Portal:Music

The Music Portal

Grooved side of the Voyager Golden Record launched along the Voyager probes to space, which feature music from around the world

Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all human societies. Definitions of music vary widely in substance and approach. While scholars agree that music is defined by a small number of specific elements, there is no consensus as to what these necessary elements are. Music is often characterized as a highly versatile medium for expressing human creativity. Diverse activities are involved in the creation of music, and are often divided into categories of composition, improvisation, and performance. Music may be performed using a wide variety of musical instruments, including the human voice. It can also be composed, sequenced, or otherwise produced to be indirectly played mechanically or electronically, such as via a music box, barrel organ, or digital audio workstation software on a computer.

Music often plays a key role in social events and religious ceremony. The techniques of making music are often transmitted as part of a cultural tradition. Music is played in public and private contexts, highlighted at events such as festivals and concerts for various different types of ensembles. Music is used in the production of other media, such as in soundtracks to films, TV shows, operas, and video games.

Listening to music is a common means of entertainment. The culture surrounding music extends into areas of academic study, journalism, philosophy, psychology, and therapy. The music industry includes songwriters, performers, sound engineers, producers, tour organizers, distributors of instruments, accessories, and publishers of sheet music and recordings. Technology facilitating the recording and reproduction of music has historically included sheet music, microphones, phonographs, and tape machines, with playback of digital musics being a common use for MP3 players, CD players, and smartphones. (Full article...)

General images -

The following are images from various music-related articles on Wikipedia.

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  Platinum records by Elvis Presley, Prince, Madonna, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and Bruce Springsteen, at Julien's Auctions (from Album era)
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  Taylor Swift, a longtime adherent to album-era rollouts, surprise-released her albums instead in 2020. (from Album era)
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  Alleluia nativitas by Perotin from the Codex Guelf.1099 (from History of music)
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  A radio broadcasting system from 1906 (from Music industry)
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  Clara and Robert Schumann (from History of music)
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  Kanye West (2007) emerged during the decade as an important hip-hop producer and album artist. (from Album era)
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  Notation indicating differing pitch, dynamics, articulation, and instrumentation (from Elements of music)
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  An example of mechanically printed sheet music (from Music industry)
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  A musician in a recording studio (from Music industry)
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  Pink Floyd (1973) performing The Dark Side of the Moon, a leading commercial success of the LP era (from Album era)
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  Frances Densmore at the Smithsonian Institution in 1916 where she was recording Blackfoot chief Mountain Chief for the Bureau of American Ethnology. In this picture, Mountain Chief is listening to a recording. (from Music industry)
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  The Bull Headed Lyre of Ur, found in the Royal Cemetery at Ur, is the best known of the ancient Lyres of Ur (from History of music)
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  Stevie Wonder, among the era's innovative artists (from Album era)
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  An audience watching a concert (from Music industry)
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  The Rolling Stones in 1967 (from Album era)
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  The logo for Apple Inc.'s online iTunes store, which sells digital files of songs and musical pieces–along with a range of other content, such as digital files of TV shows and movies (from Music industry)
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  Two musicians of the Eastern Han Dynasty (25–220 CE), Shanghai Museum (from History of music)
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  Guillaume Du Fay (left), with Gilles Binchois (right) in a c. 1440 Illuminated manuscript copy of Martin le Franc's Le champion des dames (from History of music)
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  A young man browsing through a record store in Bonn, West Germany, June 1988 (from Album era)
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  A Rhodes College student listening to the 1969 Yes LP on campus, c. 1970 (from Album era)
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  A smartphone displaying playlists on Spotify, 2010. The streaming service became a dominant and redefining platform for music consumption through the decade. (from Album era)
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  A young couple listening to music on an iPod Mini, 2006 (from Album era)
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  The Beatles (1964) have been credited by music historians for heralding the album era. (from Album era)
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  US vinyl sales in units, 1995–2020; while album sales overall declined, those in the vinyl format rose toward the end of the 2010s. (from Album era)
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  c. 379 CE Bas relief of Sassanid women playing the chang in Taq-e Bostan, Iran (from History of music)
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  A studio engineer working with an audio mixer in a recording studio (from Music industry)
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  The Japanese boy band Arashi, who had the world's best-selling album (5x20 All the Best!!) in 2019 (from Album era)
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  The portable Discman CD player, which was released in 1984 and precipitated the displacement of LPs (from Album era)
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  Terracotta statue of a Parthian lute player (from History of music)
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  The monumental Bianzhong of Marquis Yi of Zeng, c. 5th century BCE, from Hubei (from History of music)
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  Drawing of the tablet with the Hymn to Nikkal (c. 1400 BCE), the oldest of the Hurrian songs (from History of music)
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  J. S. Bach (from History of music)
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  A live musical performance at Cologne Pride, 2013 (from Music industry)
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  An LP record on a phonograph (from Album era)
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  An HMV record shop in Wakefield, England closing its operation in 2013 (from Album era)
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  Musicians working in a recording studio (from Music industry)
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  Beyoncé (2016) popularized the surprise-album strategy of the 2010s. (from Album era)
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  Circular definition of "musicality" (from Elements of music)
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  Frank Sinatra (c. 1955), an early pop album artist (from Album era)
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  Sheet music for part of the Missa Papae Marcelli by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (from History of music)
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  As LPs fell out of favor to CDs, hip hop producers repurposed them as sampling sources, contributing to the development of record collecting. (from Album era)

Featured articles -

Featured articles are displayed here, which represent some of the best content on English Wikipedia.

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  xx is the debut studio album by the English indie pop band the xx. It was released on 14 August 2009 by Young Turks, then an imprint label of XL Recordings, and recorded from December 2008 to February 2009 at the label's in-house studio in London. Producing the album, Jamie Smith of the xx created electronic beats for the songs on his laptop and mixed them in a detailed process with the audio engineer Rodaidh McDonald, who attempted to reproduce the intimate, unembellished quality of the band's original demos.
  
  Along with the xx's early R&B influences, the album has drawn comparisons from journalists to alternative rock, electronica and post-punk sounds. Its largely melancholic songs feature minimalist arrangements built around Smith's beats and instrumental parts recorded by the other members of the band, including Oliver Sim's basslines and sparse guitar figures by Baria Qureshi and Romy Madley Croft, who employs reverb in her lead guitar playing. Most of the songs are sung as low-key duets by Croft and Sim, both of whom had written emotional lyrics about love, intimacy, loss and desire. (Full article...)
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  Tragic Kingdom is the third studio album by American rock band No Doubt, released on October 10, 1995, by Trauma Records and Interscope Records. It was the final album to feature original keyboardist Eric Stefani, who left the band in 1994. The album was produced by Matthew Wilder and recorded in 11 studios in the Greater Los Angeles area between March 1993 and October 1995. Between 1995 and 1998, seven singles were released from it, including "Just a Girl", which charted on the Billboard Hot 100 and the UK Singles Chart; and "Don't Speak", which topped the Billboard Hot 100 Airplay and reached the top five of many international charts.
  
  The album received mostly positive reviews from music critics and became the band's most commercially successful album, reaching number one on the Billboard 200 as well as topping the charts in Canada and New Zealand. At the 39th Annual Grammy Awards, No Doubt earned nominations for Best New Artist and Best Rock Album. It has sold over 16 million copies worldwide, and was certified Diamond by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in the United States and Canada, platinum in the United Kingdom, and triple platinum in Australia. Tragic Kingdom helped to initiate the ska revival of the 1990s, persuading record labels to sign more ska bands and helping them to attract more mainstream attention. The album was ranked number 441 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. (Full article...)
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  "4 Minutes" is a song by American singer-songwriter Madonna from her eleventh studio album Hard Candy (2008), featuring vocals by fellow American singer-songwriter Justin Timberlake and American producer Timbaland. It was released as the lead single from the album on March 17, 2008, by Warner Bros. Records. It marked the first time in Madonna's 25-year career that another artist was featured in a single. According to Madonna, the song is about saving the environment and "having a good time while we are doing it". She also cited the song as the inspiration for the documentary I Am Because We Are (2008).
  
  The song was recorded at Sarm West Studios, in London, while the mixing of the track was finished at The Hit Factory studio, in New York City. Sound engineer Demo Castellon first worked on the vocals and then on the beats, while the synths were composed by Timbaland and Danja. An uptempo dance-pop song with an urban and hip hop style, "4 Minutes" incorporates Timbaland's characteristic bhangra beats and the instrumentation used in the song includes brass, foghorns and cowbells. The lyrics carry a message of social awareness, inspired by Madonna's visit to Africa and the human suffering she witnessed. (Full article...)
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  No Depression is the first studio album by alternative country band Uncle Tupelo, released in June 1990. After its formation in the late 1980s, Uncle Tupelo recorded the Not Forever, Just for Now demo tape, which received a positive review by the College Media Journal in 1989. The review led to the band's signing with what would become Rockville Records later that year. The album was recorded with producers Sean Slade and Paul Q. Kolderie at Fort Apache Studios, on a budget of US$3,500.
  
  No Depression was critically acclaimed and sold well for an independent release. Selling over 15,000 copies within a year of its release, the album's success inspired the roots music magazine No Depression. The record is considered one of the most important alternative country albums, and its title is often used as a synonym for the alternative country genre after being popularized by No Depression magazine. After regaining the rights to the album through a lawsuit, Uncle Tupelo released a remastered version in 2003 through Legacy Records, expanded to include six bonus tracks. (Full article...)
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  Late Registration is the second studio album by the American rapper Kanye West. It was released on August 30, 2005, through Roc-A-Fella Records and Def Jam Recordings. West recorded the album over the course of a year during sessions held at studios in Hollywood and New York City, in collaboration with Jon Brion. The album features guest appearances from Adam Levine, Jamie Foxx, Common, Brandy, Jay-Z, and Nas, among others.
  
  West's production for Late Registration departed from the sped-up soul samples of his debut studio album, The College Dropout (2004), moving towards a more elaborate and orchestral style with a 20-piece ensemble. Drawing creative inspiration from alternative acts such as Fiona Apple and Portishead, he experimented with musical shifts, string arrangements, and a variety of instruments not usually associated with hip hop, including a celesta, harpsichord, and Chinese bells. In an effort to write authentic yet relatable lyrics, West engages in storytelling while showcasing his Christian heritage that informed his relationship to the capitalist market economy. He critiques multiple issues, such as institutional racism, higher education, health care, and the blood diamond trade. (Full article...)
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  "Love Story" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It was released as the lead single from her second studio album, Fearless, on September 15, 2008, by Big Machine Records. Inspired by a boy who was unpopular with her family and friends, Swift wrote the song using William Shakespeare's tragedy Romeo and Juliet as a reference point. The lyrics narrate a troubled romance that ends with a marriage proposal, contrary to Shakespeare's tragic conclusion. Produced by Swift and Nathan Chapman, the midtempo country pop song includes a key change after the bridge and uses acoustic instruments including banjo, fiddle, mandolin, and guitar.
  
  At the time of the song's release, music critics praised the production but deemed the literary references ineffective. In retrospect, critics have considered it one of Swift's best singles. "Love Story" peaked atop the chart in Australia, where it was certified fourteen-times platinum by the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA), and reached the top five on charts in Canada, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. In the United States, the single peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100 and was the first country song to reach number one on Pop Songs. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified it eight-times platinum. "Love Story" has sold over six million copies in the United States and 18 million copies worldwide. (Full article...)
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  "Blank Space" is a song by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift and the second single from her fifth studio album, 1989 (2014). Swift wrote the song with its producers, Max Martin and Shellback. Inspired by the media scrutiny on Swift's love life that affected her girl-next-door reputation, "Blank Space" portrays a flirtatious woman with multiple romantic attachments. It is an electropop track with a minimal arrangement consisting of synthesizers, hip hop–influenced beats, and layered vocals.
  
  Big Machine in partnership with Republic Records released "Blank Space" to US radio on November 10, 2014. One of the best-selling singles of 2015, it topped charts in Australia, Canada, Iceland, Scotland, and South Africa. In the United States, it spent seven weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 and was certified eight times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). Music critics praised the production and Swift's songwriting; some picked it as 1989's highlight. The song earned three nominations at the 58th Grammy Awards, including two general categories: Record of the Year and Song of the Year. Rolling Stone placed it at number 320 on their 2024 revision of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. (Full article...)
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  Velasquez in 2010

  
  Regina Encarnacion Ansong Velasquez (/rɪˈdʒiːn vɛˈlæskɛz/ rij-EEN vel-ASK-ez; born April 22, 1970) is a Filipino singer and actress. She is considered one of the most influential figures in Philippine popular culture and is known for her vocal range and belting technique. She had unorthodox voice training during her childhood, where she was immersed neck-deep in the sea. Velasquez rose to prominence after winning the television talent show Ang Bagong Kampeon in 1984 and the Asia Pacific Singing Contest in 1989. Under the name Chona, she signed a recording contract with OctoArts International in 1986 and released the single "Love Me Again", which was commercially unsuccessful. The following year, she adopted the stage name Regine Velasquez for her debut studio album, Regine (1987), under the guidance of Viva Records executive Vic del Rosario and producer Ronnie Henares. She explored Manila sound and kundiman genres on her second and third studio albums, Nineteen 90 (1990) and Tagala Talaga (1991).
  
  After signing an international record deal with PolyGram Records, Velasquez achieved commercial success in some Asian territories with her fifth album Listen Without Prejudice (1994), which sold more than 700,000 copies and became her highest-selling album to date, aided by its lead single "In Love with You". She experimented further with jazz and adult contemporary genres on My Love Emotion (1995), while she recorded covers on Retro (1996). After she left PolyGram to sign with Mark J. Feist's MJF Company in 1998, she released the R&B-influenced album Drawn. Velasquez's follow-up record, R2K (1999), was supported by remakes of "On the Wings of Love", "I'll Never Love This Way Again", and "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing", and was subsequently certified twelve-times platinum by the Philippine Association of the Record Industry (PARI). (Full article...)
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  Zappa performing at Ekeberghallen in Oslo, Norway, in 1977

  
  Frank Vincent Zappa (/ˈzæpə/ ZAP-ə; December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed rock, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and musique concrète works; he also produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. His work is characterized by nonconformity, improvisation sound experimentation, musical virtuosity and satire of American culture. Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse musicians of his generation.
  
  As a mostly self-taught composer and performer, Zappa had diverse musical influences that led him to create music that was sometimes difficult to categorize. While in his teens, he acquired a taste for 20th-century classical modernism, African-American rhythm and blues, and doo-wop music. He began writing classical music in high school, while simultaneously playing drums in rhythm and blues bands, later switching to electric guitar. His debut studio album with the Mothers of Invention, Freak Out! (1966), combined satirical but seemingly conventional rock and roll songs with extended sound collages. He continued this eclectic and experimental approach throughout his career. (Full article...)
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  Heaven Upside Down is the tenth studio album by American rock band Marilyn Manson. It was released on October 6, 2017, by Loma Vista Recordings and Caroline International. The record had the working title Say10 and was initially due to be issued on Valentine's Day. However, the release was delayed by numerous events, most notably the death of Marilyn Manson's father, Hugh Warner, who died during production and to whom the album was later dedicated. The record has many of the musicians who performed on the band's previous album, The Pale Emperor (2015), including the producer Tyler Bates and the drummer Gil Sharone. Despite Manson's early implications, long-time bass guitarist Twiggy Ramirez did not participate on the album. He left the group following a sexual assault allegation by a former girlfriend.
  
  "We Know Where You Fucking Live" was released as a single in September, shortly followed by "Kill4Me", which became the band's highest-peaking entry on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Chart. The music videos for the album had celebrities including Johnny Depp, Courtney Love and Lisa Marie Presley. The single "Tattooed in Reverse" also entered the mainstream rock chart, making Heaven Upside Down the band's first album since Mechanical Animals in 1998 to chart more than one song there. (Full article...)
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  "Slug" is a song by Passengers, a side project of rock band U2 and musician Brian Eno. It is the second track on Passengers' only release, the 1995 album Original Soundtracks 1. The track was originally titled "Seibu" and was almost left off the album before it was rediscovered later during the recording sessions. Though Eno made most of the creative decisions during the recording sessions, "Slug" was one of the few tracks that the members from U2 tried to craft themselves.
  
  Lyrically, it is a portrait of a desolate soul during a time of celebration. As Passengers were writing songs for fictional soundtracks, they tried to create a visual suggestion from the music that was more important than the story within the lyrics. In "Slug", the instrumentation is intended to represent the lights turning on in a city at night. The group primarily drew inspiration for the song from U2's experiences in Tokyo at the conclusion of the Zoo TV Tour. "Slug" was praised as one of the best songs on the album by critics from various publications. (Full article...)
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  "Breakdown" is a song recorded by American singer Mariah Carey for her sixth studio album, Butterfly (1997). In the lyrics, she describes the aftermath of a partner ending their love for the other and the trouble of hiding the pain it caused. The track features rapping by Krayzie Bone and Wish Bone, members of the group Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. Before they wrote and performed their raps, Carey composed the music with Stevie J and penned her lyrics. The latter pair produced "Breakdown" with Sean "Puffy" Combs. An R&B, hip hop, and hip hop soul song, "Breakdown" features keyboards, synthesized drums, and background vocals prominently. Columbia Records released it to American rhythmic contemporary radio stations in January 1998 as the third single from Butterfly.
  
  Critics judged "Breakdown" in relation to Carey's previous work and considered the collaboration with Bone-Thugs-n-Harmony successful. Some perceived it to be about the recent separation from her husband Tommy Mottola, which she denied. Carey publicly criticized Columbia for a perceived longstanding anti-R&B bias against her music after it did not release the song to retail outlets in the United States. "Breakdown" was thus initially ineligible to appear on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. It was later issued as a double A-side with "My All" and reached number four on Hot R&B Singles. "Breakdown" experienced consistent airplay on American urban contemporary radio stations and it became Carey's longest-running title on Hot R&B Airplay until 2005. Elsewhere, "Breakdown" peaked at number four in New Zealand and number thirty-eight in Australia. (Full article...)
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  Title page of Handel's autograph score

  
  Messiah (HWV 56) is an English-language oratorio composed in 1741 by George Frideric Handel. The text was compiled from the King James Bible and the Coverdale Psalter by Charles Jennens. It was first performed in Dublin on 13 April 1742 and received its London premiere a year later. After an initially modest public reception, the oratorio gained in popularity, eventually becoming one of the best-known and most frequently performed choral works in Western music.
  
  Handel's reputation in England, where he had lived since 1712, had been established through his compositions of Italian opera. He turned to English oratorio in the 1730s in response to changes in public taste; Messiah was his sixth work in this genre. Although its structure resembles that of opera, it is not in dramatic form; there are no impersonations of characters and no direct speech. Instead, Jennens's text is an extended reflection on Jesus as the Messiah called Christ. The text begins in Part I with prophecies by Isaiah and others, and moves to the annunciation to the shepherds, the only "scene" taken from the Gospels. In Part II, Handel concentrates on the Passion of Jesus and ends with the Hallelujah chorus. In Part III he covers Paul's teachings on the resurrection of the dead and Christ's glorification in heaven. (Full article...)
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  Tchaikovsky, c. 1888

  
  Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (/tʃaɪˈkɒfski/ chy-KOF-skee; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer during the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the current classical repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, the 1812 Overture, his First Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, the Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy, several symphonies, and the opera Eugene Onegin.
  
  Although musically precocious, Tchaikovsky was educated for a career as a civil servant as there was little opportunity for a musical career in Russia at the time and no system of public music education. When an opportunity for such an education arose, he entered the nascent Saint Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1865. The formal Western-oriented teaching that Tchaikovsky received there set him apart from composers of the contemporary nationalist movement embodied by the Russian composers of The Five with whom his professional relationship was mixed. (Full article...)
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  "Paranoid Android" is a song by English alternative rock band Radiohead, released as the lead single from their third studio album, OK Computer (1997), on 26 May 1997. The lyrics were written by singer Thom Yorke following an unpleasant experience in a Los Angeles bar. The song is over six minutes long and contains four sections. The name is taken from Marvin the Paranoid Android from the science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
  
  "Paranoid Android" charted at number three on the UK Singles Chart, Radiohead's highest-charting position in the UK to date. It received acclaim, with critics claiming it to be the band's magnum opus, comparing it to the songs "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" by the Beatles and "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen. It has appeared regularly on lists of the best songs of all time, including NME's and Rolling Stone's respective 500 Greatest Songs of All Time lists. Its animated music video, directed by Magnus Carlsson, was placed on heavy rotation on MTV, although the network censored portions containing nudity in the US. At the 1998 Brit Awards, the song was nominated for Best British Single. The track has been covered by artists in a variety of genres. It was included in the 2008 Radiohead: The Best Of. (Full article...)

Selected pictures

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  Henrik Freischlader

  Photograph: Stefan Krause

  Henrik Freischlader (b. 1982) is a German blues guitarist and singer. He began his career in 1998, and established his own label, Cable Car Records, in 2009.
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  Ane Brun

  Photo: Benoît Derrier; edit: Keraunoscopia

  Ane Brun (b. 1976) is a Norwegian songwriter, guitarist and vocalist. She has recorded eight albums, starting in 2003 with Spending Time with Morgan.
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  Aida

  Photograph: Avinoam Michaeli

  Aida is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, it was commissioned by Cairo's Khedivial Opera House and had its première there on 24 December 1871, in a performance conducted by Giovanni Bottesini.
  
  This picture shows the set for a performance of Aida by the Israeli Opera in 2011.
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  Oceana (singer)

  Photo: ChrisHamburg

  Oceana (born 1982) is a German singer of German/Martiniquen descent. She is shown here performing at the Radio Hamburg Top 820.
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  Thomas Linley the elder

  Painting: Thomas Gainsborough

  Thomas Linley the elder (17 January 1733 – 19 November 1795) was an English bass singer and musician. He began his musical career at age 11 in Bath, becoming apprentice to the organist Thomas Chilcot. Linley married in 1752 and fathered eight children, supporting the family by working as a music teacher. As his children grew he developed their musical talent and was able to draw an increasing amount of income from their concerts. When the Bath Assembly Rooms opened in 1771, Linley became musical director and continued to promote his children's careers. He was eventually able to move to London with the thousands of pounds which he had amassed from their concerts. In addition to his children Linley taught tenor Charles Dignum, singer and actress Anna Maria Crouch, and novelist Frances Sheridan. He collaborated with his son Thomas Linley the younger in penning the comic opera The Duenna, with libretto by his son-in-law Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
  
  This picture is an oil-on-canvas painting created around 1770 by Thomas Gainsborough, showing Linley holding his "Elegies for Three Voices". It hangs in the Dulwich Picture Gallery, London.
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  Nelly Martyl

  Photograph credit: Jean Reutlinger; restored by Adam Cuerden

  Nelly Martyl (1884–1953) was a French opera singer. She sang in the premieres of several operas, including Leborne's La Catalane (1907), Erlanger's La Sorcière (1912), and Massenet's Amadis (1922). Martyl joined the Red Cross as a nurse during the First World War, and served at the Battle of Verdun in 1916, where she was known as la fée de Verdun (the Fairy of Verdun), and at the Second Battle of the Aisne in 1917. She continued as a nurse after the war to help with the 1918 epidemic of Spanish flu. She was awarded the Croix de Guerre with the carte du combattant (signifying service under particular hazard) in 1920.
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  Bessie Smith

  Photograph credit: Carl Van Vechten; restored by Adam Cuerden

  Bessie Smith (April 15, 1894 – September 26, 1937) was an American blues singer widely renowned during the Jazz Age. She is often regarded as one of the greatest singers of her era and was a major influence on fellow blues singers, as well as jazz vocalists.
  
  Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, her parents died when Smith was young, and she and her sister survived by performing on the streets of Chattanooga, Tennessee. She began touring and performed in a group that included Ma Rainey, and then went out on her own. Her successful recording career began in the 1920s, until an automobile accident ended her life at age 43.
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  Mary Lou Williams

  Photograph credit: William P. Gottlieb; restored by Adam Cuerden

  Mary Lou Williams (May 8, 1910 – May 28, 1981) was an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records. Williams wrote and arranged for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, and she was friend, mentor and teacher to numerous other jazz musicians. The second of eleven children, she was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and grew up in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A young musical prodigy, she taught herself to play the piano at the age of three. This photograph of Williams at the piano was taken by William P. Gottlieb around 1946.
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  Thelonious Monk

  Photograph credit: William P. Gottlieb; restored by Adam Cuerden

  Thelonious Monk (October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer, and the second-most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington. He had a unique improvisational style and famously remarked, "The piano ain't got no wrong notes". He made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "'Round Midnight", and a wide range of other compositions. He was renowned for a distinctive dress style, which included suits, hats, and sunglasses. He had disappeared from the scene by the mid-1970s and made only a few appearances during the final decade of his life. This 1947 photograph of Monk was taken by the American photographer William P. Gottlieb in Minton's Playhouse, a jazz club in New York.
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  Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

  Photograph credit: unknown; restored by Adam Cuerden

  Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (15 August 1875 – 1 September 1912) was an English composer and conductor. His greatest success was his cantata Hiawatha's Wedding Feast. This set the epic poem The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to music, and was widely performed by choral groups in England and the United States. Composers were not well paid; the work sold hundreds of thousands of copies, but he had sold the music outright for the sum of 15 guineas, so did not benefit directly. He learned to retain his rights and earned royalties for other compositions after achieving wide renown, but always struggled financially. This photograph of Coleridge-Taylor was taken around 1905.
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  Nicholas Lanier

  Painting credit: Anthony van Dyck

  Nicholas Lanier (baptised 10 September 1588 – buried 24 February 1666) was an English composer and musician; the first to hold the title of Master of the King's Music, in the service of Charles I and Charles II. He was one of the first composers to introduce monody and recitative to England.
  
  After this oil-on-canvas portrait was painted by the Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck in Antwerp, Lanier convinced the king to bring van Dyck to England, where he became the leading court painter. The portrait displays an attitude of studied carelessness, often termed sprezzatura, defined as "a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it". The painting now hangs in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
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  Aida

  Drawing credit: Philippe Chaperon; restored by Adam Cuerden

  Aida is a grand opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. Set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, it was commissioned by Cairo's Khedivial Opera House and had its premiere there on 24 December 1871, in a performance conducted by Giovanni Bottesini. Today, the work holds a central place in the operatic canon, receiving performances every year around the world; at New York's Metropolitan Opera alone, Aida has been sung more than 1,100 times since 1886.
  
  This picture is the set design for Act 1, Scene 2, of the opera's 1871 premiere, depicting the portico of the Temple of Vulcan, designed by Philippe Chaperon. The drawing is in the collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
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  Vexi Salmi

  Photo: Teemu Rajala

  Vexi Salmi is a popular Finnish lyricist who has become popular through the successes of the platinum-selling music artists for whom he writes. During his prolific career, he has written the lyrics for over 4,000 songs, more than 2,400 of which have been recorded by prominent artists such as Irwin Goodman, Jari Sillanpää, and Katri Helena. A music writer's award, the Vexi Salmi Award, is named after him.
• 
  Ariadne auf Naxos

  Illustration credit: unknown

  Ariadne auf Naxos ('Ariadne on Naxos'), Op. 60, is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Combining slapstick comedy and consummately beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention. The opera was originally conceived as a 30-minute divertissement to be performed at the end of Hofmannsthal's adaptation of Molière's play Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. Besides the opera, Strauss provided incidental music to be performed during the play. In the end, the opera was ninety minutes long, and the performance of the play and opera together totalled over six hours. It was first performed at the Staatsoper Stuttgart on 25 October 1912, directed by Max Reinhardt. The combination of the play and opera proved to be unsatisfactory to the audience: those who had come to hear the opera resented having to wait until the play finished. The work was revised in 1916, with the play being replaced by a prologue, and first performed at the Vienna State Opera on 4 October of that year.
  
  This picture is the cover of a vocal score of the revised edition of Ariadne auf Naxos, published in 1916.
• 
  Louis Armstrong

  Photo credit: New York World-Telegram and Sun

  Louis Armstrong, nicknamed "Satchmo" or "Pops", was an American jazz trumpeter and singer. Armstrong was a foundational influence on jazz, shifting the music's focus from collective improvisation to solo performers. With his distinctive gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser and as a scat singer.

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Did you know (auto-generated)

• ... that husband and wife Edward M. and Marie Zimmerman co-wrote the suffragist anthem "Votes for Women: Suffrage Rallying Song"?
• ... that Samuel Barber said that he could not adequately play his own Piano Sonata?
• ... that a performance by Milkie Way at the 2021 Heavy Music Awards got its Twitch stream banned for three days?
• ... that Max Weil, founder of the Halifax Symphony Orchestra, spent his later years in real estate?
• ... that Felipe Lara's Pulitzer finalist Double Concerto turns its soloists into a "many-tentacled creature"?
• ... that Steve Elcock's Symphony No. 6 is dedicated to "the everlasting execration of self-serving politicians, the obscenely rich and the system that allows them to remain so"?

Today's Birthdays

Birthdays in Music: November 11

• Irvin Stokes, American trumpeter, turns 98.
• Vince Martell, American guitarist with Vanilla Fudge, turns 79.
• Chris Dreja, Brit rhythm guitarist with The Yardbirds, turns 78.
• Pat Daugherty, American southern rocker with Black Oak Arkansas, turns 77.
• Marvin Hannibal Peterson, American composer and trumpeter, turns 76.
• Jim Peterik, American guitarist, keyboardist and vocalist with The Ides of March, turns 74.
• Andy Partridge, Brit singer, songwriter, and guitarist with XTC, turns 71.
• Marshall Crenshaw, American singer, songwriter and guitarist, turns 71.
• Dave Alvin, American singer-songwriter, guitarist, turns 69.
• Ian Craig Marsh, Brit musician with The Human League, Heaven 17, turns 68.
• Mike Mesaros, American bassist with The Smithereens, turns 67.
• Corinne Hermès, French singer, turns 63.
• Judith Edelman, American musician, turns 60.
• Mike Leon Grosch, German singer, turns 48.
• Nikki Bratcher, American R&B singer with Divine, turns 44.
• Kalan Porter, Canadian singer, turns 39.
• Reina Tanaka, Japanese singer with Morning Musume, Aa!, Elegies, turns 35.

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