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art comes from the depths
Kara DioGuardi has written or co-written more than 60 songs released this year, collaborating with Pink, Celine Dion, Christina Aguilera, Gwen Stefani, Carlos Santana, Marc Anthony, Lindsay Lohan, Ashlee Simpson, Hilary Duff and others.
Her behind-the-scenes work was responsible for three of the four fastest-rising songs on pop radio.
"Sometimes, when I enter a room with a girl who has had no pain, no sorrow and no experience and I have to write songs for her, I almost want to put a gun to my head," she says. " 'Cause there's nothing to pull on. Art is about pain and struggle."
> from article Spinning all that angst into pop gold - By Chris Lee, LATimes / calendarlive.com Dec 25, 2005
> related pages : music .. the shadow self
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"The record industry has gotten so into image that image becomes more important than the singer," Norah Jones said before the Grammys last year. "I don't know if there are any less good singers than ever, but most don't use their voices in ways that feel honest. Everyone just seems to go for the fast buck."
[LA Times Feb 8 2004]
Norah Jones even brushes off such pronouncements by The New York Times Magazine which recently characterized [her album] Feels Like Home "as probably the music business' most anticipated release of 2004." "I think most things are overstatements as far as press goes," she said. "Like it's all great, but it's not that big a deal.
"It's just a record. It's a bunch of songs. It's me and my band. I'm not the second coming and please don't dis me for being hailed as that or praise me as anything that I'm not...."
Toronto Sun, Feb 17 2004
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iPods from Amazon.com Apple 4 GB iPod Mini Apple 15 GB iPod Apple 20 GB iPod |
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 .. .. "Apparently everyone else sees a regular girl. I'm very disappointed in that," she continues. "I want them to see me as Frank Sinatra or Bill Clinton. It tends to get on my nerves when people say, 'Wow, can you believe this is happening to you?' I say 'Yeah, I've worked hard for this.' " If that sounds like cocky bluster from a teenager hawking her first album, it is. But at the same time, music critics have been almost unanimous in predicting that McKay will be a big star. |
"At
just 19, this supremely gifted, charming and darkly funny New York
oddball
has all the makings of the first great singer-songwriter of the young
century,"
Washington Post reviewer Joe Heim gushed of her debut CD, "Get
Away From Me."
And The New York Times called her first Columbia Records outing "a tour de force from a sly, articulate musician who sounds comfortable in any era ... she's blithely formidable, and just getting started." British-born and Harlem-raised, McKay went to college at Manhattan School of Music at the tender age of 16 but she dropped out, disenchanted with her singing and piano studies after just two years. "It was very structured and they tend to be heading you toward either the life of a sideman or the life of a teacher," McKay said of her college experience. "I didn't want to be either of those things. I wanted to be a star, and there is no class for that." [CNN.com / Reuters 4/13/04] / photo from nelliemckay.net |
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Pallavi Mahidhara, 15, Bethesda, MD - 2003 Davidson Fellow : Award: $25,000 scholarship .. demonstrated her musical journey with the piano by performing various Classical, Romantic and 20th century compositions with the National Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in such world-renowned venues as the Kennedy Center and the Hollywood Bowl. Pallavi continues to expand her musical education while sharing her talent, skills and passion by teaching music on a volunteer basis.
info from Davidson Institute
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Timothy Andres (who goes by the nickname "Timo") .. may be the first From the Top performer to actually have been kicked out of school. "I was at a Montessori school for several years of my education, and eventually I started to disagree with the way they did things," he says.
"It was supposed to be a communal learning experience, but they sort of dropped the whole 'Montessori' part of it!"
Timo says that he was not given any time to work on his music, which was what was most important to him, and as a result he started to rebel.
"I became a very recalcitrant student," he says. "As a result, I ended up being suspended several times, and eventually they kicked me out."
Nowadays, Timo attends the Juilliard pre-college program and he is also home-schooled, which he says is a much better situation as it has allowed him to progress more musically.
In addition to being an accomplished pianist and composer, Timo is also an exceptionally talented visual artist. "I do quite a bit of drawing and graphic design," he says, "and as a reward for finishing a piece, I always do a cover design."
..
..From the Top interview
Timothy Andres, 17, was a 2003 Davidson Fellow
Timothy Andres personal site
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From the Top is "a not-for-profit multi-media organization whose mission is to encourage and celebrate the development of youth through music. "From the Top provides information, entertainment, interaction and education for pre-college aged musicians, their parents and teachers."
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Devon Guthrie, 16, Claremont, CA - 2003 Davidson Fellow : Award: $50,000 scholarship .. compiled a moving vocalist portfolio entitled “An American Quartet: Poet, Composer, Singer, and Pianist” in which she performed songs based on the poetry of Emily Dickinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Langston Hughes set to music by American composers such as Aaron Copland, Richard Hundley, Jake Heggie and Ricky Gordon. Devon’s work speaks to the fundamental value of music in American culture.
a 2003 Davidson Fellow - Davidson Institute
 .. .. "Everything in this business is designed to encourage you to play along," Pink says today. "They know people are so hungry for stardom that they'll just follow the record industry game. I know because I was ready to do anything when I started out. "But I found that selling records wasn't enough. I told myself after the first record that I'd rather go back home and start over again than be trapped in a one-dimensional world any longer." .... Pink's favorite track [from her new "Try This" album] is "Unwind," whose lyrics are a salute to fireball '60s blues-rocker Janis Joplin. As she speaks about Joplin, it's easy to see why the young singer feels such affection for Joplin, who was another rebel outsider. "The song's about being tough on the outside and vulnerable on the inside, and I see now that I am also talking about myself," says Pink, whose hair is now dyed blond. |
 .. .. "I knew there was a chance that no one would relate to any of it in the music, but I wanted the album to reflect a real person. I was tired of being a marketing concept." .... "Janis Joplin [above] was so inspiring by singing blues music when it wasn't culturally acceptable for white women, and she wore her heart on her sleeve. "She was so witty and charming and intelligent, but she also battled an ugly-duckling syndrome. I would love to play her in a movie." from
article: Shades of Pink - by Robert Hilburn,
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 .. Stacy DuPree, 14 |
 .. Katy Rose, 16 |
 .. Bonnie McKee, 18 |
| "I
was 8 when I wrote the first [song], I just picked it out on a guitar
in
my room," said the native of Tyler, Texas.
Stacy [DuPree] writes songs for the band Eisley... The [DuPree] siblings were considered cute novelties when they began their career performing in their parents' coffeehouse in a strip mall, but now they are part of a growing group of precocious songwriters that the record industry is taking seriously. ... |
Katy
Rose of Tarzana is a young singer-songwriter whose lyrics will make
parents
gulp hard.
(Sample: "I've lost all sense of navigation, but got my Californication/ If I miss my graduation/ I'll have one [expletive] long vacation.") She contributed a song to the soundtrack of "Thirteen." She says she spent the last few years caught up in self-destruction and self-loathing and that her music will speak to those her age and gender who are "sick of that pop crap" popular a few years ago. "My music is what it's really like, what life is like, for girls now," Rose said. |
"It's
harder to be female than it is to be young, I think. It's harder to be
a girl, because in this business you have to deal with a lot of
50-year-old
men, and if you stand up and say, 'I wrote these songs myself, it
should
be like this,' then they call you a little diva.
"Look, I have always known what I want to do, and this is it. I never doubted that it was going to work out. I've been around the block." Bonnie McKee from article:
More than kids' stuff, |
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 .. .. But Sokoloff, 21, isn't discouraged. She spends almost every day off practicing with the band and writing songs about her life as an actor, her family and her boyfriend, "Spider-Man" co-star James Franco. |
In
her song
"Ode to Hollywood," Sokoloff riffs on the industry's image machine: "I
saw her just the other day/looking thin she was wasting away / Should I
start to play the game? / So we can all look the same."
"A lot of [the songs] come from sacrifices I make as an actor and how hard it is on your body and as a person," she said. "I'm really, really hard on myself. I have this need to succeed all the time." [LA Times May 9 2002] Sokoloff is lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist in the band Smittin *related pages:***body image *****perfectionism |
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***Samantha Mumba
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[Are you looking forward to living the highlife over there
in the U.S. and going to lots of swanky showbiz parties?]That's not really my thing. I was in a big showcase in the Viper Room and that was a bit swanky and we arrived in a limo.
It was nice but it's not something I do all the time! I try to keep touch with reality. I don't get very wrapped up in it, I just go and have a laugh.
[from Worldpop.Com interview by Colleen Last]
...CD: Gotta Tell You
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