Free Music Articles

Evidence of the earliest musical instruments can give us great insight into the history of music and the role it has played in human life throughout the millennia.

One of the oldest confirmed instruments that has been widely studied is a bone flute found in Europe. It is a hollowed out radius bone from a swan with holes and notches carved into it. Almost assuredly, there existed many different types of instruments before this, but the farther back you go the harder it is to find solid material evidence. A flute is a relatively complex instrument though, so simpler ones were likely to exist much earlier.

Okay, so the title of this blog is the title of a song by a band which I am shame-faced to admit I have become more than obsessed by over these past months – The Midnight Beast. If you are unfamiliar with said band I’ll give you a brief synopsis:

The comedy/lyrical genre singer/songwriters from London, consisting of Ashley Horne, Stefan Abingdon and Dru Wakely reached their present level of notoriety/celebrity after their parody on Youtube of Ke$ha’s ‘TiK ToK’. Having had (understandably – it was pure genius) more than 7 million hits on that particular song, gave them the confidence in their already existing fan base to start producing more and more parodies, mixed in with the occasional original ditty. They have now started hitting the mainstream, with their debut single ‘Booty Call’ being played on Radio 1, and having made appearances at the Reading festival.

“Rogue Notes and Phones,” the latest release from Lansing, Michigan based indie band The Hat Madder, takes a few tracks to build steam, but when it gets going it’s an enjoyable, if imperfect, ride. Opening up with the instrumental “This Shady Little Neighborhood,” the album sets a sinister tone with riffs lifted from the Dischord catalog and big, pummeling drums. This vibe is continued with “The Streets Don’t Lie,” a driving rock tune littered with distorted vocals and Sonic Youth-style guitar noise. The song essentially peters out, and I found my mind starting to wander, until the opening strains of song number three “Let the Good Times Last.”

To those who may play instruments but never really focused on learning music theory, your hesitation is warranted. The standard method of teaching theory includes all sorts of redundancies and complications that reduce it to a hard-to-apply series of terms and classifications. That being said, theory is still incredibly useful and rewarding if understood. So how do you go about learning it in a simpler and more utilitarian way?

The key is to focus on intervals, and you can find many free music lessons online that will lay them out for you. And understand that when I say focus on intervals, I mean learning their names as well as learning their sounds backwards and forwards. A true understanding of theory means not disconnecting it from sound at any point, but this is hard to do when introduced to scales and other large collections of intervals at once.

On the night of October 1st, 2010, Kurt Rosenwinkel teamed up with the United States Air Force Airmen of Note to perform an enthusiastic (and slightly bizarre) night of jazz tunes. The combination of the modern jazz guitarist and the fully uniformed Air Force band created a very unique musical environment that Rosenwinkel fans are probably not used to seeing, to say the least.

To start things off in the impressive Lisner Auditorium of George Washington University was a rendition of the star spangled banner, complete with formal honor guard. This was most likely the first time a Rosenwinkel gig had been preempted with such a ceremony.