Carrie Underwood: Powerhouse

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Welcome back to my blog.

This week, I am so excited to be featuring Carrie Underwood. Yes, she’s country gold, but there’s so much more. She is an inspiration to other artists and women to follow your dream and believe in yourself. She got her big break in the 4th season of American Idol when she won the title, way back in 2005. Even back then, she was focused on success and received college credits while she was competing on Idol. That was such an intelligent thing to do, showing that she had the brains of a successful businesswoman right from the start.Since then, she worked very hard and has gone on to win over 100 major awards such as: Country Music Association award for a new artist, multiple Grammy Awards for Best Female Country Artist, American music Award for Artist of the year, Entertainer of the year, Album of the year, and the list goes on.

She is a powerhouse vocalist and performer.

Another cool fact about Carrie Underwood is that she lived in Ottawa for a couple of years. She had been dating and then married Ottawa Senators Mike Fisher in July of 2010. It wasn’t long after that they moved to Nashville so that she could continue with her music. He was traded to the Nashville Predator hockey team, so it worked out and they are recently celebrated their 13th wedding anniversary and have two beautiful sons.

I learned something recently about her that really makes me admire her even more. From about Sept to January every year since 2013, she rakes in $18 million dollars for a pre-recorded song on Sunday night Football! Isn’t that crazy and so amazing for her? She sings a rendition of Joan Jett’s “Hate myself for Loving you” adapted to “waiting all day for Sunday night” it is a spectacle and one of the things I do wait for every Sunday! I am in awe of her. Depending on what teams are playing I may or may not stay tuned for the game, as I am oddly a football fan too.

She also seems super down to earth and nature loving, another interest of mine so I started following her on Instagram she has some decent gardening tips from time to time. A good place to go for some inspiration and recharge my mindset.

Some days, it’s hard to keep motivated and positive. Ms. Underwood is one of the women I look to, to find strength, courage and to keep going to find my inner powerhouse.

Keeping that in mind in my short career as a breeder, in which the purpose was to preserve an ancient dying breed, the beautiful Barbet.  One of my litters was named “Celebration of Music” Litter. One of those special puppies was a rare fawn/blonde and is registered as Carrie Underwood. From the research that I have been doing on Carrie, I feel that she would appreciate the fact that I honoured her by naming one of my puppies after her.  To me, it is the highest honour.

My name is Tammy. I am an avid lover of animals, music, and nature. I have 15 dogs and 1 cat, and spend most of my free time exploring nature, swimming, reading, and writing.

Beethoven Found Alive and Well

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That’s right, Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, many other famous composers composers are alive and well in today’s music world.

In fact, classical music is hiding in plain sight everywhere in the music industry.

I can almost see you shaking your head no and rolling your eyes at me. Please, hear me out.

“Back in the pioneer days”, as my kids say to me from time to time, I was a piano student, and yes, I studied classical music. Back then, I didn’t think it was that interesting or fascinating at all, until I started making the connections of music from then with the music of today.

One of my studies included “Plasir d’amour”, by Martini. It was beautiful, I admit, but as I improved on my playing, I realized how much it reminded me of “I can’t help falling in love”, by Elvis Presley/Corey Hart, and I’m sure more artists over the years. Suddenly, I found learning classical music interesting and I started listening for it day to day music. It was everywhere, I was amazed. I thought this was so clever of new artists to include these works to make them new again, make them exciting to listen to.   

Think about it for a minute.

Imagine many of these artists probably started their musical journey learning classical music. Does it not make sense then, that they would find a way to incorporate those experiences and tools into their music. It seems that the most popular musical time periods that artists are in touch with are the Baroque (1600-1750) and the Romantic (1830-1900) period. The Beethoven’s. Bach’s Mozart, Vivaldi.

For fun, although, I haven’t referenced any music of today that incorporated female composers, there were we substantial number of successful women composers during those time periods. Some of these are: Francesca Caccini, Isabella Leonarda, Hildagard von Bingen. But more about these fabulous artists in my next blog.

I shall digress and get back to my list of todays artist who leveraged some of the most famous classical composer’s music as an inspiration to create new music for us today.

Artists such as:

Led Zeppelin “Stairway to Heaven”-Johann Sebastian Bach’s Bourree in E minor

The Beatles “Blackbird” also used Johann Sebastian Bach’s Bourree in E minor

Maroon 5-“Memories” uses Pachelbel’s eight-note harmonic progression from Canon

Elvis Presley “Can’t help falling in love” from Jean-Paul Martini’s Plaisir d’amour

One Republic “Secrets” uses Beethoven’s 5th Symphony

Ludacris “Coming 2 America” uses Mozart’s Requiem Mass in D minor ll)

DJ Premier and Nas “Regeneration” Uses Vivaldi Concerto No 2 in g minor

Nas “I can” contains Beethoven’s Fur Elise

Capone-N-Norega (Straight Like that)

Beyonce “Ava Maria” Song by Franz Schubert

I truly appreciate and believe that the classical era was the foundation for music today.

It is so powerful, even without lyrics. Classical music is so intense and rich that it fills you with wonder. Maybe that’s where the saying came from “music to my ears”.

I wonder if Beethoven and the rest of the gang would agree with how their work is being presented in today’s music world.

My name is Tammy. I am an avid lover of animals, music, and nature. I have 15 dogs and 1 cat, and spend most of my free time exploring nature, swimming, reading, and writing.