Major Announcement and Interview with @Kidstruments

Hello everyone! Sorry about the lack of posts lately but between Faith's getting married in the next couple of weeks and I've been setting up for a new series plus running Team Young Spark as we head towards our first couple of major events... Life's been a little overwhelming. But seeing there has been 90+ views on the "Music Theory 101" series thus far, I think it's safe to assume that I will finish this season of it. The next series I'm going to do is a tutorial series on using and making the most out of Audacity. While it isn't the best program to do a lot of complicated audio manipulation, people underestimate its potential. By the time the series begins to trickle out, I should have released an animation project I've been working on with my friend Benjamin and everything audio related has been mixed and mastered in Audacity. Also, I want to revisit the Finale Tutorials but teach over 2014 this time.The original series had such a positive reception that I wouldn't imagine not doing it but I need to save up for 2014. Leave a comment if you would like to see more of them (and they will be actual lessons this time, not randomly teaching tools!)

The first major announcement is that I've been accepted as a panelist for Derpy Con South as my alias Harmonic Inferno, and I will be giving 2 lectures: One on the series I've been working on here (Music Theory 101) and the other an open discussion on arts activism. I wanted to make sure that if anyone here was interested in coming out to the convention and hearing them that you were aware in advance. The other thing I wanted to announce was Faith will be getting married in the near future. I mentioned it briefly before, but I wanted to make sure I gave her a major congratulations for her milestone with her fiance but for all the help she's done in building this site back up. Now without further ado, let's get onto the interview!

Adam: Explain what Kidstruments Fund is? How was it started and how long has
it been around?

Kidstruments: Kidstruments Fund is an organization that helps kids play instruments in school band or orchestra. It was started when my 6th grade orchestra teacher's violin broke. It was very sentimental to her and I raised money to try to fix it. She did not take the money but in the process I learned that there are kids without the sufficient funds to rent an instrument. I had this money and nothing to do with it, so I used it to start Kidstruments. Kidstruments has been around for 3 months now [as of the time of this interview].

A: What all does Kidstruments Fund do to help/ benefit the music community?

K: Kidstruments helps the music community by helping others playing music, by expanding the community (in the future hopefully greatly) and making more people to play the music that other people write. Now, as for the normal community, it shows people that little people (grammar for the win) can make big impacts. It also helps more people enjoy music. It also helps kids in school, because for some, a love of music might be the thing that makes them like school and be a better student. 

A: What goals does your group have towards helping the music community at

large?

K: Our goal to the music community at large is to help more and more people not just play music, but write it, understand it, and enjoy it. We try to grow it and expand it. Kidstruments is trying greatly to expand music all over the world.

A: How can someone help your cause?

K: People can help by donating online at [http://kidstrumentsfund.org/donate/] or they can send a check to:

Kidstruments Fund Inc.9425 N. Meridian #201IndianapolisIN 46260They can also follow us on Twitter [@Kidstruments] or Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/Kidstruments]. Finally, and most important, if music people just told other music people about us, I think so many musicians would remember how important their school band or orchestra was to their life, and would want to help kids get the same opportunity. The younger kids, after all, are the musicians of tomorrow.

Music Theory 101 #6: The Basic Skills of Music; Dynamics

Hello everyone and welcome back to the next episode of Music Theory 101. Sorry about vanishing, but between the end of school, the trip/ meeting in Minneapolis and then getting two major plans set up (announcements ASAP) I literally had no time to keep working. This will be the end of the explanations and salutations though because we have a month’s worth of material to make up in this extended post!

Music Terms:

~Amplitude
~Dynamics
~Forte and Piano
~Mezzo
~Adding -issimo (fortissimo, pianissimo)
~Fortepiano and Pianoforte

Catching everyone back up to speed, we have gone through posting about the basics of music and have made our way through two of the six: Pitch and Rhythm. This time, we move onward to the next topic for discussion; dynamics. Dynamics are the musical equivalent to amplitude. For those in need of a quick refresher, amplitude is the expansion or contraction of the wave’s height causes the wave to have more or less force. This increase or decrease in power can cause our ears to perceive what we hear to be louder or softer. That’s honestly all there is to this one in terms of science and terminology. However, dynamics play a more important role in music.

Music’s emotional weight is primarily built off of dynamic control. It is true to the point of listening to movies. Think to the last movie you’ve seen and how the dynamics of the music played into each point that the scene was trying to make. For example, whenever there is a romantic scene and there is a couple talking, the music backs off but you can hear that they are playing. Once they start to kiss,  the music becomes really loud to show that emotion’s weight. The same can be argued for any kind of music. A classical example is “March of the Scaffolds” by Hector Berlioz. The beginning starts out low and quiet until the cellos and bass come in with the motif of the movement. Every time there is portrayed a horrifying moment or a moment of triumph in the movement then the horns play loud. Whenever the thought of his beloved come to him, then it is soft and tender. Modern music examples is the difference between a rock ballad and heavy metal. The difference between trance/chillstep and hard style/brostep. Dynamics control a lot in music.

Now that we know what it is and what they do, why not explain how they are in music. Before we begin however, it should be noted that they are very situational. None are defined by an absolute “loudness” like pitch and other things in music. Dynamics are based off their original words in Italian and use the first letter to represent the dynamic. Forte is considered to be “loud” and is shown by adding an italicized f. Piano is considered “soft” or quiet and is shown with an italicized p. Next thing to know about with dynamics is the mezzo range. Mezzo means medium and if it’s used as a prefix, it means either medium loud, mezzo forte or mf, or medium soft, mezzo piano or mp.

There are also extremes by adding more of each letter into the mix, getting fortissimo, ff and pianissimo, pp. When you add the -ssimo suffix; meaning very, you can create more extremes for your dynamic timeline. You can add more letters to mean more contrast, such as fffffffffff. Just be warned that the mentioning of relations of dynamics are meant to be taken. So don’t expect a cannon like sound from your instruments… Unless you use a cannon. The last thing related to dynamics I want to mention is the case of fortepianos. Fortepiano and it’s reverse pianoforte are used for extreme changes in dynamic that are meant to last temporarily. They are played as they are read. In the case of fortepianos, fp, they should be played loudly and then soft. The reverse is true for pianofortes, though they aren’t as commonly used.

There is one other dynamic term that I will go over during our next episode. I hope this extended post was worth the wait! Keep an eye out for announcements in the next day or two.