Destruction of instruments

In both clips of Jimi Hendrix and The Who the destruction of instruments is apparent. In the following paragraph I am going to describe my opinion of this process.

First of all I think Jimi Hendrix and The Who are both two of my favourite artists, and although I do think they are brilliant I do not completely agree with their methods. Instruments are very expensive and for a guitar player like me, that doesn't have infinite money, I have to save months in order to buy one. While artists like these just smash them down on the ground and break them. It makes me think that why couldn't they then give the instrument to someone who really wants/needs it. I'm sure it is some sort of art form but I think that it is a waste of money.

Next to that i find that such artist must show to their fans that they respect their instrument, before you know it the fans do the same thing.

My 80db experience

This year was my first year playing 80DB. I am not sure why I didn't sign myself in the previous events, but that doesn't matter.

The first thing that was noticable for me was that the orginazation wasn't as good as I thought it would be. The first three years of 80 DB when I was a student at Laar en Berg was visited by me. From a specators point of view it seemed a very organized event, as technical and other difficulties seemed unnoticable. However this 80 DB I experienced the stress that occured most of the time behind the scenes. I think that this stress was mainly caused by the nerves and the small room for the contestants or players. It didn't seem to matter, because everything went ok, but I sure was sweating like a dog sometimes running through the narrow and packed hallways for two songs that that required different types of guitars. which leads me to the second limitation.

I, as a guitar player, needed to bring two types of guitars: semi acoustic and electric. I didn't think it would be such of a bad thing, but it turned out that there were only liek 5 stations on stage to put your guitars. The first five guitarists coudl just keep it on stage. But the unlucky ones (me) had to bring them to the stage and return them every time. Especially for me this was a pain in the back with carrying both guitars at a certain moment to the stage while the hallways were packed.

Though I do not remember 80 DB as a negative experience. 80 DB was very fun to do, the songs list was allright and I played around 8 of them. Next to that the crowd was also pretty active. But the factor that made 80 DB so enjoyable for me was the people that were playing. We were playing with a very close group and we were all friends so that was great.

Overall 80 db was a lot of fun, and I'm sure to play again for sure next year and maybe try to sneak a little solo in somewhere.

PS: Andrew and I already have plans for 80 db next year, this awesome song by chriss cornell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDgUfS-Xrnw

xx

Jelle Hin t4a

Klassiek en unplugged

With our music class, we had to perform a song on a music festival we have once a year on our school, its called klassiek & unplugged.

To be honest, this was my first real time playing for a big crowd and I had to admit, from the two songs I had to do, the first one I was pretty nervous. The songs I had to play were Billie Jean with Coen of my class too, and because of the beatles. Both songs were fairly easy, but still somehow I remained nervous.

about every lesson we practised the song, and it went pretty good I think, though I am not sure because I was paying more attention to whether I was playing the chords right than how my classmates were singing. The billie jean song was very fun to do, I saw it as a little tribute to Michael Jackson. The singer chose to do a cover version of billie jean by krezip, this cover was more jazzy and actually only needed two guitars. Coen decided to concentrate more on the lower notes, while I played the higher notes (he had a capo, I don't .(Mine comes in tomorow by the way))

The performance of both songs went pretty well, actually exaclty like how we rehearsed it. I am very glad that I competed with it because now I am less shaky when performing on stage, and less shy when my family wants me to play guitar for them.

A few days I have decided to search for a few new artists to listen to, because I felt like I needed some refreshment on my Ipod.

Throughout the winterbreak I have discovered the band Sum 41. I knew this band before but this time listened to several songs of them. And it turns out I really like their music. The band as a whole has been through several phases, which is noticable in their music. On their first album they were playing punk rock only, catchy tunes with funny lyrics. After that they went through a somewhat more metal phase, in which the guitarist wanted more metal. Because he didn't like the punk rock. The music they made in this phase was really awesome, and is most of what I listen to now.

I also got the Help! album of the beatles which I listen to a lot now. Yesterday is just beautiful and Help is also a great song. Another artist that I listen to a lot now is Norah Jones, she makes wonderful jazzy music.

Favourite songs

I have several favourite songs of different genre's, I'll tell them, post a youtube link of the song and i'll tell you what i like about the song:

- Nobody's Wife - Anouk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BytyXtiyeDU

- The part I like most of this song is the refrain. It's a rough refrain while the chorus consist of a beautiful acoustic guitar riff.

- Aerosmith - Dream on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYojs78Tf9Y

- I love the guitar part of this song, its so original compared to other songs of its time. And who doesn't love Steven tylers voice?

- Avenged sevenfold - MIA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXac0tcCGCM

- Avenged sevenfold is probably my favourite metally band ( I think they sort of own theiur own genre.) This song is about, I believe the war in iraq. The intro of the song is beautiful, two guitars playing an acoustic riff. After that, probably the best part of the song comes, where everything breaks loose.

- Avenged sevenfold - Forgotten faces http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqqGgzQ2E94

- This is of Avenged Sevenfolds first album where they used to scream alot, which has changed. First i hated music where people screamed, but now I love it, it gives me sort of an adrenaline kick.

-Guns n'roses - Estranged http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GYimQSAIKM

- I love this song because of the guitar in the song. Its just beautiful.

-Hollywood undead - Black Dahlia http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZD85-Z5haw

- I used to don't like rap music at all, but this band kind of changed that. Although I still disgust Gangster rap. Also this band makes rap with a metal influence which is just awesome.

- Jamie cullum - All at sea http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUscn6VPfXc

- You probably wont believe it, but yes I also listen to jazz and blues. I love singers like jamie cullum, because their voices are just beautiful. Especially with this song I have a feeling of nostalgia, because we used to play this song a lot on our vacance in spain.

- The kooks - Naive http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-KnNVoFsCc

- This is a modern band which actually makes good music! Their riffs are amazing, and I remember playing this song for my guitar lessons. I was amazed because they use very advanced chords.

- Metallica - nothing else matters http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goap1EZDbC4

- This song is just so emotional, something you wouldn't expect from Metallica, which ussually makes great metal / hardrock.

- Ben - Michael Jackson http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U36DO_nrJeA

- Another very emotional song. I love MJ's younger voice.

- Queen - Somebody to love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxbFLYa0_bw

- Im a very big queen fan. And this is probably my favourite song of all queen songs. Freddy's voice is just fantastic, and the backing choir kicks ass too.

- Sabaton - Panzer battalion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rErIRw1okog

- What is more awesome than a Swedish metal band? Right nothing. The intro of this song is just orgasmic.

- Santana - Black magic woman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymh1o09vRWE

- Santana is an icon for me, his songs are so original, i just don't know how he comes up with it. I love this song because its very relaxing just like the follwing song

- Stevie Wonder - Knocks me off my feet http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwSuPXMHhaE

- My father used to play Stevie wonder in the car very often. I then never really liked it, but that has changed.

Introduction

Dear Reader

I am Jelle Hin, student at Laar en berg in my fourth year of MYP. In this blog I will describe my progress and experiences that I will obtain during my Music classes. To start this blog off I will give a bit of an introduction about how I feel and think of music.

I always loved music, when I was about 10 I started to listen to alot of music with my mp3 player. When I got older I started to listen to classic rock music instead of pop music, that basicly almost everybody in my environment listened to. I loved this classic rock music and bands like led zeppelin, aerosmith, metallica etc. inspired me to start playing the drums and guitar. My father thought me how to drum and I took classical guitar lessons. Eventually I had to choose between both and I chose the guitar.

Four years later I still play the guitar non stop. My music taste has also become much wider, nowadays I listen not only to classic rock, but majoraly metal/hardrock bands. Next to that I sometimes like to listen to jazz and blues, I used to find it crappy, but now I find it very inspiring.