1.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
2.
Brooklyn
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Brooklyn is the most populous borough of New York City, with a Census-estimated 2,636,735 residents in 2015. It borders the borough of Queens at the end of Long Island. Today, if New York City dissolved, Brooklyn would rank as the third-most populous city in the U. S. behind Los Angeles, the borough continues, however, to maintain a distinct culture. Many Brooklyn neighborhoods are ethnic enclaves, Brooklyns official motto, displayed on the Borough seal and flag, is Eendraght Maeckt Maght which translates from early modern Dutch as Unity makes strength. Since 2010, Brooklyn has evolved into a hub of entrepreneurship and high technology startup firms. The history of European settlement in Brooklyn spans more than 350 years, the neighborhood of Marine Park was home to North Americas first tidal mill. It was built by the Dutch, and the foundation can be seen today, however, the area was not formally settled as a town. Many incidents and documents relating to this period are in Gabriel Furmans early compilation, what is today Brooklyn left Dutch hands after the final English conquest of New Netherland in 1664, a prelude to the Second Anglo–Dutch War. The English reorganized the six old Dutch towns on southwestern Long Island as Kings County on November 1,1683 and this tract of land was recognized as a political entity for the first time, and the municipal groundwork was laid for a later expansive idea of Brooklyn identity. On August 27,1776 was fought the Battle of Long Island, the first major engagement fought in the American Revolutionary War after independence was declared, and the largest of the entire conflict. British troops forced Continental Army troops under George Washington off the heights near the sites of Green-Wood Cemetery, Prospect Park. The fortified American positions at Brooklyn Heights consequently became untenable and were evacuated a few days later, One result of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 was the evacuation of the British from New York City, celebrated by residents into the 20th century. The New York Navy Yard operated in Wallabout Bay for the entire 19th century, the first center of urbanization sprang up in the Town of Brooklyn, directly across from Lower Manhattan, which saw the incorporation of the Village of Brooklyn in 1817. Reliable steam ferry service across the East River to Fulton Landing converted Brooklyn Heights into a town for Wall Street. Ferry Road to Jamaica Pass became Fulton Street to East New York, Town and Village were combined to form the first, kernel incarnation of the City of Brooklyn in 1834. Industrial deconcentration in mid-century was bringing shipbuilding and other manufacturing to the part of the county. Each of the two cities and six towns in Kings County remained independent municipalities, and purposely created non-aligning street grids with different naming systems and it later became the most popular and highest circulation afternoon paper in America. The publisher changed to L. Van Anden on April 19,1842, on May 14,1849 the name was shortened to The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, on September 5,1938 it was further shortened to Brooklyn Eagle
3.
Pop music
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Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form in the United States and United Kingdom during the mid 1950s. The terms popular music and pop music are used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular. Pop and rock were synonymous terms until the late 1960s, when they were used in opposition from each other. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music. Pop music is eclectic, and often borrows elements from other such as urban, dance, rock, Latin. Identifying factors include generally short to medium-length songs written in a format, as well as the common use of repeated choruses, melodic tunes. David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, according to Pete Seeger, pop music is professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music, the music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs. Pop music, as a genre, is seen as existing and developing separately, pop music continuously evolves along with the terms definition. The term pop song was first recorded as being used in 1926, Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues and hillbilly music. The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pops earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience. Since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the meaning of non-classical mus, usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles. Grove Music Online also states that, in the early 1960s pop music competed terminologically with beat music, while in the USA its coverage overlapped with that of rock and roll. From about 1967, the term was used in opposition to the term rock music. Whereas rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of music, pop was more commercial, ephemeral. It is not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward, and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative. It is, provided from on high rather than being made from below, pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged. The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment, the lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions
4.
Rock music
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It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by blues, rhythm and blues and country music. Rock music also drew strongly on a number of genres such as electric blues and folk. Musically, rock has centered on the guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar. Typically, rock is song-based music usually with a 4/4 time signature using a verse-chorus form, like pop music, lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political in emphasis. Punk was an influence into the 1980s on the subsequent development of subgenres, including new wave, post-punk. From the 1990s alternative rock began to rock music and break through into the mainstream in the form of grunge, Britpop. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the visually distinctive goth and emo subcultures and this trio of instruments has often been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments, particularly keyboards such as the piano, Hammond organ and synthesizers. The basic rock instrumentation was adapted from the blues band instrumentation. A group of musicians performing rock music is termed a rock band or rock group, Rock music is traditionally built on a foundation of simple unsyncopated rhythms in a 4/4 meter, with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four. Melodies are often derived from older musical modes, including the Dorian and Mixolydian, harmonies range from the common triad to parallel fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock, because of its complex history and tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that it is impossible to bind rock music to a rigidly delineated musical definition. These themes were inherited from a variety of sources, including the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music and rhythm, as a result, it has been seen as articulating the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions, rock and roll usually implies an identification of male sexuality, according to Simon Frith rock was something more than pop, something more than rock and roll. Rock musicians combined an emphasis on skill and technique with the concept of art as artistic expression, original. The foundations of music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Its immediate origins lay in a melding of various musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music, with country. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, debate surrounds which record should be considered the first rock and roll record. Other artists with rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis
5.
Drum kit
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A drum kit consists of a mix of drums and idiophones most significantly cymbals but also including the woodblock and cowbell. In the 2000s, some also include electronic instruments and both hybrid and entirely electronic kits are used. If some or all of them are replaced by electronic drums, the drum kit is usually played while seated on a drum stool or throne. The drum kit differs from instruments that can be used to produce pitched melodies or chords, even though drums are often placed musically alongside others that do, such as the piano or guitar. The drum kit is part of the rhythm section used in many types of popular and traditional music styles ranging from rock and pop to blues. Other standard instruments used in the section include the electric bass, electric guitar. Many drummers extend their kits from this pattern, adding more drums, more cymbals. Some performers, such as some rockabilly drummers, use small kits that omit elements from the basic setup, some drum kit players may have other roles in the band, such as providing backup vocals, or less commonly, lead vocals. Thus, in an early 1800s orchestra piece, if the called for bass drum, triangle and cymbals. In the 1840s, percussionists began to experiment with foot pedals as a way to them to play more than one instrument. In the 1860s, percussionists started combining multiple drums into a set, the bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, and other percussion instruments were all played using hand-held drum sticks. Double-drumming was developed to one person to play the bass and snare with sticks. With this approach, the drum was usually played on beats one. This resulted in a swing and dance feel. The drum set was referred to as a trap set. By the 1870s, drummers were using an overhang pedal, most drummers in the 1870s preferred to do double drumming without any pedal to play multiple drums, rather than use an overhang pedal. Companies patented their pedal systems such as Dee Dee Chandler of New Orleans 1904–05, liberating the hands for the first time, this evolution saw the bass drum played with the foot of a standing percussionist. The bass drum became the central piece around which every other percussion instrument would later revolve and it was the golden age of drum building for many famous drum companies, with Ludwig introducing
6.
Percussion
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A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater, struck, scraped or rubbed by hand, or struck against another similar instrument. The percussion family is believed to include the oldest musical instruments, the percussion section of an orchestra most commonly contains instruments such as timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, triangle and tambourine. However, the section can also contain non-percussive instruments, such as whistles and sirens, percussive techniques can also be applied to the human body, as in body percussion. On the other hand, keyboard instruments, such as the celesta, are not normally part of the percussion section, Percussion instruments may play not only rhythm, but also melody and harmony. Percussion is commonly referred to as the backbone or the heartbeat of an ensemble, often working in close collaboration with bass instruments. In jazz and other popular ensembles, the pianist, bassist, drummer. Most classical pieces written for full orchestra since the time of Haydn and Mozart are orchestrated to place emphasis on the strings, woodwinds, however, often at least one pair of timpani is included, though they rarely play continuously. Rather, they serve to provide additional accents when needed, in the 18th and 19th centuries, other percussion instruments have been used, again generally sparingly. The use of percussion instruments became more frequent in the 20th century classical music, in almost every style of music, percussion plays a pivotal role. In classic jazz, one almost immediately thinks of the rhythm of the hi-hats or the ride cymbal when the word swing is spoken. Because of the diversity of instruments, it is not uncommon to find large musical ensembles composed entirely of percussion. Rhythm, melody, and harmony are all represented in these ensembles, music for pitched percussion instruments can be notated on a staff with the same treble and bass clefs used by many non-percussive instruments. Music for percussive instruments without a pitch can be notated with a specialist rhythm or percussion-clef. The word percussion has evolved from Latin terms, percussio, as a noun in contemporary English it is described in Wiktionary as the collision of two bodies to produce a sound. Hornbostel–Sachs has no high-level section for percussion, Most percussion instruments are classified as idiophones and membranophones.1 Concussion idiophones or clappers, played in pairs and beaten against each other, such as zills and clapsticks. 111.2 Percussion idiophones, includes many percussion instruments played with the hand or by a mallet, such as the hang, gongs and the xylophone. 21 Struck drums, includes most types of drum, such as the timpani, snare drum, (Included in most drum sets or 412. Stringed instruments played with such as the hammered dulcimer
7.
Billy Joel
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William Martin Billy Joel is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. Since releasing his first hit song, Piano Man, in 1973, Joel has become the sixth best-selling recording artist and his compilation album Greatest Hits Vol.1 &2 is one of the best-selling albums in the US. Joel had Top 40 hits in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, achieving 33 Top 40 hits in the US and he is also a six-time Grammy Award winner who has been nominated for 23 Grammy Awards. He has sold more than 150 million records worldwide, making him one of the artists of all time. Joel was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in 2001, Joel received the Johnny Mercer Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In 2013, Joel received the Kennedy Center Honors, the nations highest honor for influencing American culture through the arts, with the exception of the 2007 songs All My Life and Christmas in Fallujah, Joel stopped writing and releasing pop/rock material after 1993s River of Dreams. However, he continues to tour, and he plays songs from all eras of his solo career. William Martin Joel was born in the Bronx on May 9,1949, in 1963, when ZIP codes were assigned, the section of Levittown in Oyster Bay was given a Hicksville, New York ZIP code and has since been part of Hicksville. Joels father, Howard Joel, a classical pianist, was born in Germany, to a Jewish family, Howard immigrated to Switzerland and later to the US to escape the Nazi regime. Joels mother, Rosalind, was born in England to Jewish parents, Philip, Rosalind and Howard Joel divorced in 1957. Howard Joel moved to Vienna, Austria, Billy Joel has a sister, Judith, and a half-brother, Alexander Joel, a classical conductor in Europe, who was the chief musical director of the Staatstheater Braunschweig from 2001 to 2014. He reluctantly began piano lessons at an age, at his mothers insistence, his teachers including the noted American pianist Morton Estrin. As a teenager, Joel took up boxing so he could defend himself and he boxed successfully on the amateur Golden Gloves circuit for a short time, winning 22 bouts, but abandoned the sport shortly after his nose was broken in his 24th boxing match. Joel attended Hicksville High School until 1967, but he did not graduate with his class, though Joel was a comparatively strong student, at the end of his senior year, he did not have enough credits to graduate. Rather than attend school to earn his diploma, Joel decided to begin a career in music, I told them. If Im not going to Columbia University, Im going to Columbia Records, Joel did eventually sign with Columbia. In 1992, he submitted essays to the board and was awarded his diploma at Hicksville Highs annual-graduation ceremony,25 years after leaving. After seeing The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, Joel decided to pursue a career in music, in an interview he said of the groups impact, That one performance changed my life … Up to that moment Id never considered playing rock as a career
8.
Karen Carpenter
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Karen Anne Carpenter was an American singer and drummer. She and her brother Richard Carpenter formed the 1970s duo The Carpenters and her skills as a drummer earned admiration from drumming luminaries and peers, but she is best known for her vocal performances. She typically sang in a vocal range. Carpenter suffered from anorexia nervosa, a disorder that was little known at the time. She died at age 32 from heart failure caused by related to her illness. Carpenters death led to increased visibility and awareness of eating disorders, Karen Anne Carpenter was born in New Haven, Connecticut, the daughter of Agnes Reuwer and Harold Bertram Carpenter. Harold had been born in China where his parents were missionaries and was educated at boarding schools in England, when she was young, she enjoyed playing baseball with other children on the street. On the TV program This Is Your Life, she stated that she liked pitching and later, in the early 1970s and her brother Richard developed an interest in music at an early age, becoming a piano prodigy. Karen enjoyed dancing and by age 4 was enrolled in tap dancing, the family moved in June 1963 to the Los Angeles suburb of Downey. When Carpenter entered Downey High School, she joined the school band, bruce Gifford, the conductor gave her the glockenspiel, an instrument she disliked and after admiring the performance of her friend, Frankie Chavez, she asked if she could play the drums instead. She and her brother made their first recordings in 1965 and 1966, the following year she began dieting. Under a doctors guidance, she went on the Stillman Diet and she rigorously ate lean foods, drank eight glasses of water a day, and avoided fatty foods. She was 54 in height and before dieting weighed 145 pounds and afterwards weighed 120 pounds until 1973, by September 1975, her weight was 91 pounds. From 1965 to 1968 Karen, her brother Richard, and his college friend Wes Jacobs, the band played jazz at numerous nightclubs and also appeared on the TV talent show Your All-American College Show. Karen, Richard and other musicians, including Gary Sims and John Bettis, Spectrum focused on a harmonious and vocal sound, and recorded many demo tapes in the garage studio of friend and bassist Joe Osborn. Many of those tapes were rejected by record companies, according to former Carpenters member John Bettis, those rejections took their toll. The tapes of the sessions were lost in a fire at Joe Osborns house. Finally A&M Records signed the Carpenters to a contract in 1969
9.
Stevie Nicks
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Stephanie Lynn Stevie Nicks is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as the Queen of Rock n Roll, Nicks is best known for both her work as frontwoman of Fleetwood Mac and for her solo career and she is also known for her distinctive voice, mystical visual style, and symbolic lyrics. As a member of Fleetwood Mac, she was inducted into the Rock and she has garnered eight Grammy Award nominations and two American Music Award nominations as a solo artist. She has won awards with Fleetwood Mac, including a Grammy Award. Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac in 1975 along with her then boyfriend, the album remained at number one on the American albums chart for 31 weeks and reached Number One in various countries worldwide. The album won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1978 and it produced four U. S. top-10 singles, with Nicks Dreams being the bands first and only U. S. number-one hit. She has released a total of eight studio albums to date, with her most recent titled 24 Karat Gold, Songs from the Vault. During her solo career, she has had a working relationship with Tom Petty. They served as a band for several tracks on each of her solo albums. The song Stop Draggin My Heart Around, performed by Nicks, Nicks was born at Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, to Jess Nicks, former president of Greyhounds Armour-Dial, and Barbara Nicks, a homemaker. Nicks, Sr. a struggling country singer, taught Nicks to sing duets with him by the time she was four years old. Nickss mother was so protective that she kept her at home more than most people, the infant Stephanie could pronounce her own name only as tee-dee, which led to her nickname of Stevie. Her fathers frequent relocation as a business executive had the family living in Phoenix, Albuquerque, El Paso, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles. With the Goya guitar that she received for her 16th birthday, Nicks wrote her first song, Ive Loved and Ive Lost and she spent her adolescence playing records constantly, and lived in her own little musical world. While attending Arcadia High School in Arcadia, California, she joined her first band, the Changing Times, Nicks first met her future musical and romantic partner, Lindsey Buckingham, during her senior year at Menlo-Atherton High School. When she saw Buckingham playing California Dreamin at Young Life club and she later recalled, I was a senior in high school and Lindsey was a junior. I thought he was a darling, I didnt see him again for two years and he called me up and asked if I wanted to be in a band. And so, I was in band with him for three and a half years ~ a band called Fritz
