|
Charlie Nothing
Charles Martin Simon (July 8, 1941 – October 23, 2007), better known as Charlie Nothing, was an American musician, musical instrument maker and writer. He created the dingulator, guitar sculptures made out of American cars, and performed at several music festivals in the United States and Europe. He made two albums and published 12 books. Biography Charles Martin Simon was schooled at the Montclair Academy for Boys (later the Montclair Kimberley Academy) in Montclair, New Jersey. After graduating in 1959, Simon went to Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he majored in agriculture and English literature. But after two years at university he grew unhappy with the courses and dropped out. After the death of his artist wife in 1965, Simon was "reduced to nothing", which produced a "psyche fragmentation" he called Charlie Nothing the Artist. As Charlie Nothing, he pursued music and the visual arts. He created guitar sculptures made out of American cars he called dingulator ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dingulator
Charles Martin Simon (July 8, 1941 – October 23, 2007), better known as Charlie Nothing, was an American musician, musical instrument maker and writer. He created the dingulator, guitar sculptures made out of American cars, and performed at several music festivals in the United States and Europe. He made two albums and published 12 books. Biography Charles Martin Simon was schooled at the Montclair Academy for Boys (later the Montclair Kimberley Academy) in Montclair, New Jersey. After graduating in 1959, Simon went to Rutgers University in New Jersey, where he majored in agriculture and English literature. But after two years at university he grew unhappy with the courses and dropped out. After the death of his artist wife in 1965, Simon was "reduced to nothing", which produced a "psyche fragmentation" he called Charlie Nothing the Artist. As Charlie Nothing, he pursued music and the visual arts. He created guitar sculptures made out of American cars he called dingulator ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Literature
English literature is literature written in the English language from United Kingdom, its crown dependencies, the Republic of Ireland, the United States, and the countries of the former British Empire. ''The Encyclopaedia Britannica'' defines English literature more narrowly as, "the body of written works produced in the English language by inhabitants of the British Isles (including Ireland) from the 7th century to the present day. The major literatures written in English outside the British Isles are treated separately under American literature, Australian literature, Canadian literature, and New Zealand literature." However, despite this, it includes literature from the Republic of Ireland, "Anglo-American modernism", and discusses post-colonial literature. ; See also full articles on American literature and other literatures in the English language. The English language has developed over the course of more than 1,400 years. The earliest forms of English, a set of Anglo-F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Banjo Ukulele
The banjo ukulele, also known as the banjolele or banjo uke, is a four-stringed musical instrument with a small banjo-type body and a fretted ukulele neck. The earliest known banjoleles were built by John A. Bolander and by Alvin D. Keech, both in 1917. The instrument achieved its greatest popularity in the 1920s and 1930s, and combines the small scale, tuning, and playing style of a ukulele with the construction and distinctive tone of a banjo, hence the name. Its development was pushed by the need for vaudeville performers to have an instrument that could be played with the ease of the ukulele, but with more volume. Construction and tuning In terms of overall construction, banjo ukuleles parallel banjos, though on a smaller scale. They are always fretted. Most are built of wood with metal accoutrements, although the mid-century "Dixie" brand featured banjo ukuleles made from solid metal. The banjo ukulele neck typically has sixteen frets, and is the same scale length as a s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conga
The conga, also known as tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed drum from Cuba. Congas are staved like barrels and classified into three types: quinto (lead drum, highest), tres dos or tres golpes (middle), and tumba or salidor (lowest). Congas were originally used in Afro-Cuban music genres such as conga (hence their name) and rumba, where each drummer would play a single drum. Following numerous innovations in conga drumming and construction during the mid-20th century, as well as its internationalization, it became increasingly common for drummers to play two or three drums. Congas have become a popular instrument in many forms of Latin music such as son (when played by conjuntos), descarga, Afro-Cuban jazz, salsa, songo, merengue and Latin rock. Although the exact origins of the conga drum are unknown, researchers agree that it was developed by Cuban people of African descent during the late 19th century or early 20th century. Its direct ancestors are thought to be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gong
A gongFrom Indonesian and ms, gong; jv, ꦒꦺꦴꦁ ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ja, , dora; km, គង ; th, ฆ้อง ; vi, cồng chiêng; as, কাঁহ is a percussion instrument originating in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Gongs are a flat, circular metal disc that is typically struck with a mallet. They can be small or large in size, and tuned or can require tuning. The earliest mention of gongs can be found in sixth century Chinese records, which mentioned the instrument to have come from a country between Tibet and Burma. The term ''gong'' ( jv, ꦒꦺꦴꦁ) originated in the Indonesian island of Java. Scientific and archaeological research has established that Burma, China, Java and Annam were the four main gong manufacturing centres of the ancient world. The gong found its way into the Western World in the 18th century, when it was also used in the percussion section of a Western-style symphony orchestra. A form of bronze cauldron gong known as a resting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Musical Improvisation
Musical improvisation (also known as musical extemporization) is the creative activity of immediate ("in the moment") musical composition, which combines performance with communication of emotions and instrumental technique as well as spontaneous response to other musicians. Sometimes musical ideas in improvisation are spontaneous, but may be based on chord changes in classical music and many other kinds of music. One definition is a "performance given extempore without planning or preparation". Another definition is to "play or sing (music) extemporaneously, by inventing Variation (music), variations on a melody or creating new melodies, rhythms and harmonies". ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' defines it as "the extemporaneous composition or free performance of a musical passage, usually in a manner conforming to certain stylistic norms but unfettered by the prescriptive features of a specific musical text." Improvisation is often done within (or based on) a pre-existing harmonic frame ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Fahey (musician)
John Aloysius Fahey ( ; February 28, 1939 – February 22, 2001) was an American fingerstyle guitarist and composer who played the steel-string acoustic guitar as a solo instrument. His style has been enormously influential and has been described as the foundation of the genre of American primitive guitar, a term borrowed from painting and referring mainly to the self-taught nature of the music and its minimalist style. Fahey borrowed from the folk and blues traditions in American roots music, having compiled many forgotten early recordings in these genres. He would later incorporate 20th-century classical, Portuguese, Brazilian, and Indian influences into his work. Fahey spent many of his later years in poverty and poor health, but enjoyed a minor career resurgence in the late 1990s, with a turn towards the avant-garde. He also created a series of abstract paintings in his final years. Fahey died in 2001 from complications from heart surgery. In 2003, he was ranked 35th on ''R ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
San Francisco Bay Area
The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Governments to include the nine counties that border the aforementioned estuaries: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano, Sonoma, and San Francisco. Other definitions may be either smaller or larger, and may include neighboring counties that do not border the bay such as Santa Cruz and San Benito (more often included in the Central Coast regions); or San Joaquin, Merced, and Stanislaus (more often included in the Central Valley). The core cities of the Bay Area are San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland. Home to approximately 7.76 million people, Northern California's nine-county Bay Area contains many cities, towns, airports, and associated regional, state, and national parks, connected by a comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hair (musical)
''Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical'' is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and James Rado and music by Galt MacDermot. The work reflects the creators' observations of the hippie counterculture and sexual revolution of the late 1960s, and several of its songs became anthems of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement. The musical's profanity, its depiction of the use of illegal drugs, its treatment of sexuality, its irreverence for the American flag, and its nude scene caused much comment and controversy. The work broke new ground in musical theatre by defining the genre of "rock musical", using a racially integrated cast, and inviting the audience onstage for a " Be-In" finale.Pacheco, Patrick (June 17, 2001)."Peace, Love and Freedom Party" ''Los Angeles Times'', p. 1. Retrieved on June 10, 2008 ''Hair'' tells the story of the "tribe", a group of politically active, long-haired hippies of the " Age of Aquarius" living a bohemian life in New York C ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by wikt:nonconformity, nonconformity, Free improvisation, free-form improvisation, sound experiments, Virtuoso, musical virtuosity and satire of American culture. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed Rock music, rock, Pop music, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and ''musique concrète'' works, and produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse musicians of his generation. As a self-taught composer and performer, Zappa had diverse musical influences that led him to create music that was sometimes difficult to categorize. While in his teens, he acquired a taste for 20th-century classica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Debbie Harry
Deborah Ann Harry (born Angela Trimble; July 1, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter and actress, best known as the lead vocalist of the band Blondie. Four of her songs with the band reached on the US charts between 1979 and 1981. Born in Miami, Florida, Harry was adopted as an infant and raised in Hawthorne, New Jersey. After attending college, she worked various jobs—as a dancer, a Playboy Bunny and a secretary (including at the BBC in New York)—before her breakthrough in the music industry. Harry co-formed Blondie in 1974 in New York City. The band released its eponymous debut album in 1976, and released a further three albums between then and 1979, including ''Parallel Lines'', which spawned six singles, including " Heart of Glass". Their fifth album, ''Autoamerican'' (1980), afforded Harry and the band further attention, spawning such hits as a cover of "The Tide Is High", and " Rapture", the latter of which is considered the first rap song to chart at number one i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blondie (band)
Blondie is an American Rock music, rock band co-founded by singer Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the American New wave music, new wave scene of the mid-1970s in New York. Their first two albums contained strong elements of Punk rock, punk and new wave, and although highly successful in the UK and Australia, Blondie was regarded as an underground music, underground band in the U.S. until the release of ''Parallel Lines'' in 1978. Over the next five years, the band achieved several hit singles including "Heart of Glass (song), Heart of Glass," "Call Me (Blondie song), Call Me," "Atomic (song), Atomic," "The Tide Is High," and "Rapture (Blondie song), Rapture". The band became noted for its eclectic mix of musical styles, also incorporating elements of disco, pop music, pop, reggae, and early hip hop music, rap music. Blondie disbanded after the release of its sixth studio album, ''The Hunter (Blondie album), The Hunter'', in 1982. Debbie Harry con ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> Hair (musical)")
_(12215548).jpg "Click for more on -> Debbie Harry")
_One.jpg "Click for more on -> Blondie (band)")