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Music Education

Oktoberfest: What is it and What Music Should You Expect to Hear?

If anyone has ever heard of Oktoberfest, then they would know that it is a bier deal.  Get it? Like a “big deal” but beer?  Dirndl dresses, lederhosen, bretzels, and beer might be the most memorable parts of this holiday but they are certainly not the only important parts.  

Oktoberfest originated in Munich (München), Germany in 1810.  The holiday season came about in celebration of the marriage of the crown prince of Bavaria.  The festivities included a five day celebration with it coming to a close with a horse race in  Thereseinwiese, a public space in one of the boroughs of Munich.  In following years, the celebrations were combined with agricultural fairs.  Thus the sale of food and drinks became commonplace.  Later, the booths at the fairs became large beer halls where the mayor taps the first beer keg to start the festivities.  

In 2025, the celebrations begin on Sept. 20 and end on Oct. 5, otherwise described as mid-September until the first Sunday of October.  Traditionally speaking, celebrations would include parades with floats depicting the beer wagons and traditional Bavarian attire, games, rides, dancing and music.  

The music is especially important to the holiday season.  During this time, it is traditional to have lots of traditional folk music and “oompah” bands.  Oompah refers to a genre of music that is onomatopoeic in nature with lots of brass and bass.  Other genres include polkas, waltzes, sing-along anthems, and lots of folk songs.  

Additionally, there is a specific miniature song that everyone in the German speaking community would recognize, namely “Ein Prosit der Gemütlichkeit” or simply “Ein Prosit.”  This song directly translates to “A Toast to Comfort” or “A Toast.”  The implication of this song is that when it comes on at random throughout the festivities, everyone is expected to stop what they are doing and sing along and have a drink. 

— dj dragonfly

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Music Education

How to Start a Band

I am willing to bet that many of my readers who love music and love playing music have thought about making music themselves.  Some of you are likely to go the solo artist route but many likely have an interest in starting a band.

I know that when I was first musing on the idea, I was daunted by the task of finding members.  So, I thought I’d make a guide for people who don’t fully know how to go about doing so.

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Music Education

Music at NC State

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On several occasions I have been asked what kind of music education resources and such NC State has to offer.  It would make sense that if I have been asked a handful of times that there are others who are also curious.

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Music Education

What Does a Producer Do?

Finding a strict definition for the job title “producer” was much harder than I expected. Producers perform so many important and creatively complex tasks that it’s difficult to define what they do. So much of it depends on the producer and the genre. The role of a producer can be logistic and look a lot like management in terms of renting out a recording space and hiring outside musicians for projects. If a band requires a specific piece of music and they don’t already have someone who can play that instrument, it is typically up to the producer to find someone who can. The producer may even decide what instruments best fit the song in the first place. 

The role of the producer is also a visionary one. Producers collaborate with artists to help them achieve their creative goals by arranging music and helping mix and master the final project. 

A good producer can make or break an album or song. Producers are the music makers of music. That sentence sounds redundant, but it’s the simplest way I could think to put it. Producers work closely with, and sometimes even are, software and sound engineers that make an artist’s track come to life. While many artists may know how to use musical instruments they may not know how to use the production software involved in mixing and mastering tracks. They work closely with artists to ensure their creative vision for a work is followed. 

The role of the producer is going to vary artist to artist and genre to genre. In pop music, the producer is someone who is primarily in charge of logistical tasks or final mastering, on the other hand a hip-hop producer may give the mental association of the person who makes the beats, while the artist is the one rapping. Producers regardless of genre fall on a spectrum between managerial and creative decisions. The strict definition of what a producer is can be nebulous, and the amount of roles they might fill seems like more than one job. 

To give some specific examples, Dr. Dre, Brian Eno and Linda Perry all fit within this definition of producer as a logistical overseer who also helps to construct the music. The music industry is full of diverse positions with unique points of entry. Producers come from all walks of life and each have their own personal definition and opinion on the role of a producer.

Without producers, most artists would be lacking parts of their sound that their audience considers distinctive. Although artists are still responsible for the creative drive behind their music, creative projects can take many hands on deck.

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Music Education

Minidiscs: Obsolete, but Pretty Cool

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I got inspired to write this article when I found a box in the back of my mom’s closet full of minidiscs, a minidisc recorder and player. The small metal square fit almost perfectly in my hand and the discs that went inside it were even smaller, and on top of that were trapped inside of hard plastic squares. I absolutely adored the look of these things and had to learn more about them. 

Portable music has seen a lot of phases before getting to where we are today. CDs, cassettes, and mp3 players are all formats you’re probably familiar with. One format you may be less familiar with is the minidisc.

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Music Education

Synthetic Pioneers: Wendy Carlos

Wendy Carlos is an extremely influential composer who shaped the way that modern music evolved. Even if this is your first time hearing that name, you may already be familiar with her work. If you’ve ever watched A Clockwork Orange or The Shining, Wendy Carlos is the genius behind both of those soundtracks. Her work on movie soundtracks doesn’t start and stop with Kubrick, she also composed the soundtrack for the sci-fi movie Tron. If you listen to electronic music, you have Wendy Carlos to thank at least in part. She was a key part of popularizing and legitimizing synthesizers as a real instrument. 

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Music Education

Cover Bands: Varieties of Setlist

There are generally two types of bands: bands that play covers and bands that play originals.  What these types have in common is they both usually start out with covers.  

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Music Education

Music and Storytelling: Concept Albums

A concept album can be loosely defined as an album that follows a central narrative or theme. I say loosely because there is no strict consensus on what qualifies as a concept album, but generally the criteria are based on an album’s ability to uniformly achieve its narrative. In a concept album, the album as a whole often means something different than the individual songs. The album is made to work together and the songs build on one another, adding context or closure to problems brought up in previous songs. 

The first concept album is widely cited to be “Dust Bowl Ballads” by Woody Guthrie. The album chronicles the Dust Bowl era of The Great Depression. Some of the songs are Guthrie embodying a character, while others are him reporting on the situation from outside. The central story throughout is of the mass migration of people from the region affected by the Dust Bowl to California. 

Since the release of this album in 1940, the concept album has grown and changed a lot. 

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Music Education

Defining Genre: Electronic Body Music

In 1980s Germany, in dark basements and sweaty clubs, a new genre was being developed. This genre was a patchwork of musical influences. It was the constructed child of industrial and dance music, with many other genres claiming paternity from the funky rhythms of disco to the experimental instrumentation of synthpop. This Frankenstein’s monster was called Electronic Body Music. EBM combines heavy basslines and repetitive drum machines with distorted vocals and experimental synths. Some bands included samples from war movies or science fiction movies with dark themes, using the voice clips to create an oppressive feeling and to give the idea that the music was something that could control you. 

EBM found its origin in Germany, where the electronic music scene was constantly evolving. One of the German bands that helped to start the genre was Deutsch Americanische Freundschaft (stylized as DAF). DAF used EBM to explore themes of power, violence and sexuality, which would turn out to be enduring themes of the genre. Despite controversies faced by the band for their heavy use of militaristic aesthetics and the dark lyrical contents of their songs, this danceable industrial music quickly grew to dominate the club scene internationally. Soon after DAF appeared on the scene, bands began to pop up in other European countries. Notable examples include Front 242 in Belgium and Nitzer Ebb in England. In North America there was the hugely influential Canadian band Skinny Puppy. 

The aesthetics of the scene surrounding EBM were leather twists on the uniforms of factory workers and the military. The fashion took cues from the punk scene of the 70s and eventually would develop alongside the goth scene, which resulted in a meshing of subcultures. Many later EBM bands fully embraced a much more goth look. The outfits of the bands that pioneered the genre were purposefully provocative. The genre often involved topics of hyperviolence and machismo, with a sardonic twist on both. The twist was the idea that machismo taken to its fullest extent would be realized as violence, while also satirizing this elevated masculinity into an almost homoerotic affair by many of the bands involved. 

The scene would continue to grow and influence music, spawning numerous offshoots and subgenres. Examples of the subgenres that grew from EBM include aggrotech and futurepop. Along with creating new genres, EBM strongly influenced the direction of existing ones. Industrial music and EBM had an open exchange of ideas, and as a result EBM massively influenced the industrial bands of the late 80s and early 90s such as Ministry and Nine Inch Nails. 

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Music Education

What Are CD Samplers?

A CD Sampler is a kind of compilation album that combines tracks from many different artists, usually from the same label. Labels would put out these CDs so people could be introduced to an artist without having to commit to buying a CD by an artist they didn’t know. The same way that you might be offered a bite of something before you buy a meal. It was a good way for labels to give their artists exposure and a good way for listeners to discover new music.