Dizzy O'Brian

My Recent Interview with Aleah Fitzwater on Blog Fusion I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by Aleah Fitzwater who is a musician, writer, artist and blogger from the midwest. She runs a blog called Blog: Fusion  so, when she happened upon me while surfing the internet she thought I would be a great fit since I happen to be a fusion music composer. She is also a fusion artist, arranging pop-punk songs for flute choir. Flute is one of her main instruments and she says that most people find arranging pop-punk songs for flute choir a little strange. Obviously I don't, although I admit how surprised I was when she contacted me and I found out how many similarities we have as artists. Working in the fusion of classical and pop music elements, you often feel you are alone on a wide-open frontier.The nice thing about it, of course, is it tends to hit across many musical genres, as far as listeners are concerned. I was also surprised to hear how similar our formative experienc...

 Music As Culture Music As Culture There can be no doubt that music parallels culture. One only has to look back through time to find the connection between music and the society of that time to see the connection, so it is certain that we have always had music as culture. One can find a connection not only in the dancing of the time but also the fashion and even the very language used. Idioms and slang began noticeably appearing in the United States way back with the Beat Movement with words like ‘cool,’ ‘square,’ and ‘DaddyO.’ The fashion was very distinctive and identifying with black turtleneck sweaters and bangs. It was an artistic culture and people hung out in coffee shops, painting and composing poetry on the fly. We follow it into the sixties with tie dye, bell bottoms, sex and drugs. The real question, I suppose, is which came first; the chicken or the egg? Does music culture reflect changes already going on in society or is it a catalyst? An interesting question, since m...