Music And Dance

Archive for October, 2008

OK, real confessions… I am a up to date worship leader and I Fancy Hymns! Hymns are great. They are regal, and many contain more theology than the run of the mill sermon these days! Old folk love them, traditional folk love them, but the majority of younger ones have thrown them out (along with everything before 2000) when they are worship leading. Gee, they even believe the Beatles are uncool (such lack of knowledge!).

Someplace in the midpoint cries the voice of good sense. Now granted, some hymns are funeral marches, time-consuming, slow, tedious and brain-deadening. Some contain rubbish theology and some are just plain irrelevant in both use of language and subject matter. Some are virtually unsingable, except to 13th century monks! However, in the middle of these types of hymns are some of the greatest songs ever written, and some of the most magnificent songs you could ever sing when worship leading!

Now, if you are young, and don’t consider me, test a couple of them out. Hymns like, “And Can It Be,” “Holy, Holy, Holy,” “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” and “How Great Thou Art” are awesome. As worship leaders, we need to be thinking about these songs for inclusion in our worship services, because there is an marvelous level of worship and instruction in the songs.

My inclination, both personal and of my church, is that we sing at least one hymn every Sunday church service. If you are resourceful and musical you can play it in such a way that it is thrilling and remarkable, and you can venture into the very presence of God using these old songs. On top of that, the old folk in the congregation will be excited. Consequently you win either way. Believe me, guys; there are some great songs you cannot live without in the hymns portion!

But if you are intending to do a hymn, don’t manufacture it into a funeral march! The older folks will love hymns done in a new and a innovative way, therefore pray and ask God for some inventive tips to make the hymn into a contemporary work of art. Then look at God unite all ages as they worship Him using this old but new song!

Caution!

One word of caution, principally to the conservative evangelical denominations. There is a mammoth inclination to have the worship songs, with the modern beat and instruments, and then insert the token hymn for the oldies, doing this with simply an organ or a piano, played in a traditional yet boring style. I strongly caution you against this, because this merely promotes the “us verses them” scenario, the “your music verses our music” polarizing we see in lots of churches.

Dubstep, techno and drum and bass engineers will at some point need a heavy Reece bass for there new dance floor track. The Reece bass is a classic ‘dirty bass’ sound. From the more subtle terrorist Reece to the hardcore alien girl Reece they all have one thing in common. The saw tooth wave.

So to start off with, get a multi oscillator synthesizer (ideally 3 or 4 oscillators) like the albino, logic’s ES2, Massive etc. Set all oscillators to the saw tooth. There are many harmonic frequencies in the saw tooth, The normal waves ramps upward and then falls. There are also sawtooth waves where the wave ramps down and then rises sharply. Commonly known as a reverse sawtooth. As signals, the two variations of the sawtooth sound the same until paired together.

Once you have got your multi oscillator synth running with 3 oscillators, the next step in the process is to detune one or 2 of the oscillators by around +/- 25cents, this is essential for drum and bass and dubstep. It gives the Reece a very deep edgy sound, rather than just a flat buzzing sound.

After setting up your initial saw tooth with De-turning, (this is essentially the basis of the Reece) – You can go ahead and start producing and shaping the noise for your type of music, dubstep or drum and bass. Here are some of the main parameters you can use:

Filter Envelopes:
A nice way to get a movement on the Reece bass is to add envelope to the filter section, Reece bass sounds are extremely responsive to filters and using a high pass you can get a very nice sounding lead, or use a low pass and get a very fat bass. try using about 20% of filter attack for dubstep and 30% for drum and bass.

Over the years of continuous improvement, the simple cellular phone can now do other functions. It is not just limited to its original role like sending a SMS message or calling someone. Some of the additional features to this device are MP3 players that can play music and video files, Camera that can take pictures or capture videos, a built in radio and some even have a built in TV. These are just some of the things that these new phones can do. The craze of mobilizing music allowing anyone to enjoy music even if she or he is on the move has also caught cellular phones.

Most of the cell phone companies now make it a point to have their new release models the capability to play MP3 ringtones. The Sony Ericson Walkman series is one proof to this. One of the best Sony Ericson Walkman models is the W890i, which aside from the ability to play WMA, WAV and MP3 files it is also just 10 mm thick and weighs about 78 grams. The phone maybe slim and slick but it can still pack a 4 Megabytes worth of music files. The advantage of the Walkman series over other Sony Ericson phones is that it can play music files with high quality audio output making it one of the best music phones out in the market. The cellular phone company Nokia also ensures that most of their new release phones can play MP3 files ringtones as well. According to some reports, the 6300 is one of the Nokia phones that can give high quality audio output making the phone the Nokia’s answer to the Walkman series. Another similar phone to a Walkman phone of Sony Ericson is the Nokia’s 5300, which main feature is playing MP3 and other media files. It also comes with an easy access play, pause and next button allowing the user to play an MP3 file with ease.

The Motorola cellular phone company did the same too. In almost all of its recent cell phones comes the feature allow it to play MP3 ringtones. A popular phone from Motorola is the RAZR V3, which is super slim but has a MP3 ring tone player other unique feature as well. This allows the Motorola phone users to enjoy high quality music even if he or she is on the move. The iPhone is one of the most advanced phones that can play MP3 files. It even has an interactive music player, which is what most users like.

This MP3 player feature is now a standard addition to the new phones that are released in the market today, no matter which company the phone came from. This is for the reason that cell phone users have already enjoyed the sound