Mix it up - Creating Fusion Music!

October 26, 2010 at 11:28 PM

It always strikes me that in modern society where a lot of teenagers and young adults follow the trend of what I call 'Overplayed rubbish' on the radio or TV in their daily music 'intake', violins, flutes, trumpets and many orchestral instruments are pushed to one side and replaced by electric guitars, drum kits and synthesisers. These things are the typical thing to listen to now and whenever I mention liking Mozart, Brahms or Tchaikovsky rather than Cheryl Cole, Dizzy Rascal or Ke$ha, I get laughed at. Unless I am talking to someone with those same preferences, I cannot be 'compatible' with anybody else unless I talk about their preferred styles of music.

So, a few months ago, I started to experiment with different styles on all of my instruments and when I sing. Well, in fact, I'm telling a lie there - I'm not experimenting with complete different styles, I am more like combining styles to create fusion music.

It was after I came across Adam DeGraff and Russell Fallstad's music through a youtube clip and facebook group that I became inspired enough to really start delving into new fusions.

At first I started off by coming up with my own version of Gnarls Barkley's Crazy to play on my violin to my friends in school. Usually if I started picking up my violin and playing, they would all yawn and lose interest, but this time they sat and watched and actually started listening and smiling. My first part of the experiment seemed to work - I had caught the interest of people who would usually not give a second glance and would say 'oh yeah, it's just the violin...'

After that day, I was asked to do a recording in a studio which I wrote about here. The piece was essentially rap with a hip-hop sort of beat in the background. But as soon as the violin was overlayed, the two friends I did this with beamed with happiness as the piece had been given a whole new twist and dimension.

This was then posted up on facebook for all to hear but I didn't realise the actual effects of this experience until I returned to school the following week. A boy who has previously picked on me for various reasons walked past me in the corridor, stopped and told me that the recording I had participated in was awesome. He has since asked me many times when I am going to be doing more recordings!

It doesn't have to be that we have to change our style of music completely on the violin, but adapt it to different situations. Maybe combining Pachelbel's Cannon with Owl City's Fireflies would create a new stir amongst those in the young community! A lot of people my age automatically reach the conclusion that 'Classical music is boring,' and even though the people who play or enjoy classical music can really appreciate it, those other people cannot.

Another friend of mine caught me singing John Rutter's For the Beauty of the Earth not so long back and made a comment about singing 'that sort of music'. I replied with 'It is not that sort of music that is boring, it is the fact you can't appreciate it for what it is.' I took my iPod out of my bag and played her some short clips of Gabriel Faure's Requiem, to which she tuned her nose up at. So, I switched the music to Salva Me by Libera, which is all choral music in the same way with one difference - a beat and a few techno glam stuff. It made all the difference.

I think music is meant to be kept alive in every way possible. There are going to be those people who do not enjoy classical, just as there are those who do not enjoy pop or rap. But all the same, it is music to be appreciated, isn't it? I also believe that instruments should not be limited to one area of music. Why not experiment a bit and jazz things up a bit? You never know where it will lead you!

From Janis Cortese
Posted on October 29, 2010 at 10:37 PM

The best musicians respect no boundaries in music. If it's good, that's all that matters. The only walls in music are the ones we put up.

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Mix it up - Creating Fusion Music!

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