I’ve played piano for 10+ years. I’ve gone through multiple teachers,
and multiple styles. I’ve played both Classical and Jazz, and am enamored with
both of them. When it comes to classical piano, we talk about my forte (pun
intended). When playing classical music, I prefer to draw from the Romantic and
Modern eras, where the music has more dynamics and fun turns about it, as
opposed to the more restrictive classical and baroque eras, which bore me. Grieg
is my favorite artist on the classical side of the border. I love how his music
tells stories, mostly folk tales and stories about people from Norway. Grieg’s
music, through its melodies and rustic soul, shows the passion and uniqueness
of life in Norway, ranging from peasants dances to wedding marches. Currently,
I’m working on his famous Concerto, and it is both my favorite and the hardest
piece that I have ever played. I have been working on it for months, and most
likely have months to go before it is perfected, but that effort and reward is
what I love about playing piano. In contrast to classical piano, I love Jazz because
it steps outside the classic barriers of music, and allow the player to really
put their heart and soul into it, with improvisation and more “raw” music. My
favorite jazz artist is Dave Brubeck. Brubeck is most famous for his album “Time
Out,” in which he goes beyond the normal “beyond” of jazz music, and plays with
crazy time signatures that are almost never used in any genre of music, such as
5/4 and 9/8. When I’m not playing piano, I still love listening to music,
especially pop. I find that music with words is also an amazing form of
self-expression, and it can be used to portray so many ideas, arguments, and
beliefs. This is why I particularly like artists like Kendrick Lamar, who uses
his voice in popular culture and music to teach about the struggles faced by
people who grew up in conditions similar to his, to try to spread important
social messages, while still creating complex, layered music; and Hopsin, who tries
to spread messages about greater society, such as consumerism and religion. My
favorite artist at the moment is rising star SuperDuperKyle, who I’ve followed
for 2 years and had the privilege of seeing live just a few weeks ago. If you
have the time, you should go check him out, along with all the artists
mentioned in this blog. I think they all have unique and specific genres that
they can bring to anybody’s playlist.
In class, we were asked to do a short writing on our name – ‘How do you feel about your name?’ I must admit, my relationship with my name is a complicated one, a “love-hate” relationship. On the love side of the metaphorical boxing ring, we have the uniqueness of “Jared.” I am happy to say that I have never met another Jared in my life. That means that I never have had the need to have a nickname, or go by my last name or initial. It may be simple, but it is something that I have always valued – the ability to be the only Jared in the room. When it comes to celebrities named Jared, there aren’t many – Jared Leto is one of the few that comes to mind. That means that I never have to deal with any jokes about my relation to a well-known figure, as I’m sure people with names such as “Harry” (Potter, Styles take your pick) have to. However, outweighing the pros, we have the con on the other side of the ring. The reason why I hate my name, is simply because I can’t pronounce it. I have be
I, like you, have played piano for a number of years. I also really enjoy playing Romantic and Impressionistic music, particularly Chopin and Grieg. But I've never been very good at jazz, so I've never ventured into this aspect of piano playing. One of the things I like about music generally though, is that everyone finds enjoyment in different things. So while you might really like Hopsin, others might think he unnecessarily criticizes other rappers (not saying I agree with either). And I think what makes music so great is that it doesn't sound the same to everyone, but we can all hopefully respect that different people like different things.
ReplyDeleteYou have a very nice writing style, which makes this post easy to read. You do (at least in this post) a really nice job of balancing longer sentences with shorter sentences, which seems simple, but actually makes a significant difference when you're trying to read someone's writing. This probably comes from the way you speak, and I can hear your voice in this post, even though it's a bit more formal than you would speak regularly. Anyway, sentence length is one of the things I'm trying to work on, so it was good to see you use it well.
ReplyDeleteHaha I remember my 5(?) years of piano. My parents forced me to play and I hated almost every second of it and I was pretty awful. I really liked playing Bach, though (Bach is even better on violin!). My teacher was old and only let me play very classical pieces so I never got to experiment with different genres like jazz. I never played Grieg on piano, but I played In the Hall of the Mountain King in an orchestra once and it was pretty scary. Also you're really good at piano, keep it up :)
ReplyDeletePersonally I hate music. For the first 8 years of my major life I was forced to play the piano by my parents. I absolutely hated playing the piano, many tears were shed on my sheet music. In middle school I started to play the trumpet and liked it a lot more. I actually grew engaged into the music and practiced on my own free will. It is very interesting the our different approaches to music and playing instruments. Very interesting Post.
ReplyDeleteI also used to really hate baroque music because I thought it was too rigid and didn't allow for a lot of musicality, but I've started to appreciate it a lot more since I've been learning a Prelude and Fugue by Bach (he surprisingly uses a lot of weird and very "modern" harmonies, which sound super cool). My piano teacher actually told me that back then, since they only had harpsichords/organs and literally couldn't do dynamics, the only way to emphasize certain notes was to use rubato, which I thought was really interesting, and it gives you a lot more freedom. But I also still prefer late romantic and 20th century music, especially Debussy and Shostakovich.
ReplyDeleteI used to be in my school choir but I've never played an instrument. Even still, I have a complex love for music like you and many others. You mentioned probably one of the top 5 rappers right now, Kendrick Lamar. One of the many things I like about Kendrick is the way he uses his voice. He manipulates his voice in all of his songs to help display a message. He does this so well that, sometimes, he sounds like a whole different artist. If you like Kendrick, you should try Young Thug, a rapper who also contorts his voice for the purpose of the song.
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