Singing

Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of tonality, rhythm, the use of sustained tones and a variety of vocal techniques. A person who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music (arias, recitatives, songs, etc.) that can be sung without accompaniment or with accompaniment by musical instruments. Singing is often done in a group of other musicians, such as in a choir of singers with different voice ranges, or in an ensemble with instrumentalists, such as a rock group or baroque ensemble. Singers may also perform as soloist with accompaniment from a piano (as in art song and in some jazz styles) or with a symphony orchestra or big band. There are a range of different singing styles, including art music styles such as opera and Chinese opera, religious music styles such as Gospel, traditional music styles, world music, jazz, blues and popular music styles such as pop and rock.

Singing can be formal or informal, arranged or improvised. It may be done for religious devotion, as a hobby, as a source of pleasure, comfort, or ritual, as part of music education, or as a profession. Excellence in singing requires time, dedication, instruction, and regular practice. If practice is done on a regular basis then the sounds can become more clear and strong. Professional singers usually build their careers around one specific musical genre, such as classical or rock, although there are singers with crossover success (singing in more than one genre). They typically take voice training provided by voice teachers or vocal coaches throughout their careers.

Matthew McConaughey

Matthew David McConaughey (/məˈkɒnəheɪ/; born November 4, 1969) is an American actor and producer. He first gained notice for his breakout role in the coming-of-age comedy Dazed and Confused (1993), and went on to appear in films such as the slasher Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation (1994), the legal thriller A Time to Kill (1996), Steven Spielberg's historical drama Amistad (1997), the science fiction drama Contact (1997), the comedy EDtv (1999) and the war film U-571 (2000).

In the 2000s, he became best known for starring in romantic comedies, including The Wedding Planner (2001), How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days (2003), Sahara (2005), Failure to Launch (2006), Fool's Gold (2008) and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009). Since 2010 he has moved away from romantic comedies and has had roles in the films The Lincoln Lawyer (2011), Bernie (2011), Killer Joe (2011), The Paperboy (2012), Mud (2012), Magic Mike (2012), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013), Dallas Buyers Club (2013) and Interstellar (2014). Some film critics and journalists even refer to this era of film as the 'McConaissance'.

Scarlett Johansson

Scarlett Johansson (/dʒoʊˈhænsən/ joh-HAN-sən; born November 22, 1984) is an American actress, model, and singer. She made her film debut in North (1994). Johansson subsequently starred in Manny & Lo in 1996, and garnered further acclaim and prominence with roles in The Horse Whisperer (1998) and Ghost World (2001). She shifted to adult roles with her performances in Girl with a Pearl Earring (2003) and Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation (2003), for which she won a BAFTA award for Best Actress in a Leading Role.

Her subsequent films included A Love Song for Bobby Long (2004), Woody Allen's Match Point (2005), The Island (2005), The Black Dahlia (2006), The Prestige (2006), The Other Boleyn Girl (2008), Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008), He's Just Not That Into You (2009), Don Jon (2013), Her (2013), Under the Skin (2013), and Lucy (2014). She has portrayed the Marvel Comics character Black Widow / Natasha Romanoff in the Marvel Cinematic Universe; appearing in Iron Man 2 (2010), The Avengers (2012), Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). She won the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play for her performance in the 2010 Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge. As a singer, Johansson has released two albums, Anywhere I Lay My Head and Break Up.

Beauty and the Beast

Beauty and the Beast (French: La Belle et la Bête) is a traditional fairy tale written by French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve and published in 1740 in La Jeune Américaine et les contes marins. Her lengthy version was abridged, rewritten, and published by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont in 1756 in Magasin des enfants to produce the version most commonly retold.

Variants of the tale are known across Europe. In France, for example, Zémire et Azor is an operatic version of the story, written by Marmontel and composed by Grétry in 1771, which had enormous success well into the 19th century; it is based on the second version of the tale. Amour pour amour, by Nivelle de la Chaussée, is a 1742 play based on Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve's version. According to researchers at universities in Durham and Lisbon, the story originated around 4,000 years ago.

Plot

Miranda Sings

Miranda Sings is an Internet character created in 2008 and portrayed by American comedian, actress and YouTube personality Colleen Evans. Evans displays videos of the comically talentless, egotistical and quirky character on her YouTube channel. In these videos, the eccentric, narcissistic, yet endearing character sings and dances badly, gives inept "tutorials", recounts her daily activities, discusses current events that she often misunderstands, collaborates with other YouTubers, and rants about her critics, reading examples of hate mail directed at the character on social media; she responds to them with her catchphrase: "Haters Back Off!".

Evans created the character as a satire of bad but arrogant singers who believe that posting their videos on YouTube will lead to them breaking into show business. As of February 2016, the Miranda Sings YouTube channel had surpassed 800 million views and 5.9 million subscribers. Miranda has been ranked the 7th "most popular" YouTube personality by Daily American and the channel was ranked No. 38 of all time by NewMediaRockstars. The character also has an active presence on other social media.