Music has always been a common medium used to respond to literature,
from biblical hymns to Led Zepplin’s hit “Ramble On”, a popular work of Lord of
the Rings fanmusic. In fact, Lord of the Rings has such a large musical fan
response that “an online collection of songs, artists, and album titles of music
that are fanworks of Tolkien’s legendarium, either in name or by theme” exists (1).
The Harry Potter Fandom took musical response even further and invented their own genre of music: Wizard Rock, or Wrock, where bands with names of characters from the books (the genre founding group: Harry and the Potters, Draco and the Malfoys, etc) take on the role of the characters and write songs from their perspectives. Since the year 2000, over 100 Wizard Rock bands have been formed (2). I was a huge Wrock Fan. Huge. I begged my mom to take my friend and I to Buffalo New York to see genre founders Harry and the Potters, Draco and the Malfoys and The Whomping Willows and it was AMAZING. We were front row centre. Harry and the Potters jumped off the stage during one number and huged us, and it was all caught on film! (The girl with long blonde hair getting hugged at 4 mins in, is me! I'm proudly wearing my home made Harry Potter fan blazer, might I add.)
The following are testimonies from Wrockers that speak for themselves:
The Harry Potter Fandom took musical response even further and invented their own genre of music: Wizard Rock, or Wrock, where bands with names of characters from the books (the genre founding group: Harry and the Potters, Draco and the Malfoys, etc) take on the role of the characters and write songs from their perspectives. Since the year 2000, over 100 Wizard Rock bands have been formed (2). I was a huge Wrock Fan. Huge. I begged my mom to take my friend and I to Buffalo New York to see genre founders Harry and the Potters, Draco and the Malfoys and The Whomping Willows and it was AMAZING. We were front row centre. Harry and the Potters jumped off the stage during one number and huged us, and it was all caught on film! (The girl with long blonde hair getting hugged at 4 mins in, is me! I'm proudly wearing my home made Harry Potter fan blazer, might I add.)
The following are testimonies from Wrockers that speak for themselves:
“The themes we deal with are straight out of the book” – Paul
& Joe DeGorge, Harry and the Potters
 |
| The DeGeorge Brothers founded the Wrock genre with their band, Harry and the Potters |
“It is embracing the literature of Harry Potter and having fun with it” – Alex Carpenter of The Remus Lupins.
“The inspiration doesn’t stop coming” Kristina Horner of the
Parselmouths
“It opens up the door to creativity” said a fan interviewed in the Wizard Rockumentary. “Students and young people need to see that
reading is a part of our life and it's a creative process, and its not always
passive.”
“One
of the core issues is getting kids into reading. They heard about what we were
doing and they started reading the books and getting more into Harry Potter” - Unknown
“It doesn't matter if you’ve ever played an instrument before. That stuff is so irrelevant to the fact that you can make music” – Joe DeGorge, Harry and the Potters.
For a snapshot of what the budding Wizard Rock community was like, back in the golden days of aught four, enjoy the Wizard Rockumentary Documentary Trailer:
Some musicians, like Pogo, take clips from the movies and create music from them.
Some musically intelligent students may be inspired to compose whole musicals, like Starkid Production’s extremely successful Very Potter Musical, and A Very Potter Sequel.
A Very Potter Musical, Act 1, Scene 1: "Gotta Get Back To Hogwarts"
Sources
(1) Abrahamson, 2013, p. 56
(2) Wizardrockumentary Trailer
No comments:
Post a Comment