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Tom Brusky
Tom Brusky (born 1969) is a Slovenian-style polka musician and bandleader from Milwaukee, Wisconsin who also produces and records music through his company, Polkasound Productions. Brusky has appeared on over sixty recordings worldwide along with artists such as Verne Meisner, Verne and Steve Meisner, Eric Noltkamper, Kathy Zamejc Vogt, Jeff Winard, and Frankie Yankovic. He performs roughly 150 events a year throughout Southeastern Wisconsin and abroad. Tom Brusky was born into a musical family. Both his father, Jim, and his brother, Ron, played Big-Band, big-band, dixieland, and polka music professionally with bands such as Louis Bashell, Guy Lombardo, Chuck Hedges, Russ Morgan, Don Nedobeck, and Dick Rodgers. His mother, Jan, is an accomplished orchestral musician and pipe organist. His sister, Susan, is a Wisconsin Area Music Industry (WAMI)-winning drummer who toured the country with a heavy-metal band in the 1980s, opening for such acts as Wendy O. Williams. Tom Brusky pl ...
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Wendy O
Wendy is a given name now generally given to girls in English-speaking countries. In Britain, Wendy appeared as a masculine name in a parish record in 1615. It was also used as a surname in Britain from at least the 17th century. Its popularity in Britain as a feminine name is owed to the character Wendy Darling from the 1904 play '' Peter Pan'' and its 1911 novelisation ''Peter and Wendy'' by J. M. Barrie. Its popularity reached a peak in the 1960s, and subsequently declined. The name was inspired by young Margaret Henley, daughter of Barrie's poet friend W. E. Henley. With the common childhood difficulty pronouncing ''R''s, Margaret reportedly used to call him "my fwiendy-wendy". In Germany after 1986, the name Wendy became popular because it is the name of a magazine (targeted specifically at young girls) about horses and horse riding. People Business and politics * Wendy Davis, American politician * Wendi Deng, Chinese-born American businesswoman * Wendy Morgan, G ...
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Musicians From Milwaukee
A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who write both music and lyrics for songs, conductors who direct a musical performance, or performers who perform for an audience. A music performer is generally either a singer who provides vocals or an instrumentalist who plays a musical instrument. Musicians may perform on their own or as part of a group, band or orchestra. Musicians specialize in a musical style, and some musicians play in a variety of different styles depending on cultures and background. A musician who records and releases music can be known as a recording artist. Types Composer A composer is a musician who creates musical compositions. The title is principally used for those who write classical music or film music. Those who write the music for popular songs ...
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Polka Musicians
Polka is a dance and genre of dance music originating in nineteenth-century Bohemia, now part of the Czech Republic. Though associated with Czech culture, polka is popular throughout Europe and the Americas. History Etymology The term ''polka'' referring to the dance is derived from the Czech word ''Polka'' meaning "Polish woman" (feminine form corresponding to ''Polák'', a Pole)."polka, n.". Oxford University Press. (accessed 11 July 2012). Czech cultural historian Čeněk Zíbrt also attributes the term to the Czech word ''půlka'' (half), referring to both the half-tempo and the half-jump step of the dance.Čeněk Zíbrt, "Jak se kdy v Čechách tancovalo: dějiny tance v Čechách, na Moravě, ve Slezsku a na Slovensku z věků nejstarších až do nové doby se zvláštním zřetelem k dějinám tance vůbec", Prague, 189(Google eBook)/ref> The word was widely introduced into the major European languages in the early 1840s. Origin and popularity The pol ...
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Tuba
The tuba (; ) is the lowest-pitched musical instrument in the brass instrument, brass family. As with all brass instruments, the sound is produced by lip vibrationa buzzinto a mouthpiece (brass), mouthpiece. It first appeared in the mid-19th century, making it one of the newer instruments in the modern orchestra and concert band. The tuba largely replaced the ophicleide. ''Tuba'' is Latin for "trumpet". A person who plays the tuba is called a tubaist, a tubist, or simply a tuba player. In a British Brass band (British style), brass band or military band, they are known as bass players. History Prussian Patent No. 19 was granted to Wilhelm Friedrich Wieprecht and Johann Gottfried Moritz (1777–1840) on September 12, 1835 for a "bass tuba" in F1. The original Wieprecht and Moritz instrument used five valves of the Brass instrument valve#Double-piston valve, Berlinerpumpen type that were the forerunners of the modern piston valve. The first tenor tuba was invented in 1838 ...
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Piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a musical keyboard, keyboard, which is a row of keys (small levers) that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. It was invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700. Description The word "piano" is a shortened form of ''pianoforte'', the Italian term for the early 1700s versions of the instrument, which in turn derives from ''clavicembalo col piano e forte'' (key cimbalom with quiet and loud)Pollens (1995, 238) and ''fortepiano''. The Italian musical terms ''piano'' and ''forte'' indicate "soft" and "loud" respectively, in this context referring to the variations in volume (i.e., loudness) produced in response to a pianist's touch or pressure on ...
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Bass Guitar
The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length, and typically four to six strings or courses. Since the mid-1950s, the bass guitar has largely replaced the double bass in popular music. The four-string bass is usually tuned the same as the double bass, which corresponds to pitches one octave lower than the four lowest-pitched strings of a guitar (typically E, A, D, and G). It is played primarily with the fingers or thumb, or with a pick. To be heard at normal performance volumes, electric basses require external amplification. Terminology According to the ''New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', an "Electric bass guitar sa Guitar, usually with four heavy strings tuned E1'–A1'–D2–G2." It also defines ''bass'' as "Bass (iv). A contraction of Double bass ...
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Drum Kit
A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks, one in each hand, and uses their feet to operate a foot-controlled hi-hat and bass drum pedal. A standard kit may contain: * A snare drum, mounted on a stand * A bass drum, played with a beater moved by a foot-operated pedal * One or more tom-toms, including rack toms and/or floor toms * One or more cymbals, including a ride cymbal and crash cymbal * Hi-hat cymbals, a pair of cymbals that can be manipulated by a foot-operated pedal The drum kit is a part of the standard rhythm section and is used in many types of popular and traditional music styles, ranging from rock and pop to blues and jazz. __TOC__ History Early development Before the development of the drum set, drums and cymbals used in military and orchestral mu ...
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Accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed in a frame), colloquially referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist. The concertina , harmoneon and bandoneón are related. The harmonium and American reed organ are in the same family, but are typically larger than an accordion and sit on a surface or the floor. The accordion is played by compressing or expanding the bellows while pressing buttons or keys, causing ''pallets'' to open, which allow air to flow across strips of brass or steel, called '' reeds''. These vibrate to produce sound inside the body. Valves on opposing reeds of each note are used to make the instrument's reeds sound louder without air leaking from each reed block.For the accordion's place among the families of m ...
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Wisconsin Area Music Industry
Wisconsin Area Music Industry (WAMI) is an American volunteer organization founded in 1980, and based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Its stated purpose is "to educate and recognize the achievements and accomplishments of individuals in the Wisconsin music industry." The organization is best known for its annual awards for Wisconsin musicians from various genres of music. It also hosts seminars and workshops on subjects related to music and the music industry, such as performing, recording and marketing. Partnerships and Objectives The WAMI works with several organizations within the local music industry. These groups include: *Guitar 4 Vets * Awards WAMI began presenting awards in 1980. It held its award ceremony in Milwaukee until switching to Appleton. Notable artists who have won the WAMI Artist of the Year award include The Gufs (1998) and Bon Iver (2009). Members of WAMI's hall of fame include the diverse artists Butch Vig, Al Jarreau, Bob Kames, Liberace, Les Paul, Violent Femm ...
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Slovenian-style Polka
Slovenian-style polka (also known as Cleveland Style polka) is an American style of polka in the Slovenian tradition. It is usually associated with Cleveland and other Midwestern cities. Instruments The Slovenian style polka band always includes a piano accordion, chromatic accordion, or the Diatonic button accordion (also called a "button box"). Some bands in Slovenia use keyboard instead of accordion. The other melody instrument is a saxophone or clarinet, and the rhythm instruments include drums, bass, and guitar or banjo. Avsenik brothers add a trumpet, too. The Slovenian style polka in the United States of America came about when immigrants from Slovenia taught the old songs to their children. Those children, as adults, translated the old songs from Slovene into English, and arranged them in a polka beat. History At first Slovenian style polka was just music for ethnic clubs and union halls, but the commercial success of Frankie Yankovic (Jankovič) and other musicians s ...
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Russ Morgan
Russell Morgan (April 29, 1904 – August 7, 1969) was an American big band leader and arranger during the 1930s and 1940s. He was best known for being the one of the composers of the song " You're Nobody till Somebody Loves You", with Larry Stock and James Cavanaugh, and was the first to record it in 1944. Biography Early life Born into a Welsh family in Scranton, Pennsylvania, United States, Morgan was encouraged to express himself musically from the age of seven. His father, a coal mine foreman, was a former musician who played drums in a local band in his spare time. Morgan's mother had been a pianist in a vaudeville act. Morgan began to study piano and worked in the mines to earn money to help support his family and pay for his lessons. At the age of 14, Morgan earned money as a pianist in a theater in Scranton. He purchased a trombone and learned to play it. In 1921, he played trombone with the Scranton Sirens, which became popular in Pennsylvania during the 1920s. Besides ...
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