Posted on
November 29, 2010 by
Jennib And Friends
Early life and musical roots: 194564
George Ivan (Van) Morrison was born on 31 August 1945, in Bloomfield, Belfast, Northern Ireland as the only child of George Morrison, a shipyard worker, and Violet Stitt Morrison, a singer and tap dancer in her youth. Van Morrison’s family roots descend from the Ulster Scots population that settled in Belfast. From 1950 to 1956, Morrison, who began to be known as “Van” during this time, attended Elmgrove Primary School. Morrison’s father had what was at the time one of the largest record collections in Ulster (acquired during his sojourn in Detroit, Michigan in the early 1950s), and the young Morrison grew up listening to artists such as Jelly Roll Morton, Ray Charles, Lead Belly, and Solomon Burke; of whom Morrison later said, “If it weren’t for guys like Ray and Solomon, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Those guys were the inspiration that got me going. If it wasn’t for that kind of music, I couldn’t do what I’m doing now.” His father’s record collection exposed him to various musical genres, such as the blues of Muddy Waters; the gospel of Mahalia Jackson; the jazz of Charlie Parker; the folk music of Woody Guthrie; and country music from Hank Williams and Jimmie Rodgers, while the first record he ever bought was by blues musician Sonny Terry. When Lonnie Donegan had a hit with “Rock Island Line”, written by Huddie Ledbetter (Lead Belly), Morrison felt he was familiar with and able to connect with skiffle music as he had been hearing Lead Belly before that.
Morrison’s father bought him his first acoustic guitar when he was eleven, and he learned to play rudimentary chords from the song book, The Carter Family Style, edited by Alan Lomax. A year later, when he was twelve years old, Morrison formed his first band, a skiffle group, “The Sputniks”, named after the recently launched Soviet satellite, Sputnik 1. In 1958, the band played at some of the local cinemas, and Morrison took the lead, contributing most of the
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Music
Posted on
November 23, 2010 by
Jennib And Friends
For a guitar player, the challenge to write your own songs can certainly be an intriguing one – playing your own music on the instrument that you love. It can also be tremendously rewarding when you get it right.
When you play the guitar, if you are reading from a book, then sometimes you can feel like a robot – you are simply obeying the instructions of another. Writing your own music, however, gives you more freedom and creativity when it comes to playing. Whatever you have in mind, whether it’s a gentle instrumental piece or even writing your own music, it’s a wonderfully creative process that will encourage your ability to understand the rhythms and sounds that you hear every day.
Music is supposed to be free-flowing and creative – both in the notes and in the emotional response from the listener. The magic formula for songwriting does not exist, and that only serves to make it a more exciting process.
Despite the absence of the magic formula, there are a number of tips and techniques that you can learn in order to create your own music on the guitar:
· Think of a word such as, for example, ‘snow’. Now think of how you would represent snow musically on your guitar. You may start out with just a few notes and mistimed chords, but keep at it. Think of all the things that the word ‘snow’ means to you, and play that.
· Try some other words – ‘rain’ or ‘sadness’, for example – and try to create something which best represents those words in your own way. You’ll find that you will fuss around with the notes a bit, but eventually you will find a finger-picking motion that you like. It doesn’t have to signify the same word to other people – music is best when it is objective.
· If you are writing lyrics to go with your music what works for one person may not work for another, so experiment. There are two ways you can approach this: you can start out with the words
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