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.