Music & Society - Censorship In Music (Iran)

Censorship In Music

Different from the law in the UK, places in the Middle East such as Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan etc don’t have the freedom the people in the UK have. The level of censorship in these countries are very high, for example, they can’t play western music or listen to it but there are some people in Iran that listen to it anyway but it needs to be in their private cars, or if they have copied tapes or Cd’s or through the Internet but they need to hack to have access to it. 

In Iran they have their own Internet, and they don’t have access to search for anything or access social medias such as Facebook, Twitter, and some other social media like we do and they even have their own websites where they can check their emails and also websites like YouTube where allow them to watch videos. Because of that, they don’t really know what is going on in the outside world

The reason why they don’t have that freedom is because the government running religious law. They are the ones who controls how their Internet and websites are and what use on it or not, and everything needs to be about Iran. 

Like I’ve mention before, if they want to have the same access we have to the normal version of the websites such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, etc they need to hack, but if they get caught hacking to check those websites they will be sent straight to jail with no trial.

It wasn't always like this in Iran. Before the revolution in 1979, the Iranian people had the freedom we have for anything, to listen to any style of music at anytime and anywhere, they have the same access to the normal websites as we do. They could do all of that without worrying about the government or being sent to jail for doing stuff like this.

The Censorship is not all about what websites they can access and what they can watch or not, music in general is very effected in Iran. And all begun after the Revolution because since then Western music has been banned in Iran. Again, for them to have access to Western music they will have to hack into the Internet so they can download the album of the artist they like otherwise they won't know any music out there except from Elton John or Queen and that's because of the Iranian strict law on censorship. 
Because the government runs religious laws, the only style of music allowed to be played around Iran at any time and anywhere is religious music.

While the level of Censorship in Iran is very high, not allowing them to watch what they want, or to listen to the music they want, in the UK we are freely allowed to do anything. On the Internet you have access to any website to listen to music, to watch movies, to have social media to communicate with other, or to websites to know what is going on around the world. 
With music we can do anything, we can download the songs or albums you want from the Internet and will take us about 5 minutes, we don't to hack. If we want to play music with friends you can get your instruments and play in your house, in the park, in your garage and you won't be sent to jail doing that. You don't need to be listening to religious music if you don't like, nothing will happen to you.
if you want to buy any instrument, then you just need to go to any music shop in the UK and buy the instruments you want but in Iran is not like that, there are no places where you can find instruments such as guitars, bass, drums, pianos, keyboards etc for sale.

Arrangement Of Others

Arrangement Of Others

Dionne Warwick - What the World Needs Is Love 

• In the original song there’s the solo female singing the melody, the band repeat the chorus twice in the beginning after the intro and the female singer sings the first part by herself and they the choir joins doing some add libs in the verse. In the verse the Choir also join her but singing ‘Ahh’s’.

• Different from the original version, in the arrangement there are no lead singers. Everyone is singing the same thing but there are two part harmonies, the females voices are doing the soprano and the males are doing the tenor.

• The instrumentation has also changed in the arrangement,. The original version there are horns, drums, piano, acoustic guitar, and violin and on the second one they've taken the horns, the violin, and the acoustic guitar out but they kept the piano, the drums and instead of the acoustic guitar and they used an Electric one and also added bass to it. 

• Because there's no horns on the arrangement, the piano is doing the melody the horns were doing in the original piece.

Whitney Houston - The Greatest Love Of All

The new arrangement on the score shows that the song was specially made for people who are  beginners on the Piano/Keyboard player. It will be easy for beginners to play this new arrangement because with the left hand all you will be playing are two notes only and sometimes just one, you won't be playing the full chord three or four notes and with the right hand you will be playing the melody of the song.

We Three Kings (Arrangements):

Ella Fitzgerald - We Three Kings (Of Orient) 1967

• This version ‘We Three King’ covered by Ella Fitzgerald is in the style of Jazz in 3/4. Different from the others, this version is shorter and slower, it only has Verse, Chorus, Verse, Chorus which is the ABAB structure.

• In this version you get that Christmas feel, and that is caused by the way the lead female singer is singing the song with the backing vocals which are the choir and what they are doing is singing ‘Ahh’s’ and ‘Ohh’s’ in the verse and then in the chorus they sing the same thing the lead female singer is singing but then they go back to the ‘Ahh’s’ and ‘Ohh’s’. The choir is also adding some harmonies so it makes the chorus stronger. The Christmas feel you get is because in some parts of the verses and chorus the background singers sing louder and that's because Christmas songs are usually sung by a group of people (Choir) when it's Christmas time

• The instruments in this cover are: Harp, Piano, Vocals and Bass. there are some use of seventh chords in this song which make it sound Jazzy because usually in Jazz songs you get these chords, there are also some use of diminished chords. By listening to this version you can tell the style of the piano playing is Jazz, again because of the chords the pianist is using and because of the way he/she is playing to suit the way the singer is singing. What also helps the song to sound more christmassy is the harp in the intro opening the song with the piano and then in the end of the verses and really quiet in the chorus, it gives you that angelic/saintly feel.

Kamelot - We Three Kings

• This version covered by Kamelot is in the style of rock. Different from the other arrangements, this version of 'WeeThree Kings' has no vocals in the whole song, the guitar solos are the main melody. 

• The instruments being used in this cover are: two Electric guitar, one is doing the main melody and the other one is adding harmonies, Drum kit, and some strings and an acoustic guitar in the outro. For being the loudest and the one doing the whole melody, the Electric guitars is the main instruments in this arrangement. The rock feel of this song is cause by the Electric guitars and the effect they've chosen in the amps their using. 

• After the break down, you can hear in the background the Choir singing 'Ahh's'.

We Three Kings Of Orient (Sacred Rendition)

• This rendition of ‘We Three Kings’ is a bit similar to the original, slow tempo and it has that more church like style of music. Different from the other versions, this version does not have a lead singer, the only thing it has singing the lyrics of the song is male group choir singing the voice type Tenor and Bass. This version has also a christmas feel because of the way the choir is singing and because of the way all the instruments are being played. The instruments in this version are: The organ, a triangle and some percussion which fits the song.

• This version is more focused on the vocals, that’s why the arranger kept the instruments simple and not playing to loud, so it could focused more on the vocals. Usually is church songs, the choir follows the organ which the same thing happened in this version, the organ is leading the male group choir.

• This version is much longer than the others and the reason why is because of the tempo of the song because this version is slower than the others, and that’s why it is longer.

Music Technology In Performance

Music Technology In Performance
(Keytar/Syntar)

History

Circa 1980 (Syntar)

The first Keytar or ‘Syntar’ (That was the first name given to it) was invented in the 70s called ‘Circa 1980 Syntar’ but the first appearance of it was in a magazine called 'Illianabeat Magazine' after being mentioned to the public through an interview. The very first Keytar for sale in the market was in the 80s by a company called 'Moog Company' and it was called 'The Moog Liberation’.

Moog Liberation (1980)

People still don't know who the inventor of the Keytar/Syntar was, but there was man named Steven Masakowski and he was the one who got the credit for it even though he claims he didn't invent it.

The Keytar is an Electronic Keyboard with or without a build-in synthesiser in it. It has several different voices/sounds in it such as strings, brass and distinctive electronic leads, you can also program your Keytar to sound like an Electric guitars.

The Keytar can also be used as a MIDI Controller to send MIDI sounds to the computer.

The person using a Keytar for their performance can strap it around their body or just put it on top of a keyboard stand.

There were similar instruments in the 70s but they weren't considered as Keytar because they didn't have the neck like a guitar where you can add effect while playing, but you could put a strap on it and wear around the neck.

The only manufacturer that still make the Keytars now is 'Roland' but before after it being invented it was Yamaha, Moog, Roland, and Casio.

Keytar In Performance

One of the first band to show to the public how the keytar sounds like in a performance was the band called 'Devo'. There is another band called 'Frank Goes To Hollywood' and there one of their songs where they use the Keytar sound a lot, and the name of the track is 'Relax'.

One the best Keytarist known is a man called Herbie Hancock who was really famous in the 80s and his song called 'Chameleon' is one of the best examples of Keytar playing because in the song he really shows off his Keytar skills and what he can do on it. There are also other famous solo artist such as Howard Jones, Prince, and Weird Al Yankovi who started using the Keytar on their performance and that helped the instrument to get more popularity. From all this artist I mentioned Prince is the only on who designed his own called Purpleaxxe

Prince's own designed Keytar (Purpleaxxe)

The only problem people had in the 80s with the Keytar, was its weight and that was one of the reasons why most of the artists and bands stopped playing the Keytar after the 80s. 
Artist like James brown had the same problem with the Keytar because of its weight, in one of his performances he had to cut the song shorter because his back was hurting too much. Other artist like Rick Wakeman were sent to the hospital after a performance because of the heavy weight of his Keytar.

from 90s-2000s people kind stopped playing the keytar but 7-8 years later the Keytar made a serious comeback in the music industry, with new designs, less heavy and more modern it started being more played not only in Electronic music but also in other genres such as Pop/R&B, Hip Hop, and Funk. Even Snoop Dogg played the keytar himself in one of his music videos in November, 2007 called 'Sexual Seduction'.

This is just one of Gaga's custom
made Keytar, she has many other
one with different looks.

Matthew Bellamy playing his custom
Keytar in one of his concerts.
The Neck of his Keytar actually
looks like a normal Guitar.

Modern artist such as Alicia Keys, Lady Gaga, Beyonce,  Will.i.am, Justin Timberlake have played the Keytar while performing and some of them has their own custom made Keytar such as Matthew Bellamy and Lady Gaga.

Moog Liberation (1980)

Throughout the years the Keytar has involved a lot since the creation of the first one which was the 'Moog Liberation' in 1980.

Alesis Vortex (2012-2013)

Since the first one, there are about forty-six Keytar invented and each of the has some different in it, some of their own build in sound and there are some without it which are used to control other synthesisers or sound expanders, vis digital signal which we call it the MIDI Controller/USB or analog signal.
The latest Keytar released is the Alesis Vortex made by Roland

In the video down bellow shows all the Keytar and how different some of them look, the different styles and also their name and where they are from.

Bibliography:

http://underscoopfire.com/history-keytar/

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/feb/01/hey-whats-that-sound-keytar

http://www.synthtopia.com/content/2013/04/01/the-keytar-grand-a-short-history/

http://www.statemaster.com/encyclopedia/Keytar
http://www.vintagesynth.com/moog/liberation.php