I believe music is one of the gifts of life that everybody can compare and relate to. Everybody has their own taste in music, and sharing your ideas with others can expand their horizon of music as well. Naturally, half of everybody's music choices depend on friends, the radio, and the media.

     To share your thoughts and interests with others is to share your knowledge of other artists and generes. You can influence people with your own likes and dislikes and maybe get others into the same things you are into. It's fun finding others who like the same things as you because you can feel like you can relate.

      By blogging and explaining your interests, you can get people all over the world to read your words and spread your interests and maybe even ending up making some new friends who like what you write about.

I love Vanessa Carlton so much, she is such an amazing singer, songwriter, pianist, guitarist, and ballet dancer. She is my absolute idol, her music touches me so much, I hope it will touch other as much as it has done me. I always love learning more about her, here is a short biography of her on her own words.

"I was born 8/16/80 and raised in Mitford, PA by my parents Ed and Heidi Carlton. My Dad is a pilot (he plays fiddle on the side), and my mom is a pianist and teacher. My childhood was unconventional. When I was two I was enrolled into a Montessori school. I just remember running around and drawing pictures all the time. Music and art were the main focuses of my childhood.



My mom was my first music teacher. I suppose the first sign that I was "musical" came when I figured out "It's A Small World" on the piano when I was two years old. We had just returned from Disneyland. After that, my mother began exposing me to a variety of classical composers, from Eric Satie, to Mozart, to Debussey. At eight, I wrote my first piece of music. I wasn't writing lyrics or anything, just little piano songs.



I was nine when I fell in love with ballet. I was obsessed with it actually. Fortunately my mom made me keep up the piano during that time. At thirteen, I started travelling to New York to study with some of the great ballet dancers and teachers such as Grelsey Kirkland and Madame Nenette Charisse.



At fourteen, I was accepted to study at the School of American Ballet in New York City. I left my family and moved into a dorm at Lincoln Center. I enrolled in the Professional Children's School for high school and began a new life.



The life of a ballet dancer is neither easy nor fair. The pressure is intense and the competition extreme. Surprisingly, I had always been a confident dancer, almost fearless, but as I approached my senior year things began to unravel. I became frustrated and lost. I was on the brink of becoming a professional when everything feel apart. At seventeen feeling broken and isolated, I started writing songs again.



It was the dilapidated piano in the kitchen of my dorm that brought me solace. Sometimes I would skip ballet class to go upstairs and play. All these songs just poured out of me. This time, I wasn't simply writing piano pieces, I was writing lyrics I had always loved to sing growing up, but I never thought of myself as a singer until I sang my lyrics. I put my voice and piano together I couldn't imagine it any other way.



The fall after I graduated I got an apartment with a friend, became a waitress and started playing gigs downtown. A year later, I signed with Interscope, Geffen, A&M Records.



I am currently in the studio recording my debut album., Be Not Nobody, which should be out in early March. I'm going as fast as I can! The single, A Thousand Miles, will be out in early February.



Last but not least, I got into Columbia University and I have started dancing again, just for my self. "



Peace.



By: Vanessa Carlton

source- http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Vanessa-Carlton-Biography/52EC73C83924307448256B8400179EAB

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jptBn4Nek9M

This is an example of Vanessa's

Vocal, piano, and ballet skills in the official video of her single "White houses". Enjoy!

I chose to do a list of the top ten most bizarre instruments because, finding out more about other's cultures and their ways of making music can expand your mind to more universal ways of thinking. Go Here to find out more- http://listverse.com/music/top-10-bizarre-musical-instruments/ 

Enjoy!

10. Aeolian Harp- The Aeolian Harp is a musical instrument that is “played” by the wind. It is named for Aeolus, the ancient Greek god of the wind. Aeolian harps were very popular as household instruments during the Romantic Era, and are still hand-crafted today. Some are now made in the form of monumental metal sound sculptures located on the roof of a building or a windy hilltop. 

9. Ondes Martenot- The Ondes Martenot is an early electronic musical instrument with a keyboard and slide, invented in 1928 by Maurice Martenot and originally very similar in sound to the Theremin. The sonic capabilities of the instrument were subsequently expanded by the addition of filter banks and switchable loudspeakers. The instrument is especially known for its eerie wavering notes produced by the thermionic valves that produce oscillating frequencies. The ondes Martenot has been used by many composers, most notably Olivier Messiaen.

8. Theremin- The Theremin is one of the earliest fully electronic musical instruments. It was invented by Russian inventor Léon Theremin in 1919, and it is unique in that it was the first musical instrument designed to be played without being touched. It consists of two radio frequency oscillators and two metal antennas. The electric signals from the theremin are amplified and sent to a loudspeaker.

7. The Glass Harmonica- 

The glass harmonica, also known as glass armonica, ‘”hydrocrystalophone” or simply armonica (derived from “armonia”, the Italian word for harmony) is a type of musical instrument that uses a series of glass bowls or goblets graduated in size to produce musical tones by means of friction, making it both a crystallophone and a friction idiophone). This mechanical version was invented by Benjamin Franklin.

6. Gravikord- The gravikord is an electric double harp invented and patented by Robert Grawi in 1986. It is modeled after the 21 string West African kora. It is made of welded stainless steel tubing, with 24 nylon strings but no resonating gourd or skin. The bridge is a synthetic material designed very differently from the kora and the range of pitches is greater. While the hands are in a more ergonomic and natural position to the strings, the playing technique is similar to that of the kora: the player plucks the strings with the thumb and index finger of each hand.

5. Kaisatsuko- The Kaisatsuko was invented by Yuichi Onoue of Tokyo, Japan. The Kaisatsuko does not use a bow to vibrate its two strings, usually employed with fiddle-like instruments. Instead, a small hand crank spins a nylon wheel, which vibrates the two steel strings, producing a sustained drone sound of both strings. The rotating wheel acts like a mechanical bow, a technique similar to the the Hurdy Gurdy, invented before the 11th century.

4. The Musical Saw- A musical saw, also called a singing saw, is the application of a hand saw as a musical instrument. The sound created is an ethereal tone, very similar to the theremin, or a woman’s clear voice. The musical saw is classified as an idiophone under the Hornbostel-Sachs system of musical instrument classification. Alfred Schnittke used the musical saw in a number of his works.

3. Bazantar- The bazantar is a five string double bass with 29 sympathetic and 4 drone strings and has a melodic range of five octaves. It is designed as a separate housing for sympathetic strings (to deal with the increased string tension) mountable on a double bass or cello, modified to hold drone strings.

2. Cymbalom- The cymbalom is a type of hammered dulcimer found mainly in the music of Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine, Greece and Iran. In Czechoslovakia it was also known as a cimbal. One composer who made use of the cimbalom was Zoltán Kodály. His orchestral suite, Háry János, made extensive use of the instrument and helped make it well known outside Eastern Europe. Igor Stravinsky was also an enthusiast, and he owned one, and included one in his ballet Renard.

1. Stalacpipe Organ- Located deep in the Luray Caverns in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley is the Great Stalacpipe Organ, the worlds largest musical instrument. Stalactites covering 3 1/2 acres of the surrounding caverns produce tones of symphonic quality when electronically tapped by rubber-tipped mallets. This most unique, one-of-a-kind instrument was invented in 1954 by Mr. LeIand

                     The Aeolian Harp, Number ten instrument.

                           A beautiful performance of the Glass Harmonica! Take a listen!