?

Right, there's a lot of confusion on the internet about what Middle C (C4) is. So, for the purposes of the question, I'm going to use The Beatles to demonstrate what I mean, as you do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T098BBuvmjs

For the purposes of this question the E that Paul McCartney sings on 'to-MOR-row' and 'write HOME every day' is an E4.

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My chest voice is roughly C2-F4 (weak at the bottom end) and I can belt up to around G#4 or A4 if I've been singing for a couple of hours. I'm not 100% sure how high my head voice can go because I hardly ever use it but I can definitely hit Eb5 and probably go higher. Although that might be falsetto, because I can never tell the difference unless I'm doing really obvious deliberate falsetto like in She Loves You or something (can you tell I like The Beatles?) compared to obvious head voice around A4-B4.

What is my voice type? My most powerful notes are probably from C3 and upwards. Also if tone matters in figuring out voice type, my band mate compared the tone of my voice to Harry Styles. Can't decide if it was intended as a compliment or not but I'm taking it as one!

Thanks!

I have always had some level of obsession with leaving some ridiculous legacy behind me. Whenever I focus my attention on any single goal, I become obsessive, and feel like anything other than total success is no greater than failure.

In Education, even though I am too focused on starting a career in music to study to excess, anything less than an A feels like failure. In music, I have no aspiration to be in a locally successful band, or even in a famous band, my motivation is to be in a band that becomes a pop music phenomenon, creates hysteria unseen by The Beatles, and inspires a socio-cultural revolution.

I don't feel like this is Egomania because I don't think that I'm worth, or deserving... or even capable of achieving something even close to being on that scale. And an Egomaniac if I'm correct would be more self-confident than that? So what is it?

I'm in Year 13 at Sixth Form, and I'm expected to write a personal statement for universities and employers, I don't think they're going to let it slide if I don't write one. But I don't intend to continue my education any further than the end of this year, I'm in a band and this will take up all of my time (minus a part time job) as soon as Sixth Form is over. I don't have any ambition to be anything other than a musician and as you can imagine this makes it very difficult to write a personal statement for the school.

I've looked at some guides to writing a PS, but the questions I'm asked are un-answerable:

What do you want to study? Nothing.

Why do you want to study it? N/A

What personal qualities show you are suited to study at university? There aren't words in the English language to express how little I want to go to university.

Can anyone think of any way I can conceivably express my ambition to be a musician in an acceptable personal statement or would it be easier if I just tell a lot of straight up lies. Unfortunately, not writing a PS is not an option. Thanks.

Other than the whole war, slavery and genocide thing, I've got a picture in my head of the US being an ideal place to be immediately following independence. The country at this time just seemed socially so free and so active in terms of intellectuals and artists. Is this a misguided view of the new country?

Does having an over achieving sibling have a positive or negative impact?

Are there any copyright issues with naming a song or album after a lyric written by a different artist?

One of the reasons for Elvis' fame was that he was relatable to teenagers who until that point just followed their parents, The Beatles were so massively popular because they tore down the celebrity establishment and were seen as more relatable. It only makes sense that celebrities could raise themselves to the same level as Elvis or The Beatles by making themselves as relatable to normal people as those artists were able to.

Social Media seems like a perfect way to connect with fans in the same way that they would connect with any other person, why is it that no celebrities (with the exception, maybe of Lady GaGa) have used social media to it's full potential?

I know that "The *Insert word here*s" is an old trick, but that's sort of the point. The music is based in older stuff, the name should be too! Any suggestions are welcome.

The music industry is crumbling, the old layout of the industry can't compete with the internet. But surely you would think that at a time when record labels are suffering, independent artists would be on the rise. But it seems to me that the only truly successful independent artist is Adele. I mean, there are some bands doing well with some big followings, but they aren't BIG. They aren't Justin Bieber or One Direction. Why is it that even when record labels have been made partially irrelevant by cheap recording software and self-produced music, you have to be part of a giant company to really succeed in this business?

I'm pretty sure the last time they played She Loves You and I Want To Hold Your Hand was on their US Summer Tour in '64. They stopped playing From Me To You in early 1964. They didn't play Can't Buy Me Love or A Hard Day's Night after 1965.

And yet you have bands like the Stones who are still playing their early hits after 50 years, why wouldn't The Beatles?

The best answer I've been able to come up with is maybe that because they were consistently the most popular band in the world, they assumed their new songs would go down live just as well as the old ones.

I've been writing songs pretty much non-stop for the last 2 years or so, and I'm getting better at it, but I can't seem to write happy songs up to the standard of some of the more downbeat ones. There are a few happy songs that I really like, in fact there's one that I like so much that I'm thinking about using it as my band's first single, but the majority of them are below par. To put it into Beatle terms (what can I say, I have an obsession), I'm writing Eleanor Rigby when I want to be writing Can't Buy Me Love.

I think the reason for it is that I don't want to stick to the I, IV and V chords, it doesn't feel creative enough. I'll start out with a happy (although often painfully obvious) song using those chords, and then try and switch a few out for minor chords to make it more interesting, and the optimism disappears.

Occasionally it works, as with my favourite of my own songs which follows a weird ii-V-I-vi progression in the chorus, but usually not.

I thought maybe it was because happy songs just don't use many minor chords, but once again The Beatles prove me wrong. The verse and chorus of She Loves You both have half and half Major and Minor chords, as does the verse of I Want To Hold Your Hand. The chorus of Can't Buy Me Love even goes a step further and has 3 minor chords and only one major.

How can I write interesting happy songs that don't just follow an annoying pattern of I, IV and V?

Any examples of good chord progressions would be great.

Thanks.

You must where a tie at work because if you don't, the universe will implode!

You can't eat in lessons because if you do, you stomach will expand to the size of the galaxy!

Why do we like to make rules that have no real purpose?

My political compass:

Economic: -5.88

Social: -8.92

I'm MUCH further down the libertarian scale the Gandhi. It's incredibely frustrating that the only Libertarian parties seem to be economically right wing, where the hell is my left-wing, libertarian party?

Is it because I am the only person with these views? That can't be right, because of all of my friends who have taken this test, only one of them wasn't just as extreme as me, and I'm pretty sure he didn't take it seriously. If this is a viewpoint that people have, why isn't there a politcal party reflective of that viewpoint?

If YouTube had existed at the height of Beatlemania, how many views would the average Beatles music video have gotten?

Just speculation of course.

I've been thinking recently about the idea of a conceptual country. The same sort of thing as John Lennon's 'Nutopia'. Of course, on closer inspection, Lennon's country was really an incredibly clever failed attempt to stop himself being deported. But the idea is still good.

I actually think that the idea of a conceptual nation could be taken much further, and could make a real impact if it was supported enough. So, I've actually got some ideas for how this thing could work. This is a little complicated to put across so bear with me. For the purposes of explaining, I'll use Lennon's name 'Nutopia' for the conceptual country.

BORDERS

Nutopia has no land borders. Anyone can become a citizen of Nutopia regardless of their geographical location.

TAX

The citizens don't pay taxes to the governments of the places they happen to come from anymore, now they pay taxes to the central, elected government of Nutopia. Because Nutopia doesn't exist as a location, very few facilities are needed for the nation itself. Instead, taxes are used wherever they are needed most. The government decides where different sums of tax money should go based on factors such as: How much money does Ethiopia need? How likely is it that the Ethiopian government will get the money on their own? Is there a possibility that money will be mis-used if we give it to Ethiopia? etc. Not only does this mean the money of the world is spread more evenly; This way of doing things also means that as the population of Nupotia grows, it becomes massively influential on world politics.

HEALTHCARE

This has it's own section because I just realised that if I stopped paying taxes to Britain, I would no longer be entitled to the NHS. I have a solution, the government of Nutopia pays for the healthcare of it's people. According to the BBC, the NHS spends about £277 per person, per year on average. That's including checkups and dentistry and operations and medicine and everything else. So Nutopia reserves about £300 of tax money per person for people's healthcare. This money would be available for citizens to pay for healthcare in their own countries.

POLITICS

As I said before, a large Nutopian population allows the nation to have massive influence on world events. It could even be used to stop wars in a way such as this:

1) Country A invades Country B.

2) Nutopia immediately cuts all funding to Country A and funds the defence of Country B.

3) Country A is unable to cope with lack of funding for the war.

4) War ends.

I genuinely believe that if an entirely conceptual country existed in this way, it would help to maintain a more peaceful world in general.

So the question is: Are there any massive, glaringly obvious holes in a plan such as this that I haven't noticed for whatever reason?

Recently I've noticed that we have little appreciation for art anymore in our society. But I haven't been able to understand why.

If you go back to the '50s and '60s, going to an art college after finishing school was a very common decision for a statistically massive section of society, but now it almost seems as though non-academic graduates are aggressively looked down upon by the majority of people. I believe the perspective of those who look down on people graduating from art schools is that they have little practical use for their qualifications. If this is the case, as I fear it is, then I must ask the question: What is the point of our existence, when the human experience has been so far reduced that the average person would like to limit your activities to those that are stable and secure? I certainly don't want to live in a world where the only experiences I am permitted to have are those that contribute to the security of our system.

There are lots of examples of how this is affecting the art we produce, but the most obvious, particularly to young people such as myself, is popular music. You only have to go back 15 years, and the music being produced was monumentally more culturally relevant than the pop songs we produce now. In the US you had the rise of Nirvana, leading to the rise of counterculture music in general, culminating in a band as alternative as Metallica being able to achieve #1 albums consistently throughout the '90s. On the other side of the Atlantic, the Britpop phenomenon was creating incredible bands like Oasis and Blur. Now obviously there is still amazing music being produced, but it seems unable to penetrate the mainstream with any real force, and that is what makes the difference. A society that generally dismisses art, but contains niche pockets that accept it, is still dismissive of art whether you like it or not.

My question to you is: Do you agree that we don't appreciate art as a society, and if so, why?

And this is only in R&P because of the emphasis on music.

I'm in the first year of sixth form at my school, and I have zero motivation for my classes. I thought that sixth form would be better than high school was, because I only had to do the subjects that I wanted to do, but after the first term of the first year, my optimism has vanished. I suppose some context is necessary, so here it is: I want to be a musician, I have no ambition to be anything other than a musician, I have backup plans of course, but I would consider my life a failure if they ever become necessary. I am that dedicated to being in the music industry. There are two reasons I went to sixth form in the first place - If I didn't, I would have had to get a full time job which is a problem because there aren't any, and because it's even more time consuming than school. The other reason is Music Technology, the only lesson that isn't painfully dull. But even Music Tech is starting to lose it's luster, I feel like I'm being restricted in my abilities as a performer, writer and producer, rather than enhanced and trained as I should have been. The course is far too structured and rigid for me. The worst thing about it is that I feel like I could make so much more progress musically if I didn't have any commitments in the day.

So there are a few options:

- Carry on even though I despise every second of it.

- Leave school and work solely on my musical ambitions. (Risky, but my favourite option)

- Leave school and get a job. (No better really)

- Try and do something to hate it less. (Don't know what though)

Help? What would you do?

My experience of "advice" (that is, completely unwanted and unrequested advice that has no bearing on anything.) from teachers in high school about careers is not good. I want to be a musician, and I have been entirely dedicated towards that for years now. However, teachers always try and steer me into horrible, soul-destroying professions sitting behind desks for 50 years until you die.

I wouldn't even mind their horrific advice if I had asked for it, but they seem to like randomly inserting career planning into every conversation, and refusing to accept anything even slightly risky as a potential life choice. Why do they care what I attempt to do with my life? Are there any teachers willing to explain to me why so many of you are trying to talk me out of the one thing I want to do?

Cheers, sorry if that was more like a rant than a question, it wasn't my intention. Question is - what business do teachers have in planning my life, and why do they favour incredibely tedious careers?

It's blatantly obviously the better system. It's been shown time and time again to more accurately represent the preferences of the people, and it prevents minority rule. Why did we vote for First Past The Post, why?

If God appeared to you and asked you to sacrifice your own child to prove your faith, would you do it? I'm assuming that you would start doing it, thinking it would work out like Abraham and he would let you stop. But what if the order to stop never came? What if you were standing there next to your bound child with a knife in your hands, and God still wanted you to brutally murder your small, innocent child?

Honest answer. By the way, you can't get out of this by saying 'God would never do that', because - You don't have the mental capacity to understand the decisions of God, we're told that all the time by Christians after all.