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Focus X
''Focus X'' (also known as ''X'') is the eleventh studio album by the Dutch progressive rock band Focus, released on 5 November 5, 2012 by Eastworld Recordings. Background ''Focus X'' is the group's first studio album in six years. The album features Menno Gootjes on guitar, replacing Niels van der Steenhoven, who played guitar on the ensemble's previous album '' Focus 9 / New Skin'' (2009). The Japanese edition contains two bonus tracks, "Santa Teresa", and a live version of the band's successful 1971 single, " Hocus Pocus". The album generally received positive reviews. The cover art is designed and painted by Roger Dean. Track listing Personnel * Thijs van Leer – Hammond organ, flute, vocoder, spoken vocals (tracks 1, 7, 11) * Pierre van der Linden – drums, percussion * Menno Gootjes – guitar, acoustic guitars (track 8) * Bobby Jacobs – bass guitar, pro ducting and mixing * Ivan Lins Ivan Guimarães Lins (born June 16, 1945) is a Latin Grammy-winning Brazil ...
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Focus (band)
Focus is a Dutch progressive rock band formed in Amsterdam in 1969 by keyboardist, vocalist, and flutist Thijs van Leer, drummer Hans Cleuver, bassist Martijn Dresden, and guitarist Jan Akkerman. The band has undergone numerous formations in its history; since December 2016, it has comprised Van Leer, drummer Pierre van der Linden, guitarist Menno Gootjes, and bassist Udo Pannekeet. They have sold one million RIAA-certified albums in the United States. After the addition of Akkerman to Van Leer's rock trio in late 1969, the band named themselves ''Focus'' and initially worked for a Dutch production of the rock musical ''Hair''. Their debut album ''Focus Plays Focus'' (1970) gained little attention but the follow-up, '' Moving Waves'' (1971), and its lead single " Hocus Pocus", earned the band international recognition. Their success continued with ''Focus 3'' (1972) and ''Hamburger Concerto'' (1974), the former containing their second hit single, " Sylvia". After recording two al ...
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Ars Poetica (Horace)
"Ars Poetica", or "The Art of Poetry", is a poem written by Horace c. 19 BC, in which he advises poets on the art of writing poetry and drama. The ''Ars Poetica'' has "exercised a great influence in later ages on European literature, notably on French drama" and has inspired poets and authors since it was written. Although it has been well-known since the Middle Ages, it has been used in literary criticism since the Renaissance. Background The poem was written in hexameter verse as an Epistle (or Letter) to Lucius Calpurnius Piso (the Roman senator and consul) and his two sons, and is sometimes referred to as the ''Epistula ad Pisones'', or "Epistle to the Pisos". The first mention of its name as the ''"Ars Poetica"'' was c. 95 by the classical literary critic Quintilian in his '' Institutio Oratoria'', and since then it has been known by that name. The translations of the original epistle are typically in the form of prose. "Written, like Horace's other epistles of this perio ...
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Focus (band) Albums
Focus, or its plural form foci may refer to: Arts * Focus or Focus Festival, former name of the Adelaide Fringe arts festival in South Australia Film *''Focus'', a 1962 TV film starring James Whitmore * ''Focus'' (2001 film), a 2001 film based on the Arthur Miller novel * ''Focus'' (2015 film), a 2015 film about con artists Music * Focus (music), a musical technique also known as modal frame * Focus..., American music producer * Focus (band), Dutch progressive rock band Albums * ''Focus'' (Stan Getz album), 1961 jazz album * ''Focus'' (Bill Hardman album), 1984 jazz album * ''Focus'' (Jan Akkerman & Thijs van Leer album), 1985 * ''Focus'' (Cynic album), 1993 metal album * ''Focus'' (Chico Freeman album), 1994 jazz album * ''Focus'' (Souls of Mischief album), 1998 alternative hip-hop album * ''Focus'' (Holly Starr album), 2012 CCM album * ''Focus'' (Arthur Blythe album), 2002 jazz album * ''Focus'' (Diaura album), 2013 Japanese visual kei album Songs * "Focus" (Ar ...
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Ivan Lins
Ivan Guimarães Lins (born June 16, 1945) is a Latin Grammy-winning Brazilian musician. He has been an active performer and songwriter of Brazilian popular music (MPB) and jazz for over thirty years. His first hit, "Madalena", was recorded by Elis Regina in 1970. "Love Dance", a hit in 1989, is one of the most recorded songs in musical history. His songs have been covered by Patti Austin, David Benoit (musician), David Benoit, George Benson, Michael Bublé, Eliane Elias, Ella Fitzgerald, Dave Grusin, Shirley Horn, Quincy Jones, Steve Kuhn, the Manhattan Transfer, Sérgio Mendes, Jane Monheit, Mark Murphy (singer), Mark Murphy, Carmen McRae, Joe Pass, Lee Ritenour, Sarah Vaughan, Diane Schuur, Sting (musician), Sting, Barbra Streisand, Take 6, Toots Thielemans, Dan Costa (musician) and Nancy Wilson (singer), Nancy Wilson. Life Ivan Lins was born in Ituverava - São Paulo. He spent several years in Boston, Massachusetts, while his father, a naval engineer, continued graduate stu ...
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Bass Guitar
The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length, and typically four to six strings or courses. Since the mid-1950s, the bass guitar has largely replaced the double bass in popular music. The four-string bass is usually tuned the same as the double bass, which corresponds to pitches one octave lower than the four lowest-pitched strings of a guitar (typically E, A, D, and G). It is played primarily with the fingers or thumb, or with a pick. To be heard at normal performance volumes, electric basses require external amplification. Terminology According to the ''New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', an "Electric bass guitar sa Guitar, usually with four heavy strings tuned E1'–A1'–D2–G2." It also defines ''bass'' as "Bass (iv). A contraction of Double bas ...
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Acoustic Guitars
An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, resonating through the air in the body, and producing sound from the sound hole. The original, general term for this stringed instrument is ''guitar'', and the retronym 'acoustic guitar' distinguishes it from an electric guitar, which relies on electronic amplification. Typically, a guitar's body is a sound box, of which the top side serves as a sound board that enhances the vibration sounds of the strings. In standard tuning the guitar's six strings are tuned (low to high) E2 A2 D3 G3 B3 E4. Guitar strings may be plucked individually with a pick (plectrum) or fingertip, or strummed to play chords. Plucking a string causes it to vibrate at a fundamental pitch determined by the string's length, mass, and tension. (Overtones are also pres ...
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Guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A plectrum or individual finger picks may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant chamber on the instrument, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier. The guitar is classified as a chordophone – meaning the sound is produced by a vibrating string stretched between two fixed points. Historically, a guitar was constructed from wood with its strings made of catgut. Steel guitar strings were introduced near the end of the nineteenth century in the United States; nylon strings came in the 1940s. The guitar's ancestors include the gittern, the vihuela, the four- course Renaissance guitar, and the ...
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Percussion
A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Excluding zoomusicological instruments and the human voice, the percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments.''The Oxford Companion to Music'', 10th edition, p.775, In spite of being a very common term to designate instruments, and to relate them to their players, the percussionists, percussion is not a systematic classificatory category of instruments, as described by the scientific field of organology. It is shown below that percussion instruments may belong to the organological classes of ideophone, membranophone, aerophone and cordophone. The percussion section of an orchestra most commonly contains instruments such as the timpani, snare drum, bass drum, tambourine, belonging to the membranophones, and cy ...
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Drum Kit
A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player ( drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks, one in each hand, and uses their feet to operate a foot-controlled hi-hat and bass drum pedal. A standard kit may contain: * A snare drum, mounted on a stand * A bass drum, played with a beater moved by a foot-operated pedal * One or more tom-toms, including rack toms and/or floor toms * One or more cymbals, including a ride cymbal and crash cymbal * Hi-hat cymbals, a pair of cymbals that can be manipulated by a foot-operated pedal The drum kit is a part of the standard rhythm section and is used in many types of popular and traditional music styles, ranging from rock and pop to blues and jazz. __TOC__ History Early development Before the development of the drum set, drums and cymbals used in military and orchestral m ...
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Pierre Van Der Linden
Pierre van der Linden (born 19 February 1946) is a Dutch drummer, songwriter and member of the band, Focus. Biography Van der Linden was influenced by his childhood hero Buddy Rich. He finds inspiration in French philosophers and classical composers of the twentieth century. For drumming, he is influenced by Tony Williams and Elvin Jones. Van der Linden practises his drumming technique each day, at least one hour on his practise pad. He avoids modern tuning and prefers to use open tuning, closer to a jazz than a rock drummer, and adopts a mix of matched grip and traditional grip. Away from music, van der Linden enjoys painting and writing poetry. In the 1990s he joined the free jazz Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians during ... group Advance Warning and played on four album ...
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Spoken Vocals
Spoken word refers to an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a late 20th century continuation of an ancient oral artistic tradition that focuses on the aesthetics of recitation and word play, such as the performer's live intonation and voice inflection. Spoken word is a "catchall" term that includes any kind of poetry recited aloud, including poetry readings, poetry slams, jazz poetry, and hip hop music, and can include comedy routines and prose monologues. Unlike written poetry, the poetic text takes its quality less from the visual aesthetics on a page, but depends more on phonaesthetics, or the aesthetics of sound. History Spoken word has existed for many years; long before writing, through a cycle of practicing, listening and memorizing, each language drew on its resources of sound structure for aural patterns that made spoken poetry very different from ordinary discourse and easier to ...
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Vocoder
A vocoder (, a portmanteau of ''voice'' and ''encoder'') is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation. The vocoder was invented in 1938 by Homer Dudley at Bell Labs as a means of synthesizing human speech. This work was developed into the channel vocoder which was used as a voice codec for telecommunications for speech coding to conserve bandwidth in transmission. By encrypting the control signals, voice transmission can be secured against interception. Its primary use in this fashion is for secure radio communication. The advantage of this method of encryption is that none of the original signal is sent, only envelopes of the bandpass filters. The receiving unit needs to be set up in the same filter configuration to re-synthesize a version of the original signal spectrum. The vocoder has also been used extensively as an electronic musical instrument. ...
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