Three people influenced Mozart

After watching the documentary about Mozart by BBC, which is about Mozart's life and what people in his life really effect him. Also, I read The World Greatest Musician.   For example, Salieri  may have caused Mozart to go into debt, Leopold Mozart drew out his potential, and his wife supported him. 

Salieri: a rival composer:

There are 2 different ways to describe him. Some people think he caused Mozart to be poor when he was young while others think there is no relationship with Salieri and Mozart's debt. I think the second opinion is more reliable, because some of history said Salieri is more successful than Mozart when they were  alive according to The World Greatest Musician. In this case, he has no motive to do bad things to Mozart. 

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/

Leopold Mozart - the father:

Parents are always the bast teacher of their children. According to The World Greatest Musician. His father Leopold was an composer, and when Amadeus was born, he found out Mozart's talent very soon and started to teach music to little Mozart. His daughter also got a huge succeed on music career. I think Mozart can't be that good without his father's teach. Even though Wolfgang is a genius, he won't be that successful without his father discovered his potential and taught him music, so I will say his father Leopold is one of the most important people for him.
                                                                   

Constanze Weber - the wife:

According the The World Greatest Musician, they married when Mozart was 26 years old. Like Mozart's father Leopold, Constanze always support with Mozart's music compose even though her family was not that well-off. I think she helped Mozart spend a lot of tough time and didn't abandoned him and shared her love with him. That may be one of the reasons that Mozart's music is sort of happy and relaxed.

Future Research :What are the different ways composers create feelings in their listeners?
How does the culture of a time period affect the music that is composed?

Fashion change because of Climate change

Does Fashion has an effect on Geography?. Let's found out how fashion has an effect on geography. While surfing on the internet I came across a article called How Climate Change Will Affect What We Wear and it intrigue me. It is written by an Starshine Roshell.

Scientists researches how clothing affects the climate. On the other hand experts like Trend-watcher's researching how climate change or affect our clothing. It is hard to imagine how our clothes affect the climate. 

"People think of fashion as the stuff you buy and wear," said Jo Paoletti, a University of Maryland professor who studies clothing trends. "But it's an entire process from the raw material to the making of fibers into yarns and then into fabrics, to manufacturing them into clothing and transporting it to where it's sold. There are energy costs all along the way".

Our clothes aren't instantly clothes. They are going through a lot of processes before It'll become a shirt or a dress that we could wear. According to the article that I've read 96 percent of the clothes in America we're made and manufactured somewhere else, which is usually in Asia. Manufacturing clothes costs a lot of energy bills because they are going to a lot of processes and procedure before they get distributed from the consumers or companies. A typical washing machine produces 160 pounds of carbon dioxide each year. 25 times of washing a simple T-shirt is equal to 60 percent of greenhouse gases and typical dryer for clothes generates 700 pounds. There are also chemicals and toxins used used in dry cleaning which affects our environment. Some stores started selling eco-friendly clothes like an underwear that is made out of bamboo fibers and some man-made fiber too that are 100 percent renewable.

"There is no strong difference between summer and winter anymore," Milan Fashion Week founder Beppe Modenese told The New York Times in September. "The whole fashion system will have to change."

During the fall season the place called Manhattan were struck by a unseasonably warm autumn. The sales of winter coats and clothing is pretty bad because of it. This warm climate affects fashion the sales and everything. The stores like Kohl's and Target had to hire climate experts to predict and give them signals what kind of clothes should they put in the store. Since it's been unseasonably warm they cannot sell coats because no one will buy it. 

• Would you like to try and buy some clothes made out of eco-friendly materials like bamboo fiber?
• Do you think I'd be a great Idea to just replace all of the materials of clothes to eco-friendly ones?

FUTURE RESEARCH: Different types of fashion in different countries in accordance to climate, religion etc.

Caustic facts about anime.

I am trying to be sarcastic...

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1. Save your tears for the protagonist, the antagonist is more unfortunate.

“The hero always loses the first fight with a new enemy”, but the plot armor will help him survive from all kinds of damages, no matter he is shot eighth or trapped in a place full of bombs. At the last minute when everything seems hopeless along with evil laugh as the background music, there he is with tired look but resolution in his eyes, and ta-dah! Your heart is gone.

2. Incredibly beautiful character with superhuman ability like aliens.

Did you ever see a baby wearing suit, give you a shot and say that he’s a mafia?

Did you ever see a second-grader defuse bombs and catch criminals as his everyday life?

Did you ever see children with seriously disharmony ratio of height?

Little girl has big boobs and bums.

Middle schoolers are like in their 20s.

Parents are like in their 30s.

Grandparents are like in their 40s.

Please let me wake up one day and find out I have traveled to an anime world, so I will never have to worry about my pimple oh yeah!

3. We live in such a dangerous world! Mama, I want to immigrate to Mars!

Car accidents, murders, plane crush, robbery and terrorism more than once a day, while we have to deal with the natural disaster such as earthquake, flood and fire accident. Now there adds a new one: unknown creatures’ attacking. World War can be started so easily, violent plot is not suitable for children. But to be honest, I am also the kind of person who skips all of the rising action and go straight to climax where my favorite character’s fighting scene.

Future research: Hero's journey, how anime repeats in the same boring pattern. Not all of them, but most.

The research of Washington DC

       Today, we are going to research the capital of the United States. We will research in three different aspects: Geography, Climate and economy. I find some interesting information from wikipedia. 

        At first, we are talking about the geography of Washington DC. Washington DC is located  at  38°53′42″N 77°02′11″W. The geographical area of Washington DC is 68.3 square miles, 
and the area of the lands of Washington DC is 61.4 square miles. The other 6.9 square miles
 is water. It is located at the east coat of the United States. The earthquake activity of the district 
is low, but there are many earthquakes in Virginia , Maryland and many other surrounding countries. 

       Then, we are going to talk about the climate of Washington DC. Washington DC is in humid subtropical 
climate zone. It will also show us four distinct seasons. The spring and fall are warm, and the snow of winter 
has an average amount which is 15.5 inches.

       At last, we are going to talk about the economy of Washington DC. "Washington has a growing, diversified economy with an increasing percentage of professional and business service jobs.The gross state product of the District in 2010 was $103.3 billion, which would rank it No. 34 compared to the 50 U.S. states." This quote shows us that Washington DC has a very developed economy, even though it is not the most developed city of the U.S.

       In conclusion, Washington DC is worth to be a capital city. No matter geography, climate or economy, it is very good for people to live, and it can also become a symbol of the U.S. 

The specific difference between manga and comics

In the previous blog, I basically stated the different comics all over the world. And in this blog, I will focus on one key question: “What specifically makes manga different from American comic books?” I will explain this in four aspects: the cultural differences, thematic differences, style differences and production differences between manga and comics.

I found the information on everydaylife.globalpost.com, which is an online US news company that focuses on international news.

static.comicvine.com

Cultural differences

One of the major differences between Western comics and manga is the speed of telling the story. Manga is told much slower than Western comics, the characters has less action in manga. Mangaka, the term for manga creators, do not tell the story aren't in as fast as cartoonists do. They ask the readers for more patience. However, people would think the story over and over after the story ends. Unlike Western comics, which are full of actions, manga tends to spreads to emotional reactions all the time. When you read a manga, you read right to left.

Thematic Differences

While Western comics is paying more attention to dark topics, the most is still more known for its superhero genre. Manga, however, is more comfortable exploring more “dangerous” materials such as sex, violence and scatology. The reason for this freedom in exploring such ideas is cultural. The primary religions of Japan is Shinto and Buddhism which do not see sex as shame. This allows the Japanese to be freer to explore sexuality than most Americans.

Style Differences                                                                                       
In Western comics, the establishing shot (the overall scene of the surroundings) is centered to occupy the first scene in the comic. Manga, however, places its establishing shot at the bottom of the page. Manga also uses more of a cinematic style (animation) than Western comics, to present a character from different angles to make the character more real. Manga connects its scenes frame-by-frame, representing a snapshot of the action and in put the dialogue in. Western comics are graphic novels, the stories and visuals don't necessarily move together with the dialogue and action.

Production Differences 
Manga production in Japan is much larger than comic production in America. Manga makes up over 40 percent of all published magazines and books in Japan. Also, 40 percent of the movies produced in Japan are anime, which is the motional version of manga. Where Western comics are designed more with children and teenagers in mind, manga is read by a much wider audience. As such, manga is found in journals and magazines for people of all ages.

In the next blog, I will explain how a comic is produced.

Earthquake

In this post I use information from Encyclopedia Britannica to explain what an earthquake is, what causes it and what are its effects.

SOURCE: earthquakesandplates.wordpress.com

What is an earthquake?

In an earthquake huge rocks move in the earth's surface and makes the ground shake. Earthquake always happens around the world. Most earthquakes are too little to people feel . But sometimes earthquake makes a lot of dangerous loses of life and poverty. 

What causes earthquakes ?

            Earthquakes are caused by changes in the Earth’s crust. The crust is made up of a plates.In different places that plates move apart, bump or slide into each other. This movement causes a big pressure to built up. When the pressure gets too hard, the rocks shift along in the crust. It called a fault. The switching rocks gives energy in the form of shock waves. That waves go through the whole rock in all directions, that causes earthquake.

What are the effects of the earthquake?

Earthquake can be very powerful enough to make huge cracks in the ground. It can damage bridges, railroads, buildings. During earthquakes, some times causes other earth movements, like rock or snow avalanches. Also when earthquakes happen near to the ocean, it causes huge harmful waves called tsunamis.

Does your families wealth determine your happiness?

This article from a non-profit research organization, talks about the background of the wealth of Africa. Most people think think that the whole continent of Africa is poor and are living under hard, unhappy conditions. Which is a complete lie. The real question is does your families wealth determine your happiness? Most people would say yes but in article it has been proven that people can live a happy life with little money.

"A child growing up in a developed suburb in Cape Town may have far more in common with a child in Torquay, than with one on the streets of Dakar." "It is also important to remind ourselves that a child's contentment is heavily influenced by their level of expectation. Children can adapt to widely different circumstances." This means that not all of Africa is similar or related and their wealth doesn't really matter it depends on their surrounding because they can adapt themselves.

As we all know you do not chose the family you are born into. This is why we we should treat everybody equally no matter their wealth or background. Most believe that the more money in hand the more fun and happiness ahead. I believe that very wealthy families can buy themselves whatever they want but still come upon conflicts.

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What are the rich countries in Africa?

Dalida & I Miss our Homes...

One song that I like is by Dalida who sang My Beautiful Country. My favorite lyrics from the song are, “my hope has always been you my country,that I return to you my country and stay near to you forever.“ With these lyrics, Dali is saying how beautiful her country is and how much she appreciated living in it and that she always want to stay in it and never move no matter what happens. I also feel like Dali, because she was not able to live in her country for a long time she had to move to different country just like me. This made her feel bad for leaving it and showed her how important it is to live in her own country.

As it states in ( http://arabsinamerica.unc.edu/arts-music) singing is not just saying words that you learned and becoming famous to earn money. NO! Singing is having a good voice with good expression on your face to show what each word means and how it is  important and why it is important.  Music is really important for me especially because I have moved to a new country and I had to change  my whole life. Music made me think more about myself. Music made me relaxed and helped me forget about all the sad experiences that I have been going through.

FUTURE POST: In my next blog post, I will explain, "What's the difference between religious songs in America and Syria?"

Five Movies you can never miss by Hayao Miyazaki

The master of Japanese anime, Hayao Miyazaki's retirement has shocked the whole world and made millions of anime fans sad, but he left so many fantastic movies that worth to be esteemed.

swaniyah14.wordpress.com

1. Spirited Away

In my opinion, Spirited Away is the most famous and interesting movie among all of Master Hayao Miyazaki’s work, it led to a creating climax for Hayao Miyazaki. It is said to be the Japanese “Alice in Wonderland”, and its magical imagination and all kinds of new but incredible drawing attracts millions of fans all over the world. The story talks about Chihiro, a girl who accidentally entered a supernatural world by a mystical channel, and she has to fight over the nefarious witch Yubaba so she can go back home. To save her parents from being turned into pigs, Chihiro works at Yubaba’s bathhouse. As a human being, Chihiro is teased a lot, but her kindness and hard-working get her many friends and help. Controlling someone by its name, Sootballs which work in boiler room, a famous medicine given as a thanks by River Spirit, it shows a wonderful world different from what we used to think of ghosts as an evil and fearful creature.

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2. My Neighbor Totoro

Totoro, a magical spirit as a guard of a giant camphor tree, which can only be seen by kids with pure innocent, Hayao Miyazaki painted a dream for every child. An old “ghost” house, soot spirits which live in empty room to make everything they pass dusty, shiny lost nuts on the grass, Satsuki and Mei began their adventure in Mother Nature. A bush passage which led to a huge but nice and fluffy Totoro, meeting Totoro at a rainy day while the sisters were waiting for the bus, the seeds grow suddenly to an enormous tree straight up to the sky, a wind-like cat bus which stops at missing Mei, it is a plain fairy tale without a prince fighting the bad guys but full of childlike imagination represented the most harmony way people go along with the the nature.

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3. Castle in the Sky

The innocent love between boys and girls, the fighting between evil and good, the Castle in the Sky is based on the flying island Laputa in the world-famous book Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift. Sheeta, the concealed princess of Laputa, is saved by Pazu, a boy who works in a mine. To help Sheeta escape from the bad guys who chased after her crystal amulet, the two kids went on the way to find the Laputa. The essence of all of Hayao Miyazaki’s works, is always the theme and own opinion of the author. Someone has regarded Miyazaki as a dreamer, but I think he is more like a magician: Unlike the usual anime, his movies are always about love, love between human beings, love between human and other creatures, love between human and the environment. He can perfectly mix moral and humanity into his work, and it will never make people feel bored or reduce its charm, in contrast, it has a great inspiration on people and lead to a deeper understanding of life.

moviemezzanine.com

4. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind

Hayao Miyazaki always like to remind people of the conflict between human and nature through his movies, and he created the character Nausicaa, the princess of the Valley of the Wind. She is brave, smart and nice, you can never dislike her. She is like a wind, lively and fresh, which blow away the pain and darkness. She is the first light of dawn, bring hope to the world, the enraged world which is hurt so much by the greedy and selfish people. She never hurt anyone, even the enemy; she knows the best the communicate with each other, include the environment; she stand up for her people and faced alone the angry nature. And she succeed, the wounded nature calm down and people understand what they did is wrong. The wind blow again in the valley.

www.2011mv.com

5. The Wind Rises

As the last movie by Hayao Miyazaki, “the greatest artist ever in Japan” before his retirement, the Wind Rises has received great attention from the world, but it also caused a disputation as the main character Jiro Horikoshi is based on the real person in history, the designer of the fighter aircraft used in World War II The role Japan play in World War II is always a sensitive topics, so some people thought Hayao Miyazaki wanted to “change the history for Japan” or “cover to sin Jiro has ever made in World War II” which I strongly disagreed. In the movie, Jiro is a boy whose long for the feeling of flying in the sky, but he can’t be a pilot because of his bad eye-sighted, so he chose another way--a plane designer. We can never find out the truth, but we can know that works can represent the author’s thought. Rather than the real Jiro in history, I would like to say the character on the other side is Hayao Miyazaki himself. There is no cruelty about the war, there is only a dream come true. We will never know how Jiro feels when he saw his favourite airplane turn into a killing machine, but we will drown into this wonderland when the wind rises.

FUTURE RESEARCH: In my next post I plan on researching, what are 10 things you learn from Anime.

Thirteen Colonies and Independence

www.worldatlas.com

By the 1770's, thirteen colonies contained two and a half million people along the Atlantic coast east of the Appalachian Mountains. In the 1760's the British government imposed a series of new taxes while rejecting the American argument that any new taxes had to be approved by the people.

www.fabiusmaximus.files.wordpress.com

Tax resistance, especially the Boston Tea Party (1774), led to punishable laws (the Intolerable Acts) by Parliament designed to end self-government in Massachusetts. American Patriots (as they were called at the time as a term of ridicule) stick to a political ideology called republicanism that emphasized civic duty, virtue, and opposition to corruption, fancy luxuries and aristocracy (highest class in certain societies).

All thirteen colonies united in a Congress that called on the colonies to write new state constitutions. After armed conflict began in Massachusetts, Patriots drove the royal officials out of every colony and assembled in mass meetings and conventions. Those Patriot governments in the colonies unanimously empowered their delegates to Congress to declare independence. In 1776, Congress created an independent nation, the United States of America, the American Patriots won the Revolutionary War.

www.aligningyourlife.com

Pollution, Waste-----Recycle

Imagine how much better the world would be if people stopped throwing garbage into landfills and recycled it instead. 

This information is according to an environmental website, Green Living, author Kate Pullen. 

Q: How does pollution and waste affect how people live?

SOURCE: ???

A: In one hand, many countries, many people not even get the base needed of survive and the pollution make them more easily to be sick. On the other hand, in America. Although the pollution will not let the people lost their life in a short period of time, it will influencing people’s health and may make people live shorter.

Q: What can people do to solve it?

A: People can recycling the most of the waste(from garbage) that can reuse. Such as, plastic bottle, paper that have wrote and the broken wooden furniture. Also, people can solve this problem by using least un-recycle things.

Q: What is the main idea of “recycle”?

A: The main idea of recycle is to reuse the part of trash that we can using on building something new. In nowadays, Many people have being a part of the recycle system. But, how many people was really know what recycle was for? As Kate Pullen say, “If we better understand what the benefits of recycling are and how does recycling help the environment - the more inclined we will be to embrace recycling as a natural and important part of life.”

Q: How did recycle work in different countries? (China, America, and Europe)

A: In China, Social group have done most of the thing that they suppose to done. But nearly half of the people in China did not get a good education about the relationship between human, waste and recycle. So that, nearly half of the people did not doing recycle well.

In America, although people and social groups both did really well, but the effect was not going as well as the people want. It is because the people will doing something was wasting but just don’t realize it. That is because the people accustomed to do that.

In Europe, the recycle was everywhere and people was really care about that. Also, government have the law that to tell people how important recycle is. So that, Europe’s recycle system was really good over all.

*Personal Reflection Question:

What small change in our life will make a big change in the world?

FUTURE RESEARCH: What have we teach next generation about pollution and protect our world?

Three reasons you will love Mozart

There are many reasons to love Mozart. Here are 3. 

After watching the movie Amadeus, which is about Mozart's life and what another very famous composer named Salieri thought about him . Also, I read Encyclopedia Britannica kids.   Here are some of the reasons to love Mozart:  

"Mozart's output—especially in view of his short life—was enormous, including 16 operas, 41 symphonies, 27 piano and five violin concerti, 25 string quartets, 19 masses, and other works in every form popular in his time."

I agree with this statement. From movie "Amadeus", Mozart was well know as a prodigy and music master, so he must have a lot of great music which were loved by many people whatever before or now. Also, it is said that once Mozart write down his music sheet, then it is done. He need no change or modify, when he finish his first draft and it will be the final drift.

source:mobilite.mobi

"In 1773 he came under the influence of the music of Franz Joseph Haydn in Vienna."
I think Mozart's and Haydn have pretty much similarity such as their structure always like to put the climax in the middle of the music and put some dramatic or tension at the beginning of the music to draw people's attention. However, Mozart also had some differences with Haydn, his music always more like reasonable and in some certain structure unlike Haydn always make people feel surprise.   

Listening to this bright music it is hardly to believe that it's created by a composer, who has had such a difficult life.

I agree with this. According to the movie Amadeus,  Mozart has a wonderful childhood and beginning of his career but a terrible end. He was even too poor to afford his grave when he was dead. However, if you listen to his music, you may hardly find his depression or he hid them very well. That is also one of the reasons I like him.




Future Research :What are the different ways composers create feelings in their listeners?
How does the culture of a time period affect the music that is composed?

The Power and The Brilliants---Romans!

What happened after Greece was annexed by the Roman?

Was art extinct after that?

The book ART OF THE WESTERN WORLD is still being used in this post. The author, Michael Wood, is a reliable Oxford historian. In this book, Wood talked about art with a lot of specific example.

By 146 B.C., southern Italy as well as Greece had become Roman colonies…

“The people who are depicted solemnly stepping along the shallow frieze of this altar wall were celebrants in the actual procession that consecrated the ground on which the altar would stand. This procession (which took place July 4, 13B.C.) included Caesar Augustus, the first emperor of Rome, and his family.” (Wood, 20)

In a celebration that took place on July 4, 13B.C. in Rome, the altar, The Ara Pacis, was made to encourage peace. People who are on this altar are real people who were in the celebration. Looking at this altar I remembered one of the principles of Greece art is measure and accuracy and this altar is exactly like the real scene. The roman art was influenced by the Greece art greatly. Especially in this altar, the Roman passed on the Greek art tradition, accuracy and measuring.

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“Whereas Greece introduced philosophy and drama, Rome gave us law and letter writing. The Greeks were master sculptors, and the Romans were great engineers. The abstract world of mathematics was a Greek fascination; the Romans contributed the more practical skill of cartography. The Greeks reflected on man’s place in the higher aesthetic and philosophical orders, but the Romans created and idea of an orderly empire in which every person had a prescribed role. If the Greeks studied man and his relation to the world, the Romans studied how to organize the world, and how to run it smoothly and efficiently.” (Wood, 21)

 Despite the similarities between Roman art and the Greek art, there are lots of differences on the content they are making. The Greek often studied mythology to understand their lives; the Roman focused on more practical matters. In Greek art, people expressed mostly philosophy because that is what they thought over and over every day. The Roman used art as a way of recording their history. For example:

no.wikipedia.org

“The fame of the Colosseum lasted well into the Middle Ages. The Venerable Bede said, “While stands the Colosseum, Rome shall stand; When falls the Colosseum, Rome shall fall; And when Rome falls—the world.” (Wood, 18)

People deeply believed that Rome was the highest in the world. Instead of write down these brilliants, the Roman chose to do it in the visual Greek way. Power was a popular topic in Roman art. Romans considered Colosseum is a sign of Roman. They were so proud of the Colosseum that it will never fall like Rome. They also hoped people will still remember and honor them after their deaths.

…And so we did! Lots of artists like to find new ideas and inspirations in Roman art.

So what happened after the Romans?

Did the generations after this period still affected by the Greek art?  

See you in my next post!