Episode 5

In the fifth episode of the folkways collection, there was a lot of talk about how Harry Smith was a very multi-talented man with a colored background. By a colored background I mean a past with a huge variety of experiences. He was born in Oregon, he spent years living with Native American tribes, and then lived in New York. He painted, produced movies and applied himself to countless other artistic hobbies. Micheal Ash said, "I think he is one, if not the only renaissance, truly renaissance man of the latter part of the twentieth century because of the wide range of things he was able to accomplish." This made me think how all of his experiences must have influenced him, and made him a really open person. Which is why he included such a wide range of tracks on his collection. This is also sort of related to music artists, how they are influenced. It makes me think of in the Blues book, how so many of the blues artists are influenced by their peers, and take that style and combine it with experiences in their life and write a song. So I kind of see a relation to how Harry Smith made this music collection, and how the actual music is made.

In the fourth episode it was really interesting when different people were discussing the way the collection was put together. They each thought this was one of the most significant aspects of the collection. The part that stuck out to me most was when they talked about the order of the songs. This really resembled a thought from my last post that every song contributes to the evolution of music: "Each song overlapped one another, each song talked to each other," and "One song extends the one before it, or sets you up for the one that's coming." Each folk song influenced one another. This pattern of influence defines our music roots. Where does our music come from? It comes from a "common ancestor" and changes over centuries. It makes me think of the evolution and natural selection ideas from science.

I think episode 3 of the Smithsonian Folkways Collection is actually quite interesting. I really like the variety of music it includes. The Bob Dylan song was my favorite. I also think it's cool how the collection contains different forms of art: it included MLK's speech, music played on the streets of NY city, music played in a club, recorded songs, poetry, poetry with music, throat singing, and children's music. The most significant part of this episode to me was when Moses Ash said, "You don't eliminate 'a' because nobody buys 'a', but just keep 'b' because 'b' is popular." This is important because every piece of music is a good piece of music to somebody, if not a lot of people. To eliminate it is unfair the minority, to tell them that their opinion is wrong. Also, our class is about music roots, and every song made along the way contributes. As music evolves, every song contributes to that evolution. I hypothesize that the less popular songs lead up to the more popular songs.

BLOG SUMMARY

This was supposed to be posted on the 13th, so my apologies for those of you who were waiting anxiously for this blog summary. So I checked out everybody's blog and had a good time doing it. There were some interesting blogs, and some not so interesting ones. But hey I know how busy some people are, so no worries. I think it would be cool if people would post more comments on other's performances. The "Magik Flying Toad" gave his fellow FYSers some solid feedback and encouragement regarding their performances which was good to see. Stephanie also commented on a couple of performances (including mine) and I found it very useful to get some feedback. By the way Stephanie, it's good to know that if I don't make it to med school, I can always become a professional kazooist! However these were the only two references to performances I saw. I think people would like to hear what their audience thought about their performance. Anywho, a few people wrote about the class readings including Stephanie and Mary Beth. These posts are very nifty indeed: Stephanie and Mary Beth summarized some of the country book readings, emphasized some of the main points and then expressed some of their viewpoints on the book thus far. I enjoyed reading the summaries, they help to refresh the contents of the readings. Lindsey shares a cool website where you can find all the songs by an artist that have been covered. This is cool to let everyone know when a useful discovery relevant to class is made. Dano has some interesting posts, I personally like his "Twins Magic Moment" post, very cool. It might cheer up you Minnesota Twins fans out there! It's good to see some variety of post topics. I like Brandon's blog, it has a cool template and he blogs about whatever, like Dano, I thought his post about the sprinkler was rather amusing. This brings up an idea. If you don't have anything to say about the class, blog about whatever you want, any post is better than no post at all in my opinion. Not to say that all your posts should be random. Also, I think a little more interaction between blogs would be cool. More use of the "comment" link would be cool. I didn't see a single comment posted on a blog. I am definitely a guilty party as well, I just think comments would make blogging more interesting, and it may also encourage more people to blog more often. Overall, the general topic of posts was about the readings, Pandora, people's performances, and topics McPhee initiated. Well, I enjoyed viewing everybody's blog, it was quite an experience, but I didn't want to bore y'all with an essay, I'm out. PEACE.

You know how when you buy a CD and you don't like it at first, but then the more you listen to it the more you like it? Yeah, that's exactly what's happened to me with blues. I'm starting to like blues: I can just sit and listen to blues music, instead of before when I would only listen to it for class. Anybody else notice that blues music has started to grow on you?

Yeah so my preformance is on thursday. Initially I was going to play a blues song on the piano, but after some intense brainstorming I decided to do something a little more original. I have decided to do a little presentation that will attempt to compare blues music to rap. Don't ask me how because I'm not sure yet. But my main point of this post is that I will be able to do it in the classroom. I'll need to play a couple segments from a couple of songs. One off of my iPod and one from the computer in the classroom. I might want to play a movie clip, but I'm not sure. Anyways, just givin' a headsup!