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/ There is something wrong with Teddy /

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • May 29, 2015 , ,

The above is a YouTube video posted by user ZeFrank1.

This little video is something my brother showed me the other day. I was a little confused at first because I didn’t understand the reason for it, but as it went on, I became more interested in it and I wanted to know what happened next.

The video is classified as a ‘dark-humour’, which explores the notion of a stuffed Teddy Bear having a medical procedure to remove ‘bad things’ from his body. Some of the contents within him include gangrene kidney crayons as well as cigarette butt filled bon-bons (which made me feel sick lol).

The whole video surrounds this teddy and we question how it got so sick. We find out that, “Teddy loved a bad boy. What did the bad boy do, Teddy? Oh Teddy, the bad boy broke Teddy’s heart’s heart.”

This made me feel a little emotional because I always used to think (and still kind of do) that toys have hearts and they get hurt too. Growing up, I used to take care of my toys as if they were my babies because I had a genuine care for them. It is interesting to think about this as they obviously do not have an actual alive heart and they cannot breathe. But this video basically says that they do and this teddy has been affected by a bad little boy who was his owner.

I don’t know, maybe it sounds silly but this definitely grabbed me because of the content surrounding what we see. Maybe I am just a very emotional person. I don’t know… I loved the video though.

I definitely recommend you have a watch. 🙂

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/ Hannah Vasanth /

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • May 26, 2015 , ,

So I have been following Hannah Vasanth for quite a few years now. She used to play the keyboard as part of Jessie J’s band (an artist who I am absolutely obsessed with).

Born to South Indian parents and raised in Berlin, Vasanth moved to London in 1997 to sutdy at the Royal Academy of Music. She studied Jazz Performance which was definitely a good choice! Since that time, she has made a name for herself. Playing keyboard for big name artists like Anastasia, the Sugarbabes, Rihanna and Jessie J.

Her influence comes from jazz artists like Herbie Hancock, Bill Evans. However her music is more urban and pop styled influenced from DJs like Diplo to singers like Lana Del Rey.

Hannah is a down-to-earth girl who always finds time to help those around her (next few quotes and excerpt taken from https://www.academia.co.uk/about-us/case-studies/jessie-j/).

“I believe that it is my duty to help and inspire young people, especially artistic ones at the beginning of their journey. For a lot of the youth I am living ’the dream’ – so it’s great to be able to break down the job to them and explain the blood, sweat and tears it took for me to get here! Doing this keeps me grounded – at the same time inspires me to go even further so I can continue being a role model.”

Currently (however recently left) playing for Jessie J, Hannah gave me an insight into her career path and how she came about pursuing music;

“I always wanted to go into music – I was very involved in school bands/choirs/ensembles, but the pop thing just kind of happened – I fell into it through a good friend and MD [Musical Director] Bob Knight offering me a last minute job. The ball just started rolling from then and here I am.”

Hannah is endorsed by Yamaha, and has been for many years, so she’s always had Yamaha ’boards in her rig;

“My first proper professional set up was a controller keyboard, I think it was a Yamaha CP33 with my laptop, as well as a Yamaha ES6. The set up has changed a lot over the years – always based on a Yamaha twin-rig [Motif  XF 8/6] with specialist boards being added – a Roland VK7, Nord Lead, etc.”

All other gear on top of the Yamaha boards are usually by recommendation, Hannah tells us, including her recent adoption of the Muse Research Receptor. Being around other touring musicians, she’s always being told about the latest gear by her super-geeky, knowledgeable friends…

“I have known about the Receptor for a long time now – I first heard about it from my friend Michael Blustein – he used to play keys for Enrique Iglesius and now plays for Foreigner. Over the years I have followed Muse Research, and spoken to players that use it. I was toying between a MacBook setup and a Receptor setup for a long time. Ultimately, the Receptor won…”

One of the key benefits of the Receptor is that you can take sounds you created in the studio and play them in a live situation without the worry of anything overheating or crashing. No more substituting sounds for built in, factory sounds as a lot of musicians have been forced to do over the years;

“If I am on a more electronic gig, and the producer created a pad/synth sound using a popular plug-in such as [Native Instruments] Massive – I could then take this preset, load it into the Receptor and literally have the exact same sound as on the record. I am also a fan of String plugins such as [ProjectSAM] Symphobia and [AudioBro] LA Scoring Strings – so am looking forward to using these in the future. Lots of plugins I want to try out!”

So have a listen to the above video and let me know what you think! I can’t wait to here more from this talented lady!

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/ Prepare your tissues /

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • May 24, 2015 , ,

So after seeing a friend share this video on her Facebook profile I decided I would have a watch… and it was pretty worth it!

It is about a young, to be wedded couple, who go through a life-changing make-over through the ages that they will in the future become (ages 50-90).

The couple get to see each other through these ages together commenting on how they are feeling about what they see and what they think about themselves. Christie mentions that “it’s a really affecting thing to see someone you’ve known since you were 19, in their 70’s and imagine what life would be like then” which for me is important to hear as it shows just how much love these two share for each other and the fact that they still would want to be together at this age.

The idea of togetherness brings many people watching to tears as it shows just how powerful and strong love truly is and that the way a person looks is all to do with the journey they have been on. Christie also mentions that there is a “strange comforting feeling seeing him this way” (THE FEELS !!!)

Something that really stuck with me was the statement Christie makes towards the end of the video; “being about to get married.. I couldn’t be more sure that this is what I want.” #goals

Have a watch and see for yourself just how beautiful this video really is 🙂

 

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/ Netflix and what not /

  By samanthabeniacbrooks • March 30, 2015 , , , , , ,

So I wanted to write this because of Netflix finally being made available to Australia (thank god it’s here now).

I used to watch the American one where I filtered my location to Los Angeles or something in order to access the beautiful streaming service.

To give an overview of what it is, thanks to the companies overview page: Netflix is the world’s leading Internet television network with over 62 million members in over 50 countries enjoying more than 100 million hours of TV shows and movies per day, including original series, documentaries and feature films. Members can watch as much as they want, anytime, anywhere, on nearly any Internet-connected screen. Members can play, pause and resume watching, all without commercials or commitments.

Sounds fabulous does it not? WELL IT IS.

I don’t know whether having Netflix will now cause a stir in terms of Foxtel because people potentially will no longer want to pay for Foxtel when they can access things online for a cheaper price. However it’s great because I think we are moving back to paying for watching things online (I never really watched anything illegally that was downloaded but I know many people did) and I believe that now with the introduction of Netflix and then the Australian versions Stan and Presto, people will be more inclined to pay a monthly fee to watch as many things as they like.
Hmmm.. leaves me thinking!