Isomatic and DJ Chi Chi

Tonight, at Thursday Night Live, I heard what I believe to be the greatest mix of music that I have heard in a long time. From beginning to end there was a wide range of entertainment and different styles that had me zoned in throughout all of the performances. At the beginning of the concert, David a.k.a Toes performed his set of music. He was very entertaining and I loved his music. He played different ranges of artists from John Mayer to Death Cab for Cutie. He was more of a contemporary artist who liked to put a twist to the lyrics of the covers he was singing. My favorite song that David sang was a song that he wrote himself. I don’t remember the name of the song but it had a real effect on me. His friend was in a car accident and had entered a coma for a couple of weeks. During the time of his a coma period, David wrote the song reflecting his memories of his crash.
In my opinion, David showed his greatest artistic skills during his performance. He put his own twist to the lyrics and he also showed how great of a guitarist he was. I have heard many guitarists before but I think David is truly a great guitarist. All of the performances during Thursday Night Live made me think of how each of the artists are truly artistic. All of the performers turned modern songs into something of their own and made the mixed songs truly unique.
Another great performance was from Rachael. She lives on my floor and she is majoring in Music Therapy. She performed the song “Hallelujah” with her own little twist to it. I personally love that song and believe it has a great message to it. It’s a long song and to make it a more beautiful song she added her own personal style to it by adding a couple of extra verses. I listen to the song a lot and know the lyrics by heart but by the way she added her own verse with her own style she truly made the song more beautiful than it initially was. The verse she added was about her own personal mistakes and how she relies on God to get her through her situations. The fact that Rachael didn’t sing the song by herself and that she sang it in a duet made the tone of the song even more calm and soothing.
I think the collaboration between Isomatic and DJ Chi Chi was a very entertaining performance. Isomatic and Chi chi showed their musical talent right at the beginning. I didn’t know that Chi Chi makes his own beats and I didn’t know that Dave Zup, Isomatic, could rap. It was a great collaboration and they both were able to show their talents separately as well as together in collaboration. My favorite song that they performed together is called “Power Freestyle”. I found the lyrics entertaining because Isomatic talks about the power he has as a person and how he can achieve what he sets his mind to. Not only the lyrics but the beat of the music is something that I have never heard before. Usually from the hip hop music you hear today the beat doesn’t seem very exciting because it’s predictable. The different beats and mixes that Isomatic has in his songs really make the song unique and artistic. Another great performance by Isomatic and Chi Chi was the remix of the song “Baby” by Justin Beiber. He kept the beat of the song but made his own lyrics to the song.
All in all, I think all of the performers from the Writing and Arts LLC did a great job. They each brought different styles to the table and showed their own musical talent. From alternative to Christian to rap, there were great performances with great styles. Each artist showed their own style by incorporating their own lyrics and showing the audience what they had to offer.

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Thurday Night Live!!!

On Thursday night my roommate and I were walking toward Art Street. This of course was going to be the first time that we would have ever attended the Thursday Night Live event but I was excited to hear live music from the musically gifted students of UD. When we arrived to the Art Street café I was surprised to see how many people were in the room. All of the chairs and tables were taken up and people were left standing in the back. I walked in, in the middle of the performer’s song, and automatically wondered what I was getting myself into. The first line I had heard from the singer was “Apples and bananas” and in my opinion I believed it was the weirdest song I had ever heard. After that song she decided to play some Taylor Swift and other Folk-like songs.
I was not a big fan of the girl but that was just my personal preferences. I thought the music she played was very different and sometimes harder to understand but other people’s reactions were a lot different than mine. Even though I personally didn’t like her choice of music many others did. After a while, during her performance, I was thinking about the talent and how this all contributes to the artistry of Art Street. Even though the music was totally different than I personally preferred, the singer changed the song into a way that made the song her own. I find it interesting how she could turn a simple pop song into something slower and more folk. To me, she was showing that she liked the current songs that are on the radio, but in a way she made them her own version by changing the tune of the song. Something simple as changing the tune of the song partly changed the meaning of the lyrics as well.
The singer turned the song “Apples and Bananas” from a happy and fast-paced song to a serious tone. I wasn’t really sure if she was trying to make a point to that song or if she just changed the tune because she liked it, but she used her own artistic ability and made it something of her own. Even when she played the Taylor Swift songs it seemed as if she changed the tone from a pop theme to a serious tone and for the first time it seemed as if I actually understood the lyrics for the first time.
After the girl’s performance a boy from a band went up next and it was so loud and hard to understand that I had to leave. I left for a while until it was easier to understand what was being played. In my opinion the previous singer was more talented lyric wise but he was still a good enough performer to show his talent and express himself through music.
I would consider my first Thursday Night Live experience as very different but exciting at the same time. I find it cool how students from Dayton spend their Thursday nights playing the music they’ve been working on and how students gather together to listen to the talent.

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The Meaning Behind the Abstract

Today I took a walk around campus and tried to look for something that I could write about for my blog. I could have simply wrote about the beauty of the flowers or the nice weather that we seemed to have for the day compared to the previous days, but nothing seemed to catch my eye and made me decide to write about it. Of course there were plenty of things to write about but I guess I was just being picky. It wasn’t until I got back to my residence hall when I figured out what I would write about.

The second floor of Founders Hall has plenty of paintings. I think anyone who had seen the paintings before would say that they were painted in an abstract style. When you look at the paintings for the first time, you have no clue what to think of them. Even when you look at them for the second time, you have no clue what to think of them. In my opinion, the paintings seemed to have a lot of meanings that I could not quite understand. Even though the paintings were so complex, it was almost as if I couldn’t turn away from them. They truly make a person curious as to what the message is behind the paintings.

I took a closer look at what I was observing. I noticed the ranges of color and the usage of newspaper and words. The entire time that I was staring at the paintings I kept asking myself, “What am I looking at?” Was the artist trying to convey a certain message to the observer? Are we, the observers, supposed to make up our own message? Is there even a true message behind these paintings?

In the center of each painting there are words written in black and red. Around the words are collages of different newspaper pieces painted over in either red or green. The middle piece has a poem written by Langston Hughes called “A Dream Deferred”. Each piece contains words by the poem written in black and red. What is this supposed to mean?

http://www.cswnet.com/~menamc/langston.htm (Link to “A Dream Deferred”)

Now I’m not exactly the best at decoding the messages behind poems but the furthest I can go with what the painter might be trying to tell the observer is that dreams and words can go away. They can be hidden. The painter’s words are painted over in different colors. You can still read the words but they’re not as visible as they could be. The newspapers are painted over and the poem is painted over. People sometimes overlook the messages within the written works and in the case with the paintings and the poem “A Dream Deferred,” the poem represents any sort of written work and the painting over the poem represents the overlooking of the messages behind the written works.

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