calinelson.suu

     For this week I chose the song "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana (linked below). The song was released in 1991 by the rock band as a track on their album called Nevermind. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was written by Kurt Cobain, Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic. Kurt Cobain was the bands lead vocalist, guitarist and songwriter. Dave Grohl was the bands drummer  at the time and Krist Novoselic was the bands bassist.      The instruments on the song were (as expected) a bass, drums and a guitar. The song lasts for 5 minutes and goes back and forth from being calmer to being more intense. The song starts with a 35 second long instrumental intro, then begins the first section of calmer singing. The singing flips to being more intense at around 1 minute and at about 1 minute 30 seconds has a section of guitar. This pattern is repeated again two more times. They use repetition of the lyrics "hello, hello, hello, how low" as a transition from the calmer mu...

 For this week I chose the song "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin (linked below). I was surprised to see the song was 8 minutes long but when I looked up the lyrics, it didn't have too many. Listening to it I realized it was because a lot of the song is instrumental and the lyrics are sung pretty spaced out and slow.  Looking into it I found out that Jimmy Page played a 12 string electric guitar for a solo that happens around the 5 1/2 minute mark. That solo was apparently rated number 1 in the a 2009 release of Guitar World magazine for Greatest Guitar Solos in Rock and Roll history. The song is made up of singing and a relaxed guitar playing in the background at the start, then picks up a little energy at around the 2 minute mark adding more guitar layers to the music. That continues until about the 4 minute mark when drums are added into the layering. After a bit of that you get Jimmy Page's guitar solo at around 5 1/2 minutes which lasts for about a minute befo...

      The song I chose for this week is "Superstition" by Stevie Wonder (linked below). The song was released in 1972 and is considered to be in the genre of 'classic soul'. Some of the instruments used on the track include a hohner clavinet, drums, a moog bass, a trumpet and a saxophone. After looking into it I found out that Stevie Wonder played some of the instruments on the track himself. For this song he had Steve Madaio on the trumpet and Trevor Lawrence on the tenor saxophone (both of them having performed with other groups / people of the time like the Rolling Stones.)      The song has a pretty steady beat repeating in the back with some trumpet parts chiming in every once in a while. Personally I like the song and it reminds me of my Grandpa. He has probably played at least one Stevie Wonder song almost every time I've been in a car with him. We also play a card came called Rook a lot when I visit him and he likes to listen to music while we ...

     The song I chose for this week is "What'd I Say" by Ray Charles (linked below). The song was released in 1959 and has two parts to it for a total length of about 5 minutes. Some of the instruments used in the song include the  electric piano, saxophone and the drums. Ray Charles also worked with a girl group called The Raelettes (originally known as The Cookies before working for Charles) who sang the backing vocals for this, and some of his other pieces.     "What'd I Say" starts off with a pretty long instrumental intro that has some fun piano parts in it. I think the breaks for the instruments are one of my favorite parts. It stays pretty relaxed and repetitive, but upbeat. The lyrics in the song are also relatively repetitive and sung in short lines between instrument breaks. There's a lot of heavily repeated lines in the song, but a few of them are : "Tell m what'd I say", "And I wanna know" and "Said one more time...

  The song I chose for this week is "Good Vibrations" by The Beach Boys, released in 1966. I remember my parent's listening to some of their songs when I was younger like "Surfin' USA", "I Get Around" and a few others so their singing is a pretty nostalgic sound. The original 5 member's of the beach boy's included Brain Wilson, Dennis Wilson, Carl Wilson, Mike Love and Al Jardin. "Good Vibrations" was written specifically by Brian Wilson and Mike Love and some articles I read said Brian worked especially hard on the lyrics and sounds for the song.     "Good Vibrations" has a pretty unique sound to it paired with positive lyrics. Some of the prominent instruments in the song are the string bass, cello, jaw harp, an electro-theremin (which is that weird instrument that uses antennae to create sounds from moving your hands around in the air) and some others, all used to make the interesting sounds. The song is relatively sl...

 The song I chose for this week is "La Bamba" by Richie Valens. I chose this song because I remember my Dad (who speaks Spanish) listening to it a lot when I was growing up. It was one of his songs in Spanish that he would either turn on really loud in the car, play while working out in our basement, or just start singing parts of while walking around the house. I never understood what the lyrics were saying as a kid but the chorus of it definitely got stuck in my head a lot because of my Dad. Looking into it a little, the lyrics translated to English from Spanish don't seem to make too much sense either. I asked my older brother to translate some of the lyrics to English and he told me they say, "You gotta be pretty good to dance the Bamba / Both of us / But if you can I can / I am not a shiphand I'm a captain." Some articles I found talked about how the song was originally a Mexican Folk song and Richie Valens learned lyrics phonetically, combined it with ...