Blog Summary

So I haven't yet done my blog summary and I realize that it is now crunch time.. classes are ending..papers due.. and upcoming finals, so I figured It was time to start getting things done. I am not quite sure what exactly I should focus on when summarizing, but I thought the best thing to talk about would be Jamboree which is a hot topic in many blogs. There were many varying opinions about jamboree. The first two posts about jamboree are complete opposites. Dano talks about how the posters taught him some new things and were probably better than most other booths because a lot of the other booths lost track of what jamboree was about and tried to put on a big show. He wasn't a big fan of the impirialist group. However, little rabbit was very fond of this booth and sounds like he spent most of his time joining in and having fun. Many people spent most of their blog talking about just the roots of music part of jamboree. Mary Beth said it was slow at 9 (as to be expected) but she had fun teaching the swing dancing. Steph also talked about our booth and thought it went really well too! Lindsey said it went well and people enjoyed our booth as long as they didn't have to interact at all. Greenstar talked of how it went well, but no one really knew what they were singing for the lyrics game. And also she thought our junk band could have been more enthusiastic..I agree. Ashley talked of the ups and downs of the swing dancing. Brady talked about how it wasn't very much fun working at the booth because most of it was for the 3pm class, but he had fun swing dancing and he thought the live band he was in contributed a lot. Jweb had a lot to say about jamboree. He thought that even though our junk band wasn't very enthusiastic, he had a lot of fun making it and having people watch our junk band was better then going up to a booth where people ignore you. He also talked about how people kind of missed the point of jamboree.. Human diversity and sharing what we have learned about it. Kelsey talked about the fun she had preparing for jamboree. She was a little disappointed with the amount of people who showed up for swing dance but still had a good time. She thought that it was sad that no one really came up and asked questions while she was at the booth but then realized that when she was looking at booths she never really asked questions either. She doesn't think think that jamboree should be human diversity. Overall I think that people had fun at jamboree they just thought it could be changed for the better in some ways. I thought that jamboree was fun, but the whole point of it(to learn about human diversity) was lost in trying to impress people with food and fun games.

Jamboree and Carol Concert

Hey~ so I had fun looking around at all the different booths at jamboree this past thursday. There were many different things to look at and learn about.. I really enjoyed the booth why we eat what we eat. They had eggs to sample and I stood in a tiny space that showed how much room chickens got in a cage. I also learned what parts of my tongue tasted what. Another booth i really enjoyed was one on Asian culture. They were all really friendly there and I got a tattoo and a oragomi dog mad for me. Many of the booths were not so friendly however. A couple of times I would go up to a booth and look at things, not really knowing what it was all about and the person running it didn't say a thing.. It made me quite unconfortable.. But over all I had a fun time there
I also attended the UMM carol concert this past Saturday. It was really super good! At the beginning they had a flute choir playing christmas music. Having played flute in high school, I really enjoyed it! Laura played a fabulous solo.. and all the songs sounded great! Then the choir sang many beautiful songs and had wonderful solos! I also liked how every once in a while the crowd was supposed to sing along to some familar christmas songs.. it just makes me anxious for christmas! Plus they had a little section where they read and acted out the story of how the grinch stole christmas.. who doesn't enjoy that story!?

Gospel Listenings

So I listened to both gospel listenings at once...the 2 hour block got a little long but I made it! I really enjoyed listening to this type of music, there were some really catchy tunes and I found that I knew some of the songs. In the first listening there were a lot of great songs. The song church was great. I really liked the up beat feel it had with all the clapping and how the song was sang as a story. I also really liked how the background music stopped when there was a climax in the singing. I also thought the song Judgement was catchy.. I was singing in my head hours later! I liked how it was acapela, it really added to the song, plus the unique raspy sound to there voice. I found that overall I enjoyed the upbeat song more just because they caught my attention and I didn't know what to expect and they tended to have a lot of different harmonies that were beautiful.
The second listening was also good.. however some of the songs wouldn't load for me so I didn't get to listen to all of them. I really liked how you had 3 different versions of Ain't no graves in this listening. The Bozie Stirdevant version was slower and never really picked up, The Brother Claude Ely Version was faster and had clapping and more singers, and the Kris Delmhorst version was better in the sense that it was newer and more clear and I also liked that it had a bit more of a rock feel to it. Another song that stood out to me was Joshua Fit de battle.. This was an acupeella song that had many great tempo changes. It also included great unisons and harmony changes. I also enjoyed the contrast in the music from when the men sang and when the women sang. I loved when the men sang, how great the background was.
I feel that most of the music that I listened to tied in with what we have been learning because in most of the songs the artist is expressing how they feel about certain things in their life and just like blues songs, alot of them were sang kind of like a story.

Discussion Summary

So I completely spaced out doing a discussion summary for the week of the 7th so I'm just going to do one now! This past week we did a lot with the junk band. On Tuesday we (aka the boys) brought up all the neat instruments that we would be playing on. There were all sorts of odds and ends. The boys jumped up to get there hands on the best or loudest instruments they could find. The girls were a little bit more apprehensive...scoping out all the instruments first. Then Tyler took charge and started handing out instruments.. of course I get stuck with one of the biggest instruments. I was so jealous of Steph and her bike bell..it sounded so cool!...Once we got playing we could get some neat beats going with Joe leading us! Then on Thursday one of the greatest things happened....I got to play the bell!!! ME! on CAMERA!! I was psyched. We all had fun playing, but then the camera was turned on...and everyone got a little awkward...we still sounded cool though. As we played people got to be more comfortable and we started having more fun. Tyler's guitar was a nice touch and I loved how he finished out the songs...I think the junk band was a success and everyone is going to enjoy watching it at the Jamboree!

Podcast #5

Episode 5 talked about Harry Smith again and went into more depth about his personality and his relationships with other people. First it talked of how he got to be interested in music. It said that he came from a strange religous background which played an important part in his frame of refrence when he put the songs together and wrote about each one. He also became interested in music at a young age because he used to transcibe Native American ceremonies into writing. Sometimes he would record whole ceremonies which could last several days. People described Harry as a true 20th century renasance man. He drove himself beyond imagination and often drank and did drugs to "open his mind." He is also described as a maddening, irritable and mean man.
I found it interesting that in this episode they said that many singers wouldn't be about today if it wasn't for Harry's anthropolgy of American music. This music shaped how people thought about other singers including Bob Dillan and The Grateful Dead. This has a lot to do with our class because we have been discussing how music started out and how it has changed over the years to form the music that listen to nowadays.

Podcast #4

This program mentioned a lot about Harry Smith and how he put together The Anthology of American Folk Music. He received Grammies for his 3 albums of folk music. I thought it was very interesting how he put the albums together. It took Harry 2 to 3 years to put the 84 singles together and to write the annotated booklet. Mo was the one who convinced him to put it together because Harry knew so much about it. The music used was all commercial music released by only 5 to 6 different record companies. He arranged these songs so that they were in a pattern. "they talked to each other" One recording echoed the previous one varying the song line or melodies only slightly. Harry had an artistic style but also used "conventions of scholarship" Another really cool thing about Harry is that he didn't include the singers race when he was describing them. He was breaking down racial stereotypes. That way music could be accepted based on its merit. This has to do a lot with class because a lot of the artists that we have been reading about have been singing about all the hardships they go through.. and a lot of it is because of their race (working on farms for little or no pay. or mines) Harry states that America changes through music, and I think that is completely true. You can figure out what time period a song is from by the lyrics and the instruments used.. People really do express themselves through music. All the music used in Harry's albums were written and sang by people standing out from their communities and saying listen to me.. learn from me.

Podcast #3

There were a lot of different and interesting kinds of music on this podcast. The part that I found most interesting was when they were talking about the many different ethnicity that they included in folkways. Cornander(sp?) and Mo Ash got together and found some of the craziest music styles. These included yodeling, jug stompers, and a really fun one- throat singing. I found this type of music very interesting because the one guy could sing two different sounds. This relates a lot to blues and country because it goes back to how we started getting our rhythms and different types of music. Blues started with just the basics and had evolved.
Another part I found interesting in the podcast was when they were describing Mo Ash's character. He had 3 basic rules..never sign a star its to costly, never press more records than dictated by immediate demand,and all records will remain available to the public. He discussing how music is a documentation and people use it has a reference point so even if its not the most important, don't take it off the market. Mo Ash was described as both open but knew what he wanted. He could tell within 30 sec whether he liked a song or not. I feel that music is a documentation and our fys class is looking back at these references to learn more about our culture and past experiences.
I found the jazzy instrumental music very easy to listen to. I liked the piano playing the most.. how the top hand played a lot of diff quick moving notes and the bottom hand played steady chords it was the "voice" and the background. It was also neat that they had children's music in their collection. This music can stay around forever... like the song Skip to my Lou which took me by surprise when it was played.