Music

It’s well known that ever since the beginning of the Ages men have tried to create and reproduced sounds. As time passes, some people have concerned about creating musical instruments and others about composing music itself.

This text has three articles, two about music composers. One classic: the famous Antonio Vivaldi; the other, popular: Moacir Santos. The third and last article tells us about the electric guitar and its principles of working.















































The great Moacir Santos



At present, if you get a radio, you will only hear the commercial music. The singers, in major times, are the names that are in the magazines, on TV on Monday afternoons. But the Brazilian music is not only this. We have “sertanejo”, “axé” and other things of the same kind. Brazil has great names of good music. The subject of the web project is to try to say about one of them. Moacir Santos was considered a genius for all those who understand about music. He was born in Pernambuco, lived in Rio and moved to the United States in 1960. There, he had a great career, but in Brazil, few people know who he was. Santos played sax, but he wasn’t only a sax player. His job as a music arranger was much appreciated. I want to write about the music that left Brazil to live from the music in another place. Santos died in 2006, a little time after his music arrived to be heard in his country. He was almost 80 years old. People who want to know Moacir Santos can listen to “Ouro Negro” (Negro Gold), a double CD with beautiful compositions of his.

















When the first electric guitar was invented, it revolutionized the music and simplified the “life” of the musicians with equipment smaller than the acoustic one. Despite the electric guitar was invented almost seventy years ago, its working principles remain the same until nowadays and will be explained below:

1- The interaction between the strings and the guitar body

When you press a string, a song is heard and it is possible because the string produces a mechanic wave that is resounded on the guitar body, making the characteristic sound of the guitar. This stage is equal of an acoustic guitar, but the acoustic guitar has a louder sound because of the acoustic box of its body. The electric guitar doesn't have an acoustic box because its sound is amplified by an electric way through the pick ups, as it’s shown below.

2- The Pick up

A pick up, basically, consists in a group of magnets covered by coils. In this stage, the mechanic sound wave is converted to electric waves. These are the following stages:
– When electric guitar strings, which must be made of steel and the pick up magnets, get close, a magnetic field is generated.
– When a string is pressed a magnetic field variation happens.
– This magnetic field variation, which has the same draw of the above generated mechanic sound wave, is picked up and induced as electric current by the coils.

3- Output Stage

In almost all electric guitars, the entire pick up coils are connected to a volume and to a tone control that are different stages; after these stages, we have the output connector that will be connected to an amplifier through a cable.

Project from
Daniel Góes Silveira
Mauro Radesca
Fábia Oliveira Prates
Steps 6
Teacher Maria Silvia

Centro Britânico
Pompéia Branch

The Beatles

The Beatles are the rock's parents. The member's were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and George Harrison. The band began to be formed in 1956, when John met Paul and George, and invited them to his band called The Quarrymen. Ringo was just a temporary drummer. In 1961, the name of the band changed to "The Beatles". In 1962, they were hired by EMI and Ringo became the oficial drummer. The young boys with acid humor won the parades of sucess and made a show to the queen of England at the London Palladium.

They became more and more famous. In 1964, they hit the USA. After some years of sucess, they got tired of the fans and the shows. At this time, people started to say that Paul was dead and John was hated by Christians because he said that they were more famous than Jesus Christ (their albuns were burned in public squares). In 1967 they recorded "Sgt. Peppers" and came back to the sucess. Then, they started to control their own business. In 1968 they recorded "The White Album", that led the hippie movement. Ringo started to feel bad in the band and tried to leave the group. John married Yoko Ono, who is responsible for destroying the band. After many fights, Paul went out of the band. This was the end of The Beatles. In 1980, John was killed and in 2001 George died because of a cancer. But Harrison left and incomplete cd, which was finished by Ringo and Paul in tribute. Until today, their songs are a sucess. Never has a band been so important. "We live in a world where we have to hide ourselves to make love, while the violence is made at the light of day".
John Lennon


Project from
Ayssa, Bia, Bruna,Camila, Debora, Juliana B., Juliana M, João
Advanced 2
Teacher Cilene

Centro Britânico
Lapa Branch

Blink 182

Blink 182 was formed in 1992 by Mark Hoppus (bass). Tom Delonge (guitar) - both shared the vocals - and Scott Raynor (drums). In the beginning the band was just called Blink, but they had to change their name because an Irish techno band also called Blink threatened to sue them. The guys decided to add the number 182 to the bands name. They say that it was chosen randomly but some people believe that it is the number of times Al Pacino says the word "fuck" in the movie "Scarface".

In 1995, Blink 182 released their first record Cheshire Cat, which contains the song "MM's". Because of its sucess, the band moved to Encinitas, California to record an album with MCA Records. Dude Ranch was released in 1997 and the songs "Josie" and "Dammit" were very famous in USA. A reason for their fame is the fun the lyrics that attract a lot of teenagers' fans. Travis Barker substituted for Scott at the drums. The new drummer helped to increase the quality of the band and the next record became a world success, Eneme of the State. In this album there are many famous hits, such as "What's my age again", "Adam's song" and "All the small things" - their most popular song. At this time, Blink 182 started to appear on MTV frequently and the number of fans rose up.

"Take off your pants and jacket", released in 2001 and "Blink 182", released in 2003, were the next albuns and were responsible for turning the band into one of the most famous band, with fans all round the world who in 2005 had bad news. A fight between their members put an end to the band. In that year "Greatest hits' was released as a tribute to their orphan fans.


Project from
Alexandre, Ivan, Karen, Nathalia, Thiago M. and Thiago P.
Advanced 1
Teacher Cilene

Centro Britânico
Lapa Branch