Music world

Taylor Swift will bring the drape down on this year’s CMA Music Fest.

Swift has been added to the Sunday lineup of the Nightly Concerts at LP Field for the June 9-12 fair in Nashville, Tenn.

Fans in Swift’s hometown will get to see a bit of the live show the 2009 Country Music Association performer of the year has been dispersal around the globe on tour this coil. Swift has been concerned in some way with the festival every year since 2006.

Sunday will be a runaway success night with Miranda Lambert, Blake Shelton and Darius Rucker among the performers on the agenda.

Other performers scheduled Thursday through Saturday include Jason Aldean, Brad Paisley, Zac Brown Band, Rascal Flatts, Lady Antebellum, Keith Urban and Sheryl Crow.

New York: Late King of Pop Michael Jackson’s famous estate ‘Neverland Ranch’ may be turned into a haven for teenage musicians. Colony Capital, which owned the ranch before the pop singer’s untimely death, reportedly wants to turn the ranch into a music organization modelled after Juilliard, a music school in New York City, according to a website.

The plan is to teach writing and performing for many different types of music to teenagers. Since the pop star’s death, many interested parties have floated different ideas for Neverland Ranch.

“I think Michael’s history is world history and I think it would become the No. 1 attraction for the state parks if we could pull it off,” a daily quoted California NAACP President Alice Huffman as telling The Sacremento Bee at that time.

Before the teens start flowing back into the ranch, Santa Barbara County reportedly has to approve the plan and Jackson’s estate must allow his name to be used to endorse the institute. “It’s an interesting idea. And we’d be open to it,” said a rep for Jackson’s estate.

Classical and rock music may not seem like a rational mix, yet from the Beatles forward, popular musicians have looked to classical music for motivation. Progressive rock bands such as Genesis and Yes utilize complex time signatures and active passages that at times seem more like the “long-haired” music of Beethoven and Mozart than fashionable rock and roll. Bands such as Pink Floyd and the Moody Blues have utilized symphony orchestras in their recording. Even Tom Petty has on the run amok orchestral versions of his big hits.

In this free series of music cross pollination videos, professional performer Scott Smith outlines the history of rock and classical music, and then discusses how these genres overlap. You will learn how to adapt melodic scores written for traditional classical instruments such as the harpsichord and organ to the contemporary electric instruments of rock and pop bands. He discusses how to change time signature and add the recognizable blues beat common to rock and roll music.