1.
Harry Potter
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Harry Potter is a series of fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the life of a wizard, Harry Potter. Since the release of the first novel, Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, on 26 June 1997, the series has now been translated into multiple languages including French, Irish, Spanish, German and Swedish to name a few. They have attracted a wide audience as well as younger readers. The series has also had its share of criticism, including concern about the dark tone as the series progressed, as well as the often gruesome. As of May 2013, the books have more than 500 million copies worldwide, making them the best-selling book series in history. The series was published in English by two major publishers, Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom and Scholastic Press in the United States. The original seven books were adapted into a film series by Warner Bros. Pictures, which has become the second highest-grossing film series of all time as of August 2015, in 2016, the total value of the Harry Potter franchise was estimated at $25 billion, making Harry Potter one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time. A series of genres, including fantasy, drama, coming of age and the British school story. According to Rowling, the theme is death. Other major themes in the series include prejudice, corruption, Rowling updates the series with new information and insight, and a pentalogy of spin-off films premiering in November 2016, among many other developments. Most recently, themed attractions, collectively known as The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, have built at several Universal Parks & Resorts amusement parks around the world. The wizarding world exists parallel to the Muggle world, albeit hidden and his magical ability is inborn and children with such abilities are invited to attend exclusive magic schools that teach the necessary skills to succeed in the wizarding world. Harry becomes a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, each novel chronicles one year in Harrys life during the period from 1991 to 1998. The books also contain many flashbacks, which are experienced by Harry viewing the memories of other characters in a device called a Pensieve. The environment Rowling created is intimately connected to reality, the full background to this event and Harry Potters past is revealed gradually through the series. After the introductory chapter, the book leaps forward to a time shortly before Harry Potters eleventh birthday, Harrys first contact with the wizarding world is through a half-giant, Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts
2.
Geek rock
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Geek rock is a musical subgenre derived from alternative rock within the nerd music group. It is a sister-genre to the chiptune-influenced rock subgenre nintendocore and related to other branches of music such as hip hops nerdcore. Geek rock is characterised by use of both electronic instruments and more atypical musical instruments, such as accordions or ukuleles. Lyrically, the genre is generally characterised by subject matter that covers such as geek media pop culture, academia, technology. In essence, they’re love songs directed to whatever we’re really passionate about, irony, self-deprecation and humour are major elements. The first band to describe themselves as geek rock is believed to be Nerf Herder, the success of They Might Be Giants 1990 album Flood may have begun making geek culture and geek rock more mainstream. Billboard has referred to They Might Be Giants as Nerd-Rock Kings, similarly, Weird Al Yankovic has been called the king of nerd rock. The label proto-geek rock covers both similar musicians performing before the term was established and those that were adopted by geek culture but were not strictly part of it themselves, Alex DiBlasi contends that Frank Zappa is the archetypical geek rocker and antecedent of geek rock. Earlier filk music was based around fans performing at science fiction conventions, geek rock, however, is not necessarily connected to conventions in the same way and, while often still connected to fandom, is more adjacent to the fan community than an out-growth of it. Geek rock musicians are professional rather than amateur and band members need not be fans themselves. For example, Chicago Doctor Who-based band Time Crash was started by Doctor Who fan Ronen Kohn but the bands drummer and this was made possible by equipment becoming more affordable and the growth of the internet. She is on record as thinking, while watching his performance, this isnt punk rock, the sketch was the first in their The Nerds series following the same nerd characters. Geek rock, and related genres, have large enough to support music festivals such as Rock Comic Con. Some subgenres and derivative forms of rock are focused around specific parts of geek culture. Others are based on subgenres of rock music, nerd punk is a fusion of nerd music and punk rock. It shares the characteristics of rock with the fast-paced songs, hard-edged melodies. Bands include Thundering Asteroids. and 3d6, twi-rock developed from Twilight fandom with bands such as the Bella Cullen Project. While initially successful, and entering into a rivalry with wizard rock, Time Lord rock was developed by British band Chameleon Circuit in 2008
3.
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
4.
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
5.
Bass guitar
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The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb, by plucking, slapping, popping, strumming, tapping, thumping, or picking with a plectrum, often known as a pick. The bass guitar is similar in appearance and construction to a guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length. The four-string bass, by far the most common, is tuned the same as the double bass. The bass guitar is an instrument, as it is notated in bass clef an octave higher than it sounds to avoid excessive ledger lines. Like the electric guitar, the guitar has pickups and it is plugged into an amplifier and speaker on stage, or into a larger PA system using a DI unit. Since the 1960s, the guitar has largely replaced the double bass in popular music as the bass instrument in the rhythm section. While types of basslines vary widely from one style of music to another, many styles of music utilise the bass guitar, including rock, heavy metal, pop, punk rock, country, reggae, gospel, blues, symphonic rock, and jazz. It is often a solo instrument in jazz, jazz fusion, Latin, funk, progressive rock and other rock, the adoption of a guitar form made the instrument easier to hold and transport than any of the existing stringed bass instruments. The addition of frets enabled bassists to play in more easily than on acoustic or electric upright basses. Around 100 of these instruments were made during this period, around 1947, Tutmarcs son, Bud, began marketing a similar bass under the Serenader brand name, prominently advertised in the nationally distributed L. D. Heater Music Company wholesale jobber catalogue of 1948, however, the Tutmarc family inventions did not achieve market success. In the 1950s, Leo Fender, with the help of his employee George Fullerton and his Fender Precision Bass, which began production in October 1951, became a widely copied industry standard. This split pickup, introduced in 1957, appears to have been two mandolin pickups, the pole pieces and leads of the coils were reversed with respect to each other, producing a humbucking effect. Humbucking is a design that electrically cancels the effect of any AC hum, the Fender Bass was a revolutionary new instrument, which could be easily transported, and which was less prone to feedback when amplified than acoustic bass instruments. Monk Montgomery was the first bass player to tour with the Fender bass guitar, roy Johnson, and Shifty Henry with Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five, were other early Fender bass pioneers. Bill Black, playing with Elvis Presley, switched from bass to the Fender Precision Bass around 1957. The bass guitar was intended to appeal to guitarists as well as upright bass players, following Fenders lead, in 1953, Gibson released the first short scale violin-shaped electric bass with extendable end pin, allowing it to be played upright or horizontally. In 1959 these were followed by the more conventional-looking EB-0 Bass, the EB-0 was very similar to a Gibson SG in appearance
6.
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
