title: Oghuz Turks

text: Based on those sources, Zuev proposes that in the 8th century the Oghuzes were located outsides of the Ten Arrows' jurisdiction, west of the Altai mountains, near lake Issyk-Kul, Talas river's basin and seemingly around the Syr Darya basin, and near the Chumul, Karluks, Qays, Quns, "Śari", etc. who were mentioned by al-Maṣudi and Sharaf al-Zaman al-Marwazi.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: According to Ahmad ibn Fadlan, the Oghuz were nomads, but also had cultivated crops, and the economy was based on a semi-pastoralist lifestyle.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: Byzantine emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos mentioned the "Uzi" and "Mazari" (Hungarians) as neighbours of the Pechenegs.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: By the time of the Orkhon inscriptions (8th century AD) "Oghuz" was being applied generically to all inhabitants of the Göktürk Khaganate. Within the khaganate, the Oghuz community gradually expanded, incorporating other tribes. A number of subsequent tribal confederations bore the name Oghuz, often affixed to a numeral indicating the number of united tribes. These include references to the simple "Oguz", "Üch-Oghuz" ("three Oghuz"), "Altï Oghuz" ("six Oghuz"), possibly the "Otuz Oghuz" ("thirty Oghuz"), "Sekiz-Oghuz" ("eight Oghuz"), and the "Tokuz-Oghuz" ("nine Oghuz"), who originally occupied different areas in the vicinity of the Altai Mountains. Golden (2011) states Transoxanian Oghuz Turks who founded the Oghuz Yabgu State were not the same tribal confederation as the Toquz Oghuz from whom emerged the founders of Uyghur Khaganate. Istakhri and Muhammad ibn Muhmad al-Tusi kept the Toquz Oghuz and Oghuz distinct and Ibn al-Faqih mentioned: "the infidel Turk-Oghuz, the Toquz-Oghuz, and the Qarluq" Even so, Golden notes the confusion in Latter Göktürks' and Uyghurs' inscriptions, where Oghuz apparently referred to Toquz Oghuz or another tribal grouping, who were also named Oghuz without a prefixed numeral; this confusion is also reflected in Sharaf al-Zaman al-Marwazi, who listed 12 Oghuz tribes, who were ruled by a "Toquz Khaqan" and some of whom were Toquz-Oghuz, on the border of Transoxiana and Khwarazm. At most, the Oghuz were possibly led by a core group of Toquz Oghuz clans or tribes.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: Noting that the mid-8th-century Tariat inscriptions, in Uyghur khagan Bayanchur's honor, mentioned the rebellious Igdir tribe who had revolted against him, Klyashtorny considers this as one piece of "direct evidence in favour of the existence of kindred relations between the Tokuz Oguzs of Mongolia, The Guzs of the Aral region, and modern Turkmens", besides the facts that Kashgari mentioned the Igdir as the 14th of 22 Oghuz tribes; and that Igdirs constitute part of the Turkmen tribe Chowdur. The Shine Usu inscription, also in Bayanchur's honor, mentioned the Nine-Oghuzes as "[his] people" and that he defeated the Eight-Oghuzes and their allies, the Nine Tatars, three times in 749.; according to Klyashtorny and Czeglédy, eight tribes of the Nine-Oghuzes revolted against the leading Uyghur tribe and renamed themselves Eight-Oghuzes.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: Ibn al-Athir, an Arab historian, claimed that the Oghuz Turks were settled mainly in Transoxiana, between the Caspian and Aral Seas, during the period of the caliph Al-Mahdi (after 775 AD). By 780, the eastern parts of the Syr Darya were ruled by the Karluk Turks and to their west were the Oghuz. Transoxiana, their main homeland in subsequent centuries became known as the "Oghuz Steppe".


title: Oghuz Turks

text: During the period of the Abbasid caliph Al-Ma'mun (813–833), the name Oghuz starts to appear in the works of Islamic writers. The "Book of Dede Korkut", a historical epic of the Oghuz, contains historical echoes of the 9th and 10th centuries but was likely written several centuries later.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: Al-Masudi described Yangikent's Oghuz Turks as "distinguished from other Turks by their valour, their slanted eyes, and the smallness of their stature". Stone heads of Seljuq elites kept at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art displayed East Asian features. Over time, Oghuz Turks' physical appearance changed. Rashid al-Din Hamadani stated that "because of the climate their features gradually changed into those of Tajiks. Since they were not Tajiks, the Tajik peoples called them turkmān, i.e. Turk-like (Turk-mānand)" Ḥāfiẓ Tanīsh Mīr Muḥammad Bukhārī also related that the Oghuz' ‘Turkic face did not remain as it was’ after their migration into Transoxiana and Iran. Khiva khan Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur wrote in his Chagatai-language treatise Genealogy of the Turkmens that "their chin started to become narrow, their eyes started to become large, their faces started to become small, and their noses started to become big’ after five or six generations". Ottoman historian Mustafa Âlî commented in "Künhüʾl-aḫbār" that Anatolian Turks and Ottoman elites are ethnically mixed: "Most of the inhabitants of Rûm are of confused ethnic origin. Among its notables there are few whose lineage does not go back to a convert to Islam."


title: Oghuz Turks

text: The militarism that the Oghuz empires were very well known for was rooted in their centuries-long nomadic lifestyle. In general, they were a herding society which possessed certain military advantages that sedentary societies did not have, particularly mobility. Alliances by marriage and kinship, and systems of "social distance" based on family relationships were the connective tissues of their society.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: In Oghuz traditions, "society was simply the result of the growth of individual families". But such a society also grew by alliances and the expansion of different groups, normally through marriages. The shelter of the Oghuz tribes was a tent-like dwelling, erected on wooden poles and covered with skin, felt, or hand-woven textiles, which is called a "yurt".


title: Oghuz Turks

text: Their cuisine included yahni (stew), kebabs, Toyga soup (meaning "wedding soup"), Kımız (a traditional drink of the Turks, made from fermented horse milk), Pekmez (a syrup made of boiled grape juice) and helva made with wheat starch or rice flour, tutmac (noodle soup), yufka (flattened bread), katmer (layered pastry), chorek (ring-shaped buns), bread, clotted cream, cheese, yogurt, milk and ayran (diluted yogurt beverage), as well as wine.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: Social order was maintained by emphasizing "correctness in conduct as well as ritual and ceremony". Ceremonies brought together the scattered members of the society to celebrate birth, puberty, marriage, and death. Such ceremonies had the effect of minimizing social dangers and also of adjusting persons to each other under controlled emotional conditions.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: Patrilineally related men and their families were regarded as a group with rights over a particular territory and were distinguished from neighbours on a territorial basis. Marriages were often arranged among territorial groups so that neighbouring groups could become related, but this was the only organizing principle that extended territorial unity. Each community of the Oghuz Turks was thought of as part of a larger society composed of distant as well as close relatives. This signified "tribal allegiance". Wealth and materialistic objects were not commonly emphasized in Oghuz society and most remained herders, and when settled they would be active in agriculture.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: Status within the family was based on age, gender, relationships by blood, or marriageability. Males, as well as females, were active in society, yet men were the backbones of leadership and organization. According to the "Book of Dede Korkut", which demonstrates the culture of the Oghuz Turks, women were "expert horse riders, archers, and athletes". The elders were respected as repositories of both "secular and spiritual wisdom".


title: Oghuz Turks

text: In the 700s, the Oghuz Turks made a new home and domain for themselves in the area between the Caspian and Aral seas, a region that is often referred to as Transoxiana, the western portion of Turkestan. They had moved westward from the Altay mountains passing through the Siberian steppes and settled in this region, and also penetrated into southern Russia and the Volga from their bases in west China. In the 11th century, the Oghuz Turks adopted Arabic script, replacing the Old Turkic alphabet.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: In his accredited 11th-century treatise titled "Diwan Lughat al-Turk", Karakhanid scholar Mahmud of Kashgar mentioned five Oghuz cities named "Sabran", "Sitkün", "Qarnaq", "Suğnaq", and "Qaraçuq" (the last of which was also known to Kashgari as Farab, now Otrar; situated near the Karachuk mountains to its east). The extension from the Karachuk Mountains towards the Caspian Sea (Transoxiana) was called the "Oghuz Steppe Lands" from where the Oghuz Turks established trading, religious and cultural contacts with the Abbasid Arab caliphate who ruled to the south. This is around the same time that they first converted to Islam and renounced their Tengriism belief system. The Arab historians mentioned that the Oghuz Turks in their domain in Transoxiana were ruled by a number of kings and chieftains.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: It was in this area that they later founded the Seljuk Empire, and it was from this area that they spread west into western Asia and eastern Europe during Turkic migrations from the 9th until the 12th century. The founders of the Ottoman Empire were also Oghuz Turks.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: Oghuz Turkish literature includes the famous "Book of Dede Korkut" which was UNESCO's 2000 literary work of the year, as well as the "Oghuzname", Battalname, Danishmendname, "Köroğlu" epics which are part of the literary history of Azerbaijanis, Turks of Turkey and Turkmens. The modern and classical literature of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Turkmenistan are also considered Oghuz literature since it was produced by their descendants.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: The Book of Dede Korkut is a valuable collection of epics and stories, bearing witness to the language, the way of life, religions, traditions, and social norms of the Oghuz Turks in Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iran (West Azerbaijan, Golestan) and parts of Central Asia including Turkmenistan.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: Yörüks are an Oghuz ethnic group, some of whom are still semi-nomadic, primarily inhabiting the mountains of Anatolia and partly Balkan peninsula. Their name derives from the verb from Chagatai language, yörü- "yörümek" (to walk), but Western Turkic yürü- (yürümek in infinitive), which means "to walk", with the word Yörük or Yürük designating "those who walk, walkers".


title: Oghuz Turks

text: The Yörük to this day appear as a distinct segment of the population of Macedonia and Thrace where they settled as early as the 14th century. While today the Yörük are increasingly settled, many of them still maintain their nomadic lifestyle, breeding goats and sheep in the Taurus Mountains and further eastern parts of mediterranean regions (in southern Anatolia), in the Pindus (Epirus, Greece), the Šar Mountains (North Macedonia), the Pirin and Rhodope Mountains (Bulgaria) and Dobrudja. An earlier offshoot of the Yörüks, the Kailars or Kayılar Turks were amongst the first Turkish colonists in Europe, ("Kailar" or "Kayılar" being the Turkish name for the Greek town of Ptolemaida which took its current name in 1928) formerly inhabiting parts of the Greek regions of Thessaly and Macedonia. Settled Yörüks could be found until 1923, especially near and in the town of Kozani.


title: Oghuz Turks

text: Mahmud al-Kashgari listed 22 Oghuz tribes in Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk. Kashgari further wrote that "In origin they are 24 tribes, but the two Khalajiyya tribes are distinguished from them [the twenty-two] in certain respects and so are not counted among them. This is the origin".


title: Oghuz Turks

text: Later, Charuklug from Kashgari's list would be omitted. Rashid-al-Din and Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur added three more: Kïzïk, Karkïn, and Yaparlï, to the list in Jami' al-tawarikh (Compendium of Chronicles) and (Genealogy of the Turks), respectively. According to Selçukname, Oghuz Khagan had 6 children (Sun – Gün, Moon – Ay, Star – Yıldız, Sky – Gök, Mountain – Dağ, Sea – Diŋiz), and all six would become Khans themselves, each leading four tribes.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: Asamoah Gyan ( ; born 22 November 1985) is a Ghanaian professional footballer who last played as a striker for Legon Cities FC and is the former captain of the Ghanaian national team.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: Gyan began his career in 2003 with Ghanaian Premier League club Liberty Professionals scoring ten goals in sixteen matches then spent three seasons with Serie A club Udinese via two seasons loan at Modena netting on fifteen occasions in 53 league matches and at Udinese where he scored 11 times in 39 league matches. In 2008, Gyan joined Ligue 1 club Rennes, netting fourteen times in forty-eight league matches during two seasons. In 2010, Gyan joined Premier League club Sunderland, breaking the club's transfer record and netting on ten occasions in thirty-four Premier League matches during two seasons.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: In 2011, Gyan joined Al Ain of the UAE Pro-League on loan and became the league's top-goalscorer, scoring 24 times in 27 matches. In the following season, Gyan permanently joined Al Ain and once again became the league's top-goalscorer while he helped Al Ain retain the UAE Pro-League title, scoring an impressive 28 goals in 32 matches. In the 2013–14 season, Gyan scored on 44 occasions in 40 matches with Al Ain.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: Gyan is the all-time leading goalscorer of the Ghana national team, with 51 goals. He represented Ghana at the 2006, 2010 and 2014 FIFA World Cups. With 6 goals, he is the top African goalscorer in the history of the World Cup. Gyan has also represented Ghana at the 2004 Summer Olympics and in seven Africa Cup of Nations in 2008, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2017 and 2019, helping them finish in third-place in 2008 and runner-up in 2010 and 2015. He launched his memoir, titled " LeGYANdry" at the Kempinski Gold Coast Hotel in Accra.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: Born in Accra, Gyan had his early education at Seven Great Princess Academy in Dansoman completing in 1999, and his secondary education at the Accra Academy from 1999 to 2002. Gyan started his career at Ghanaian club Liberty Professionals located in Accra. In his only top flight season with the club, he played 16 league matches in the Ghana Premier League and scored 10 goals. He ended the season as the league's third top goal scorer.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: Having signed for Udinese in 2003, he spent two years on loan at Serie B club Modena to gain match experience. Following some excellent displays during the 2006 World Cup, he attracted interest from Russian club Lokomotiv Moscow. Gyan returned to Udinese at the start of 2006, but on 17 February 2007, Udinese pulled out of a deal to sell him in the January transfer window. The striker was on the verge of signing a 3-year deal with Russian Club Lokomotiv Moscow for US$10.5 million, the fourth largest transfer fee in Russian football history. "The striker Udinese targeted to replace me did not sign for them," Gyan told BBC Sport. "I've been told I will now have to stay in Italy for the rest of the season."


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: On 10 August 2007, along with Fabio Quagliarella, Gyan signed an improved five-year contract extension to stay at Udinese until 30 June 2012 as a reward for his fine form in the 2007–08 pre-season. "I have decided to stay here because it is one of the top leagues in the world," Asamoah said, "There is the possibility of me playing regular football here to make me a better player. "I am comfortable with the new deal and I know I can help Udinese achieve things for the future". Gyan and Quagliarella marked their contract extensions with a brace each in Udinese's 7–0 friendly win later that evening.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: On 29 July 2007 following his impressive pre-season form, including a hat-trick in a friendly against Serie B outfit Spezia on 25 July, before Udinese sealed the long-term deal. Gyan scored 8 goals in 2006–07 to help the Stadio Friuli club finish in 10th place in Serie A.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: Gyan was dogged by injury during the 2007–08 season and never appeared for Udinese again after January 2008, having played only 13 Serie A matches and scored 3 times that season.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: On 11 July 2008, Gyan was signed by Ligue 1 Club Stade Rennais for 4 years on an €8 million transfer fee. Gyan played 48 times for Rennes, scoring 14 goals. By the end of his stay at Rennes, he became a well known goal scoring figure, scoring 13 league goals in the 2009–10 season. However, Gyan only played three games in Ligue 1 the following season, taking his total appearances to 53, before he departed for Sunderland.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: On 31 August 2010, Gyan signed for Premier League club Sunderland on a four-year deal for a club record £13 million. Gyan was later given the squad number 33 shirt at Sunderland. He scored on his Sunderland debut against Wigan Athletic on 11 September after coming on as a substitute for Danny Welbeck. The match ended in a 1–1 draw with Antolín Alcaraz scoring Wigan's equaliser. He marked his first start for Sunderland by netting their only goal in their League Cup exit at the hands of West Ham United. Gyan scored twice on his first Premier League start for the club in a 2–0 win against Stoke City on 6 November. His first goal came in the 9th minute when a Nedum Onuoha shot was parried by goalkeeper Asmir Begović, with Gyan on hand to tap home the rebound and his second came in the 86th minute, to secure a 2–0 victory for the "Black Cats". Three days later, he followed this up by scoring the equaliser against Tottenham at White Hart Lane in a 1–1 draw as Sunderland moved up to seventh in the table. He also scored a goal in Sunderland's 3–0 victory at Stamford Bridge against Chelsea. Gyan scored Sunderland's third goal in their 3–0 victory over Blackburn Rovers on 1 January 2011.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: On 16 January 2011, he started against local rivals Newcastle United, scoring a 94th-minute equaliser, preventing Newcastle gaining their second win of the season against Sunderland. Gyan added to his impressive goalscoring tally with a goal away at Stoke City on 5 February 2011. He scored an 11th-minute goal against Tottenham on 12 February 2011. Gyan's next goal came on 23 April as Sunderland beat Wigan Athletic 4–2, a match which ended prematurely for the forward as he was substituted following a hamstring injury which is expected to see him miss the remainder of the season. Gyan did recover in time to feature in Sunderland's last game of the season at West Ham but didn't add to his tally finishing his first season in English football with 10 league goals. Gyan took the squad number 3 shirt for the 2011–12 season, the same squad number he wears for Ghana.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: On 10 September 2011, it was confirmed on the Sunderland website that Gyan would leave on a season long loan to club Al Ain FC. Amid speculation of a fee of up to £6 million being paid for the loan period, with Gyan receiving up to four times his previous salary, Chairman Niall Quinn emphasised the financial benefits of the deal for both Sunderland and the player. The Ghanaian finished the season with Al Ain by helping them capture their tenth league success and was the top goalscorer in the season with 22 league goals.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: When Martin O'Neill became manager of Sunderland on 8 December 2011, he considered the possibility of recalling Gyan from his loan spell away from the club.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: Gyan signed a five-year contract with Al Ain on 6 July 2012 worth over £6m per season. He was the top goalscorer in the UAE league in the 2013 season and helped his team retain the league title. On 24 July 2014, Gyan announced on his personal website that he had signed a contract extension at Al-Ain, receiving an improved deal and tying him to the club until 2018.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: On 7 July 2015, Gyan confirmed on his own website that he had left Al Ain and was set to join Chinese Super League club Shanghai SIPG. Shanghai SIPG then officially announced they signed Gyan from Al Ain with an undisclosed fee. It was then revealed that Gyan's weekly salary of £227,000 with his Chinese club instantly made him one of the world's best paid football players.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: On 19 September 2019, he joined the Indian Super League side NorthEast United. On 26 October 2019 he scored his first goal for Northeast United FC against Odisha FC in the 84 th minute of the match as his team won the game by 2–1.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: Halfway through the season, he suffered an injury that would keep him out for the rest of the season, and on 15 January 2020, he was officially released from the club as Irish striker Andy Keogh was signed as a replacement. He ended his time with Northeast United with a total of 4 goals in 8 appearances.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: On 1 November 2020, Gyan returned to Ghana to join Legon Cities, in a loan deal worth more than 1 million dollars. He played his first match on 27 November 2020, coming on in the 71st minute for Raphael Ocloo in their goalless draw against Medeama, marking a 17-year return to the Ghana Premier League since leaving his boyhood club Liberty Professionals to sign for Italian club Udinese. On 3 June 2021, Gyan started his first match for the "Royals" in the 2021 Ghanaian FA Cup Round of 64 match against Uncle 'T', which ended in a 2–1 victory at Accra Sports Stadium via a brace from Richmond Antwi.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: Gyan made his international debut at the age of 17, three days before his 18th birthday. Gyan scored on his senior International debut for Ghana against Somalia on 19 November 2003 in the 90th minute. He came on for Nana Arhin Duah in the 77th minute in a 2006 FIFA World Cup qualifier, three days before he turned 18 years; helping Ghana to win that game, and making him the youngest ever player to score for Ghana.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: He scored four times in seven matches during that successful World Cup qualifying campaign, helping Ghana to qualify for their first world cup in history. He was part of the 2004 Ghana Olympic squad, who exited in the first round, having finished in third place in Group B.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: He also scored the fastest goal of the tournament after 68 seconds. The strike was also Ghana's first ever goal in the FIFA World Cup, coming in the game against the Czech Republic on 17 June at the RheinEnergieStadion in Cologne, Germany, which set the Black Stars on their way to a 2–0 victory. He missed a penalty later in the game, and received a yellow card ruling him out of the final group game for trying to take the penalty too early. In Ghana's defeat to Brazil in the round of 16, he was sent off in the 81st minute after collecting his second booking of the match (for diving).


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: On 24 January 2008, during the Africa Cup of Nations, Gyan and his brother Baffour decided to walk out on the Black Stars following criticism after their unconvincing 1–0 win over Namibia. The media learnt the brothers had packed their bags and were ready to leave the team hotel but were persuaded to stay by teammates. In the 2010 Africa Cup of Nations, Asamoah Gyan helped a Ghana team, ravaged by injuries to the finals. Gyan scored three out of the four Ghana goals during the tournament.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: Gyan scored with a penalty in the 85th minute of Ghana's first match of the 2010 World Cup against Serbia, in a 1–0 win. He hit the goalpost in the 92nd minute before being substituted to a standing ovation just before the final whistle. In Ghana's second game, he scored a penalty in the 26th minute to level the scores and earn his team a 1–1 draw against Australia.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: In the round of 16 match against the United States, he scored a goal in extra time allowing Ghana to win 2–1 and hence become the third African team in history to qualify to the tournament's quarter final, after Cameroon and Senegal. In the quarter final tie against Uruguay, following Luis Suárez's handling of the ball on the goal-line, he missed a penalty kick with no time remaining at end of extra time, hitting the crossbar and necessitating a penalty shootout to decide the game. He converted his kick in the subsequent penalty shootout, but Uruguay went on to win the shootout 4–2.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: For the second time in his career, Gyan missed a crucial penalty kick in a major tournament when he missed a penalty kick in the 2012 African Cup of Nations semi-final. Ghana went on to lose 1–0. After missing that penalty kick, Gyan decided to take an "indefinite break" from international football. On 8 May 2012, he announced his return to the Black Stars team.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: On 7 June 2013, he scored 2 goals in a 3–1 win over Sudan in a World Cup qualifier to make him the country's leading goalscorer, surpassing Abedi Pele's 33 goals.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: On 2 June 2014, Gyan was named in Ghana's squad for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. In the team's opening match, he captained the Black Stars against the United States in a 2–1 defeat. He scored his first goal of the tournament in a 2–2 draw with Germany, equaling Roger Milla's record of five FIFA World Cup goals. In the final group match, he became the top African goalscorer in World Cup finals history by scoring the Black Stars' goal as they were defeated 2–1 by Portugal.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: At the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations, Gyan missed Ghana's opening match, a 2–1 loss to Senegal, with a "mild bout" of malaria. He returned for the second match, scoring a last minute winning goal against the tournament favourite Algeria in a 1–0 win for the Black Stars.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: An international exile lasting over a year was ended in October 2018 when Gyan was called up to the Ghanaian squad for a pair of 2019 Africa Cup of Nations qualification matches versus Sierra Leone.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: He announced his retirement from international football on 20 May 2019, a month to the 2019 Africa Cup of Nations. However, a day later Gyan reversed his decision following a discussion with the president of Ghana, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. In early August of 2022 Gyan released a statement that he was training to get back to full fitness to play in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Gyan was not part of the 26 man squad selected to represent Ghana in the World Cup 2022 and since then has been an ample supporter of the Black Stars and has been leading fan festivals and ceremonies.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: In June 2012, Gyan turned his attention towards boxing promotion and announced he would put on his debut boxing show in Ghana. On 6 July, Asamoah Gyan stated:


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: In February 2021, a contract between Baby Jet Promotions and Emmanuel Tagoe who was the only boxer in the promotion's fold was terminated. The contract was for a period spanning October 2018 to November 2021.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: As of October 2017, Asamoah Gyan has been granted an "Air Carrier Licence" (ACL) by the Ghanaian Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA). According to the Ghana News Agency, the start-up is named Baby Jet Airlines. With the license in hand, the start-up is now permitted to begin with its AOC certification drive.


title: Asamoah Gyan

text: He began to play tennis in 2020 to keep him fit after a long break due to injury. Baby Jet promotions linked up with MANCWA Commodities to run the Top 16 Invitational tournament in a bid to promote the sport.


title: Cool World

text: Cool World is a 1992 American live-action/animated black comedy fantasy film directed by Ralph Bakshi and written by Michael Grais and Mark Victor. Starring Kim Basinger, Gabriel Byrne and Brad Pitt, it tells the story of a cartoonist who finds himself in the animated world he thinks he created, but has actually existed long before. In this world, he is seduced by one of the characters, a femme fatale who wants to become human.


title: Cool World

text: Following the success of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" (1988) and his own professional resurgence in television in the late 1980s, Bakshi conceived the film as a live-action/animated horror film. He brought the idea to Paramount Pictures, and became attached to direct; it was his first feature film in nearly a decade. The film was intended as his comeback, however, interference from producer Frank Mancuso Jr. led to an extensive rewrite from Michael Grais, Mark Victor, and an uncredited Larry Gross changing the film from adult-oriented horror to more of an adolescent comedy-fantasy. As a result, relations between Bakshi, Mancuso, and the studio deteriorated, and the film had a highly tumultuous production.


title: Cool World

text: "Cool World" was released by Paramount on July 10, 1992. Upon its release, the film was a critical and commercial failure. Critics panned the film for its story, acting, animation, and effects combining animation with the live-action footage; however, the soundtrack and visuals received praise. The film was also a box office bomb, grossing $14 million against a budget of $28 million.


title: Cool World

text: Despite appearing on several lists of the worst films ever made, "Cool World" developed a cult following and has been described as a cult classic.


title: Cool World

text: In 1945 Las Vegas, World War II veteran Frank Harris returns to his mother and invites her to a ride on his motorcycle. The two are involved in a traffic collision where Frank's mother dies. Afterwards, Frank is inadvertently transported to a cartoon-like alternate universe called the "Cool World", where he restarts his life as a detective for Cool World's local police department.


title: Cool World

text: Forty-seven years later, underground cartoonist Jack Deebs is being released from a ten-year prison sentence for the murder of a man he found in bed with his wife. During his sentence, he created a series of comics called Cool World based on recurring visions of his, prominently featuring femme fatale Holli Would. Holli's wish is to escape Cool World and become a real person, which is possible when "doodles" (slang for Cool World's inhabitants) have sexual intercourse with "noids" (slang for humans). However, Frank and his partner Nails, a doodle, keep a vigilant eye on Holli to ensure that the two dimensions do not intertwine.


title: Cool World

text: Shortly after his release, Jack is transported into Cool World and smuggled into a local nightclub by Holli and her henchmen. Frank aggressively confronts Jack, explaining that Cool World has existed long before he created his series. He also warns him that writing utensils, such as his fountain pen, are lethal to the doodles; and to abstain from having sex with Holli, as her transforming into a noid can be dangerous for both dimensions. Despite these warnings, Frank himself is in love with another doodle, Lonette, but limits himself to platonic advances. Jack succumbs to Holli's advances, and she makes love to him, which transforms her into a noid. Holli steals Jack's pen to entrap Nails, and leaves with Jack for the real world.


title: Cool World

text: In the real world, Holli finds herself excited and overwhelmed experiencing real sensations. Due to her presence there, she and Jack spontaneously flicker in between noid and doodle forms. While contemplating their situation, Holli tells Jack about the "Spike of Power", an artifact which was the cause of Frank being transported into Cool World and placed on top of the Union Plaza Hotel by a doodle who crossed into the real world, and admits she wants to use it to remain in her noid form permanently. When Jack displays skepticism about the idea, Holli abandons him to search for the spike on her own.


title: Cool World

text: Frank learns what has happened and returns to the real world, where he reluctantly teams up with Jack in a bid to stop Holli despite hostility between one another. They arrive at the hotel as Holli begins to climb to the top of the tower. In his pursuit, Frank is pushed off the building to his death by Holli. As she seizes the spike, she releases a multitude of monstrous doodles into the real world, affecting her surroundings. The Spike also transforms Jack into a superhero-like doodle, and in the ensuing chaos, frees Nails from the pen.


title: Cool World

text: Although enticed to ignore and begin a new life in the real world with Holli, Jack returns the Spike to its rightful place, sending him, Holli and the invading doodles back from whence the creatures came and restoring the balance between their dimensions. Nails brings Frank's body back to Cool World, where he and Lonette mourn his loss. However, as she finds out from Nails that Holli was briefly in her doodle form when she killed Frank, she explains that a noid killed by a doodle in the real world can be reborn as a doodle in Cool World. Frank is transformed into a doodle, allowing him to continue his relationship with Lonette. Jack and Holli, permanently in doodle form, are last seen as Jack begins planning their new life together, much to Holli's dismay.


title: Cool World

text: Following a career resurgence with "" in the late 1980s, in 1990, Ralph Bakshi concepted a new film project involving a cartoonist who created a comic book while in prison that makes him an underground "star". The cartoonist would go on to have sexual intercourse with a femme fatale "doodle" named "Debbie Dallas (a play on the title of the pornographic film, "Debbie Does Dallas")" and father a hybrid child with her; half-cartoon, and half-human. The child, growing up resenting its father for abandoning it, would grow up and go on to make a pilgrimage to the real world to try to hunt down its father and kill him. Ralph pitched the idea as an live-action/animated horror film to Paramount Pictures, where he had served as the final head of the studio's animation division some years earlier. Bakshi stated that Paramount Pictures "bought the idea in ten seconds." In addition to Bakshi himself writing his own screenplay going off of his concept, Michael Grais and Mark Victor, along with an uncredited Larry Gross wrote several drafts of the screenplay based on Bakshi's original concept. Grais has accused Bakshi of lying about his contribution, noting he and Victor won repeated arbitrations regarding their credits. Producer Frank Mancuso Jr. — son of Paramount president Frank Mancuso Sr. — became attached as producer, leading Paramount to greenlight the film in November 1990. A long-running rumor attached to the film is that when Ralph discovered that his original concept had been re-written behind his back without his knowledge or permission, he got into a physical altercation with Frank Mancuso Jr. that involved Ralph punching the producer in the mouth. However, in a recent 2022 phone interview with Kevin E G Perry of "The Independent", Ralph put that rumor to rest, saying "I never punched Frank Mancuso Jr...That was just a rumour. I yelled at him a couple of times, but that wasn’t his fault. I like Frank. I never punched him. Can you set that straight?”


title: Cool World

text: Bakshi had originally intended to cast Pitt and Drew Barrymore in the film's leading roles. Instead, the studio insisted on casting bigger box office draws, leading to Basinger and Byrne being cast in late January 1991. The role of Frank was created for Pitt. Principal photography lasted from March 15 to April 19, 1991, with scenes being filmed both in Las Vegas and at soundstages at Paramount in Los Angeles.


title: Cool World

text: The relationship between Bakshi and Paramount quickly deteriorated during production. Mancuso convinced Paramount that the film's potential R rating from the MPAA in the United States, which would restrict attendance from anyone under 17 without a parent or guardian, would be too risky. Hence why Mancuso hired Larry Gross to revise the screenplay to target a more general PG-13 MPAA rating, and presented it on the first day of production. Bakshi stated he felt "backstabbed" by Mancuso. Bakshi also claimed Basinger had approached him and Mancuso during production to rewrite the film herself because she "thought it would be great [...] if she would be able to show this picture in hospitals to sick children [...] I said, 'Kim, I think that's wonderful, but you've got the wrong guy to do that with.'"


title: Cool World

text: Bakshi's animation was done on the Paramount lot. The film's animators were never given a screenplay, instead told by Bakshi to "do a scene that's funny, whatever you want to do!"


title: Cool World

text: The visual design of the live-action footage was intended to look like "a living, walk-through painting," a visual concept Bakshi had long wanted to achieve. The film's sets were based upon enlargements of designer Barry Jackson's paintings. The animation was strongly influenced by Fleischer Studios (whose cartoons were released by Paramount in the 1930s and 1940s) and Terrytoons (where Bakshi once worked, and whose Mighty Mouse character was also adapted into a series by Bakshi). The artwork by the character Jack Deebs was drawn by underground comix artist Spain Rodriguez.


title: Cool World

text: A soundtrack album, "Songs from the Cool World", featuring recordings by My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult, Moby, Ministry, The Future Sound of London, and others, was released in 1992 by Warner Bros. Records. It included the track "Real Cool World" by David Bowie, his first original solo material in roughly three years; the song was written exclusively for the film. The soundtrack received stronger reviews from critics than the film itself, including a four-star rating from AllMusic. Mark Isham's original score for "Cool World", featuring a mixture of jazz, orchestral pieces, and electronic remixes, and performed by the Munich Symphony Orchestra, was released on compact disc by Varèse Sarabande, and in complete form in 2015 by Quartet. It also received positive reviews.


title: Cool World

text: Paramount focused the film's promotion both on being as Bakshi's comeback, and the hypersexual imagery of Holli Would. It was considered by some experts as misaimed. Paramount's marketing president Barry London noted the film "unfortunately did not seem to satisfy the younger audience it was aimed at." Designer Milton Knight recalled that premiere audiences "actually wanted a wilder, raunchier "Cool World"."


title: Cool World

text: Several different licensed video games based on the film were created by Ocean Software. The first game was developed by Twilight and released in 1992 for the Amiga, Atari ST, Commodore 64, and DOS. Two different games were released in 1993 for the Nintendo Entertainment System and Super NES, alongside a Game Boy version of the former. A four-issue comic book prequel to the film was published as a miniseries by DC Comics. It featured a script by Michael Eury and art work by Stephen DeStefano, Chuck Fiala, and Bill Wray.


title: Cool World

text: In July 1992, Paramount's marketing campaign of the film created controversy by altering the Hollywood Sign to include a tall cutout of Holli Would. The studio's request was initially denied by the City of Los Angeles, but reversed once Paramount gave $27,000 to the city, and an additional $27,000 for cleanup after the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Local residents were angered by the sign's alteration, largely due to the sexualized image of Holli, and launched a failed lawsuit against the city to stop the alteration. In a letter to the city's Recreation and Park Board, commission officials wrote that they were "appalled" by the board's approval of the alterations: "...the action your board has taken is offensive to Los Angeles women and is not within your role as custodian and guardian of the Hollywood sign. The fact that Paramount Pictures donated a mere $27,000 to Rebuild L.A. should not be a passport to exploit women in Los Angeles." Protestors picketed the unveiling of the altered sign.


title: Cool World

text: "Cool World" opened sixth at the North American box office, with $5.5 million. Although set to expand to more theaters in its second weekend, Paramount stunned exhibitors by immediately ceasing advertising for the film. Its lifetime gross was US$14.1 million, barely more than half its reported US$28 million budget.


title: Cool World

text: On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The consensus reads: ""Cool World" throws a small handful of visual sparks, but they aren't enough to distract from the screenplay's thin characters and scattered plot." On Metacritic the film has a score of 28 based on reviews from 16 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "C" on scale of A+ to F.


title: Cool World

text: "Variety" reviewer Brian Lowry compared the film to an extended music video, praising the soundtrack and visuals, but panning the story. The plot was heavily derided by other reviewers, with a review for the "Los Angeles Times" saying "[T]he plot makes almost no sense."


title: Cool World

text: Roger Ebert of the wrote for the "Chicago Sun-Times" that the film "misses one opportunity after another ... [it is] a surprisingly incompetent film." Leonard Maltin panned the film as "too serious to be fun, too goofy to take seriously; lead characters unlikable and unappealing. Looks like a Roger Corman version of "Roger Rabbit"." Chris Hicks for "Deseret News" described it as "a one-joke movie – and it's a dirty joke. [...] And much of what's going on here seems more angry and nasty than inspired or funny." The film's acting and effects were singled out by "The Washington Post" reviewer Hal Hinson, who wrote her performance made him wonder "whether Kim Basinger is more obnoxious as a cartoon or as a real person", and felt that the combination of animation and live action was unconvincing.


title: Cool World

text: In 1997, John Grant wrote in "The Encyclopedia of Fantasy" that "Cool World" "stands as one of the fantastic cinema's most significant achievements, an 'Instauration fantasy' that reveals greater depths with each viewing." In 2005, animation historian Jerry Beck described the film as being "for adults and Bakshi completists only". He wrote the film "has a great premise, a great cast, and the best animation he's ever been involved with", but critiquing it as a "pointless rehash of many of Ralph's favorite themes, and the story literally goes nowhere".


title: Cool World

text: In some interviews after the release of the film, Bakshi denounced the film, saying "I thought if I did the animation well, it would be worth it, but you know what? It wasn't worth it." Bakshi also stated that he "had a lot of animators there that I'd brought in and I thought that maybe I could just have fun animating this stuff, which I did." In 2022 he stated "I used to disparage it, but not anymore" and that ""Cool World" has some of the best animation I've ever done."


title: Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia

text: The crown prince of Saudi Arabia is the second-most important position in Saudi Arabia, second to the King, and is his designated successor. Currently, the Crown Prince assumes power with the approval of the Allegiance Council after he is nominated by the King. This system was introduced to the country during the reign of King Abdullah. In the absence of the King, an order is issued to have the Crown Prince manage the affairs of the state until the King's return.


title: Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia

text: The last crown prince of the Second Saudi State was Abdulaziz, who lost the title when Abdul Rahman bin Faisal, his father, lost his state after the Rashidis conquered Riyadh in 1890. The Al Sauds went into exile and took refuge in multiple Arab states of the Persian Gulf for nearly a decade. After the defeat at the battle of Sarif in 1900, Abdul Rahman bin Faisal gave up all ambitions to recover his patrimony. Despite this, Abdulaziz and his relatives remained determined to regain Nejd. Throughout the early 1900s, the Al Sauds went on multiple raiding expeditions and wars of conquest to attempt to regain Nejd from the Rashidis. Their efforts were highly successful, and as a result, they successfully formed the third Saudi state. When Abdulaziz had taken enough land to become recognized as an Emir, he designated his eldest son Turki as his heir. When Turki died during the flu pandemic of 1919, Abdulaziz designated his second son Saud to be heir and further succession would be brother to brother. The Al Sauds went on to expand their borders out of Nejd and established multiple iterations of the third Saudi state. In 1932, after Abdulaziz administered the Nejd and Hejaz as two separate states, he unified them and formed Saudi Arabia. Abdulaziz declared himself king, and designated Saud, one of his sons, as crown prince.


title: Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia

text: When King Abdulaziz discussed succession before his death, he was seen to favor Prince Faisal as a possible successor over crown prince Saud due to Faisal's extensive knowledge from years of experience. Many years before, King Abdulaziz recognized Faisal as the most brilliant of his sons and gave him multiple responsibilities in war and diplomacy. "I only wish I had three Faisals", King Abdulaziz once said when discussing who would succeed him. However, King Abdulaziz made the decision to keep Prince Saud as crown prince. His last words to his two sons, the future King Saud and the next in line Prince Faisal, who were already battling each other, were "You are brothers, unite!" Shortly before his death, King Abdulaziz stated, "Verily, my children and my possessions are my enemies."


title: Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia

text: A fierce power struggle between Abdulaziz's most senior sons, Saud and Faisal, erupted immediately after Abdulaziz's death. Faisal was declared the Prime Minister of Saudi Arabia in 1954, but had limited powers. Soon after, Saudi Arabia began having financial issues and debt as a result of Saud's disastrous policies. Saud was often associated among other things with the plundering of oil revenues, luxurious palaces, and conspiracy inside and outside of Saudi Arabia while Faisal was associated with sobriety, piety, puritanism, thriftiness, and modernization. As the severity of the issues in Saudi Arabia became much worse, the House of Saud forced King Saud to delegate most of his executive powers to Faisal in 1958. However, Faisal was still unable to use his powers as Saud continued to block them, which prompted Faisal to resign. As Saud continued to handle general affairs ineptly, he was bringing Saudi Arabia to the brink of collapse. On 4 March 1964, Faisal and his brothers launched a bloodless coup d'état against Saud. Faisal was made regent, and Saud remained King as a purely ceremonial role. In November, the ulema, cabinet and senior members of the ruling family forced Saud to abdicate altogether, and Faisal became king in his own right. On 6 January 1965, Saud went to the palace with his uncle Abdullah bin Abdul Rahman to declare his allegiance to King Faisal.


title: Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia

text: The next in line, Prince Mohammed, was crown prince for a short time but disclaimed that title in favour of Prince Khalid in 1965.


title: Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia

text: Shortly after King Faisal was assassinated by his nephew, Khalid became the King of Saudi Arabia and Fahd became the crown prince. During Khalid and Fahd's reigns, both adopted conservative Islamic policies after the 1979 Grand Mosque seizure. When King Fahd had a stroke in 1995, crown prince Abdullah became the formal Regent for the remainder of Fahd's reign. When Abdullah became King, he began to modernize Saudi Arabia. He allowed women the right to vote and to work in government positions. Abdullah also created the Allegiance Council, a body that is composed of the sons and grandsons of Saudi Arabia's founder, King Abdulaziz, to vote by a secret ballot to choose future kings and crown princes.


title: Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia

text: As the nation became a gerontocracy in the 2000s and early 2010s, three crown princes died of old age in rapid succession. In the meantime, more and more princes were passed over. In January 2015, King Abdulaziz's last son, Muqrin, became crown prince, only to be ousted three months later in favour of his nephew, Mohammed bin Nayef. Mohammed bin Nayef, the first grandson of King Abdulaziz to hold the title, was himself removed in June 2017 by Mohammad bin Salman, another grandson of King Abdulaziz.


title: Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia

text: The honorific title of "Second Deputy Prime Minister" goes back to 1967, in order to designate who was the senior prince not excluded from the throne. The position was created by King Faisal.


title: Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia

text: In March 1965, under pressure from King Faisal and the House of Saud, crown prince Mohammed stepped down as apparent to the Saudi throne. Mohammed was known to have temper issues and drinking problems. As a result, King Faisal installed Prince Khalid as crown prince. However, he was reluctant to accept the offer of King Faisal to be named crown prince several times until March 1965. In addition, Khalid asked King Faisal to remove him from the position various times. One of the speculations about Prince Khalid's selection as heir designate was his lack of predilection for politics. In short, by selecting him as heir designate the royal family could create an intra-familial consensus. In 1967, crown prince Khalid expressed his desire not to preside over the Council of Ministers against King Faisal's request which led to the appointment of Prince Fahd as second deputy prime minister with the task of leading the Council meetings. Prince Saad and Prince Nasir, who were older than Fahd, were set aside from the throne due to being less experienced.


title: Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia

text: When King Faisal was assassinated in 1975, King Khalid designated Prince Fahd as crown prince and Prince Abdullah as second deputy prime minister.


title: Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia

text: As King Khalid became ill with old age, the question of who would succeed Abdullah as the second deputy prime minister became more pressing. King Faisal was succeeded by King Abdullah, followed by King Fahd as de facto Deputy Prime Ministers of The Kingdom.


title: Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia

text: The honorific title of "Deputy Crown Prince" dates back from 2014. The position was created by King Abdullah. Muqrin bin Abdul'aziz Al Saud was the first prince to hold the deputy crown prince position. Since 21 June 2017, the post of deputy crown prince has been vacant. Till this day, no man who has served as Deputy Crown Prince has ever become King.


title: Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia

text: The Royal Flag of the crown prince consists of a green flag, with an Arabic inscription and a sword featured in white, and with the national emblem embroidered in gold in the lower right canton.


title: Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia

text: The script on the flag is written in the Thuluth script. It is the "shahada" or Islamic declaration of faith:


title: Mac Davis

text: Morris Mac Davis (January 21, 1942 – September 29, 2020) was an American country music singer, songwriter, and actor. A native of Lubbock, Texas, he enjoyed success as a crossover artist, and during his early career he wrote for Elvis Presley, providing him with the hits "Memories", "In the Ghetto", "Don't Cry Daddy", and "A Little Less Conversation". A subsequent solo career in the 1970s produced hits such as "Baby, Don't Get Hooked on Me". Davis also starred in his own variety show, a Broadway musical, and various films and TV shows.


title: Mac Davis

text: Davis was born and raised in Lubbock, Texas, the son of Edith Irene (Lankford) and T. J. Davis, a builder. He spent his childhood years with his sister Linda, living and working at the former College Courts, an efficiency apartment complex owned by his father. Davis described his father, who was divorced from Davis' mother, as "very religious, very strict, and very stubborn." Though Davis was physically small, he had a penchant for getting into fistfights. "In those days, it was all about football, rodeo, and fistfights. Oh, man, I got beat up so much while I was growing up in Lubbock," Davis said in a March 2, 2008, interview with the "Lubbock Avalanche-Journal" newspaper. "I was 5 feet, 9 inches, and weighed 125 pounds. I joined Golden Gloves, but didn't do good even in my division." Davis graduated at 16 from Lubbock High School and, looking to escape his hometown, moved to Atlanta where his mother lived.


title: Mac Davis

text: Once Davis was settled in Atlanta, he organized a rock and roll group called the Zots, and made two singles for OEK Records, managed and promoted by OEK owner Oscar Kilgo.


title: Mac Davis

text: Davis became famous as a songwriter and got his start as an employee of Nancy Sinatra's company, Boots Enterprises, Inc. Davis was with Boots for several years in the late 1960s. During his time there, he played on many of Sinatra's recordings, and she worked him into her stage shows. Boots Enterprises also acted as Davis's publishing company, publishing songs such as "In the Ghetto", "Friend, Lover, Woman, Wife", "Home", "It's Such a Lonely Time of Year", and "Memories", which were recorded by Elvis Presley, Nancy Sinatra, B. J. Thomas, and many others. During a short timespan Davis used the pseudonym "Scott Davis" for songwriting purposes (borrowing from the given name of his son) to avoid confusion with renowned songwriter Mack David. Davis left Boots Enterprises in 1970 to sign with Columbia Records, taking all of his songs with him.


title: Mac Davis

text: One of the songs he wrote in 1968, called "A Little Less Conversation", was recorded by Elvis Presley (and became a posthumous success for Presley years later). Presley recorded "In the Ghetto" in sessions in Memphis. According to record producer Jimmy Bowen, "Ghetto" was originally pitched to Sammy Davis, Jr. but Mac Davis, guitar in hand, played the song in a studio, with onlookers such as Jesse Jackson and other members of the black activist community. Mac Davis, the only white man in the room at the time, eventually told Bowen, "I don't know whether to thank ya, or to kill ya." Mac Davis eventually recorded the tune after Presley's version became a success, and was released in a Ronco "In Concert" compilation in 1975. It was later released on a campy Rhino Records "Golden Throats" compilation in 1991. The song became a success for Presley and he continued to record more of Davis's material, such as "Memories", "Don't Cry Daddy", and "Clean Up Your Own Backyard". Bobby Goldsboro also recorded some of Davis's songs, including "Watching Scotty Grow", which became a No. 1 Adult Contemporary success for Goldsboro in 1971. Other artists who recorded his material included Vikki Carr, O.C. Smith, and Kenny Rogers and The First Edition. "I Believe in Music", often considered to be Davis's signature song, was recorded by several artists (including Marian Love, B.J. Thomas, Louis Jordan, Perry Como, Helen Reddy, Lynn Anderson, and Davis himself) before it finally became a success in 1972 for the group Gallery.


title: Mac Davis

text: Later, he also became known as a country singer. During the 1970s, many of his songs "crossed over", successfully scoring on both the country and popular music charts, including "Baby, Don't Get Hooked on Me" (a number one, Grammy-nominated success), "One Hell of a Woman" (pop no. 11), and "Stop and Smell the Roses" (a no. 9 pop hit). Also, during the 1970s, he was very active as an actor, appearing in several movies, as well as hosting a successful variety show.


title: Mac Davis

text: In 2013 he was part of the Los Angeles writing and producing team that created the controversial hit "Young Girls" for Bruno Mars. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Girls#Background_and_writing


title: Mac Davis

text: Davis soon decided to pursue a career of his own in country music; he was signed to Columbia Records in 1970. After several years of enriching the repertoires of other artists, his big success came two years after signing with Columbia. He topped the Country and Pop charts with the song "Baby Don't Get Hooked on Me". It sold over one million copies and was awarded a gold disc by the Recording Industry Association of America in September 1972.


title: Mac Davis

text: In 1974, Davis was awarded the Academy of Country Music's Entertainer of the Year award. He had other successes including the songs "Stop and Smell the Roses" (a number one Adult Contemporary success in 1974) (pop no. 9), "One Hell of a Woman" (pop no. 11), "Rock 'N' Roll (I Gave You the Best Years of My Life)" (pop no. 15), and "Burnin' Thing" (pop no. 53). At the end of the 1970s, he moved to Casablanca Records, which was best known at the time for its successes with disco star Donna Summer and rock'n'roll band Kiss. His first success for the company in 1980 was the novelty song "It's Hard to Be Humble", a light-hearted look at how popularity and good looks could go to one's head. The song became his first Country music top 10 and a rare top 30 hit in the UK. (It was translated into Dutch as ""Het is moeilijk bescheiden te blijven"" and became a hit for the Dutch singer Peter Blanker in 1981). Later that year, he had another top 10 song with "Let's Keep It That Way". In November, "Rock 'N' Roll (I Gave You the Best Years of My Life)" was played by KHJ in Los Angeles as its last song before it switched from Top 40 to Country music. He achieved success with other songs like "Texas in My Rear View Mirror" and "Hooked on Music", which became his biggest Country music success in 1981 going to number 2. In 1985, he recorded his last top 10 country music success with the song "I Never Made Love (Till I Made Love With You)".


title: Mac Davis

text: On January 19, 1985, Davis performed "God Bless the USA" at the 50th Presidential Inaugural Gala, held the day before the second inauguration of Ronald Reagan.


title: Mac Davis

text: From 1974 to 1976, Davis had his own television variety show on NBC, "The Mac Davis Show". He made his feature film debut opposite Nick Nolte in the football film, "North Dallas Forty" (1979) and was listed as one of 12 "Promising New Actors of 1979" by "Screen World" magazine.


title: Mac Davis

text: Davis also starred in the 1981 comedy film "Cheaper To Keep Her", playing a divorced detective who worked for a neurotic feminist attorney. He tracked down husbands who were failing to pay alimony to their ex-wives, to fund his own alimony payments for his own ex-wife. The film received mainly negative reviews and was not a box-office success.


title: Mac Davis

text: In 1980, Davis hosted an episode of "The Muppet Show". He performed "Baby, Don't Get Hooked On Me", "It's Hard To Be Humble", and "I Believe in Music".


title: Mac Davis

text: In 1983, he appeared in "The Sting II", as Jake Hooker, a younger relative of Johnny Hooker, portrayed by Robert Redford in "The Sting".


title: Mac Davis

text: Davis played Will Rogers in the Broadway production of "The Will Rogers Follies" and in the national tour.


title: Mac Davis

text: Davis served as the balladeer for the 2000 telefilm "", replacing Don Williams, who had served the part in 1997's "The Dukes of Hazzard: Reunion!", and Waylon Jennings, who narrated the original "Dukes of Hazzard" television show. Davis was the first balladeer to appear on-screen to welcome the audience and provide exposition.


title: Mac Davis

text: Davis was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2000. He was awarded a star symbol on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 7080 Hollywood Boulevard, for his contribution to the recording industry.


title: Mac Davis

text: In 2001, Davis played a fellow karaoke competitor to Jon Gries's Sunny Holiday in the Polish brothers' film "Jackpot". In the film, a dispute began between Sunny's manager, played by Garrett Morris, and Davis's character about what song he should sing. The manager suggested Davis's "Baby, Don't Get Hooked On Me", which Davis's character claimed just was not him.


title: Mac Davis

text: From 2001 to 2003, Davis voiced the character of Barber Bingo on two episodes of the animated TV series "Oswald"; "Henry Needs A Haircut" and "The Naughty Cat".


title: Mac Davis

text: Between 1999 and 2006, Davis provided the character voices of Sheriff Buford (two episodes) and a talk radio host named "Sports Jock" (three episodes), on the animated series "King of the Hill".


title: Mac Davis

text: Davis also guest-starred briefly in the "8 Simple Rules" episode "Let's Keep Going: Part 2" in April 2004.


title: Mac Davis

text: At 21, he married Fran Cook from Georgia. Their son, Joel Scott, was born a year later; Davis shifted from playing in rock bands to learning the music business while working in Liberty Records' publishing division. The Liberty job got him to Los Angeles and made it easier to "pitch his own tunes" to record producers. Davis commented, "One day Fran decided to do her own thing and she wanted me to do mine." They divorced and she went back to Atlanta.


title: Mac Davis

text: Davis next met Sarah Barg, then 16 and living in his apartment building with her mother. Two years later, they were married. "We talked about having a family, but I was waiting for her to grow up," he says. She left him in 1976 for Glen Campbell, with whom she then had one child, Dillon. She also left Campbell shortly after Dillon's birth.


title: Mac Davis

text: In 1980, Davis started to date a young nurse, Lise Gerard. They married in 1982 when she was 24, and they had two children. They remained married until Davis' death at age 78 on September 29, 2020, following heart surgery.


title: Aaron Lohr

text: Lohr portrayed the Dancing Boy in Deniece Williams' music video for the song "Let's Hear It for the Boy". He is also in the British television advertisement for Carlsberg Beer. Lohr has also appeared in many "Sister, Sister" episodes, better known as Marlon in his later appearances in the show.


title: Aaron Lohr

text: Lohr became a recognizable player of the Disney Studios stable, appearing in many of their films, including "The Mighty Ducks" series and "Newsies". He provided the singing voice for Max Goof in "A Goofy Movie" (filling in for Jason Marsden). In 2000, he starred as Micky Dolenz in the VH1 television film .


title: Aaron Lohr

text: He appeared in the 2005 film adaptation of the Tony and Pulitzer Prize winning Broadway musical "Rent", directed by Chris Columbus. Lohr played the character Steve and sang vocals for the songs "Will I" and "Life Support" on the first disc of the soundtrack for the film. He starred in various roles in Michael John LaChiusa's "See What I Wanna See" at the New York Public Theater, opposite actress/singer Idina Menzel. Independent film releases include Henry Bean's "Noise", Jim Koya Jones' taut psychological thriller "The Wreck", and "Manslaughter" produced by Jim Koya Jones.


title: Aaron Lohr

text: More recent work has included many leading roles in New York theater productions. He performed as Matt in the Off-Broadway production of ""


title: Aaron Lohr

text: in 2004. He has appeared in several productions at the Public Theater. His inaugural performance there was in George Wolfe's "Radiant Baby" in 2003. This led to his starring role in "See What I Want To See" by Michael John LaChuisa. Lohr also starred in the political drama "In Darfur" both at the NY Public and Delacorte Theater.


title: Aaron Lohr

text: In August 2015, Lohr and actress Idina Menzel bought a home located in Encino, Los Angeles. Menzel announced on September 23, 2016, via her Twitter account, that she and Lohr were engaged. Menzel announced their marriage via Twitter on September 25, 2017. They were married over the weekend of September 22, 2017. Lohr is the stepfather to Menzel’s son from her marriage with Taye Diggs.


title: Richard Chase

text: Richard Trenton Chase (May 23, 1950 – December 26, 1980) was an American serial killer, cannibal, and necrophile who killed six people in the span of a month in 1977 and 1978 in Sacramento, California. He was nicknamed The Vampire of Sacramento because he drank his victims' blood and cannibalized their remains.


title: Richard Chase

text: Chase was a native of Sacramento, California. By the age of 5, he exhibited evidence of all three parts of the Macdonald triad, a theory suggesting the development of violent psychopathy. In his adolescence, he was said to be a heavy drug user.


title: Richard Chase

text: Chase developed hypochondria as he matured. He often complained that his heart would occasionally "stop beating", or that "someone had stolen his pulmonary artery". He would hold oranges on his head, believing Vitamin C would be absorbed by his brain via diffusion. Chase also believed that his cranial bones had become separated and were moving around, so he shaved his head to be able to watch this activity.


title: Richard Chase

text: After leaving his mother's house (believing she was attempting to poison him), Chase rented an apartment with friends. Chase's roommates complained that he was constantly under the influence of alcohol, marijuana, and LSD. Chase would also walk around the apartment nude, even in front of company. Chase's roommates demanded that he move out. When he refused, the roommates moved out instead.


title: Richard Chase

text: Once alone in the apartment, Chase began to capture, kill, and disembowel various animals, which he would then devour raw, sometimes mixing the raw organs with Coca-Cola in a blender and drinking the concoction. Chase believed that by ingesting the creatures he was preventing his heart from shrinking.


title: Richard Chase

text: Chase spent a brief time in a psychiatric ward in 1973. In 1976, he was involuntarily committed to a mental institution when he was taken to a hospital after injecting rabbit's blood into his veins. The staff nicknamed him "Dracula" because of his blood fixation. He broke the necks of two birds he caught through the institution window and drank their blood. He also extracted blood from therapy dogs with stolen syringes.


title: Richard Chase

text: Chase was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. After undergoing a battery of treatments involving psychotropic drugs, Chase was deemed no longer a danger to society, and later in 1976, he was released to his mother's custody.


title: Richard Chase

text: Chase's mother weaned him off his medication and got him his own apartment. He initially shared the apartment with roommates before all of them moved out, leaving Chase on his own.


title: Richard Chase

text: Later investigation uncovered that, in mid-1977, Chase was stopped and arrested on a reservation in the Pyramid Lake, Nevada, area. His body was smeared with blood and a bucket of blood was found in his truck. The blood was determined to be cow's blood, and no charges were filed.


title: Richard Chase

text: On December 29, 1977, Chase killed his first known victim in a drive-by shooting. The victim, Ambrose Griffin, was a 51-year-old engineer and father of two.


title: Richard Chase

text: Two weeks later, he attempted to enter the home of a woman, but because her doors were locked, he walked away. Chase later told detectives that he took locked doors as a sign that he was not welcome, but unlocked doors were an invitation to come inside. On one occasion, he was caught and chased off by a couple returning home as he pilfered their belongings; he had also urinated and defecated on their infant child's bed and clothing.


title: Richard Chase

text: On January 23, 1978, Chase broke into a house and shot Teresa Wallin (three months pregnant at the time) three times. He then had sexual intercourse with her corpse while stabbing her with a butcher's knife. He then removed multiple organs, cut off one of her nipples and drank her blood. He stuffed dog feces from Wallin's yard down her throat before leaving.


title: Richard Chase

text: On January 27, Chase entered the home of 38-year-old Evelyn Miroth. He encountered her friend, Danny Meredith, whom he shot with his .22 handgun. He then fatally shot Miroth, her six-year-old son Jason, and her 22-month-old nephew David Ferreira, before mutilating Miroth and engaging in necrophilia and cannibalism with her corpse. A visitor's knock on the door startled Chase, who fled in Meredith's car, taking Ferreira's body with him. The visitor alerted a neighbor, who called police. They discovered that Chase had left complete handprints and shoe imprints in Miroth's blood. Chase was arrested shortly afterwards; police who searched Chase's apartment found that the walls, floor, ceiling, refrigerator, and all of Chase's eating and drinking utensils were soaked in blood.


title: Richard Chase

text: In 1979, Chase stood trial on six counts of murder. In order to avoid the death penalty, the defense tried to have him found guilty of second degree murder, which would result in a life sentence. Their case hinged on Chase's history of mental illness and the suggestion that his crimes were not premeditated.


title: Richard Chase

text: On May 8, 1979, the jury found Chase guilty of six counts of first degree murder and, rejecting the argument that he was not guilty by reason of insanity, sentenced him to die in the gas chamber. His fellow inmates, aware of the extremely violent and grisly nature of Chase's crimes, feared him and, according to prison officials, often tried to persuade Chase to commit suicide.


title: Richard Chase

text: Chase granted a series of interviews with Robert K. Ressler, during which he spoke of his fears of Nazis and UFOs, claiming that although he had killed, it was not his fault; he had been forced to kill to keep himself alive, which he believed any person would do. He asked Ressler to give him access to a radar gun, with which he could apprehend the Nazi UFOs, so that the Nazis could stand trial for the murders. He also handed Ressler a large amount of macaroni and cheese, which he had been hoarding in his pants pockets, believing that the prison officials were in league with the Nazis and attempting to kill him with poisoned food.


title: Richard Chase

text: On December 26, 1980, Chase was found dead in his prison cell. An autopsy revealed that he had committed suicide with an overdose of prescribed medications.


title: Musical notation

text: Music notation or musical notation is any system used to visually represent aurally perceived music played with instruments or sung by the human voice through the use of written, printed, or otherwise-produced symbols, including notation for durations of absence of sound such as rests.


title: Musical notation

text: The types and methods of notation have varied between cultures and throughout history, and much information about ancient music notation is fragmentary. Even in the same time period, such as in the 2010s, different styles of music and different cultures use different music notation methods; for example, for professional classical music performers, sheet music using staves and noteheads is the most common way of notating music, but for professional country music session musicians, the Nashville Number System is the main method.


title: Musical notation

text: The symbols used include ancient symbols and modern symbols made upon any media such as symbols cut into stone, made in clay tablets, made using a pen on papyrus or parchment or manuscript paper; printed using a printing press (c. 1400s), a computer printer (c. 1980s) or other printing or modern copying technology.


title: Musical notation

text: Although many ancient cultures used symbols to represent melodies and rhythms, none of them was particularly comprehensive, which has limited today's understanding of their music. The seeds of what would eventually become modern Western notation were sown in medieval Europe, starting with the Christian Church's goal for ecclesiastical uniformity. The church began notating plainchant melodies so that the same chants could be used throughout the church. Music notation developed further during the Renaissance and Baroque music eras. In the classical period (1750–1820) and the Romantic music era (1820–1900), notation continued to develop as new musical instrument technologies were developed. In the contemporary classical music of the 20th and 21st century, music notation has continued to develop, with the introduction of graphical notation by some modern composers and the use, since the 1980s, of computer-based score writer programs for notating music. Music notation has been adapted to many kinds of music, including classical music, popular music, and traditional music.


title: Musical notation

text: The earliest form of musical notation can be found in a cuneiform tablet that was created at Nippur, in Babylonia (today's Iraq), in about 1400 BCE. The tablet represents fragmentary instructions for performing music, that the music was composed in harmonies of thirds, and that it was written using a diatonic scale. A tablet from about 1250 BCE shows a more developed form of notation. Although the interpretation of the notation system is still controversial, it is clear that the notation indicates the names of strings on a lyre, the tuning of which is described in other tablets. Although they are fragmentary, these tablets represent the earliest notated melodies found anywhere in the world.


title: Musical notation

text: Ancient Greek musical notation was in use from at least the 6th century BCE until approximately the 4th century CE; only one complete composition (Seikilos epitaph) and a number of fragments using this notation survive. The notation for sung music consists of letter symbols for the pitches, placed above text syllables. Rhythm is indicated in a rudimentary way only, with long and short symbols. The Seikilos epitaph has been variously dated between the 2nd century BCE to the 2nd century CE.


title: Musical notation

text: Three hymns by Mesomedes of Crete exist in manuscript. The Delphic Hymns, dated to the 2nd century BCE also use this notation, but they are not completely preserved. Ancient Greek notation appears to have fallen out of use around the time of the Decline of the Western Roman Empire.


title: Musical notation

text: Byzantine music once included music for court ceremonies, but has only survived as vocal church music within various Orthodox traditions of monodic (monophonic) chant written down in Byzantine round notation (see Macarie's "anastasimatarion" with the Greek text translated into Romanian and transliterated into Cyrillic script).


title: Musical notation

text: Since the 6th century, Greek theoretical categories ("melos", "genos", "harmonia", "systema") played a key role to understand and transmit Byzantine music, especially the tradition of Damascus had a strong impact on the pre-Islamic Near East comparable to the impact coming from Persian music. The earliest evidence are papyrus fragments of Greek tropologia. These fragments just present the hymn text following a modal signature or key (like "" for "echos plagios protos" or "" for "echos devteros").


title: Musical notation

text: Unlike Western notation, Byzantine neumes used since the 10th century were always related to modal steps (same modal degree, one degree lower, two degrees higher, etc.) in relation to such a clef or modal key (modal signatures). Originally this key or the incipit of a common melody was enough to indicate a certain melodic model given within the echos. Next to ekphonetic notation, only used in lectionaries to indicate formulas used during scriptural lessons, melodic notation developed not earlier than between the 9th and the 10th century, when a "theta" (), "oxeia" () or "diple" () were written under a certain syllable of the text, whenever a longer melisma was expected. This primitive form was called "theta" or "diple notation".


title: Musical notation

text: Today, one can study the evolution of this notation in Greek monastic chant books like those of the sticherarion and the heirmologion (Chartres notation was rather used on Mount Athos and Constantinople, Coislin notation within the patriarchates of Jerusalem and Alexandria), while there was another gestic notation originally used for the "asmatikon" (choir book) and kontakarion (book of the soloist or monophonaris) of the Constantinopolitan cathedral rite. The earliest books which have survived, are "kondakars" in Slavonic translation which already show a notation system known as Kondakarian notation. Like the Greek alphabet notational signs are ordered left to right (though the direction could be adapted like in certain Syriac manuscripts). The question of rhythm was entirely based on "cheironomia" (the interpretation of so-called great signs which derived from different chant books). These great signs () indicated well-known melodic phrases given by gestures of the choirleaders of the cathedral rite. They existed once as part of an oral tradition, developed Kondakarian notation and became, during the 13th century, integrated into Byzantine round notation as a kind of universal notation system.


title: Musical notation

text: Today the main difference between Western and Eastern neumes is that Eastern notation symbols are "differential" rather than absolute, i.e., they indicate pitch steps (rising, falling or at the same step), and the musicians know to deduce correctly, from the score and the note they are singing presently, which correct interval is meant. These step symbols themselves, or better "phonic neumes", resemble brush strokes and are colloquially called "gántzoi" ('hooks') in modern Greek.


title: Musical notation

text: Notes as pitch classes or modal keys (usually memorised by modal signatures) are represented in written form only between these neumes (in manuscripts usually written in red ink). In modern notation they simply serve as an optional reminder and modal and tempo directions have been added, if necessary. In Papadic notation medial signatures usually meant a temporary change into another echos.


title: Musical notation

text: The so-called "great signs" were once related to cheironomic signs; according to modern interpretations they are understood as embellishments and microtonal attractions (pitch changes smaller than a semitone), both essential in Byzantine chant.


title: Musical notation

text: Since Chrysanthos of Madytos there are seven standard note names used for "solfège" ("parallagē") "pá, vú, gá, di, ké, zō, nē", while the older practice still used the four enechemata or intonation formulas of the four echoi given by the modal signatures, the authentic or "kyrioi" in ascending direction, and the plagal or "plagioi" in descending direction (Papadic Octoechos). With exception of "vú and zō" they do roughly correspond to Western solmization syllables as "re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, do". Byzantine music uses the eight natural, non-tempered scales whose elements were identified by "Ēkhoi", "sounds", exclusively, and therefore the absolute pitch of each note may slightly vary each time, depending on the particular "Ēkhos" used. Byzantine notation is still used in many Orthodox Churches. Sometimes cantors also use transcriptions into Western or Kievan staff notation while adding non-notatable embellishment material from memory and "sliding" into the natural scales from experience, but even concerning modern neume editions since the reform of Chrysanthos a lot of details are only known from an oral tradition related to traditional masters and their experience.


title: Musical notation

text: In 1252, Safi al-Din al-Urmawi developed a form of musical notation, where rhythms were represented by geometric representation. Many subsequent scholars of rhythm have sought to develop graphical geometrical notations. For example, a similar geometric system was published in 1987 by Kjell Gustafson, whose method represents a rhythm as a two-dimensional graph.


title: Musical notation

text: The scholar and music theorist Isidore of Seville, while writing in the early 7th century, considered that "unless sounds are held by the memory of man, they perish, because they cannot be written down." By the middle of the 9th century, however, a form of neumatic notation began to develop in monasteries in Europe as a mnemonic device for Gregorian chant, using symbols known as neumes; the earliest surviving musical notation of this type is in the "Musica disciplina" of Aurelian of Réôme, from about 850. There are scattered survivals from the Iberian Peninsula before this time, of a type of notation known as Visigothic neumes, but its few surviving fragments have not yet been deciphered. The problem with this notation was that it only showed melodic contours and consequently the music could not be read by someone who did not know the music already.


title: Musical notation

text: Notation had developed far enough to notate melody, but there was still no system for notating rhythm. A mid-13th-century treatise, "De Mensurabili Musica", explains a set of six rhythmic modes that were in use at the time, although it is not clear how they were formed. These rhythmic modes were all in triple time and rather limited rhythm in chant to six different repeating patterns. This was a flaw seen by German music theorist Franco of Cologne and summarised as part of his treatise "Ars cantus mensurabilis" (the art of measured chant, or mensural notation). He suggested that individual notes could have their own rhythms represented by the shape of the note. Not until the 14th century did something like the present system of fixed note lengths arise. The use of regular measures (bars) became commonplace by the end of the 17th century.


title: Musical notation

text: The founder of what is now considered the standard music staff was Guido d'Arezzo, an Italian Benedictine monk who lived from about 991 until after 1033. He taught the use of solmization syllables based on a hymn to Saint John the Baptist, which begins Ut Queant Laxis and was written by the Lombard historian Paul the Deacon. The first stanza is:


title: Musical notation

text: Guido used the first syllable of each line, Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, and Si, to read notated music in terms of hexachords; they were not note names, and each could, depending on context, be applied to any note. In the 17th century, Ut was changed in most countries except France to the easily singable, open syllable Do, believed to have been taken either from the name of the Italian theorist Giovanni Battista Doni, or from the Latin word "Dominus", meaning "Lord".


title: Musical notation

text: Christian monks developed the first forms of modern European musical notation in order to standardize liturgy throughout the worldwide Church, and an enormous body of religious music has been composed for it through the ages. This led directly to the emergence and development of European classical music, and its many derivatives. The Baroque style, which encompassed music, art, and architecture, was particularly encouraged by the post-Reformation Catholic Church as such forms offered a means of religious expression that was stirring and emotional, intended to stimulate religious fervor.


title: Musical notation

text: Modern music notation is used by musicians of many different genres throughout the world. The staff (or stave, in British English) consists of 5 parallel horizontal lines which acts as a framework upon which pitches are indicated by placing oval note-heads on (ie crossing) the staff lines, between the lines (ie in the spaces) or above and below the staff using small additional lines called ledger lines. Notation is read from left to right, which makes setting music for right-to-left scripts difficult. The pitch of a note is indicated by the vertical position of the note-head within the staff, and can be modified by accidentals. The duration (note length or note value) is indicated by the form of the note-head or with the addition of a note-stem plus beams or flags. A stemless hollow oval is a whole note or semibreve, a hollow rectangle or stemless hollow oval with one or two vertical lines on both sides is a double whole note or breve. A stemmed hollow oval is a half note or minim. Solid ovals always use stems, and can indicate quarter notes (crotchets) or, with added beams or flags, smaller subdivisions. Additional symbols such as dots and ties can lengthen the duration of a note.


title: Musical notation

text: A staff of written music generally begins with a clef, which indicates the pitch-range of the staff. The treble clef or G clef was originally a letter G and it identifies the second line up on the five line staff as the note G above middle C. The bass clef or F clef identifies the second line down as the note F below middle C. While the treble and bass clef are the most widely used, other clefs, which identify middle C, are used for some instruments, such as the alto clef (for viola and alto trombone) and the tenor clef (used for some cello, bassoon, tenor trombone, and double bass music). Some instruments use mainly one clef, such as violin and flute which use treble clef, and double bass and tuba which use bass clef. Some instruments, such as piano and pipe organ, regularly use both treble and bass clefs.


title: Musical notation

text: Following the clef, the key signature is a group of from 0 to 7 sharp (♯) or flat (♭) signs placed on the staff to indicate the key of the piece or song by specifying that certain notes are sharp or flat throughout the piece, unless otherwise indicated with accidentals added before certain notes. When a flat (♭) sign is placed before a note, the pitch of the note is lowered by one semitone. Similarly, a sharp sign (♯) raises the pitch by one semitone. For example, a sharp on the note D would raise it to D♯ while a flat would lower it to D♭. Double sharps and double flats are less common, but they are used. A double sharp is placed before a note to make it two semitones higher, a double flat - two semitones lower. A natural sign placed before a note renders that note in its "natural" form, which means that any sharp or flat applied to that note from the key signature or an accidental, is cancelled. Sometimes a courtesy accidental is used in music where it is not technically required, to remind the musician of what pitch is required.


title: Musical notation

text: Following the key signature is the time signature. The time signature typically consists of two numbers, with one of the most common being . The top "4" indicates that there are four beats per measure (also called bar). The bottom "4" indicates that each of those beats are quarter notes. Measures divide the piece into groups of beats, and the time signatures specify those groupings. is used so often that it is also called "common time", and it may be indicated with rather than numbers. Other frequently used time signatures are (three beats per bar, with each beat being a quarter note); (two beats per bar, with each beat being a quarter note); (six beats per bar, with each beat being an eighth note) and (twelve beats per bar, with each beat being an eighth note; in practice, the eighth notes are typically put into four groups of three eighth notes. is a compound time type of time signature). Many other time signatures exist, such as , , , , , and so on.


title: Musical notation

text: Many short classical music pieces from the classical era and songs from traditional music and popular music are in one time signature for much or all of the piece. Music from the Romantic music era and later, particularly contemporary classical music and rock music genres such as progressive rock and the hardcore punk subgenre mathcore, may use mixed meter; songs or pieces change from one meter to another, for example alternating between bars of and .


title: Musical notation

text: Directions to the player regarding matters such as tempo (e.g., Allegro, Andante, Largo, Vif, Lent, Modérément, Presto, etc.), dynamics (pianississimo, pianissimo, piano, mezzopiano, mezzoforte, forte, fortissimo, fortississimo, etc.) appear above or below the staff. Terms indicating the musical expression or "feel" to a song or piece are indicated at the beginning of the piece and at any points where the mood changes (e.g., "Slow March", "Fast Swing", "Medium Blues", "Fougueux", "Feierlich", "Gelassen", "Piacevole", "Con slancio", "Majestic", "Hostile" etc.) For vocal music, lyrics are written near the pitches of the melody. For short pauses (breaths), retakes (retakes are indicated with a ' mark) are added.


title: Musical notation

text: In music for ensembles, a "score" shows music for all players together, with the staves for the different instruments and/or voices stacked vertically. The conductor uses the score while leading an orchestra, concert band, choir or other large ensemble. Individual performers in an ensemble play from "parts" which contain only the music played by an individual musician. A score can be constructed from a complete set of parts and vice versa. The process was laborious and time consuming when parts were hand-copied from the score, but since the development of scorewriter computer software in the 1980s, a score stored electronically can have parts automatically prepared by the program and quickly and inexpensively printed out using a computer printer.


title: Musical notation

text: "Jeongganbo" is a unique traditional musical notation system created during the time of Sejong the Great that was the first East Asian system to represent rhythm, pitch, and time. Among various kinds of Korean traditional music, Jeong-gan-bo targets a particular genre, Jeong-ak ().


title: Musical notation

text: Jeong-gan-bo tells the pitch by writing the pitch's name down in a box called 'jeong-gan' (this is where the name comes from). One jeong-gan is one beat each, and it can be split into two, three or more to hold half beats and quarter beats, and more. This makes it easy for the reader to figure out the beat.


title: Musical notation

text: Also, there are many markings indicating things such as ornaments. Most of these were later created by Ki-su Kim.


title: Musical notation

text: The Samaveda text (1200 BCE – 1000 BCE) contains notated melodies, and these are probably the world's oldest surviving ones. The musical notation is written usually immediately above, sometimes within, the line of Samaveda text, either in syllabic or a numerical form depending on the Samavedic "Sakha" (school). The Indian scholar and musical theorist Pingala (c. 200 BCE), in his "Chanda Sutra", used marks indicating long and short syllables to indicate meters in Sanskrit poetry.


title: Musical notation

text: A rock inscription from circa 7th–8th century CE at Kudumiyanmalai, Tamil Nadu contains an early example of a musical notation. It was first identified and published by archaeologist/epigraphist D. R. Bhandarkar. Written in the Pallava-grantha script of the 7th century, it contains 38 horizontal lines of notations inscribed on a rectangular rock face (dimension of around 13 by 14 feet). Each line of the notation contains 64 characters (characters representing musical notes), written in groups of four notes. The basic characters for the seven notes, 'sa ri ga ma pa dha ni', are seen to be suffixed with the vowels a, i, u, e. For example, in the place of 'sa', any one of 'sa', 'si', 'su' or 'se' is used. Similarly, in place of ri, any one of 'ra', 'ri', 'ru' or 're' is used. Horizontal lines divide the notation into 7 sections. Each section contains 4 to 7 lines of notation, with a title indicating its musical 'mode'. These modes may have been popular at least from the 6th century CE and were incorporated into the Indian 'raga' system that developed later. But some of the unusual features seen in this notation have been given several non-conclusive interpretations by scholars.


title: Musical notation

text: In the notation of Indian rāga, a solfege-like system called sargam is used. As in Western solfege, there are names for the seven basic pitches of a major scale (Shadja, Rishabha, Gandhara, Madhyama, Panchama, Dhaivata and Nishada, usually shortened to Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni). The tonic of any scale is named Sa, and the dominant Pa. Sa is fixed in any scale, and Pa is fixed at a fifth above it (a Pythagorean fifth rather than an equal-tempered fifth). These two notes are known as achala swar ('fixed notes').


title: Musical notation

text: Each of the other five notes, Re, Ga, Ma, Dha and Ni, can take a 'regular' (shuddha) pitch, which is equivalent to its pitch in a standard major scale (thus, shuddha Re, the second degree of the scale, is a whole-step higher than Sa), or an altered pitch, either a half-step above or half-step below the shuddha pitch. Re, Ga, Dha and Ni all have altered partners that are a half-step lower (Komal-"flat") (thus, komal Re is a half-step higher than Sa).


title: Musical notation

text: Ma has an altered partner that is a half-step higher (-"sharp") (thus, Ma is an augmented fourth above Sa). Re, Ga, Ma, Dha and Ni are called ('movable notes'). In the written system of Indian notation devised by Ravi Shankar, the pitches are represented by Western letters. Capital letters are used for the achala swar, and for the higher variety of all the vikrut swar. Lowercase letters are used for the lower variety of the vikrut swar.


title: Musical notation

text: Other systems exist for non-twelve-tone equal temperament and non-Western music, such as the Indian "Swaralipi".


title: Musical notation

text: Znamenny Chant is a singing tradition used in the Russian Orthodox Church which uses a "hook and banner" notation. Znamenny Chant is unison, melismatic liturgical singing that has its own specific notation, called the "stolp" notation. The symbols used in the stolp notation are called ' (, 'hooks') or ' (, 'signs'). Often the names of the signs are used to refer to the stolp notation. Znamenny melodies are part of a system, consisting of Eight Modes (intonation structures; called glasy); the melodies are characterized by fluency and well-balancedness . There exist several types of Znamenny Chant: the so-called "Stolpovoy", "Malyj" (Little) and "Bolshoy" (Great) Znamenny Chant. Ruthenian Chant (Prostopinije) is sometimes considered a sub-division of the Znamenny Chant tradition, with the Muscovite Chant (Znamenny Chant proper) being the second branch of the same musical continuum.


title: Musical notation

text: Znamenny Chants are not written with notes (the so-called linear notation), but with special signs, called "Znamëna" (Russian for "marks", "banners") or "Kryuki" ("hooks"), as some shapes of these signs resemble hooks. Each sign may include the following components: a large black hook or a black stroke, several smaller black 'points' and 'commas' and lines near the hook or crossing the hook. Some signs may mean only one note, some 2 to 4 notes, and some a whole melody of more than 10 notes with a complicated rhythmic structure. The stolp notation was developed in Kievan Rus' as an East Slavic refinement of the Byzantine neumatic musical notation.


title: Musical notation

text: The most notable feature of this notation system is that it records transitions of the melody, rather than notes. The signs also represent a mood and a gradation of how this part of melody is to be sung (tempo, strength, devotion, meekness, etc.) Every sign has its own name and also features as a spiritual symbol. For example, there is a specific sign, called "little dove" (Russian: голубчик "(golubchik)"), which represents two rising sounds, but which is also a symbol of the Holy Ghost. Gradually the system became more and more complicated. This system was also ambiguous, so that almost no one, except the most trained and educated singers, could sing an unknown melody at sight. The signs only helped to reproduce the melody, not coding it in an unambiguous way.


title: Musical notation

text: The earliest known examples of text referring to music in China are inscriptions on musical instruments found in the Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng (d. 433 B.C.). Sets of 41 chimestones and 65 bells bore lengthy inscriptions concerning pitches, scales, and transposition. The bells still sound the pitches that their inscriptions refer to. Although no notated musical compositions were found, the inscriptions indicate that the system was sufficiently advanced to allow for musical notation. Two systems of pitch nomenclature existed, one for relative pitch and one for absolute pitch. For relative pitch, a solmization system was used.


title: Musical notation

text: Japanese music is highly diversified, and therefore requires various systems of notation. In Japanese shakuhachi music, for example, glissandos and timbres are often more significant than distinct pitches, whereas taiko notation focuses on discrete strokes.


title: Musical notation

text: Ryukyuan sanshin music uses kunkunshi, a notation system of kanji with each character corresponding to a finger position on a particular string.


title: Musical notation

text: Notation plays a relatively minor role in the oral traditions of Indonesia. However, in Java and Bali, several systems were devised beginning at the end of the 19th century, initially for archival purposes. Today the most widespread are cipher notations ("not angka" in the broadest sense) in which the pitches are represented with some subset of the numbers 1 to 7, with 1 corresponding to either highest note of a particular octave, as in Sundanese gamelan, or lowest, as in the kepatihan notation of Javanese gamelan.


title: Musical notation

text: Notes in the ranges outside the central octave are represented with one or more dots above or below the each number. For the most part, these cipher notations are mainly used to notate the skeletal melody (the balungan) and vocal parts (gerongan), although transcriptions of the elaborating instrument variations are sometimes used for analysis and teaching. Drum parts are notated with a system of symbols largely based on letters representing the vocables used to learn and remember drumming patterns; these symbols are typically laid out in a grid underneath the skeletal melody for a specific or generic piece.