My Musical Culture

 Hello! My name is Jillian Tippie and I am a freshman vocal performance major. My primary instrument is voice, but I also play the piano and I briefly, briefly played the violin for a bit. I was born in California, mostly raised in Alabama, lived in New York for a time, and moved to South Carolina in March of 2021. My home is in Greenville(soon to be Chesnee), but I have an apartment near campus during the semester. I have a little cat that lives with me named Melody Roxmouth, melody for obvious reasons, and Roxmouth comes from one of my favorite musicians, Jonathan Roxmouth, a South African singer. Here's me, my little cat(she's 10 months old today!) and a sample of Jonathan

My current go-to is actually a couple pieces. If I find a good piece of music, I tend to fixate and listen to it over and over and over until I find the next good piece and that piece currently is "We Don't Talk About Bruno" from the new movie Encanto. Camilo's part at 1:11 is my favorite part of the song and sometimes I just listen to only his part on repeat!

For going on walks, I really like the song Die Schatten Werden Länger from the German musical Elisabeth. The song is a duet between Elisabeth's son Rudolf and Death. I'm linking my particular favorite but my playlist for walks is 15 versions of this song from various productions across Germany and Japan. 

For driving in the car, lately, I really like Still, from the musical Anastasia. I just keep it on repeat no matter the length of the drive. While I'm not much of a Ramin Karimloo fan, I think he's actually pretty excellent in this show and something about this song has made it my favorite from Anastasia. 

The last of my current go-tos that I'm going to share is my writing playlist, which is currently the entire Inside album by Bo Burnham. I know the songs well enough that the words don't distract me while I'm writing, but most of it moves along enough to keep me motivated, and I really enjoy the music. This is my particular favourite. 

If you know me very well then you probably already know what music resonates me and has for a very long time; Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera. 

When I was 12, I switched to a new piano teacher who tried to get a feel for the things that I liked and she immediately pegged me as a hopeless romantic with a gothic flair and decided to give me "All I Ask of You" to learn on the piano. She was shocked when I told her that I'd never heard it before, or the show it came from, so she told me to look it up at home. I looked up All I Ask of You and I hated it. I thought it was terribly boring. But youtube, in the sidebar, suggested the title song and out of curiosity, I clicked on it. That song had me hooked immediately. I listened to it on repeat for the rest of the evening. I had a little netbook and my mom had to run some errands so I brought it with me and as long as I didn't hit refresh, it would allow me to play the song on repeat, so I listened to it in the car, and my poor mother had to listen to it as well. In the ten years since, my love for Phantom and all it's many adaptations has only grown and it's majorly influenced my life. Through one of the phantom actors, I found the school that I attended in NYC. I have had the opportunity to travel and give lectures on Phantom and its immense history. I even used a song from the Yeston and Kopit Phantom musical for one of my audition pieces for Converse! 

I know several of my classmates are also in my piano class, in which case you heard me say that while I was in New York last month, I went to see Phantom 4 nights in a row, and I've now seen the show 11 times total on Broadway(and I might be planning to be back in May, don't judge me) and it's never enough. It's beautiful and moving and brings me to tears every single time. It's safe to say that it resonates with me very, very deeply and at this point, I think it always will. 

The overture is one of my absolute favorite parts of the show, though all of the music is ridiculously gorgeous. There's something about the overture though that I just feel in my very soul.

Coming up with something I don't connect with is much harder. As a whole, I very much disliked the new Diana musical, but the music definitely contributed to the issue. It didn't feel particularly memorable, it's often repetitive in the worst way, and it doesn't make you want to sing along even though it acts like you should. It wants to be a fun, entertaining show and it almost is but it just doesn't quite make it. I find a lot of the music just kind of annoying, it rubs me the wrong way. 

There's a couple songs I'd like to share for the final prompt. 

This first one I originally heard on tiktok when it was still musicly. I like the rhythm and the way that the words fit in with it. It has some of those fun ways of moving that Lin Manuel Miranda is known for, if you like his stuff, you might enjoy this. I think it's very clever. Small content warning for drug mention and a brief unsettling description(depends on how squeamish you are). It's not for everyone, but I think it still deserves a mention. 

This next piece is from a very cute little French film called A Monster in Paris. There's an English dub available but I think it's best in the original French. All of the songs are beautifully written, there's a lot of beautiful parts in this song and they come together so well, but they're also lovely to try and listen to individually. 

I will leave you with two instrumental pieces that I think are devastatingly romantic and passionate and just gorgeous. The first comes from the Nutcracker and the second comes from the Pride and Prejudice film.