1.
Silver Spring, Maryland
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Silver Spring is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. It had a population of 76,716 according to 2013 estimates by the United States Census Bureau, making it the fourth most populous place in Maryland, after Baltimore, Columbia, and Germantown. The urbanized, oldest, and southernmost part of Silver Spring is a business hub that lies at the north apex of Washington. As of 2004, the Central Business District held 7,254,729 square feet of space,5216 dwelling units and 17.6 acres of parkland. The population density of this CBD area of Silver Spring was 15,600 per square mile all within 360 acres, the community has recently undergone a significant renaissance, with the addition of major retail, residential, and office developments. Silver Spring takes its name from a spring discovered there in 1840 by Francis Preston Blair. Acorn Park, tucked away in an area of south Silver Spring away from the downtown area, is believed to be the site of the original spring. As an unincorporated area, Silver Springs boundaries are not officially defined and this definition is a 15% reduction from the 9.4 sq. mi. used in previous years. The United States Geological Survey locates the center of Silver Spring at 38°59′26″N 77°1′35″W, by another definition, Silver Spring is located at 39°0′15″N 77°1′8″W. Residents of a swath of South-Eastern Montgomery County have Silver Spring mailing addresses. This area extends roughly from the Washington, D. C, Prince Georges County, Maryland and Howard County, Maryland lines to the west, north and east, and Rock Creek Park and Plyers Mill Road to the west and north-west. These boundaries make Silver Spring larger in area than any city in Maryland except for Baltimore. Rock Creek Park passes along the west side of Silver Spring, and offers hiking trails, picnic grounds, and bicycling on weekends, Sligo Creek Park follows Sligo Creek through Silver Spring, it offers hiking trails, tennis courts, playgrounds and bicycling. The latter is facilitated on weekends, when parts of Sligo Creek Parkway are closed to automobiles, the bike trails are winding and slower than most in the region. Recently, rocks have been spread along either side of the road, providing a hazardous bike ride, acorn Park in the downtown area of Silver Spring is believed to be the site of the eponymous silver spring. The 14. 5-acre Jesup Blair Park was recently renovated and features a field, tennis courts, basketball courts. Brookside Gardens is a 50-acre park within Wheaton Regional Park, in greater Silver Spring and it is located on the original site of Stadler Nursery. Northwest Branch Park is a 700-acre park surrounding the Northwest Branch of the Anacostia River, the park includes hiking, equestrian, and cycling trails on the Northwest Branch and Rachel Carson Greenway Trails
2.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
3.
Lo-fi music
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Lo-fi music are sound recordings that are of lower quality than the usual standard for modern music. The term was adopted in late 1986 by WFMU DJ William Berger, the music also refers to a movement which grew primarily from American underground music scenes in the early 1980s. Associated artists include Sebadoh, Pavement, Liz Phair, and Beck, allMusic writes, Throughout rock & rolls history, recordings were made cheaply and quickly, often on substandard equipment. In that sense, the earliest rock & roll records, most of the rock of the 60s. JW Farquhars home-recorded 1973 album The Formal Female is considered a forerunner to lo-fi artists such as R
4.
Underground music
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Underground music comprises musical genres beyond mainstream culture. Any song that is not being legally commercialized is considered underground, some underground rock bands never got non-mainstream roots. They are radical, aggressive 60s bands such as Velvet Underground, The Stooges, MC5, 70s bands like The Sex Pistols, The Damned, The Clash, and 80s hardcore punk bands like Discharge. Some underground styles eventually became mainstream, commercialized pop styles, as did for example, in the 2000s, the increasing availability of the Internet and digital music technologies has made underground music easier to distribute using streaming audio and podcasts. Some experts in cultural studies now argue that there is no underground because the Internet has made what was underground music accessible to everyone at the click of a mouse. One expert, Martin Raymond, of London-based company The Future Laboratory, commented in an article in The Independent, saying trends in music, art, now transmitted laterally and collaboratively via the internet. You once had a series of gatekeepers in the adoption of a trend, the innovator, the early adopter, the late adopter, the mainstream, the late mainstream. But now it goes straight from the innovator to the mainstream, frank Zappa attempted to define underground by noting that the mainstream comes to you, but you have to go to the underground. Black metal is also a form of music and its Norwegian scene are notorious for their association with church burnings. All of extreme metal is considered underground music for its extreme nature, in a Counterpunch magazine article, Twiin argues that Underground music is free media, because by working independently, you can say anything in your music and be free of corporate censorship. Underground music of this type is often promoted through word-of-mouth or by community radio DJs. In the early scenes, such as the Grateful Dead jam band fan scenes or the 1970s punk scenes. In the 2000s, underground music easier to distribute, using streaming audio. A music underground can also refer to the culture of music in a city. The Kitchen is an example of what was an important New York City underground music venue in the 1960s and 1970s, CBGB is another famous New York City underground music venue claiming to be Home of Underground Rock since 1973. Independent music Underground hip hop Underground art
5.
Alternative country
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Alternative country is a loosely defined subgenre of country music, which includes acts that differ significantly in style from mainstream or pop country music. It has been used to describe country music bands and artists that have incorporated influences ranging from rock, bluegrass, rockabilly, honky-tonk, alternative rock, folk rock. Attempts to combine punk and country were pioneered by Jason and the Scorchers, members and figures associated with Uncle Tupelo formed three major bands in the genre, Wilco, Son Volt and Bottle Rockets. Other influential bands included Blue Mountain, Whiskeytown, and Blood Oranges, lyrics may be bleak or socially aware, but also more heartfelt and less likely to use the clichés sometimes used by mainstream country musicians. No Depression, the magazine dedicated to the genre, declared that it covered alternative-country music. Another major influence was country rock, the result of fusing country music with a rock & roll sound, the artist most commonly thought to have originated country rock is Gram Parsons, although Michael Nesmith, Steve Earle and Gene Clark are frequently identified as important innovators. The third factor was punk rock, which supplied an energy, the bands Blue Mountain, Whiskeytown, Blood Oranges and Drive-By Truckers further developed this tradition before most began to move more in the direction of rock music in the 2000s. List of alternative country musicians Heartland rock Red Dirt Southern rock Texas country music Notes Bibliography Alden, Grant, & Blackstock, no Depression, An Introduction to Alternative Country Music. Modern Twang, An Alternative Country Music Guide and Directory, kasten, Roy, Fifteen Things You Might Not Know about The Bottle Rockets, on Their Fifteenth Birthday, Riverfront Times. Hogeland, William, Emulating the Real and Vital Guthrie, Not St. Woody, so what is insurgent country anyway. From American Studies at the University of Virginia
6.
Guitar
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The guitar is a musical instrument classified as a fretted string instrument with anywhere from four to 18 strings, usually having six. The sound is projected either acoustically, using a wooden or plastic and wood box, or through electrical amplifier. It is typically played by strumming or plucking the strings with the fingers, the guitar is a type of chordophone, traditionally constructed from wood and strung with either gut, nylon or steel strings and distinguished from other chordophones by its construction and tuning. There are three types of modern acoustic guitar, the classical guitar, the steel-string acoustic guitar, and the archtop guitar. The tone of a guitar is produced by the strings vibration, amplified by the hollow body of the guitar. The term finger-picking can also refer to a tradition of folk, blues, bluegrass. The acoustic bass guitar is an instrument that is one octave below a regular guitar. Early amplified guitars employed a body, but a solid wood body was eventually found more suitable during the 1960s and 1970s. As with acoustic guitars, there are a number of types of guitars, including hollowbody guitars, archtop guitars and solid-body guitars. The electric guitar has had a influence on popular culture. The guitar is used in a variety of musical genres worldwide. It is recognized as an instrument in genres such as blues, bluegrass, country, flamenco, folk, jazz, jota, mariachi, metal, punk, reggae, rock, soul. The term is used to refer to a number of chordophones that were developed and used across Europe, beginning in the 12th century and, later, in the Americas. The modern word guitar, and its antecedents, has applied to a wide variety of chordophones since classical times. Many influences are cited as antecedents to the modern guitar, at least two instruments called guitars were in use in Spain by 1200, the guitarra latina and the so-called guitarra morisca. The guitarra morisca had a back, wide fingerboard. The guitarra Latina had a sound hole and a narrower neck. By the 14th century the qualifiers moresca or morisca and latina had been dropped, and it had six courses, lute-like tuning in fourths and a guitar-like body, although early representations reveal an instrument with a sharply cut waist
7.
Vocal
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The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal folds for talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, etc. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of sound production in which the vocal folds are the primary sound source. Generally speaking, the mechanism for generating the human voice can be subdivided into three parts, the lungs, the vocal folds within the larynx, and the articulators, the lung must produce adequate airflow and air pressure to vibrate vocal folds. The vocal folds are a vibrating valve that chops up the airflow from the lungs into audible pulses that form the sound source. The muscles of the larynx adjust the length and tension of the folds to ‘fine-tune’ pitch. The articulators articulate and filter the sound emanating from the larynx, the vocal folds, in combination with the articulators, are capable of producing highly intricate arrays of sound. The tone of voice may be modulated to suggest emotions such as anger, surprise, singers use the human voice as an instrument for creating music. Adult men and women typically have different sizes of vocal fold, adult male voices are usually lower-pitched and have larger folds. The male vocal folds, are between 17 mm and 25 mm in length, the female vocal folds are between 12.5 mm and 17.5 mm in length. The folds are within the larynx and they are attached at the back to the arytenoids cartilages, and at the front to the thyroid cartilage. They have no outer edge as they blend into the side of the tube while their inner edges or margins are free to vibrate. They have a three layer construction of an epithelium, vocal ligament, then muscle, which can shorten and they are flat triangular bands and are pearly white in color. Above both sides of the cord is the vestibular fold or false vocal cord, which has a small sac between its two folds. The difference in vocal folds size between men and women means that they have differently pitched voices, additionally, genetics also causes variances amongst the same sex, with mens and womens singing voices being categorized into types. For example, among men, there are bass, baritone, tenor and countertenor, there are additional categories for operatic voices, see voice type. This is not the source of difference between male and female voice. Men, generally speaking, have a vocal tract, which essentially gives the resultant voice a lower-sounding timbre. This is mostly independent of the folds themselves
8.
Drag City (record label)
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Drag City is a Chicago-based independent record label. It was established with a Royal Trux single release in 1990 in Chicago, Illinois by Dan Koretzky, Drag City specializes in experimental indie rock acts. Bands that have released material on Drag City include, The label released the US version of Scott Walkers Tilt in 1997, walker described releasing the album on the indie as an experiment. Booth were also a member of Chestnut Station, several Drag City albums have been licensed to Domino Records for British release. In 1997 Drag City began publishing printed works such as the literary magazine The Minus Times and they have also distributed films such as the 2013 documentary The Source Family. Drag City has decided to not release the music of its artist roster on any streaming platform, list of record labels Official site
9.
Singer-songwriter
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Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose, and perform their own musical material, including lyrics and melodies. The genre began with the folk-acoustic tradition, singer-songwriters often provide the sole accompaniment to an entire composition or song, typically using a guitar or piano. Singer-songwriter is used to define popular music artists who write and perform their own material, such an artist performs the roles of composer, lyricist, vocalist, instrumentalist, and often self-manager. Most records by artists have a similarly straightforward and spare sound that placed emphasis on the song itself. The term has also used to describe songwriters in the rock, folk, and pop music genres including Henry Russell, Aristide Bruant, Hank Williams. Song topics include political protest, as in the case of the Almanac Singers, Pete Seeger, the concept of a singer-songwriter can be traced to ancient bardic oral tradition, which has existed in various forms throughout the world. Poems would be performed as chant or song, sometimes accompanied by a harp or other similar instrument, after the invention of printing, songs would be written and performed by ballad sellers. Usually these would be versions of existing tunes and lyrics, which were constantly evolving and this developed into the singer-songwriting traditions of folk culture. The term singer-songwriter in North America can be traced back to singers who developed works in the blues and folk music style. Early to mid-20th century American singer-songwriters include Lead Belly, Jimmie Rodgers, Blind Lemon Jefferson, T-Bone Walker, Blind Willie McTell, Lightnin Hopkins, Son House, the tradition of writing topical songs was established by this group of musicians. This focus on social issues has greatly influenced the singer-songwriter genre, artists who had been primarily songwriters, notably Carole King, Townes Van Zandt, and Neil Diamond, also began releasing work as performers. In contrast to the approach of most prior country and folk music. The adjectives confessional and sensitive were often used singer-songwriter style, in the rock band era, members were not technically singer-songwriters as solo acts. However, many were singer-songwriters who created songs with band members. Many others like Eric Clapton found success as singer-songwriters in their later careers, there were hints of cross-pollination, but rock and folk music had remained largely separate genres, often with different audiences. An early attempt at fusing elements of folk and rock was highlighted in the Animals House of the Rising Sun, dylan plugged an entire generation into the milieu of the singer-songwriter. In the mid- to late 1960s, bands and singer-songwriters began to proliferate the underground New York art/music scene. Lotti Golden, in her Atlantic debut album Motor-Cycle, chronicled her life in NYCs East Village in the late 60s counterculture, visiting subjects such as gender identity, kate Bush remained distinctive throughout with her idiosyncratic style
10.
Genre
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Genre is any form or type of communication in any mode with socially-agreed upon conventions developed over time. Genres form by conventions that change over time as new genres are invented, often, works fit into multiple genres by way of borrowing and recombining these conventions. Stand alone texts, works, or pieces of communication may have individual styles, some genres may be rigid with strictly adhered to guidelines while others may be very flexible. Genre began as a classification system for ancient Greek literature. Poetry, prose, and performance each had a specific and calculated style that related to the theme of the story. Speech patterns for comedy would not be appropriate for tragedy, in later periods genres proliferated and developed in response to changes in audiences and creators. Genre became a tool to help the public make sense out of unpredictable art. Because art is often a response to a state, in that people write/paint/sing/dance about what they know about. Genre suffers from the ills of any classification system. Genre is to be reassessed and scrutinized and to works on their unique merit. While the genre of storytelling has been relegated as lesser form of art because of the heavily borrowed nature of the conventions, proponents argue that the genius of an effective genre piece is in the variation, recombination, and evolution of the codes. The term genre is used in the history and criticism of visual art. These are distinguished from staffage, incidental figures in what is primarily a landscape or architectural painting, Genre painting may also be used as a wider term covering genre painting proper, and other specialized types of paintings such as still-life, landscapes, marine paintings and animal paintings. The concept of the hierarchy of genres was a one in artistic theory. It was strongest in France, where it was associated with the Académie française which held a role in academic art. Genres may be determined by technique, tone, content. Genre should not be confused with age category, by which literature may be classified as adult, young adult. They also must not be confused with format, such as novel or picture book
