Tag Archive for 'karaoke'

How Sweet the Sound: Gospel Competition

published
on September 30, 2009
by
Sandra
in culture, genres, music, and video
. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , .

Gospel music really shouldn’t be stuck inside of church walls. With the brief exception of Sister Act (and Sister Act 2), it typically doesn’t make much of a splash in the mainstream music world. If you’ve never experienced gospel music, especially live gospel music, it’s worth a listen.

Regardless of your beliefs or religious affiliations, it can be pretty damn powerful. It seems like there is some magical intangible quality that really only exists in that environment. Some of you might call it God. Some might view it as communities coming together to inspire and support one another through music. Perhaps it is simply the result of raw human emotions combining with some killer vocal talent.

Thanks to Verizon Wireless, the unique genre of choral worship music can now be experienced by a broader audience. How Sweet the Sound is the search for the best church choir in America. I guess America is not busy enough searching for the best [insert talent here] already… But hey, if there can be a Top Chef, a Top Model, and all that, why not a top church choir? I say bring it on, bitches!

Read all about the contest here, check out their blog here, and follow the tour as it travels across the country here. If you plan on actually attending one of the events, be sure to bring your old mobile phones to support their HopeLine project. Or if you’re the exhibitionist type, rock your own gospel at their karaoke booths and show the world what you’ve got.

Here’s a classic one for ya. Still makes me cry…

Making Music. With…Bubblegum?

published
on January 30, 2008
by
Sandra
in brain, music, technology, and video
. 2 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , .

Why not? Making music is a unique experience. Whether you are an accomplished composer, dj, or songwriter OR you simply like to sing in the shower (watch the whole thing, it’s worth it) or showcase your desk drumming skills, hearing and experiencing something you have created is profoundly personal. Even just remixing other people’s music or – one of my favorites – singing karaoke…it forces you to listen to music in a new way: not passively. It forces your brain to process music in a different way. In a more stimulating way.

Although primarily an auditory experience, adding other sensory elements to the equation can complement or completely change how you experience music. Adding a visual element certainly enhances your perception of a song compared to the song by itself – Disney’s Fantasia comes to mind as an early (1940) example of the power of the audio-visual experience. Think of the pulsing lights at a rave or concert and how they can entirely change how a song affects you (unless of course you are already in an altered state of mind for other reasons).

Similarly, music can affect the visual experience significantly. Imagine if you remove the soundtrack for a battle scene in Gladiator, for example, and replace it with, say, a John Mayer song? Suddenly it’ll seem like a farce. The auditory element accompanying the visual can completely invalidate the intended mood of the scene. Conversely, sometimes the juxtaposition of two unlikely things makes for an even more unique experience. And therein lies the beauty of experimentation.

Here at MixMatchMusic, we want people to explore and push the boundaries of how music is created and experienced. We want people to not only watch as the music evolves, but to be a part of the (r)evolution. The following is a great example of some smart people thinking outside the box and tapping into the multi-facetedness of a musical experience. And this is just something that a couple of kids at Berkeley put together for a class project. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you…

The Bubblegum Sequencer:

For a full explanation of how this works, click here. Amazingly, because “the output is generated in the form of MIDI events, the Bubblegum Sequencer can be used to control any kind of audio hardware or software”. And it’s in real time.