Archive for Music – Page 6

Young Guitar Builder Making a Name

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One rule stands firm in this game, people will buy name brand equipment. I this day and age it is nearly impossible for anyone to make a name for their brand as a guitar builder. The big names, the Fender Stratocaster’s and the Gibson Les Paul’s, those are the brands that people are willing to spend countless amounts of money on. Occasionally the seasoned professional guitarist will spend money on the custom guitar made by some luthier who is known for producing the best equipment. However, a young man by the name of Marc Demers is beginning to change this. At only the tender age of 21 years old, people are beginning to take notice of his talent for making high end guitars.

Demers has decided to name his company K. Normand guitars, and the company is quickly making a name for itself among the public in Canada.

Another different approach to the industry that Demers is taking is in the production of his instruments. All of Demers guitar are handmade by the man himself. He hopes to use these skills in order to make a bold statement among the Canadian guitar builders.

 

Pentatonix: The A Capella Entrepreneurs

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Pentatonix is a group of five a cappella singers that came together to perform on NBC’s “The Sing Off”. The group originated with Kirstie Maldonaldo, Mitch Grassi and Scott Hoying. The three were friends in high school and sang at different local events. The three of them loved “The Sing Off” and wanted to compete in the show,m but in order to try out they needed at least two more people. They found Avi Kaplan, a well known bass singer in the a capella community, and Kevin Olusola, a beat-boxer that had become famous from a youtube video. They all met each other one day before trying out for the show, and they got in. What made the group so special was their ability to reimagine songs and create some amazing sounds only using their voices. When they first appeared on The Sing Off people could hardly believe they were actually signing. With a sound like no other the group won “The Sing Off” and with the title of Sing Off Champions they were also given $200,000 and a recording contract from Sony.

Pentatonix was very successful with their first two albums, but the contract from Sony was only for two albums, a regular album and a christmas album. The group was then on their own. When the record company left them, Pentatonix turned to social media and Youtube. They are now the 13th most subscribed to music channel on youtube beating out Beyonce, Lady Gaga and Avicii. When no recording company would take them, they made music on the Mac application “Garage Band”. They have made millions of dollars and their most recent album, “That’s Christmas to Me”, was No. 2 on the Billboard 200 only being beaten by Taylor Swift’s new album. The group has recently signed a record deal with “RCA Records” and will make albums with them. Their Youtube page continues to do amazingly with over 728 million views.

I have been a big fan of Pentatonix ever since they gave their first performance on “The Sing Off” and I can’t wait to see what they do next.

Pentatonix

The Brilliant Bradlee

What if the history of music we know is wrong? What if all of the hits we knew and loved growing up sounded just slightly different? This is the alternative history of pop music that Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox plays.

When Scott Bradlee was young he was thoroughly inspired when he listened to Gerswin’s Rhapsody in Blue. He taught himself how it to play this on the piano, however, he was unsatisfied stopping there. He quickly picked up the steps of 1920’s ragtime music; fast, reckless, and fantastically loud. It captivated him. His comprehension of what made pop music from all ages truly great enabled him to slur together various styles of music, yet, he was still able to contain the core meaning of each song he recomposed. This is the brilliance of the man.

What can an artist do to make a name for himself? Bradlee made the traditional move aspiring artists make. He moved to New York City. Sadly for Bradlee, Jazz pianists, which he was marketing himself as at the time, were everywhere in the Big Apple. Refusing to break from his dream Bradlee made the sensible move and went to Astoria, a far less populated area with cheaper rent. While he was there he started making videos for YouTube. His first hit was a hit was a ragtime themed medley of 1980’s pop music that scored over a million views, and thus began his true career.

With the assembling of Post Modern Jukebox Bradlee finally had a crew of all shapes and kinds to help him achieve that truly spectacular sound he had always dreamed of. Since their forming, they have taken hits from the 1970’s to this very day and rewritten them in the full spirit of Postmodernism. At this moment Scott Bradlee has a following of 844,00 subscribers and approaching 150,000,000 views on his YouTube videos. Starting this year they are scheduled to tour North America and Europe. Thankfully, for those completely hooked on his videos, he shall still be making them while on tour.

Postmodern Jukebox

 

The Innovation Of Music Through Spotify

Spotify is a music listening app that has transformed the world.

Spotify was created by, 31 year old Daniel Ek, as an application to allow the user to listen to any music and create playlists without paying anything. The way Spotify makes money is through advertisements in between songs.

Originally, Spotify started out solely on computers. In 2013, things changed, Spotify launched an app to allow smart phone users to also stream music. In 2013, Spotify had 24 million active users that streamed over 4.5 billion hours of music. This completely transformed the consumers experience in the music downloading industry but has reduced the profits of artists around the world, because nobody has to buy the songs anymore.

I believe Spotify is in trouble the next several months because of the growing number of artists pulling their albums off of Spotify. For instance 2 weeks ago, Taylor Swift, pulled all of her songs from Spotify to increase her profits by having fans pay full price for the new album, 1989, which just came out. Swift made a smart move, but it could start a movement by artists around the world to remove their songs from Spotify and all other free music listening applications.

Daniel Ek, founded his first company when he was only 14 years old. He has the drive of an entrepreneur to do whatever it takes to succeed. He is currently worth $400 million dollars and is making a significant difference around the world through the evolution of streaming music.

In entrepreneurship, your age doesn’t matter, your drive for success is what will carry you farther than ever before.