On the 5th of March, 2009, I attended a Franz Ferdinand gig at the Barrowlands in Glasgow. Franz Ferdinand are a Glasgow based Indie band, which originally formed after four of its members met at the Glasgow School of Art in 2001. They were: Alex Kapranos, Nick McCarthy, Bob Hardy, Paul Thomson, and they have just added the newest member Andy Knowles, who is the ex-drummer from the band Fiery Furnaces. (Last FM) They are quoted by All Music as being "The Scottish Interpol" and say they have been influenced by bands such as Sparks, Roxy Music and Gang Of Four. This has allowed them, according to Wikipedia, to achieve the 'mix of bass throb and rhythmic, harmonized guitar' that both Interpol and Ferdinand have become so famous for. They strive constantly to create a unique sound, and have been quoted as saying they forbid the presence of any "solos or clutter" in their songs, allowing them to gain the reputation according to NME as being "one of the most intriguing UK guitar bands" of the early 21st Century.
The Barrowlands venue has recently been voted in a poll of bands as being the second best venue in the world, and is reputed by Wikipedia to have brilliant acoustic qualities. I personally love seeing gigs in this venue as its small capacity of only 1900 people allows nearly any gig you see there to be quite intimate and as a result you feel more involved with the band. During this gig this was exactly the case. The show was part of a UK-wide tour to promote the release of their third album 'Tonight' and a lot of the set list contained their new material. However, my favourite album is their self-titled debut album released in 2004. Some of the best memories from my mid-teen years are associated with some of the tracks. As a result I was very happy when they started to play some of their older material, as well as some of their newer tracks such as 'Ulysses' and 'Lucid Dreams'. I went to the gig with my boyfriend and he agreed with me that the newer material was a little disappointing and that the atmosphere in the gig was a little dull at points. The visuals behind the band were composed of quirky patterns that helped to emphasise the band's uniqueness, but at times became a little mesmerising and detracted from the music itself. During the encore however they managed to change the feeling completely and make it a very memorable experience. During the finale of the song 'Outsiders', each band member started one by one to play a different part of the drum kit. This drum spectacle really made the audience feel involved in the music and sent an electric charged feeling through the entire crowd. It made all the difference to the gig, and when they finished on their most famous song 'Take Me Out', everyone left on a high and singing their praises.
On 25th of April 2009 I attended a gig in Ivory Blacks, a very small venue (300 capacity) in the centre of Glasgow to see the relatively unknown band, InMe. InMe are a small alternative-rock band from Essex who are, according to Mog, regularly bracketed with the nu-metal genre. The band is made up of brothers and long time friends, Dave McPherson, Greg McPherson, Simon Taylor and newest addition, guitarist Ben Konstantinovic. They strive to produce a sound heavily influenced by other alternative-metal bands such as A Hundred Reasons and Funeral For A Friend. They first started out under the name of 'Drowned' in 1996, but soon discovered that too many bands shared the same name, so changed their name to InMe in 2001. They released their first album entitled 'Overgrown Eden' in early 2003, and the second, 'White Butterfly' in 2006, which enjoyed greater success than both the debut and their third album 'Daydream Anonymous' released in 2007. The gig I saw was to promote their upcoming fourth opus, titled 'Herald Moth'. During the gig they played a fair bit of new material, but also a lot of songs from their first two albums that I have listened to and loved since I was 15. One of the best songs was 'I Will Honour You' written about Dave's friend dying. Even though it was a song from the new album, the crowd was almost silent and it created an amazing atmosphere for the rest of the gig. Having seen InMe performing twice before I knew what to expect, and it was a relaxed, happy, quite intimate setting. They didn't however perform any covers, which they had done on the other occasions I went to see them, and this was quite disappointing. There were no visual or physical effects during the set like many other gigs I attend, but I really enjoyed that about the gig. It was just good honest music, and everyone in the 200 strong crowd felt connected to the band. The frontman Dave engaged in some very good 'banter' with the crowd during the whole gig, and because of this and the atmosphere, even my friend, who barely knew any of this tiny band's music loved every minute. It was a rare treat for me these days as so many bands I like are getting so big they need bigger venues!
Music is important in everyone's lives. We hear it wherever we are and it affects us in ways we aren't even aware of. Adverts often use music to sell a product or grab our attention, films manipulate emotions or atmospheres, and restaurants and bars use slow background music to create a pleasant ambiance or fast music to make people eat faster! People often put on music not just to change atmospheres but to suit moods, to cheer up or relax. For me, music is one of the biggest parts of my life. You'll never catch me far from my iPod or my instruments. It can change me in an instant from one mood to another, or often bring up memories for me. I have a definite soundtrack to my life and I believe everyone else has one as well. Although everyone has a different taste in music, we can all relate to it and couldn't live without it, even when opinions clash. Because of this I feel music is vital in our communities as it adds to our quality of life in a way that little else can.
Art
I recently visited the Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery in Glasgow’s West End and spent a few hours looking at the wide variety of exhibits and artworks. Kelvingrove is the most visited museum outside of London with around one million visitors each year and it contains world famous collections of artwork including pieces such as Dali’s ‘Christ of Saint John of the Cross’, owned by Glasgow Museums. The Gallery itself, completed in 1901, is built in a Spanish Baroque style and uses predominantly red sandstone, a traditional material for Glaswegian buildings. In 2003 the Gallery closed for 3 years to undergo a £29.7 million restoration project that aimed to make radical changes to the displays and display areas across the Gallery. This was achieved by the removal of offices and workshops and the opening up of the basement, where the Doctor Who exhibit is currently displayed. When the Museum reopened on September 13th 2006, over 50% more exhibits were able to be displayed, bringing the total to over 8,000 compared to the 5,000 previously, and pieces like the stunning Charles Rennie Mackintosh tearoom were brought into the public domain.
The building has three floors and each is themed. The lower-ground floor is the main public entrance, and also holds the newly established, instantly popular Doctor Who exhibit. The ground floor includes a Mini Museum for under 5s, an Art Discovery Centre and the Environment Discovery Centre which all have interactive, hands on displays. The first floor is home to the multimedia Object Cinema, the History Discovery Centre, and Study Centre. The galleries offer a wide spectrum of exhibits, from Scottish and French art to expression and Sculpture Highlights (Glasgow Museums).
Although I love so many exhibits in the museum, one of my favourite sections is the French art collection. During the restoration the collection toured North America and received rave notices from critics (Glasgow Museums) giving it a much deserved, world famous reputation. Another reason I love the collection is the open space it has been given, and the fact that the paintings are hung at eye level. This is not only to make the paintings easier to view by children, but to encourage people to spend more time over each painting. There were a number of paintings in the collection that caught my eye but the two I liked in particular were from the Impressionist period. These are the paintings I paid particular attention to.
The first is painted by the renowned Claude Monet (1840-1926) and is titled ‘Vetheuil’, after the village that he resided in for five years and which was a major inspiration for many of his works. The second painting I loved is by the artist Maximilien Luce (1858-1941) and is titled ‘Landscape with Willow Trees’. Both Monet and Luce were Neo Impressionists, artists belonging to a movement around the 1880s that followed a particular set of styles which were often based on landscapes and urban scenes. (Wikipedia) These artists also shared a belief that their art should communicate moods and emotions and give a feeling of permanence and timelessness. (Glasgow Museums)
The technique of ‘Pointalism’ is often said to be the technique that characterised these neo-impressionist paintings. However that term is popularly misused as the correct term is‘Divisionism’. This is the technique of using tiny dabs, dots, or, in Monet’s case, commas of colour to create a painting. The technique was very dependant on colour. The artists wanted to achieve the highest level of luminosity in their paintings, and they achieved this by painting the individual colours onto the painting instead of mixing them on a palette. This gave the paintings a distinct vibrancy which is evident in both of the paintings above. In ‘Vetheuil’ instead of using black for the shadows of the trees, Monet has used blues, which better represented the real colours of the scene, and his use of commas instead of dots creates a sense of movement. The tree on the right hand side of the painting gives the impression of swaying, while the clouds feel like they are slowly drifting and trailing, creating a relaxing image. Luce’s painting is also very realistic and gives a comforting feeling as the figures he painted seem to be doing every day tasks and the colours seem to be a little duller than those of Monet’s. The woman in the centre of the picture is wearing blue and orange and seems to be walking down a path in the opposite direction to a man in a white shirt, who is kneeling in the left foreground of the scene. It seems the man is doing some form of gardening and is framed on either side by mature willow trees. This painting contrasts with Monet’s in that instead of commas being used, his dots form familiar patterns with rectangles in the path and grass and triangles for the tips of the trees. I found both of these paintings inspirational and thought-provoking, even though the movement at the time desired that art should be at face value and nothing deeper.
Theatre
On the 29th of April 2009 I went to see Scottish Opera's production of ‘Cosi Fan Tutte’ at Glasgow’s Theatre Royal. This Victorian theatre opened in 1867 and is now the longest running theatre in Scotland. It plays host to a wide variety of shows, ranging from drama and dance to comedy, and thrives on the reputation of the productions of its two resident companies, Scottish Ballet and Scottish Opera. It has recently come under the management of the Ambassador Theatre Group. The building itself, however, is still owned by Scottish Opera, who made refurbishments to it in 2007 (Wikipedia). Scottish Opera was founded in 1962 and for the past forty five years has been producing various award winning operas such as Puccini’s ‘Madame Butterfly’, Strauss’s ‘Die Fledermaus’ and Wagner’s ‘Tristan Und Isolde’. Scottish opera are known to be involved in the community, as they tour casts to provide workshops in schools, hold singing classes and courses for children aged 3-20, and offer in depth, pre-show discussions about their productions. ‘Cosi Fan Tutte’ is a light-hearted comedy of errors following 24 hours in the lives of two sisters whose fiancés decide to test their fidelity before they marry. This production is set in the Bay of Naples in the 1900s and the world-famous, controversial director David McVicar has captured the elegance of the time in every aspect of the production. The issues it explores of trust, fidelity, jealousy and desire resonate as much today as they did when this opera was written in 1790. The opera is sung in Italian, but Scottish Opera have recently established a translation system called Supertitles. They provide subtitles on a screen above the stage, and I found this very useful as I was sitting in the Balcony and could see the translation and the action at the same time.
During the production the set became a key companion to the action and provided a subtle help to guide the plot along in the eyes of the audience. The set was incredibly well designed, with the view of the Bay of Naples that could be transformed into an elegant Italian parlour room with a clever use of screens. The scenery along with the lighting was very cleverly used to create moods within the story. For instance, at the start of the opera the lighting is very bright and the cast looks radiant while on the beach, but later on when the fiancés have left to go to war, the lighting is much duller and suggests a sense of foreboding when the women have locked themselves away in their room. In the scenes where the women went to meet the lovers, dimly lit lanterns were dropped from the ceiling against the beautiful bay scene to create a more romantic atmosphere. Finally towards the end of the opera, after the brothers have discovered their wives have been unfaithful, one of the characters sings the main theme of the opera that is how women are like that. During this song the lights in the auditorium were put up and it was as if the characters were singing to all the women present. The costumes were also used effectively throughout the opera. Because of the time setting, they were all very elegant, but the main characters of the lovers were especially effective. The women’s innocence at the beginning was illustrated by their white sundresses, while later a scene showed them in their underwear suggesting signs of temptation. Finally, their stunning ball gowns in bright colours showed their willingness and love for their new beaux. The men were dressed in wonderfully crafted military uniforms, showing their rank and emphasising their authority and their belief that their lovers would not be unfaithful. Their crafty disguises to trick their fiancées later on though were baggier, nomad-like clothes and showed their playful-character.
Overall the production was to my mind extremely successful, and I became deeply involved in the story. It was subtle and elegant, while being incredibly entertaining and thought-provoking. I loved every minute, and after the 8 minutes of applause at the end of the performance, I think I can safely say everyone else present felt the same way.
The Arts in our Lives
Music is the art that is undoubtedly the biggest influence in my life. Anywhere I am you can bet if I’m not listening to music I’ll be singing some! Many people have often asked me if I get sick of listening to music or being involved with it because I’m studying it at Uni. But the truth is I don’t, and never will. Not only do I study a lot of different aspects of music, but the music itself is so varied. Like art, it often can’t be categorised, as a lot of the time it just breaks the rules. I love how unexpected some music can be, and I have a very eclectic taste in music. Being classically trained in violin, piano and voice means that I often listen to classical music, either for relaxing to or to make me happy. I especially love listening to Bach or Mozart (It’s the Brandenburg Concerto No.3 just now!). However, sometimes I also crave listening to Classic Rock, Metal, Indie, and even some Reggae when I’m in the mood. I’m very lucky in this respect, because it means I have never really become accustomed to listening to a particular genre of music. Often the music we listen to affects the way we dress and the friends we have. There was a definite split in my school between the ‘Emo’ kids and the ‘Neds’. The Emos wore black clothes, eyeliner and listened to metal music such as ‘My Chemical Romance’. whilst the Neds wore Burberry caps, tracksuits and listened to Dance music such as‘Cascada’.
Music is so powerful in the way it can define the characters of people in society and even cause rivalry because of different tastes in music. When I was younger, my view on music was not as open minded as it is now, and it directed me to select my friends in school. Whereas now, because I don’t view any music taste as right or wrong, I will give anything a listen to. It has helped me become a lot more aware of social situations that before I would never have really realised. An example of this is rap-music. I didn’t enjoy listening to it at all, but after listening to it and doing research it has helped me understand a lot more about gang warfare, especially in the US.
Music truly has made me who I am, and shapes my entire life. I go to many gigs and am privileged enough to have a part-time job with DF Concerts, a promotion company. This often means I work at gigs on the front door, and have learnt that if I don’t know who a band is, I can tell by the people coming to the concert! Music is a facet of everyone’s lives in that we hear it in films, on television, in restaurants, on elevators, in shops…and most of us are not even aware of the effect it exerts on us. It is a very powerful art form, and a fantastic medium with which to create atmospheres and even change people’s moods.
Theatre and opera are less major parts of my life although I do love going whenever I can. Scottish Opera give cheaper tickets for under 26 year olds, and I think this is brilliant because it has allowed me to take different friends to see productions. Often the theatre is far too expensive as an outing but by offering deals like this it allows more people to experience the true brilliance of a live performance.
Art surrounds us everywhere we go, and like music we aren’t always aware of it. In Glasgow art is everywhere. For example I sometimes notice the Charles Rennie Mackintosh designs that are speckled about the city and hold their own beauty. I recently also spotted a piece of Street HeART, that was drawn on a pavement and passers by were taking photos of it, which I would have otherwise probably never have been noticed.
Art has always played a large part in my life. Visiting Dali’s house at the age of 7 was a big influence and I have used incidences such as this to inspire me in song writing. I also studied Art at Higher level and even now I get cravings to visit galleries from time to time. At the start of the year I went to a film festival in the Centre for Contemporary Arts which showcased short films on a variety of topics: Alcoholism, WW2, and forgotten memories of Glasgow. Some of the documentaries were incredibly eye-opening and very well filmed and I’m planning to go back next year and take more friends. During this elective we were taught about how expressions are incredibly important in art, especially in the classes held in the art bays. By designing our own faces it taught me how artists communicate expression and also how to see deeper into a picture or painting and observe other than just what is on the surface. Going round Kelvingrove Museum it surprised me just how important this was, and in so many exhibits I found myself spending longer looking at them and analysing them in ways I wouldn’t have before I took this class.
Some of these exhibits were ‘Embassy Lodge’ by Anthony Green that conveys breaking china through the broken canvas, and the exhibit ‘Heads’ by Sophie Cave shows how expressions are the art.
Another exhibit that grabbed my attention recently was a tree constructed of fluorescent strip lighting in the Gallery Of Modern Art.
Although I did not catch the artists name or the title of the piece, the tree says a lot to me without knowing where it came from. I love how Art cannot be given one definition. Masterpieces by Da Vinci can be placed beside famous graffiti artworks by Banksy. This controversy is exactly the reason I think art plays such a large role within the community, enabling communication and providing inspiration.
References
Franz Ferdinand Biography Accessed 2nd May 2009
InMe Biogrpahy Accessed 2nd May 2009
Kelvingrove Museum
Alasdair A. Auld, 'Glasgow - Art Gallery And Museum', William Collins Sons and Company Limited, 1987
Accessed 3rd May 2009
Claude Monet and Maximilien Luce
Samm Sinclair and Natalie Baker, 'Introduction to Art', Thames and Hudson London, 1971
Accessed 3rd May 2009
Art - Pointilism Accessed 3rd May 2009
Theatre Royal Accessed 3rd May 2009
Scottish Opera Accessed 3rd May 2009
Simon P. Keefe, 'The Cambridge Companion to Mozart', Cambridge University Press, 2003
Scottish Opera 'Cosi Fan Tutte' Season 08/09 Programme
On the 29th of April 2009 I went to see Scottish Opera's production of ‘Cosi Fan Tutte’ at 
