Think you know everything there is to know about music? Prepare to be blown away as we take a look at some of the most interesting, unbelievable facts about musicians and the music industry......Music Genre's you may not know about!
1.Rock me like a… termite?;
Termites are widely considered to be the most destructive pests in the world. They cause huge financial losses each year, because of the damage they bring to buildings and other structures.
For those who love blasting heavy metal music inside their homes or even office when everyone else has left, you should perhaps think twice about doing so should the structure be infested with termites. It is believed that these insects eat through wood twice as fast when exposed to heavy metal music as the vibrations coursing through the wood stimulates them into eating faster. Some researchers believe that classic rock has the same effect.
2. Music and the stock market;
Dr. Philip Maymin, former assistant professor of finance and risk engineering at NYU’s Polytechnic Institute, did some research and found that the public’s choice of current popular music may be connected to the forecasted movement of the US stock market.
Maymin found that people generally listened to calmer and softer songs when they believed that volatility would soon rock the market and preferred louder and faster music when they anticipated calm markets. His findings were based of observations of variance in standard deviation of returns for the S&P 500 index as compared to the average annual beat variance in songs that are tracked by the Billboard Top 100.
3. Music over battle;
Monaco may be small, but it is overflowing with wealth, exciting events and bright casinos. To put its size into perspective, it is smaller than New York’s Central Park but houses more than 12,000 millionaires in less than a square mile. It is also one of the most secure cities in the world with one police officer for every 100 residents and a 24-hour video surveillance system that covers the entire place.
Seeing as how the place is so tiny, its army is also small; consisting of only 82 soldiers at one point which made it smaller than the military orchestra which consisted of 85 musicians. That meant it was the only country in the world whose army was once smaller than its orchestra.
4. One of the most terrifying songs ever written;
Songs can be uplifting, inspiring, tear-inducing or even cause you to jump and dance around. However, there are some songs that are downright terrifying and difficult to listen to. “Frankie Teardrop” by Suicide, released in 1977, is an example of such a song. The lyrics tell the story of a poor young father and factory worker who cannot deal with how destitute his existence has become. He then murders his wife and child before committing suicide and going to hell. Singer Alan Vega provided the screams that can be heard on the track, creating a very chilling ‘atmosphere.’
The song was featured in a radio segment and called “The Frankie Teardrop Challenge.” Radio host and comedian Tom Scharpling would challenge listeners to listen to the song at night, while alone and in the ‘most creatively terrifying situations they can think of.’ They were then also invited to phone in and recount their experiences.
Very few of the listeners made it through the 10+ minutes of the track.
Weird Music History
Silence can be music too
On August 29, 1952 David Tudor ascended the platform of the Maverick Concert Hall to play a new John Cage piece titled “4’33”.
He placed a scored on the piano stand, sat down and set a stopwatch. He then closed the lid of the piano and sat without moving for 33 seconds. He opened and re-shut the lid, reset the stopwatch and then sat without playing a single note for a total of two minutes and 40 seconds. He then repeated this process, sitting without moving for another one minute and 20 seconds before bowing to the audience and leaving the stage. This ‘performance’ and John Cage’s song would become one of the most controversial but also one of the most significant compositions of the 20th century.
John Cage explained afterwards to irate concert goers, that they’d all missed the point and that there was no such thing as silence. They simply interpreted the performance as ‘silence’ because
they didn’t know how to listen to the accidental sounds such as the wind,
raindrops and people whispering.
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