Synth Motion

Archive for January, 2009

The devil is said to appear in countless forms, and many people were convinced he appeared in the form of rock bands when they began backmasking their lyrics in the 60s.  Backmasking, or backward masking, is a technique of recording song lyrics backward onto a track that is played forward.  What started as an innocent accident by John Lennon swirled into a frenzy of controversy, record-burning protests, proposed government legislation, and a witch hunt for bands whose lyrics were deemed satanic.

Backmasking of song lyrics was one of the Beatles’ many musical innovations.  While high on pot, John Lennon accidentally played the tapes for the song “Rain” backwards, and liked the sound of the reversed lyrics.  The rest of the band agreed, and incorporated the effect into the tune, making it the first to contain backmasked lyrics:  “Sunshine….rain.…when the rain comes, they run and hide their heads.”

At the time, music was recorded on vinyl, which could be manually played backwards on a turntable.  A disc jockey, intrigued by rumors that Paul McCartney was dead, played the tune “Revolution 9” backwards, and heard the lyrics “Turn me on, dead man,” as well as the lyrics “Paul is a dead man, miss him, miss him,” when playing “I’m So Tired” backwards.  These lyrics appeared to confirm the “Paul is dead” rumor, which popularized the backmasking of rock music lyrics.

This led to a fierce backlash from Christian fundamentalists in the 70s.  They accused Led Zeppelin of planting satanic lyrics in “Stairway to Heaven.” They also alleged that bands, including the Beatles, Pink Floyd, the Electric Light Orchestra, Queen, and Styx were cooperating with the Church of Satan by backmasking messages from the devil into their song lyrics.  The religious right pushed for legislation to place stickers on these bands’ albums warning about lyrics inspired by Lucifer, but the bill was defeated.

In retaliation, several of the accused bands recorded albums containing intentional, ridiculous backmasked lyrics.  ELO fired back with an album called Secret Messages, containing the backmasked lyrics, “Thank you for listening,” “Look out, there’s danger ahead,“ and “You’re playing me backwards.”  Styx took jabs their critics with the album Kilroy Was Here, whose lyrics parodied an imaginary group called “The Majority for Musical Morality,” which outlaws rock music.

Heavy metal song lyrics reeled from some of the hardest hits.  In his 1988 trial, serial killer Richard Ramirez testified that the lyrics of “Night Prowler,” from AC/DC’s Highway to Hell album, drove him to commit murder.  Judas Priest was sued in 1990 because two Nevada boys had made a suicide pact that was allegedly inspired by the subliminal lyrics, “Do it,” in the band’s song “Better By You, Better Than Me.”  The case was dismissed for insufficient evidence that the lyrics played a role in the boys’ deaths.

Like inkblots and clouds, lyrics played backwards can be interpreted as anything if you concentrate long enough.  Or, as comedian “Weird Al” Yankovic joked in the backmasked lyrics of “I Remember Larry,” “You must have an awful lot of free time on your hands!”  Elcitra siht deyojne uoy epoh.

Type the word free music in any of the major search engines and trust me you will come up with an astounding number of results. The very word free has an uncanny ability to attract people and if it is free music you will find music buffs downloading songs from there. The web is in fact overpopulated with sites that claim to provide free music and such other stuffs to visitors. But you must be cautious and find out if the site is dishing out something that is improper in the name of free music. Chances are you may end up downloading a virus in your PC or cell phone if you are not catious about what you are downloading in the name of free music. There are certain sites on the web that actually allow music fans to download free music of their choice from the site without any hassles. So what you need to do is find such sites and download free music from there.

One of the very popular things today is downloading free ringtones for cell phones from the web. Take a look around and you will find that the number of people who own a cell phone is very high. And if you take an even closer look you will find that a majority of them have ringtones of their favorite music or song in the phone. Free music provided by many sites is the main reason for the surge in the number of people who have ringtones in their phones instead of the boring standard tone used

to make and receive calls. Free music has opened up a whole world for people to experiment with different things and express their mood clearly. Among the tunes that are used today for ringtones and caller tunes, polyphonic ringtones are the most popular. The choice of tunes is huge and you can find any tune that you are looking for to use as ringtones from the sites that offer free music.

Now it is not that you get just ringtones from the free music sites, you can also get to download full songs from the site. If you have been searching for an old song sung by one of your favorite bands and could not find it, try one of the free music sites. Such sites have a huge database of songs of all genres and all you have to do is find the song. To do this just log in to the site, type the name of the song or the name of the album or the name of the singer and if that song is present in the database of the site, you will find this instantly. For downloading free music you need to install some software that will help in downloading the song properly and quickly.

Surely you will not like to sit and wait if the song takes ages to download from the free music site. The software can also be obtained free of cost, simply search for free music download software programs and you will get the software immediately. It is not difficult to download free music from an online site.

1. A Book of Music Is Not Technically Sheet Music

The American Heritage Dictionary defines Sheet Music as “Compositions printed on unbound sheets of paper”. So books of music script would not (technically) be classed as sheet music.

2. “Sheet Music” Was The Title of an Album by 10CC

This was the second album written by 10CC which reached number nine in the UK album charts, and number eighty one in the USA. The 1974 release by the Manchester (England) band included the singles “The Wall Street Shuffle” and “Silly Love”.

3. Sheet Music or Score?

These two terms actually mean the same thing, as score is the more generic description of Sheet Music. There are several types of score including “full score”, “miniature score”, “piano score” etc. Score can also be used to refer to incidental music written for a play, TV or film.

4. The First Printed Sheet Music Book Appeared in 1457

The “Mainz Psalter” was the first book printed to include music notation. It was printed in Mainz, Germany but still had to have the notation filled in by hand!

5. The First Machine Printed Music Appeared in the 1473

The first sheet music publications printed on machines didn’t appear unitl 1473, almost 20 years after Gutenburg had invented the printing press. Before this most sheet music was written by hand! This was essentially when the Music industry as we know it began.

6. Chappell & Co Were Founded in 1810

Chappell and Co were founded in 1810 by Samuel Chappell, Francis Tatton Latour and Johann Baptist Cramer. They started by selling and publishing sheet music. It was only later that Chappell & Co began selling the pianos that they became so famous for. Chappell & Co now operate as two separate companies; the publishing company “Warner/Chappell Music”, and the music retailer “Chappell of Bond Street” (on Wardour Street, London).

7. Manuscript Paper is the Blank Form of Sheet Music

Manuscript paper is blank sheet music pre-printed with (typically) two sets of six staves on a line, marked with a “Clef” to indicate the key and pitch of the piece of music. It is sometimes referred to in the USA as “staff paper”. Manuscript paper can also be used to notate music for drums and guitar tablature! You can get hold of a blank piece of sheet music here: http://www.visionmusic.com/manuscript/paper.html

8. The Earliest Piece of Sheet Music was from 1400 BC

Clay tablets (transcribed by Prof. Anne Kilmer in 1972) containing the cuneiform signs of the Hurrian language contained a completed hymn with both words and music. The hymn related to the Moon God’s wife Nikal, and included instructions for vocals and harp.

9. Tablature Tells You Where To Put Your Fingers

As apposed to the traditional notation of sheet music, Tablature (or Tabulature/Tab) transcribes the music with the placement of fingers written as numbers. It is usually written for fretted instruments such as guitars, but can also be used for percussion and some other instruments.

10. Free Guitar Tabs Sites Are Not All Legal

But don’t worry, it is the websites themselves that are the only ones to be concerned. As of Monday December 12, 2005, distributing free tablature of copyrighted music using the Internet is considered illegal by the international music industry.

Several free tab sites were shut down in 2006 as a results of legal pressure from music publishers including MXtabs.net (now back online as a legitimate resource), and also Guitar Tab Universe who later re-launched as “Music Student and Teacher Organization” (MuSATO) claiming that as an educational resource they were not longer in breach of copywrite. The music industry maintain their opposition to free tab download websites.