Not simply a source of exciting headlines, the Columbia Promotions team achieved measurable dominance at radio in 2022. According to Mediabase’s year-end report, Columbia led the way in overall radio with a 15.3% chart share. It fared particularly well at the Top 40/pop format, amassing an impressive 23.8%.
Up 40% from last year’s pop share, the tally dominantly ranked as the year’s best. RCA, the #2 label at pop, earned a 16.3% chart share in 2022.
Consistent with its share dominance, Columbia was behind five of the Top 10 songs at the format. Lil Nas X’s “THATS WHAT I WANT” registered as pop radio’s #1 song in 2022, with the Columbia-promoted “STAY” (The Kid Laroi & Justin Bieber, #3), “As It Was” (Harry Styles, #4), “INDUSTRY BABY” (Lil Nas X & Jack Harlow, #8), and “Easy On Me” (Adele, #10) also landing near the top of the chart.
Columbia artists Lil Nas X and Harry Styles respectively ranked as pop radio’s #2 and #3 artists in 2022.
RCA’s Doja Cat, who had four songs reach #1 on the weekly pop chart in 2022, registered as the format’s #1 artist for the year (and the year’s top artist on radio overall, for that matter). Her hit “Need To Know” was pop radio’s #5 song for the year.
— The #3 song in pop share, The Kid Laroi & Justin Bieber’s “STAY” — a Columbia hit — ranked at #1 for overall radio in 2022. It also claimed first place at the hot adult contemporary format.
— Mediabase’s Year-End report is based on a November 7, 2021 – November 5, 2022 tracking period.
Admit it: singing and dancing animals are low-hanging fruit when it comes to grabbing people’s attention, especially kids. Pop them into a film, like a cartoon from the Broadway-influenced Disney Renaissance, described on Collider — “The Little Mermaid,” “Aladdin,” “The Lion King” — and you’ve all but guaranteed a beloved character for generations to come. Before then there was Jiminy Cricket from “Pinocchio” and Baloo from “The Jungle Book.” Meanwhile, Snow White and Aurora both sang to animals in the forest like Orpheus from Greek myth, the most gifted composer and singer of all time. Even if such animated films don’t include a recognizable species of singing and dancing animal, they include some magical critter-type companion, like Olaf from “Frozen.”
So what gives here? Do folks just really, really want to believe that their dog or cat are more human than they really are? Is it just the incongruity of seeing something like a raccoon rocking out on the guitar — a human-only activity? Does a singing plant, like that giant quasi-Venus flytrap from “Little Shop of Horrors” (via IMDb), produce the same sense of surrealism? Furthermore, do animals actually understand music at all? Rhythm, pitch, tempo, and all that?
Well, believe it or not, more research has been done on this topic than you might expect, as articles like that on BBC Science Focus recount. In the end, most animals have no clue about music. Some, however, can bounce with the beat just like anyone else.
We’re going to guess that lots of folks who’ve prowled the internet at some point in history might have seen that bobbing cockatoo video from 2007 featuring Snowball, the Backstreet Boys-loving bird. As we see on YouTube, Snowball had 14 distinct patterns of dance, depending on the music he listened to, which is probably more moves than most people. (Side note: Queen and Michael Jackson also ranked among his favorites.) Snowball’s bobbing and stomping not only prompted a deluge of media attention, but actual scientific research published in the journal Current Biology in 2009, available on Cell.
Snowball was a sulphur-crested cockatoo, a type of parrot with a yellow mohawk-looking fan of feathers on the top of the head (pictured above). As the study published in Current Biology concluded, his movements weren’t random chance. He displayed evidence of “musical beat perception and synchronization,” and adjusted his moves to match a song’s tempo. Researchers concluded that his understanding of rhythm is likely part-and-parcel of the same evolutionary function that allows us humans to track subtleties in voice and speech, i.e., the “vocal learning and rhythmic synchronization hypothesis.” By contrast, domesticated animals like dogs have lived with humans for tens of thousands of years, but show no signs of the same skill. We can’t say whether or not Snowball was more musically inclined than other cockatoos, but if other parrots don’t react, they just might not like the music, as Insider reports.
Next up are some incredibly fuzzy, cute monkey-like creatures with striped tales and elongated noses that almost look like the muzzles of foxes: lemurs. Folks might be inclined to think that primates most similar to humans, like chimpanzees or gorillas, are more musically inclined. Lemurs, however, demonstrate a true understanding of rhythm.
As Science explains, a study from the University of Turin discovered that lemurs in the Madagascar rainforest typically sing in the morning, at 7 a.m. And when we say “sing,” we mean sing in actual duets and on beat. One lemur starts a higher set of notes, and another joins in to coordinate with the first and add a “descending phrase.” The two parts overlap like a simple 1:2 rhythm. Imagine “We Will Rock You” by Queen — a kick drum on one, followed by a clap on two. Or, lemurs do a simpler 1:1 rhythm where all parts stack. And it’s important to note that these researchers observed lemurs in their natural habitat, not rocking out in captivity to the Backstreet Boys like Snowball the cockatoo.
And for the curious, yes, close human relatives like chimpanzees and gorillas react to music, but don’t display an understanding of it. One study suggests that chimps prefer some types of music over others, and music over silence (per Psychology Today), and show individual preferences for different types of music, like rock vs. classical. Chimps bop to music, but they also bop to random, uncoordinated noise, per Science.
Ah, elephants — such soulful giants. They’re so soulful, in fact, that they host funereal rites for their dead, as National Geographic says. They take detours from their never-ending roaming to visit the spots where elephants died. They circle up, raise their feet, and bellow toward the sky. That’s not to say that every animal who is extremely intelligent and has funereal rites is musically inclined, but we already know that elephants communicate a lot through voice. This is a characteristic they share with cockatoos, lemurs, and humans. This gives credence to the aforementioned “vocal learning and rhythmic synchronization hypothesis” cited in the journal Current Biology and published on Cell, credited for the evolution of musical comprehension in “nonhuman animals.”
Admittedly, there’s far less hard research into elephants’ understanding of music, and a lot more of these “watch the elephant sway to the music” videos on YouTube, particularly by pianist Paul Barton. However, as far back as 1798 folks in the music world recognized the musical aptitude of elephants, per Ludwig van Toronto. Back then, an orchestra at the Conservatoire de Musique in Paris performed pieces with elephants, and those elephants kept rhythm by swaying in time with various pieces. Furthermore, Columbia University neurologist David Sulzer co-founded the Thai Elephant Orchestra in Thailand, per Columbia News, a music group made of 16 elephants that play instruments like the steel drum and harmonica. The elephants improvise music on beat “more accurately than their human counterparts.”
It’s well known at this point how intelligent dolphins are: They use tools, memorize lists, learn patterns, and are heavily reliant on sound for communication. Except when they surface, they and other marine mammals like whales dwell in a dark, murky realm where sound is the chief tool to reach out to others. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America published a study (posted at the National Library of Medicine) saying that dolphins could hear underwater whistles up to two kilometers away. Sciencing describes the unbelievable hearing range of dolphins, from 20Hz all the way to 150 KHz. Humans, for example, can only hear frequencies from 20 Hz to 20 KHz — seven times less. And dogs, with their much-ballyhooed hearing? Only about 40 Hz to 60 kHz, as Hidden Hearing cites.
Even though dolphins can communicate across a huge range of frequencies, they prefer communicating at higher frequencies. It comes as no shock that they prefer high-pitched human instruments like the flute, piccolo and Indian wooden recorder, as Science ABC says. But as this video on YouTube shows, they’re also down with clarinets. They match the rhythm and bark along to it better than lots of human drummers keep time. Like elephants, there’s less hard research into dolphins’ musical aptitude. But if the dolphin in the aforementioned video is any indication of things, then dolphins can discern and count rhythm as well as, if not better than, any other entry on this list.
And finally, we come to an entry on this list of musically gifted animals that many people might find surprising: rats. When not carrying flea-bearing plagues, ducking into sewers, or dragging slices of pizza into the subway, rats are often used for all kinds of research. Reason being, as the Journal of the Missouri State Medical Association says (via the National Library of Medicine), rats, mice, and humans share 95% of the same genes. That’s only 1% less similar than gorillas, as The Guardian cites. So might they also share some of our musical traits while doing all of that adorable peeping and squeaking with their little whiskers? It took a long time to find out, but a very recent study says yes.
Classic FM cites a study conducted by the University of Tokyo and published in the journal Science Advances. The study equipped 10 rats with “wireless, miniature accelerometers” to track head movements. While 10 rats isn’t what we’d call an amazing sample size, researchers still discovered that the rats bopped their heads to the study’s musical selections: Mozart’s “Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major,” Lady Gaga’s “Born this Way,” Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust,” Michael Jackson’s “Beat It,” and Maroon 5’s “Sugar.” In this case, the choice of music mattered less than the music’s tempo. Researchers sped up and slowed down tracks, and found that the rats preferred 132 beats per minute, specifically.
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I’ve never been one for pharmaceuticals to help me sleep. And, yet, I find sleep earbuds to be a soothing and natural way to lull myself to bed — especially if I need to pass out earlier than I otherwise would, or when I’m on a plane, where I always struggle to hold a sustained snooze.
Whether you’re like me or you need help to pass out when it’s bedtime, Anker dove right into the sleep earbuds space to tackle this with the Soundcore Sleep A10. I wore them consistently to find out if they truly are an effective digital sedative, and worth the asking price.
Anker includes three pairs of ear tips, from small to large, though beyond just finding the right fit, the tightest seal is arguably just as important. Three sets of wings also come in the box to help with stability and maintain that seal, so you have options in figuring out the best combination.
The Sleep A10 are as much about comfort as they are about what they actually do, and with good reason. Great features don’t mean much while sleeping if the earbuds are uncomfortable, especially given how many hours you’d have to wear them. It may seem like a no-brainer to just wear any other pair of regular wireless earbuds to do the same job, but when they get this small, sleeping on your side becomes a lot easier. The lack of cables also makes these far more diminutive and adaptable than something like the Kokoon Nightbuds, for instance, which use a primary module linking the two earbuds by cable.
While the case looks and feels like a Soundcore product, given the similarity to Anker’s other earbuds, the Sleep A10 buds are tiny by comparison. That doesn’t guarantee comfort for all ears — something I believe is almost unavoidable because of the variances in how people like to sleep — but it still improves the odds they’ll eventually be old hat to wear in bed. Anker recommends softer pillows to reduce friction and pressure with your ears, so your preferences there may also be a key factor in whether these feel good or not.
For me, the earbuds never felt weird or intrusive while laying on a pillow. Whenever I woke up, my ears didn’t feel sore or otherwise irritated by the Sleep A10, so they passed my own personal test for comfort. It’s hard for me to be certain whether they will for you too, but I do think they have a good chance due in large part to their size.
It’s not a deep learning curve to figure out how to set them up and make them work, either. They pair to your iOS or Android device seamlessly, with the Soundcore app serving as the primary source to configure the earbuds. Things work a little differently here relative to Anker’s other earbuds, meaning there are no settings for active noise cancelation (ANC) because that feature isn’t available to begin with. No ambient mode to hear your surroundings, nor special modes for much else.
Despite that, Anker clearly chose to treat the Sleep A10 as something of a hybrid pair, given that the app presents two distinct modes aptly called Music and Sleep. The fact these earbuds even play music is a big plus compared to the Bose Sleepbuds II, which offer no avenue to listen to any audio outside of their own sleep content.
That kind of access probably is why you can tweak how music and spoken word content sound by going through the EQ and the 20+ presets available. Or create your own, much like you would with other Soundcore buds. By default, the Sleep A10 don’t get as loud as other earbuds, and for understandable reasons, as it’s not good for your hearing health to blast audio into your ears during hours of slumber. Anker tries to remedy that with the Smart Volume Control toggle whereby the earbuds will lower volume after they’ve detected you’re actually asleep.
Anker keeps things pretty simple in the app under Sleep mode, though you have to tap Music mode to make changes to what you’re actually going to listen to. For instance, the “built-in music” section takes you to a library of natural and ambient sounds, like wind, river, rain, and crickets, among others. The All section doesn’t show you everything, as the Rest and Focus sections offer different sounds, like a small fire or sounds from a park, for instance. You’ll find more under Music in the bottom menu as well.
Some of these are musical, with harmonies, whereas others are purely relevant sounds. To listen to any of them, tap on the headphone icon to sample a 10-second clip, or the plus icon to download the sound directly to the earbuds. Notably missing at launch were standard white, brown, and pink noise options, though Anker eventually added them — including gray noise — in a subsequent firmware update, so you’ve got more flexibility now if that’s what you want to hear to help you sleep.
A lot of this is a matter of preference from the outset anyway, even if you’re encouraged to try out the different choices. Anker is thinking also about times you’re awake, which explains why some sounds are there ostensibly to help you rest or stay focused on a task, presumably before you’re actually trying to sleep. If you’d rather listen to your own tunes to lull you into dreamland, the Sleep A10 and Soundcore app will oblige. It’s not hard — you only need to play content from another source, switch to Sleep mode in the app, and that’s it. That way, you can play ambient sounds or music from, say, Spotify or Apple Music, if that’s the route that works for you.
Mediocre music
These aren’t special earbuds, as far as sonic performance goes. Music will sound fine, and passive noise isolation is quite good. But I wasn’t blown away by the overall soundstage here. More bass-heavy, with slightly elevated highs and flatter mids. You’ll enjoy listening to some music with them, but I couldn’t recommend the Sleep A10 as primary earbuds for music. The music part is the ancillary feature, not the primary one, which is saying a lot for a pair of $180 buds.
Controls are limited, but you can do a couple of things. Double-tapping the left earbud switches between the two modes, whereas doing it on the right bud is for play/pause. You can rearrange the two if you prefer to play/pause on the left side, but that’s it. Anker understandably couldn’t put single tap controls onto these buds given the number of false positives likely to happen just laying down on your side with them. There is no way to skip tracks, adjust volume, or access a voice assistant under the current control scheme.
Set an alarm within the app and it will pop off at the set time, regardless of whether there’s audio playing or not. The only caveat is putting the earbuds back in the case before wearing them for the night disables it, so you need to manually go back into the app to actually activate it. For those reasons, I always set the alarm as the last thing to do after choosing the audio before bed.
An alarm in your head
The earbuds aren’t exactly graceful when it comes time to wake you up. Rather than an incremental process to help bring you out of your sleep, the buds progressively beep as a standard bedside alarm clock might. While effective enough, I found it a bit jarring, probably because I personally don’t use alarms like that to wake up every day. You might find it totally natural, which again, is why these earbuds are more subjective in how they may work for every individual.
Anker also plays up the sleep-tracking abilities in the Sleep A10, though you can only get to them if you create a Soundcore account and log in. I get the reasons why because it’s easier to keep the data accessible, especially if you’re switching phones, for instance, but it would’ve been more helpful to users for Anker to explain why this particular feature necessitates that. In any case, the in-ear tracking will look for sleep duration and quality above all else, letting you know how long you slept and how long it took for you to actually fall asleep. You can then see breakdowns for each day, week, month, or year. Under Settings, it’s a good idea to turn on “smart switch” as that enables the earbuds to sense when you’ve fallen asleep, even in cases where you haven’t switched to Sleep mode. When it thinks you’re out like a light, it stops any other audio you were playing, switches to Sleep, and plays the ambient sound you last chose. Leave the smart switch off if you prefer to listen to tunes from other sources, though you may get skewed or incomplete sleep data if you don’t go to Sleep mode first.
Buy at Best BuyAll of this affects battery life in a couple of ways. If the Sleep A10 aren’t fully charged to start, you run the risk of them dying while you’re passed out, creating a whole other potential pitfall if that’s the alarm you’re relying on. Anker claims they can last up to 10 hours at 50% volume per charge, but 50% volume here is not the same as it is in standard earbuds. Raise the volume and that number goes down. Even with Music mode, six hours at 50% is the ceiling, which may not cover you for a full night’s sleep. That’s where smart switch can help mitigate battery loss but you’d have to experiment for a few nights to see how far they can go. The case can recharge the earbuds seven times before it needs more juice itself. You’ll have to plug in for that (it takes two hours to fully charge), as there is no wireless charging support.
The novelty of sleep earbuds, and the specialty they’re supposed to provide, puts them in a sub-category unto themselves right now. That’s also why they cost what they cost when options are so limited. At $180, the Soundcore Sleep A10 are as expensive as some of the best wireless earbuds available right now, like the Jabra Elite 7 Pro and Samsung Galaxy Buds 2 Pro. Whether you can sleep soundly with either of those two pairs is hard for me to say, but the point is that getting help to pass out consistently every night through your ears will cost you more right now.
Anker’s pair is a bargain relative to the $250 Bose Sleepbuds II, which neither track your sleep nor let you listen to your own tunes. I recommend looking at the Sleep A10 as serving one purpose, which is to help you sleep and provide some insight into how you slept. That they can play any other audio is a bonus.
MUMBAI: There is a moment in the 2013 film ‘The Lunchbox’ when a withdrawn Saajan Fernandes (Irrfan Khan) tells the lonely suburban hausfrau Ila (Nimrat Kaur) through one of their written exchanges, ‘I think we forget things if there is nobody to tell them’. In the next scene, Ila is seen at leisure with her adolescent daughter playing with her stuffed doll, while recounting the story of a similar time in her life when she played houses with her brother.
Stories and memories form an unsullied reservoir of facts that drive us. They are also a way we experience each other and help “pass down tradition and culture,” said Amrita Somaiya, trustee of Somaiya Trust and Somaiya Vidyavihar, and director of Kitab Khana.
Many years ago soon after they were married, Amrita and her husband Samir, while on a month-long road trip in Canada, stopped by Whitehorse, on the Alaska highway in northern Canada, to drop off a young hitchhiker. The unplanned route led them to a destination that would spur Amrita into creating an ambitious project: Gaatha — Mumbai International Storytelling Festival, many years later.
“The young girl, not more than 18 or 19, was headed to a festival of storytelling that had been a tradition in this town. Tents were set up everywhere, each hosting a distinct style of storytelling – from native American, to stories about laughter, mystery, horror and folklore,” recalled Amrita. The Somaiyas were at once taken aback and pleased to find that people came from afar, and many had marked the event on their social calendar way ahead in time.
Gaatha, a first such initiative, will be held between February 17 and 19, 2023, at the Somaiya Vidyavihar University campus. As Festival Chair, Amrita has partnered with Mumbai Storytellers Society, helmed by Usha Venkatraman, who is Gaatha’s curator.
Participants include both international and Indian storytellers – prominent among them are Dan Yeshinsky, from Canada, who set up the Storytellers School in Toronto, and has received many honours for his contribution towards enhancing Toronto’s cultural life with stories; Salil Mukhia Koitsu, well-known shamanic storyteller, from Kiranti, an indigenous community of the eastern Himalayas, popular for his many workshops on healing through storytelling; Shaili Sathyu, a Mumbai-based theatre director known for her plays with children; Dr Nina Sabnani, an artist and storyteller, who uses film, illustration and writing to tell her stories, among many others. “She will conduct a workshop with artisan designers from Somaiya Kala Vidya, in Kutch, while Sherline Pimenta, design educator, storyteller and experience curator, will work with students from Nareshwadi Learning Centre, in Dahanu, to conduct a workshop for kids,” said Amrita.
Apart from English, Indian folk storytellers will engage in Marathi, Sanskrit, Gujarati, Hindi and Urdu.
“People want to be heard as well as hear,” said she. “Everyone likes discourse and discussions. While the pandemic had pushed us into isolation, at Kitab Khana these days I find more young people coming in perhaps to discover themselves or to gain a different perspective by meeting people. Similarly, storytelling is a fabulous way to learn and give.”
What is the draw expected from a session in Sanskrit?
“You will be surprised,” said Amrita. Rangaparva, a Sanskrit Theatre Festival organised at the school campus in August this year, saw a packed house, she said. “The shows had a humongous response from the audience, which consisted of Sanskrit scholars and theatre connoisseurs spanning across all ages. People are getting immensely interested in the rich treasure of literature. It forms an important part of oral as well as written culture of India. The response of Rangaparva is a sign that a new trend is setting in.”
“Stories can give life and happiness. They preserve the culture and beliefs of a tribe or community and pass them down to the next generation,” said Usha Venkatraman, extending Amrita’s thought, while underlining the significance of oral traditions. “And I would like to think I am a keeper of this tradition as I sing and narrate my stories passed down by my grandmother.”
In the midst of all the rapid and unrecognisable change that surrounds us, India’s lore, culture and heritage are distilled into an even more precious evocation of times past, she added. “It is our duty to convey the voices of the past to the ears of the future.”
Indeed, the most powerful way to persuade people and stoke their curiosities is by uniting an idea with an emotion. “The best way to do that is by telling a compelling story – where you not only weave a lot of information into the telling but you also arouse your listener’s emotions and energy,” Usha said.
Curating an international festival is a detailed, planned process, which requires much research. “Gaatha took me a year to plan and curate,” said Usha. “The featured storytellers were selected for their unique contribution, for example, Ragas and Kathas — a bespoke event – will attempt to make classical music accessible through stories to a wider audience. Our featured storytellers will include classical music and paint visual pictures through their stories.”
As the storyteller weaves the narrative, the song will express a similar ethos. It is a musical presentation with commensurate drama; the songs will be in the Carnatic and Hindustani idiom.
Similar attractions will be the rendering of the mystical story of Gajamukha, presented through a kaleidoscope of five art forms — poetry, dance, storytelling, classical music and painting. Two musical bands will blend an iconic style of classical music and progressive rock in Mersha. On one of the days Dayro and Bharud performances by folk artistes from Gujarat and Maharashtra will be presented.
To borrow from Margaret Atwood, “You’re never going to kill storytelling, because it’s built in the human plan. We come with it.”
In The Three of Us, Georgette described her dad as “anything but” the boozing, life-of-the-party troublemaker he was often painted as. Rather, she wrote, “George Jones drank to fit in with the partyers, not because it came naturally.” She thinks he started overdoing it when he was first playing clubs and that was the sort of crowd he fell in with. “It was almost a defense mechanism,” she wrote, “a weapon against his introverted nature.”
Wynette may have been the tougher cookie, but “in a nutshell,” Georgette wrote, “my mom never trusted stardom, and my dad never liked it.” Jones “admitted he was shocked that people hold him in such esteem,” his daughter recalled, and if Wynette “heard that a movie star or a president was a fan, it never failed to amaze her.”
Wynette was also plagued by health issues that led to her own substance abuse troubles. According to biographer McDonough, she had a hysterectomy after Georgette’s birth in 1970, after which she developed an infection that caused a build-up of scar tissue and chronic gall bladder issues that left her in constant pain. She ended up addicted to painkillers, and then moved on to shots of Demerol when the pills stopped working, and she started taking Valium on tour.
Molly Rose Tuttle was born on January 14 in 1993. She is an American songwriter, vocalist, guitarist and banjo player, recording artist and teacher in the bluegrass tradition. She has become just like Kathy Kallick, Laurie Lewis, Hazel Dickens Alison Krauss as role models. Tuttle won the IBMA’s Guitar Player of the Year award in the year 2017 and becomes the first woman who wins this award.
She won the award again in the year 2018, Tuttle received not only the American Music Association’s Instrumentalist of the Year but at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards, she also received Best New Artist nomination and a Best Bluegrass Album.
Molly Tuttle’s Career:
Tuttle started playing guitar at age of 8. Then, she started playing with her father Jack Tuttle on the stage, a bluegrass multi-instrumentalist and instructor at the age of 11. Later, she joined her family band at the age of 15, with AJ Lee. Her siblings Sullivan who play guitar and Michael who is the master of mandolin, and mandolist AJ Lee are also in the band.
Tuttle recorded an album of duets named, The Old Apple Tree with her dad in 2006, at age 13. Tuttle passed her graduation from Palo High School in 2011.
In 2011, the Tuttles self-released their Introducing the Endless Ocean album in 2013.
In 2012, for music and composition, fromBerklee College of Music, Tuttle also received merit scholarships and received the Foundation for Bluegrass Music’s first Hazel Dickens Memorial Scholarship. Later, at the Merlefest Music Festival, she won the Chris Austin Songwriting Competition , and appeared with her dad on A Prairie Home Companion.
Tuttle shifted from Boston to Nashville in 2015. In 2017, her EP Rise was released after a crowdfunding campaign. She wrote all of the songs which was produced by Kai Welch on the 7-song album. At that time the Guests are included which are Kathy Kallick, Nathaniel Smith,Darrell Scott and the Milk Carton Kids. She formed The Molly Tuttle Band,in which Joe K. Walsh (mandolin), Wes Corbett (banjo) and Hasee Ciaccio (bass) are included.
Later on, Tuttle signed with Alison Brown’s Compass Records in 2017.
On October 6, 2018, Buddy Miller selected Molly to join his “Cavalcade of Stars” section on the Rooster Stage.
On April 5, 2019, via Compass Records, Tuttle released her debut album When You’re Ready.
On Compass Records,in August 2020, she released … but I’d rather be with you again for the second time.
Molly Tuttle’s Husband:
Image Source: YouTube
As from many reports and information it is clear that Molly does not dated anyone yet. She is a very professional musical artist and devotes her complete time and energy to music only. She is very calm and peaceful girl. Till the age of 29, she does not enegeged in any relationship and just focusing on her career . Molly have an friend named Billy Strings and both are moving towards the heights of music. Both are longtime friends and are making good vibes and celebrate every thing together.
Also Read: Success Story Of 71 Year old Women Jean Elizabeth Smart and his husband.
Photo: The Chosunilbo JNS/Imazins via Getty Images
South Africa is the top market for K-pop in Sub-Saharan Africa.
There has been a 93% year-on-year increase in K-pop streams in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2022
The most popular K-pop artist is BTS, their Coldplay collaboration song My Universe being the most streamed K-pop song on Spotify.
According to a press release by Spotify, South Africa is the top market for K-pop in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). South Africa’s number one position is followed by Kenya and Nigeria, respectively, states the press release.
K-pop, or Korean pop, can feature a range of musical styles, including “Pop, Hip Hop, R&B, Rock, Jazz, Reggae, Disco, and even traditional and folk Korean musical stylings”, states the press release. K-pop is usually performed by Korean artists known as idols.
K-pop keeps growing
The popularity of K-pop has seen significant growth in SSA. “There’s been a 93% year-on-year increase in K-pop streams in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2022, accounted for by over 3 billion hours of streaming,” says Phiona Okumu, Spotify’s head of music for Sub-Saharan Africa, in the press release.
Music markets like Nigeria have seen a 267% increase in K-pop streams, with Ghana seeing a 236% increase and Kenya with a 140% increase, says the press release.
The top three most streamed K-pop artists are BTS at the number one spot, followed by Stray Kids and BLACKPINK. The top three most streamed K-pop songs were Coldplay and BTS’ My Universe, followed by Left and Right by Charlie Puth, which features Jungkook from BTS and then Dynamite by BTS.
The reason behind K-pop’s meteoric rise
The popularisation of K-pop is congruent with the rise in popularity of South Korean culture, which has been propagated through South Korean television shows, referred to as K-dramas, according to the press statement. The South Korean series Squid Game has raked up 1.65 billion hours of streaming alone on Netflix, according to CNET. The viral hit Gangnam Style by Korean artist Psy may even be a contributing factor to the popularity as well, says the press release.
READ MORE | 10 years after Gangnam Style South Korean rapper Psy is happier than ever
National Geographic has attributed K-pop’s global rise to the pandemic, which also turned the world’s attention to East-Asian countries, states the press release. Another factor that may also be considered is increased internet access, especially with a youthful and online population, according to the press release. The press statement says that results from a survey that polled 400 000 global BTS listeners found that 50% of BTS fans are under 18 and 42% are between the ages of 18-29, indicating a youthful fanbase.
“In an increasingly connected world, on-demand streaming services like Spotify have certainly made it easier than ever to tap into another country’s music,” according to Okumu. “Streaming has become instrumental in not only enabling the discovery of African music abroad but also in exposing African listeners to new and unexpected sounds,” she added.
Just after ace percussionist Ustad Zakir Hussain, one of the tallest names in the world of rhythm, drummed up a storm with an intricate rhythm pattern that landed exquisitely on the sam (the first beat of the time cycle in a rhythm structure) at Delhi’s Siri Fort auditorium earlier this week, an elderly man in the audience exclaimed, “Uff ye ladka, kya tabla bajaata hai (How brilliantly does this boy play the tabla)!”
Hussain, 72, was accompanying Delhi-based sarod exponent Ustad Amjad Ali Khan in a concert organised by Mumbai-based organisation Pancham Nishad. What the overtly enthusiastic gentleman and the audience could not spot, however, was that amid a flurry of virtuosic rhythms and broad smiles, Hussain has been dealing with anxiety and apprehension since his arrival at his parents’ Nepean Sea Road home in Mumbai earlier this month.
Every year, the visit to India in winter is what Hussain really looks forward to. Here, he gets to deep dive into his core — Hindustani classical music — and discover “what new things one has accumulated in the time that’s passed”. But this year is replete with a sense of loss and longing for two of his closest associates — santoor maestro Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma and Kathak exponent Pandit Birju Maharaj, who passed away earlier this year.
“These are relationships that have shaped my life, me as a musician, showed me which path to take. To not see them around does not feel right. It’s almost as difficult as me trying to get on stage in India for the first time after my father passed away, because these are mentors I grew up learning from. It feels as if a major part of me as a listener, as a student, as a nurturer, a preserver and transmitter of music, has fallen away, and I don’t know how that’s going to come back. That makes me extremely anxious,” says Hussain in an exclusive conversation with The Indian Express over a call a few hours after his arrival from San Francisco, California, his home with wife and Kathak dancer Antonia Minnecola.
The poignant moment when he played pallbearer for Sharma’s hearse in May this year, his grief palpable, was discussed extensively on social media as the true example of the “idea of India”. For Hussain, it was not as reductive in nature, but only a gesture to mark the deep bond, musical and otherwise, the two had shared over the years. “I think people and politicians exist on two different planes… We tend to generalise and in doing so, create the danger of a bigger schism than we actually need to. Not everyone of any sect is bad. That idea seems to have taken a backseat. What we need to do is just be able to hear whatever the powers that be want to tell us, but judge for ourselves as citizens where is it that we belong and what it is that we need in our lives to make it better. Probably we’ll get there one of these days,” he says.
Hussain with sarod maestro Ustad Amjad Ali Khan during their concert in New Delhi’s Siri Fort (credit: Innee Singh)
As much as one considers his concerts in India an easy home stretch, Hussain believes that the last three years, riddled with uncertainty, death, loss and loneliness, have left him flailing to figure out the audience’s pulse. “I don’t know what they like anymore after listening to so many Zoom concerts and seminars,” says Hussain. He need not have worried. Going by his sold-out tour this time, Hussain appears to remain peerless in the world of Indian percussionists.
During the Delhi concert, the deft sonic artiste enthralled the audience without ever overpowering the performance, in which, traditionally speaking, Khan was the main artiste. His solo, like the one today in Mumbai’s Thane, organised by A Field Productions, is a different ballgame. It’s an ode to the gurus who have taught him, a hazri (attendance) in the court of music. “The story of Thane goes back 60 years, when, as a young boy studying in Class V at Mahim’s St Michael’s, I was made a part of a variety show in a dark, small hamlet that Thane was once, alongside bhangra performers, mimicry artistes, film singers. This is the first time I felt that I belonged,” says Hussain, who learned under the exacting tutelage of his father and guru, Ustad Allah Rakha.
With a rich classical career behind him, this year also marks 50 years of Shakti, one of the finest world-music bands, which began as a collaboration between Hussain, British musician John McLaughlin, US-based violinist L Shankar and ghatam legend Vikku Vinayakram. The group merged Indian music with jazz, creating a unique sound. While the audience fell in love, the jazz world was less forthcoming. Unlike Pandit Ravi Shankar, who had pop’s biggest name, George Harrison, rooting for him, Shakti was an experiment that took time to make its mark. “Away from the Indian classical-music world of mine, Shakti is probably the finest moment of music that I was ever involved in. For something to be accepted as a landmark, it has to stand the test of time. And Shakti has. It wasn’t some volcanic reaction but a pebble dropped into the pond and the ripple effect is only reaching us now,” says Hussain. The band will embark on their India tour in 2023.
Hussain’s visit this year also comes at the back of sexual abuse allegations that have hit the world of classical music and dance. Hussain says that back in the day, the abuse was couched as part of the training journey. “Yes, the abuse was probably rampant, but, and I feel ashamed even to say this, that probably our mindset was to accept it as the norm. The generations now have found it okay to speak about it and thank god for that,” says Hussain, who adds that when he thinks of it now, he wonders if he may have been “nasty” to some women friends or even artistes he was accompanying. “I have come to the conclusion that I may have crossed a line and now I am struggling with how to put that into words to correctly convey my sorrow for whatever might have happened. These are things that make you look in the mirror and ask yourself that question,” says Hussain.
Today’s featured work is one for the southern hemisphere, now entering its warmest months of the year. Composed in 1991, Lithuanian composer Onutė Narbutaitė‘s Vasara is a miniature choral homage to the season of summer. The words, written by the composer, have a nostalgic flavour, looking back at the experiences of summer (possibly from many years ago) from the perspective of autumn’s imminent arrival.
The piece expresses this wistfulness with a playful, celebratory energy, spending the first 30 seconds indulging in rhythmic onomatopoeic noises and patterns suggesting the sounds of birds and insects, the most obvious being a cuckoo. When the words begin, they’re articulated as lilting phrases tilting back and forth over a static harmonic foundation (suggesting G# minor). However, there’s little lingering over the words at all, the memories of summer are practically gabbled out in an exuberant torrent that’s all about the joy of the experiences rather than sadness that they’re over.
Just twice the music pulls back, first savouring the middle sequence about clouds resembling ships floating in the sky, and then again towards the end, as day comes to an end. After which the piece finishes as it began, filled with the sounds of summer, rhythmically dying away into the night.
This performance of Vasara was given by the Swedish Radio Choir (Radiokören) conducted by Giedré Slekyté.
Text
Vasara vasara vasara vasara lakstėm basi braukdami ryto rasą miške rinkom žemuoges skruzdės bėgiojo pušų žievėmis dūzgė bitė virš dobilo vėjas sujudino smilgas dundėjo griaustinis lietaus lašiukus nuo jurginų žiedų rinko saulė kvepėjo sakai ošė liepos upely dainavo varlė mes gulėjom žolėj ir žiūrėjom į dangų
O debesys debesys debesys debesys plaukė balti dideli lyg laivai plaukė debesys plaukė dangum
Bėgom prie jūros ieškoti kriauklelių baltų radom daug akmenėlių gražių paišėm plunksnom ant smėlio švelnus buvo jūros vanduo vakarinė šviesa glostė viržius sugrįžom namo tamsoje jaukiai švietė langai griežė pievoj svirpliai ir virš marių pakilo mėnulis
Summertime summertime summertime summertime we ran about barefoot splashing morning dew we picked wild strawberries in the forest and the ants were running on the bark of pines the bee was humming atop the clover wind moved the bent grasses thunder rumbled rain droplets from dahlia blooms were picked out by the sun the trees were scented with resin the lindens rustled the frog sang in the stream we were lying in the grass and looking at the sky
And clouds clouds clouds clouds huge white clouds floated like ships sailing in the clouds floating in the sky
We ran to the sea to search for little white cockleshells we found many pretty pebbles we made drawings on sand with feathers the sea was warm the twilight caressed the heather when back home, windows glowed cosily in the darkness the crickets chirped in the meadow, and the moon rose over the sea
tock tock, thrrr thrrr, katydid katydid, oo-ee-oo, etc.
