Music

Music is an art form and cultural activity whose medium is sound and silence. The common elements of music are pitch (which governs melody and harmony), rhythm (and its associated concepts tempo, meter, and articulation), dynamics (loudness and softness), and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture (which are sometimes termed the "color" of a musical sound). Different styles or types of music may emphasize, de-emphasize or omit some of these elements. Music is performed with a vast range of instruments and with vocal techniques ranging from singing to rapping, and there are solely instrumental pieces, solely vocal pieces and pieces that combine singing and instruments. The word derives from Greek μουσική (mousike; "art of the Muses"). In its most general form, the activities describing music as an art form include the production of works of music (songs, tunes, symphonies, and so on), the criticism of music, the study of the history of music, and the aesthetic examination of music. Ancient Greek and Indian philosophers defined music as tones ordered horizontally as melodies and vertically as harmonies. Common sayings such as "the harmony of the spheres" and "it is music to my ears" point to the notion that music is often ordered and pleasant to listen to. However, 20th-century composer John Cage thought that any sound can be music, saying, for example, "There is no noise, only sound."

Music (short story)

"Music" is a short story by Russian American author Vladimir Nabokov originally published in Russian in 1932.

Summary

The story uses third-person narration and tells the story of Victor, a self-conscious man for whom "music he did not know... could be likened to the patter of a conversation in a strange tongue." When Victor arrives at a party, he finds the other guests listening with varying degrees of engagement to a man named Wolfe play the piano. As Victor does not know the song being played, he loses interest. He catches a glimpse of his ex-wife at the party, but cannot look at her. He laments the fact that now he must "start all over" the long task of forgetting her (in a flashback, it's revealed that she left him for another, who may or may not be at the party). Throughout the entire story, Victor views the music as a structure that has him encaged in an awkward situation with his ex-wife; it had seemed to him "a narrow dungeon" until it ends, thus giving his ex-wife the opportunity to leave, which she does. Victor then realizes that the music was not a dungeon, but actually "incredible bliss, a magic glass dome that had embraced and imprisoned him and her," and which allowed him to "breathe the same air as she." After she leaves, another party-goer comments to Victor that he looked immune to the music and that he didn't think such a thing possible. His own inanity is revealed when Victor asks him what was played and he cannot tell whether it was Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata or Tekla Bądarzewska-Baranowska's rather easy piece, Maiden's Prayer.

Music (Erick Sermon and Marvin Gaye song)

"Music" is a 2001 hit single by Erick Sermon featuring archived vocals from Marvin Gaye.

The song was thought of by Sermon after buying a copy of Gaye's Midnight Love and the Sexual Healing Sessions album, which overlook some of the original album's earlier mixes. After listening to an outtake of Gaye's 1982 album track, "Turn On Some Music" (titled "I've Got My Music" in its initial version), Sermon decided to mix the vocals (done in a cappella) and add it into his own song. The result was similar to Natalie Cole's interpolation of her father, jazz great Nat "King" Cole's hit, "Unforgettable" revisioned as a duet. The hip hop and soul duet featuring the two veteran performers was released as the leading song of the soundtrack to the Martin Lawrence & Danny DeVito comedy, "What's the Worst That Could Happen?" The song became a runaway success rising to #2 on Billboard's R&B chart and was #1 on the rap charts. It also registered at #21 pop giving Sermon his highest-charted single on the pop charts as a solo artist and giving Gaye his first posthumous hit in 10 years following 1991's R&B-charted single, "My Last Chance" also bringing Gaye his 41st top 40 pop hit. There is also a version that's played on Adult R&B stations that removes Erick Sermon's rap verses. The song was featured in the 2011 Matthew McConaughey film The Lincoln Lawyer.

Alegria

Alegria or Alegría or Allegria may refer to:

Places

Music and entertainment

People

Alegría (Wayne Shorter album)

Alegría is an album by saxophonist Wayne Shorter released on Verve Records in 2003. It is the second album to feature the 'Footprints Quartet' of Shorter, Danilo Perez, John Patitucci and Brian Blade.

The piece "Orbits" is a complete and quasi-orchestral re-imagining of the song of the same name, originally recorded by the Second Miles Davis Quintet and released on the album Miles Smiles in 1967. "Capricorn 2" revisits another Shorter composition first recorded by Davis in 1967 (though not released until 1976 on the primarily Shorter-composed Water Babies), while "Angola" dates from Shorter's own 1965 album, The Soothsayer.

Reception

The Allmusic review by Richard S. Ginell awarded the album 4 stars, stating that "this disc seemed to confirm a long-awaited creative Indian summer for Wayne Shorter." Similarly, contemporaneous reviews by Ben Ratliff of The New York Times and CMJ New Music Report's Tad Hendrickson happily noted Shorter's return to form.Los Angeles Times critic Don Heckman commended both the album's "startling diversity" and the "imaginative, high-flying freedom [that characterizes] Shorter's playing," adding that Alegria offered "convincing testimony to Shorter's undiminished creativity."

Alegría (song)

"Alegría" is a pop song by Cirque du Soleil (from their arena show Alegría), which was recorded in 1994.

The song is a multi-lingual adaptation (in English, Italian and Spanish) of another Cirque du Soleil song titled "Un pazzo gridar", written by René Dupéré and Franco Dragone and featuring Italian-only lyrics. It is unknown who wrote the English lyrics for part of this song. "Un pazzo gridar" is also a song from the show Alegría.

In 1999, Cirque du Soleil recorded a new version of the song for their film "Alegría, the Film". This new version was also included in the soundtrack of the movie.

In 2006, Cirque du Soleil recorded a new multi-lingual adaptation (in English, Portuguese and Spanish) titled "La nova alegría" for their arena show Delirium. This new adaptation was written by René Dupéré, Robert Dillon, Franco Dragone, Paolo Ramos and Manuel Tadros.

Adaptations

"Alegría" was adapted in Hungarian by Ibolya Oláh under the title "Magyarország" ("Hungary") and in Finnish by Katri Helena under the title "Minä toivon" ("I Hope").