Merit School of Music in the Community with Bridges: Partners in Music

When you’re learning a new piece, it always helps to listen to a recording.  Find out more about the music that you are learning for MeritFest right here at your computer by checking out some of these video clips.

Let’s start with the Hip Hop Concerto #5.  Your teacher has probably already told you that this piece is a 21st century take on a very famous piece by the Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach.  Bach wrote a set of six concertos which have come to be known as the Brandenburg Concertos.

About the Brandenburg Concertos

Did you know that the New York Philharmonic is on Facebook???  They have posted this video clip that will teach you more about J.S. Bach and the Brandenburg Concertos.  (Click on the link above to watch.)

Here are a number of very different performances of Brandenburg Concerto #5. You will hear some variations in how fast each group performs the piece. Do you think that it sounds better fast or slower? Also, the original version of Brandenburg Concerto #5 features the flute as one of the solo instruments. Notice that some of the flutists use a Baroque flute which looks quite different from today’s flute. Baroque flutes were made of wood which is why the flute is considered a member of the woodwind family of instruments.

Glenn Gould’s performance

Performance by the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx0yVYZhb-E

This next performance starts at the 3 minute mark.  Do you recognize the language spoken in the opening comments?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0YAd88havQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBw6wwa7eC8

So what about finding some non-classical inspiration for yourself?  Below are some video clips of musicians who started out with classical training and then decided to take their music in a different direction.

“Black Violin”

Classically trained at Fort Lauderdale’s Dillard High School of Performing Arts, Kev Marcus and Wil B have created a musical voice that is uniquely their own.  Their duo, “Black Violin”, fuses the musical styles of classical, hip hop, jazz, R&B, and funk.  Here is their take on the first movement of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto #3.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCXVCpcopa8

Black Violin’s Electronic Press Kit

Paul Dateh

Growing up in Los Angeles, Paul Dateh started studying classical violin at the age of 4.  On his first day of college at the University of Southern California though, he changed his major to jazz studies.  Hear how he has developed his musical voice on these two clips.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36Xt-XeWnHM

http://www.joost.com/33e7yes/t/Hip-Hop-Violinist-Paul-Dateh#id=33e7yes

Nuttin but Stringz

The duo “Nuttin but Stringz” is a family act featuring brothers Damien and Tourie Escobar.  The Escobars grew up in Queens in New York City and got their big break at a talent show held at the Apollo Theater in Harlem.  (The Apollo Theater has been around for almost 100 years and many great talents-including jazz legend Ella Fitzgerald–were discovered there.)  You might have seen them on television when they competed on the “America’s Got Talent” show.  If not, check them out on this video clip.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/35031/nuttin-but-stringz-91708

Nuttin but Stringz’s website features more videos.

Miri Ben-Ari

As a child and teenager in Israel, Miri Ben-Ari was a serious student of the classical violin.  However, after serving her mandatory time in the Israeli army, she decided that she needed to express herself in a different musical way.  She came to the United States and has earned herself the nickname “the Hip Hop Violinist”.

Miri Ben-Ari in her own words:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pT76_B_QF0

Her new single “Symphony of Brotherhood” honors Martin Luther King Jr.

Miri Ben-Ari’s website

Going back to the classical side of things, here are some performances of Johannes Brahms’ Variations on a theme by Haydn.  Brahms was one of our most famous Romantic composers and lived from 1833 to 1897.  In this piece (one of my personal favorites!), he took a musical theme written by Franz Joseph Haydn and composed a series of variations on it.  There are two instrumentations of this piece:  one for orchestra and another for piano duet.  Which do you like better?  Why?

Orchestral version

Here are two performances of the piano duet version.  In the first video, the performers are 9 and 10 years old!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hBZMOr0JBg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XV7cWW42tTw