style of guitar playing, which consists of scraping a knife or glass bottleneck up the guitar fingerboard to simulate vocal moans and slides. Country Blues The earliest blues, known as country or delta blues, were a product of the 19th-century Southern rural experience, especially after emancipation. Itinerant singer/guitarists (or harmonica players), generally men, traveled from one community to another singing about love, freedom, sex, and the sorrows of life. Important early musicians include Charlie Patton, Son House (who developed the bottleneck slide technique), and Robert Johnson. Classic Blues As rural African Americans migrated to urban areas such as Memphis and New Orleans in search of work, blues gradually became more of an urban phenomenon. Classic or urban blues featured a male or female singer usually accompanied by a piano or whole jazz combo. Capitalizing on the increasing popularity of urban blues, the music industry began publishing and marketing arrangements for blues compositions such as W. C. Handy's "St. Louis Blues" (1914). These songs became so successful that many popular songs that were not actually blues simply added the word blues to the title to ensure their popularity. New York vaudeville singer Mamie Smith's 1920 recording of "Crazy Blues" launched the "race recording" industry, which targeted blues and jazz directly at the African American audience. These recordings proved popular with a larger American public as well, and blues recordings by performers such as Bessie Smith, "Empress of the Blues," Jelly Roll Morton, Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, and Louis Armstrong dominated the musical landscape. Throughout the country blues could be heard in

small dance halls, barrooms, rent parties, and juke joints, where new styles such as "barrelhouse" and boogie-woogie were performed by pianists such as Clarence "Pine Top" Smith.

Electric Blues After World War II, the center of blues activity moved to cities such as Chicago, where musicians such as Muddy Waters, Riley "B. B." King, and Buddy Guy intensified the sound by amplifying the guitars and adding more emphasis to the drums. During the 1950s this style was adapted by white musicians as well, and rhythm and blues hits were often rerecorded ("covered") by white musicians such as Elvis Presley and Bill Haley, transforming rhythm and blues into rock and roll. A decade later British musicians such as the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and Eric Clapton returned to the blues roots as the source for their heavily amplified hard rock style. Although much of the energy of blues has been channeled into rock and rhythm and blues styles, traditional blues musicians such as John Lee Hooker, Etta Baker, Junior Wells, and Buddy Guy enjoy successful careers. Blues has also developed into a major force in contemporary music through the rock-edged style of Robert Cray, as well as roots-oriented jazz by musicians associated with Wynton Marsalis (see Marsalis, family), the zydeco sound, and some rap groups.

What Is Rock Music?


A Brief History of Rock Music
Rock music has been a volatile, unpredictable creature that has constantly redefined and reinvented itself since its emergence in the late 1940s. Not surprisingly, then, it can be extremely difficult to apply a straightforward definition to such a restless musical format. But while people may quibble over specifics, rock music can generally be described as hardedged music performed with electric guitars, bass, and drums and usually accompanied by lyrics sung by a vocalist.
Rock Music's Origins (1940s-60s)

Rock musics origins can be traced back to the late 1940s, when the popular styles of the day, country and blues, morphed into a new sound aided by electric guitars and a steady drum beat. Pioneering rock artists of the 50s, such as Chuck Berry, leaned heavily on classic blues structures while demonstrating a flair as natural-born entertainers. As opposed to the safe pop music of the era, rocks aggressive attack suggested a sexual freedom that proved shocking during that conservative age. By the early 60s, Berrys followers, most notably the Rolling Stones, expanded rocks scope by transitioning from singles artists into musicians capable of producing cohesive albums of songs. Embracing sex and youthful rebellion in their music, the Stones courted controversy but also elevated rock to new cultural heights.
Rock Music's Evolution (1970s)

As rock music became the dominant form of popular music, new bands built on their predecessors strengths while branching out into new sonic territory. Led Zeppelin gave rock a darker, heavier tone, becoming one of the 70s most popular bands and helping to kick-start a new genre known as hard rock or heavy metal. Around the same time, Pink Floyd added psychedelic elements and complex arrangements, creating concept albums tied together by a single theme and meant to be absorbed in a single sitting. Records like Dark Side of the Moon were credited with spawning the progressive rock movement. In the late 70s, as a response to what they perceived as pretentious hippie bands such as Pink Floyd, groups like the Sex Pistols and the Clash simplified rock down to its core ingredients: loud guitars, rude attitude and enraged singing. Punk was born. And while all three movements enjoyed different degrees of mainstream acceptance, a fourth, less-recognized style was beginning to take shape as well. Spotlighting atonal noise and

unconventional rock instruments such as drum machines, groups like Pere Ubu became the pioneers of industrial rock, an abrasive subgenre that didnt enjoy widespread popularity but would inspire future rock bands.
Rock Music's Splintering (1980s)

As the 80s began, mainstream rock music was losing commercial steam, its sound growing stale. In such a creatively stagnant environment, subgenres started to assert their dominance. Inspired by punks outsider status and industrials eclectic instrumentation, keyboard-driven English bands like Depeche Mode demonstrated a more introverted songwriting style, creating postpunk, which is also described as new wave. Meanwhile, American groups like R.E.M. toyed with postpunk elements, balancing introspective lyrics with traditional rock-band arrangements. These bands were dubbed college rock because of their popularity on college radio stations. By the end of the 80s, college rock had become such a lucrative alternative to mainstream rock that it received a new moniker: alternative rock. It was also referred to as indie rock because the bands were often signed to small, independently-owned labels. Significantly, alternative rock cemented its cultural standing when the music magazine Billboard created a new chart in 1988 specifically for alternative rock, which the publication classified as modern rock. For most music fans, terms such as modern rock, alternative and indie are synonymous ways of describing this popular subgenre.
Rock Music's Reemergence (1990s-Present)

With the ascension of Nirvana's Nevermind in 1991, alternative rock became the dominant popular music. But while other bands soon sprung up as part of the so-called grunge movement (a merging of hard rock and punk), other groups, like Soundgarden, straddled the worlds of alternative and mainstream rock music. Exacerbated by the suicide of Nirvana's frontman, Kurt Cobain, alternative music started to lose its luster by the middle of the decade, setting the stage for mainstream rock's reemergence. One of the first bands to capitalize on mainstream rocks comeback was Limp Bizkit, which melded hard rock and rap into a new hybrid call rap-rock. Groups like Staind and Puddle of Mudd followed in Limp Bizkits wake, though these bands focused on melodic hard rock rather than integrating rap into the mix. At the same time, bands that had thrived during grunges heyday but didnt easily fit into the alternative subgenre, such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, continued to find audiences throughout the 90s. Additionally, groups that rose from the ashes of grunge, like Foo Fighters, incorporated alternative musics outsider energy to reenergize mainstream rock music.

As rock music enters the 21st century, the most successful acts possess the same spirit as their 60s predecessors, even if they sound quite different. Linkin Park fuses hip-hop and metal, while 3 Doors Down emulates hard-rock traditions of the past while providing a contemporary spin. Undoubtedly, rock music will keep evolving in the future, drawing from its rich history while continuing to keep its ear open for the next sonic reinvention.

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