So I’m changing the Blog topic again, but I’m also giving you an extra day to write it. Ahem.
Your final Blog Entry is due by the end of the day (i.e. midnight) on Tuesday, January 27. In your final blog entry, I’d like you to answer the following:
1. Write about at least one thing you learned about another culture that surprised or intrigued you.
2. Write about at least one thing you realized about your own culture through our discussions.
3. Write about at least one thing that this course has inspired you to learn more about.
Your final Comments are due by midnight on Wednesday, January 28. Again, you need to comment on at least four other blogs, though you are more than welcome to do more.
I’ve really enjoyed this class this year, and I hope that you have as well. I can’t wait to see you final presentations tomorrow and Tuesday.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Snow Day!
Hi folks! Well, I just looked out my window, and it's all frosty white. My daughter's school is cancelled, and Converse is on a two hour delay, so let's all just take it as a sign that we could use a break. So go play in the snow and see if you can enjoy your day without our class. Me? I'm going to play the the snow with Tally, soak in the inauguration, and bake some bread.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Music and Society--New!
Hi folks. So. I’m going to change the blog line-up a bit this week—I hope you all don’t mind. Here’s the whole week (January 19-23):
Monday—no blog assignment; go do something worthwhile for Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Tuesday—Music and Society Entry
Wednesday—no Blog assignment
Thursday—Comments
Friday—Cool Stuff!
“Comments” and “Cool Stuff” should be fairly easy to understand by now. For this week’s Comments, any Blog entries since last week’s Comments are fair game. This week’s Cool Stuff can encompass the Blues or any of thee three Asian cultures we’ll be covering this week (India, Indonesia, and Japan). Music and Society, however, is new. Originally, this week’s Blog Entries were to be on Music and Work and Music and Family. I’ve decided that one blog entry will be enough for this week, given that you need to be working on your Final Projects. And I’ve just finished watching the opening ceremonies for the Presidential Inauguration, which has inspired the Music in Society topic.
For Music and Society, I want you to think about and research the ways in which Music has influenced or been directly influenced by various aspects of the larger society—a government, a ruler, a rebel force, a minority group, etc. Pick a two or three examples of how Music and Society have interacted and blog about them. Some possible topics might be Control of Music by the Soviet Government, Isorhythmic Motets in the French Middle Ages, Marian Anderson and the DAR, Protest Music in the 1960s, Spirituals and the Underground Railroad, the history of “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” or, most recently, the videos of Will.i.am and Obama Girl or the spectacular Bass stylings of Mike Huckabee . There are many, many topics along these lines—these are just a few that come to mind (my mind, of course—yours is probably much different). Yes, you may venture back into Western Art music for this topic, as you’ll be treating it in an Ethnomusicological fashion.
I do realize that this topic is a bit of a departure from our previous blog entries. In the past, I’ve mostly had you relate Ethnomusicological topics to your own lives, and most of you won’t have had tons of direct experience as to how Music and Society have interacted. Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Inauguration Day are coming up, though, and I decided that this would be a fit way to observe those two occasions. I would expect that you’d need to do at least a bit of web research—you might start by checking out the Wikipedia entries on “Music and Politics” or “Protest Songs. “ And incidentally, I’m sure it’s only a matter of minutes before someone posts the video of Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen singing “This Land is Your Land” at the end of today’s ceremonies on YouTube. Go find it—it’s incredible.
Monday—no blog assignment; go do something worthwhile for Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Tuesday—Music and Society Entry
Wednesday—no Blog assignment
Thursday—Comments
Friday—Cool Stuff!
“Comments” and “Cool Stuff” should be fairly easy to understand by now. For this week’s Comments, any Blog entries since last week’s Comments are fair game. This week’s Cool Stuff can encompass the Blues or any of thee three Asian cultures we’ll be covering this week (India, Indonesia, and Japan). Music and Society, however, is new. Originally, this week’s Blog Entries were to be on Music and Work and Music and Family. I’ve decided that one blog entry will be enough for this week, given that you need to be working on your Final Projects. And I’ve just finished watching the opening ceremonies for the Presidential Inauguration, which has inspired the Music in Society topic.
For Music and Society, I want you to think about and research the ways in which Music has influenced or been directly influenced by various aspects of the larger society—a government, a ruler, a rebel force, a minority group, etc. Pick a two or three examples of how Music and Society have interacted and blog about them. Some possible topics might be Control of Music by the Soviet Government, Isorhythmic Motets in the French Middle Ages, Marian Anderson and the DAR, Protest Music in the 1960s, Spirituals and the Underground Railroad, the history of “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” or, most recently, the videos of Will.i.am and Obama Girl or the spectacular Bass stylings of Mike Huckabee . There are many, many topics along these lines—these are just a few that come to mind (my mind, of course—yours is probably much different). Yes, you may venture back into Western Art music for this topic, as you’ll be treating it in an Ethnomusicological fashion.
I do realize that this topic is a bit of a departure from our previous blog entries. In the past, I’ve mostly had you relate Ethnomusicological topics to your own lives, and most of you won’t have had tons of direct experience as to how Music and Society have interacted. Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Inauguration Day are coming up, though, and I decided that this would be a fit way to observe those two occasions. I would expect that you’d need to do at least a bit of web research—you might start by checking out the Wikipedia entries on “Music and Politics” or “Protest Songs. “ And incidentally, I’m sure it’s only a matter of minutes before someone posts the video of Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen singing “This Land is Your Land” at the end of today’s ceremonies on YouTube. Go find it—it’s incredible.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Music and Rites
So, as I told you yesterday in class, our Blog topic for Thursday, January 15, will be “Music and Rites.” Think about the various rites in your life. The big three in most cultures are birth, marriage, and death, but we have many smaller rites as well. Societies have different rites that deal with coming of age or passing certain milestones. Some rites happen on a yearly basis, whereas others happen less often. For the purposes of this assignment, you’re permitted to define “rite” rather broadly—feel free to step outside the birth/marriage/death continuum. And I do know that there is potentially some overlap with this entry and the previous one on “Music and Religion”—try not to tread the exact same ground, okay?
After you’ve thought about the rites you’ve experienced in your own lives, start to consider the role that music has had in those rites. Did it have a specific function? Did that function really make sense, or was it tied to a tradition that is no longer so central to the rite? What different types of music were used? Were specific pieces of music expected, or just a general style, or was it a free for all? Could the music change to reflect the experiences or personalities of the individuals at the center of the rites, or were the norms of society more or less imposed on all? Who picked the music, and who performed it, and who listened to it?
The music used for the Quichuan child’s wake that we heard yesterday is a good example of a mix of styles. The vacación is a genre specific to that particular rite, and it was played at specific times with specific reasons. The style of the vacación was very striking and disturbing. The sanjuan, however, was a much more general style of music, and the performers would use a much more mix-and-match approach to performing them. The mother’s lament at the end was an improvised expression of grief, and thus different for each wake. Some of the music was present to facilitate the expression of grief, and some of the music was there to help alleviate some of the grief.
“Music and Rites” is to be posted by midnight on Thursday, January 15. Your next round of “Cool Stuff” is to be posted by midnight the next day, Friday, January 16. For this round of Cool Stuff, look to the Music-Cultures of Latin America, the Middle East, and African-America. If your previous entry didn’t include Africa, that’s fair game, too. Enjoy!
After you’ve thought about the rites you’ve experienced in your own lives, start to consider the role that music has had in those rites. Did it have a specific function? Did that function really make sense, or was it tied to a tradition that is no longer so central to the rite? What different types of music were used? Were specific pieces of music expected, or just a general style, or was it a free for all? Could the music change to reflect the experiences or personalities of the individuals at the center of the rites, or were the norms of society more or less imposed on all? Who picked the music, and who performed it, and who listened to it?
The music used for the Quichuan child’s wake that we heard yesterday is a good example of a mix of styles. The vacación is a genre specific to that particular rite, and it was played at specific times with specific reasons. The style of the vacación was very striking and disturbing. The sanjuan, however, was a much more general style of music, and the performers would use a much more mix-and-match approach to performing them. The mother’s lament at the end was an improvised expression of grief, and thus different for each wake. Some of the music was present to facilitate the expression of grief, and some of the music was there to help alleviate some of the grief.
“Music and Rites” is to be posted by midnight on Thursday, January 15. Your next round of “Cool Stuff” is to be posted by midnight the next day, Friday, January 16. For this round of Cool Stuff, look to the Music-Cultures of Latin America, the Middle East, and African-America. If your previous entry didn’t include Africa, that’s fair game, too. Enjoy!
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Music and Religion & Comments no. 2
Your blog topic for Monday, January 12, is “Music and Religion.” As we talked about Native American music last week we frequently brought up different ways in which the music and religion of that Music-Culture interact. We discovered that the music and the religion of Native Americans are closely intertwined—song creation is attributed to the Deities, performers will act out the part of Deities (Yeibichai) when singing some of the songs for various ceremonies, and the songs are a most important means of transmitting religious ideas from generation to generation. We also discussed the ways in which stylistic traits of their music can be traced back to their religion—an importance on the cyclic-ness of Nature is reflected in the ubiquitous repetitive format of their songs. These are just a few ways that we discussed the intersection of music and religion in the world of Native America.
As we go through our other Music-Cultures, we’ll frequently return to this music-religion link. First, though, I’d like you to think about the way that music and religion intersects in your own life. You should consider the music-religion link under two rather large umbrellas:
1. Use. How is music actually used in religion in your experience? And what is the purpose of that use? What sort of performing styles are expected, and are there any rules that should be followed? And stuff like that—the practical and practicing side of music and religion.
2. Aesthetics. In your experience, do the prevailing religions of your surroundings influence what is found aesthetically pleasing in music? Is there any way in which the values of those religions inherent in the way music is built or experienced?
Yes, I know, these are pretty huge ideas. I don’t really expect you to exploit every corner of this topic, but I do expect you to think about it at length before you start typing. I also realize that many of you have been linked to more than one religion over the course of your life, or, perhaps, have led a mostly-secular existence. Take the topic and run with it, and see what happens.
Given this topic, it will be especially important to use Tact at its best for your Comments on Tuesday, January 13. You’ll still need to leave at least four comments (more warms up my heart!), but you can leave them on any entries done since the last Comments day—Music and Movement, Cool Stuff no. 1, or Music and Religion. I was very, very pleased with your comments last week. Anyone want to organize a Bollywood night in Hartness?
As we go through our other Music-Cultures, we’ll frequently return to this music-religion link. First, though, I’d like you to think about the way that music and religion intersects in your own life. You should consider the music-religion link under two rather large umbrellas:
1. Use. How is music actually used in religion in your experience? And what is the purpose of that use? What sort of performing styles are expected, and are there any rules that should be followed? And stuff like that—the practical and practicing side of music and religion.
2. Aesthetics. In your experience, do the prevailing religions of your surroundings influence what is found aesthetically pleasing in music? Is there any way in which the values of those religions inherent in the way music is built or experienced?
Yes, I know, these are pretty huge ideas. I don’t really expect you to exploit every corner of this topic, but I do expect you to think about it at length before you start typing. I also realize that many of you have been linked to more than one religion over the course of your life, or, perhaps, have led a mostly-secular existence. Take the topic and run with it, and see what happens.
Given this topic, it will be especially important to use Tact at its best for your Comments on Tuesday, January 13. You’ll still need to leave at least four comments (more warms up my heart!), but you can leave them on any entries done since the last Comments day—Music and Movement, Cool Stuff no. 1, or Music and Religion. I was very, very pleased with your comments last week. Anyone want to organize a Bollywood night in Hartness?
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Music and Movement & Cool Stuff no. 1
As we’ve observed in our first culture, that of the Native American tribes, music does not always exist in a vacuum (actually, a good question to ponder would be “Does music ever exist in a vacuum?”) It is often connected with movement of some kind—dance, theater, hand motions, or other kinds of movement. In the Native American culture we’ve noticed how music seems to be intrinsically linked to dance, how that music/dance experience is different for men and women, how the act of dancing will sometimes actually create the music, how the joining of music and dance reflects the prevailing spiritual beliefs of the culture, etc.
For this Thursday’s blog assignment, I want you to think of the ways that music is accompanied by movement in your own life. Is your music linked to movement, or are they more or less separate entities? Are the music and the movements fundamentally linked in some way? Does one take precedence over or rely on the other? How would the music or the movements change if they were divorced from the other? How does one affect the other? And any other questions that you think are relevant to the topic.
Friday’s topic is “Cool Stuff!” As we’ve discussed in class, your assignment is to roam the web (or make use of a good scanner) and find interesting items that pertain to the two cultures that we’re studying this week—Native America and Africa. You’ll need to find at least three separate items to post, and they need to be posted in such a way that others can experience them as fully as you have (i.e. any links must actually link, any downloaded pictures must actually load, any musical selections must actually play, and so forth.) Feel free to get help from anyone you can if you consider yourself technologically challenged. Enjoy!
For this Thursday’s blog assignment, I want you to think of the ways that music is accompanied by movement in your own life. Is your music linked to movement, or are they more or less separate entities? Are the music and the movements fundamentally linked in some way? Does one take precedence over or rely on the other? How would the music or the movements change if they were divorced from the other? How does one affect the other? And any other questions that you think are relevant to the topic.
Friday’s topic is “Cool Stuff!” As we’ve discussed in class, your assignment is to roam the web (or make use of a good scanner) and find interesting items that pertain to the two cultures that we’re studying this week—Native America and Africa. You’ll need to find at least three separate items to post, and they need to be posted in such a way that others can experience them as fully as you have (i.e. any links must actually link, any downloaded pictures must actually load, any musical selections must actually play, and so forth.) Feel free to get help from anyone you can if you consider yourself technologically challenged. Enjoy!
Sunday, January 4, 2009
My Musical Autobiography
I’m just a bit older than most of you, and I’ve managed to have many, many run-ins with non-Western Art music. I grew up in Texas, and my hometown of San Angelo had a sizable Mexican-American population, so we heard a lot of Mariachi music growing up. In fact, several years ago I was having dinner with my parents in a Mexican Food restaurant in Helen, Georgia (truly a deeply weird town if there ever was one—go check it out, if you haven’t already) when a Mariachi band started to play for the diners. They came over to our table and my mom asked them to play a specific tune, since it was my grandfather’s favorite—up until that moment, I had no idea he had liked that sort of music!
Another kind of music that was abundant in my home town was really old time Country Music—think Hank Williams Sr., not Jr. My uncle Al was a member of a group of older folks that got together once a week to eat potluck and sit around and make music. Many years ago I returned to San Angelo to play with my high school orchestra and got invited to one of the Country group’s sing-alongs. I had my oboe along with me, and they insisted that I get it out and play along. Some of those old tunes have trickier chord progressions than you might guess!
Perhaps my biggest experience in this field, though, was playing in a rock band in New York. We lived there for a year after finishing college, living near the very last stop on the A Train (yes, the one that you take “if you want to get to Harlem.”) There was an ad in one of the local papers wanting an oboist and a cellist for a newly-formed lo-fi band, and I called up the lead singer—she went by Ashley Wilkes, which couldn’t possibly have been her real name, but I never did find out what her real name was—and got the gig. We’d get together in our guitarist Artie’s apartment (he also worked as a taxi driver) and work through new songs—they’d strum and sing and I’d improvise a quasi-descant-back-up-singer-like- line along with them. We played in a lot of clubs in Manhattan, especially down in the Village, and at a few area colleges. I was simultaneously working in the music department of St. Patrick’s Cathedral (the really big one across the street from Rockefeller Center), which offered its own variety of music, especially when various Irish groups came over to play.
And then, of course, I’ve been teaching World Music since I was hired here at Converse almost twelve years ago. The first year I just taught two days of World Music within a different course (Introduction to Music Technology and Research, if you must know). Within a couple of years there was a World Music Component in Music History II, and finally the course you’re now taking was created and then required of all music majors. I’ve gotten to know music from all over the world through this course—not only the music from the cultures I’ve taught, but also the music from the cultures that the students have presented in class. It’s been a great ride, and one that I hope to stay on for a good long time to come.
I could go on about World Music I’ve Heard in My Favorite Restaurants or Cool Music Stores in Asheville or even Stuff Heard at the Spartanburg International Festival or World Music in Pop Music, but I’ve already hit 566 words in this Blog, and I want to leave stuff for all of you to write about!
Another kind of music that was abundant in my home town was really old time Country Music—think Hank Williams Sr., not Jr. My uncle Al was a member of a group of older folks that got together once a week to eat potluck and sit around and make music. Many years ago I returned to San Angelo to play with my high school orchestra and got invited to one of the Country group’s sing-alongs. I had my oboe along with me, and they insisted that I get it out and play along. Some of those old tunes have trickier chord progressions than you might guess!
Perhaps my biggest experience in this field, though, was playing in a rock band in New York. We lived there for a year after finishing college, living near the very last stop on the A Train (yes, the one that you take “if you want to get to Harlem.”) There was an ad in one of the local papers wanting an oboist and a cellist for a newly-formed lo-fi band, and I called up the lead singer—she went by Ashley Wilkes, which couldn’t possibly have been her real name, but I never did find out what her real name was—and got the gig. We’d get together in our guitarist Artie’s apartment (he also worked as a taxi driver) and work through new songs—they’d strum and sing and I’d improvise a quasi-descant-back-up-singer-like- line along with them. We played in a lot of clubs in Manhattan, especially down in the Village, and at a few area colleges. I was simultaneously working in the music department of St. Patrick’s Cathedral (the really big one across the street from Rockefeller Center), which offered its own variety of music, especially when various Irish groups came over to play.
And then, of course, I’ve been teaching World Music since I was hired here at Converse almost twelve years ago. The first year I just taught two days of World Music within a different course (Introduction to Music Technology and Research, if you must know). Within a couple of years there was a World Music Component in Music History II, and finally the course you’re now taking was created and then required of all music majors. I’ve gotten to know music from all over the world through this course—not only the music from the cultures I’ve taught, but also the music from the cultures that the students have presented in class. It’s been a great ride, and one that I hope to stay on for a good long time to come.
I could go on about World Music I’ve Heard in My Favorite Restaurants or Cool Music Stores in Asheville or even Stuff Heard at the Spartanburg International Festival or World Music in Pop Music, but I’ve already hit 566 words in this Blog, and I want to leave stuff for all of you to write about!
Welcome!
Welcome to Diverse Cultures and their Music! My Blog for this class will serve a few different functions. I'll be elaborating on the Blog topics assigned in your Course Schedule, so that you have a more thorough idea of what I'm expecting of you. I'll also be attempting to write on the topics myself. And I might come up with some more uses as we go along.
A few ground rules to get us off and running. All your Blog entries must be in grammatically correct Standard English. Capitalize your "I"s and spell out Y-O-U. They don't charge by the letter here, and I'm not Vanna. There's a spellcheck that comes along with your blog--please make use of it. You might want to consider actually typing out your blog entries in Word, checking through it all, and then pasting your text into your blog. As you type, please remember that Blogs are available for everyone to see--your classmates, your professors, your Grandmother, your preacher, potential dates, and potential employers--and you should conduct your typing accordingly. Your blog entries should be between 300 and 500 words long (again, you can check this by using Word) and are due by 11:00 pm on the days they are assigned. (You can work ahead to a certain extent on some of the topics, but don't attempt to work on a topic until I've written about it here on my own blog so that you'll know more of what I'm looking for.) Oh, and email me your Blog address (mine is kmvanemanDCM09.blogspot.com) immediately upon setting up your blog. I'll post links to everyone's blog on my blog so that you can access each other's blogs easily. (Once we get started, you might find it easier to post the class's blog addresses on your own blogs.)
And here's your first Blog Topic: Your Musical Autobiography. Yes, I know most of you fell in love with your instrument/singing when you were a wee tot and have practiced diligently every single day ever since. That's not what I'm looking for. What I want to know is all the ways that you've interacted with music outside of the typical Western Art canon. Perhaps your grandmother used to the sing you songs from her native Ireland, or your third grade class visited a Cherokee reservation. Does your roomate dig all things Bollywood? Or do you really love the background music at the sushi restaurant? Think, think, think, and then type it all up. By 11:00 pm on the first day of class, Monday, January 5, please.
For your Blog Topic on Tuesday, January 6, you'll need to visit your classmates' Blogs and read their Musical Autobiographies (see, I told you other folks would see them.) You can read as many of your classmates' Blogs as you like, but, for purposes of your grade, you'll need to pick at least four of them to comment on. Each Blog Entry has a link on the bottom for Comments--click on it and then leave a few sentences for the poster. Your comments should contain valuable information beyond just "Cool!" Relate something back to the poster that especially interested you, or point them in a new direction. All comments must be in respectful language--no flaming.
You get Wednesday off from Blogging to recover. And I'll get back to this Blog in a day or two to give you more information about Thursday's Blog Topic.
Enjoy!
A few ground rules to get us off and running. All your Blog entries must be in grammatically correct Standard English. Capitalize your "I"s and spell out Y-O-U. They don't charge by the letter here, and I'm not Vanna. There's a spellcheck that comes along with your blog--please make use of it. You might want to consider actually typing out your blog entries in Word, checking through it all, and then pasting your text into your blog. As you type, please remember that Blogs are available for everyone to see--your classmates, your professors, your Grandmother, your preacher, potential dates, and potential employers--and you should conduct your typing accordingly. Your blog entries should be between 300 and 500 words long (again, you can check this by using Word) and are due by 11:00 pm on the days they are assigned. (You can work ahead to a certain extent on some of the topics, but don't attempt to work on a topic until I've written about it here on my own blog so that you'll know more of what I'm looking for.) Oh, and email me your Blog address (mine is kmvanemanDCM09.blogspot.com) immediately upon setting up your blog. I'll post links to everyone's blog on my blog so that you can access each other's blogs easily. (Once we get started, you might find it easier to post the class's blog addresses on your own blogs.)
And here's your first Blog Topic: Your Musical Autobiography. Yes, I know most of you fell in love with your instrument/singing when you were a wee tot and have practiced diligently every single day ever since. That's not what I'm looking for. What I want to know is all the ways that you've interacted with music outside of the typical Western Art canon. Perhaps your grandmother used to the sing you songs from her native Ireland, or your third grade class visited a Cherokee reservation. Does your roomate dig all things Bollywood? Or do you really love the background music at the sushi restaurant? Think, think, think, and then type it all up. By 11:00 pm on the first day of class, Monday, January 5, please.
For your Blog Topic on Tuesday, January 6, you'll need to visit your classmates' Blogs and read their Musical Autobiographies (see, I told you other folks would see them.) You can read as many of your classmates' Blogs as you like, but, for purposes of your grade, you'll need to pick at least four of them to comment on. Each Blog Entry has a link on the bottom for Comments--click on it and then leave a few sentences for the poster. Your comments should contain valuable information beyond just "Cool!" Relate something back to the poster that especially interested you, or point them in a new direction. All comments must be in respectful language--no flaming.
You get Wednesday off from Blogging to recover. And I'll get back to this Blog in a day or two to give you more information about Thursday's Blog Topic.
Enjoy!
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
