Well I feel that I should blog about something that is more closely related to the class than my previous posts, so I would like to share a few thoughts on Chapter 3 of our good old blues book.
Much of the chapter seems to be focused on how blues records effected other artists and helped to make many of the Delta blues musicians what they became. But blues appered on its own before these records. The apperance of the record allowed other artists to listen to a song over and over again, thus being able to learn it. Learning it was one thing, but each artist seemed to chance the songs they learned to make them their own, much more so than what is practiced now in the current music scean. Now people must get permission from another artist before they can play a song of theirs on a CD. I see this as limiting the ways at which artists can express themselves, taking a song they enjoy and making it there own.
All throughout the Delta musicians learned from one another and played eachothers songs and its what lead to such great stuff coming out of the Delta. There were reconizable tunes coming out that people could experiment with changing in any number of ways. Each artist barrowed from another, and some people it the future barrowed from them. I believe it to be of great importance on the emergance of blues in the Delta.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
What i am gonna do...
Well I have a bit of time before I have to preform, my date being in late october, but I am supposed to post about what I may be doing now.
So here I go, its still a long way off and I am still quite unsure as to what I would like to do. I am learning the guitar, and if I get good enought by then I would like to play something, but its probally going to be to soon. Other then that I was thinking about making some sort of video. Maybe like that thing the people did the other year where they went around recording people around dorms. We will see.
So here I go, its still a long way off and I am still quite unsure as to what I would like to do. I am learning the guitar, and if I get good enought by then I would like to play something, but its probally going to be to soon. Other then that I was thinking about making some sort of video. Maybe like that thing the people did the other year where they went around recording people around dorms. We will see.
It has come to my attention...
That certain people posted on their respective blogs that we were being "too Critical" of the govener after her speech. I would like to say that I do not believe that we should consider the way were were talking to be overly critical, because she is a politician. It is our duty as voters to hold our politicians to high standerds or else we will end up with an out of control government that does not represent the views of the people. I mean just look at our government right now. No one is holding anyone responsible and everything is getting out of hand.
Monday, September 25, 2006
Song Choice
The Song I would like to do is "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" by Charlie Daniels.
Thats all she wrote.
Thats all she wrote.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
My Second blog
Since I've come to morris I have done several things. The first is watch a lot of movies. The second is go to several music shows. Since I have come to morris I have seen the local band, Rictus (if I spelled it wrong I'm sorry), I went to the rap show to see The Crest Kansur and the MeandYouCrew, I went on a random roadtrip to marshall minnesota to see Motion City Soundtrack, and I saw a guitarist who I can't remember the name of at the coffee shop here in morris. This summer I saw several groups, but since I have come to college my shows per week is way up. At the same time however I am playing less music. I decided to pick up the guitar and am currently taking lessons, but I used to be in a band with my friends. We spent the summer in my friend's basement playing around on guitars, me on the bass or drums. It was a lot of fun. I would go so far as to say that the thing I miss the most about the cities would be playing music with my friends. I thought that I would reflect on my musical experiances since I've been here. Some of it has been good, some has been bad, and I'm sure I'm going to experiance much more while I'm here.
Summery of the Week
Disclaimer:
To begin I would like to let everyone know that may be reading this that I am a horrific speller. So be aware that there most likely will be many errors in what I say. This blog is a summery of what we talked about in class, written from the notes I took there. I would also like to say that I believe Mr. McPhee chose me to do this first week because I was late to class that day. I don't really believe what I just said but lets pretend I do.
Anyways on to the summery for the week of september 11th through the 15th.
Day 1: I was doing homework when I looked at the clock and realized that it was 3:05 rather then 2:05 like I had thought. Realizing I was 5 minutes late I grabbed my stuff and ran over to the science building arriving 7 minutes late. When I arrived Mr McPhee was in the middle of explaining what I am doing right now, the weekly summery. Oddly enough I was the person chose (at random he says) to do the first weeks notes. After saying that he chose me because I was late I took out my notebook and began to take notes.
The class began with many questions about our blogs. Most of the people in my class did not know what we should write about, and Mr McPhee attempted to remedy this. (I don't quite remember everyones name yet so please bare with me not mentioning and specific students) After some discussion we his on the fact that your blogs can be on all sorts of things, but if now and then you are able to link it to the class that would be best. Blogs are supposed to be you writting about what interests you (or complaining about what annoys you) so you can do it on any number of things. For this class, however, we should try now and then to hit on somthing relavent to the class. For this we can discuss what we thing of chapters in the book, music concerts you go to, or really any idea that comes up in class that you would like to list your thoughts on.
From there we went on to spend the rest of the hour discussing our performances. People did not know what exactly we were supposed to do, I myself am still unsure as to what I will be doing, maybe if I learn enough guitar by that time I will play something, but you never know what will happen. Anyways, we can do our projects on anything that you can relate to class, but you must be able to respond to questions about it. Music, art, videos, if you can relate it to class you can do it. Mr McPhee also offered to perform for us in a multitude of ways, including: Singing, Acordian, Drums, and Harmonicas.
Finally on the first day we were told that Open mic night will be thursday the 21st in Oyate for anyone who is interested.
By the way, I'm sorry if Im being long winded.
Day 2: I was not late this time.
Class began with a little discussion about what good things have happend to us so far in college, but it quickly moved on to a question someone had raised a few days before; Why were there so many musicians with blind in their names? Our class discussed this and I will now go through much of what we said as quick as I can. Most of the musicians with blind in there name were actually blind (there were a few impersonaters). But why were there so many blind musicians at this time? Our answer was that at the time there was little blind people could do, and it is said that the blind develope better sences of hearing. Music was a resonalbe option for these people and could allow them to get by. From there we briefly talked about a armless guitar player...
From there we talked about what Mr McPhee had been wanting us to talk about: why was the poetry reading metioned at the begining of Deep Blues? There where many ideas put forth and I will do my best to report on them. What this section is showing is the differences in culture between the Blacks and the Whites of the time. While white (middle class and the rich mostly) people listend to poetry and folk balleds the black of the time were creating there own poetry inside of blues music. Blues held influences from the African American culture brought over with them from Africa. Africa had very differnet music then then Europe, so it is no suprise that African American music went in a differnet direction from what Whites were doing at that time.
There was a visable cultural seperation between the two groups. Whites that socialized with blacks were rare. When Lomax (that recording guy) was going onto plantations to record black music he was nearly arrested for not getting permission from the plantation owner to talk to them. Times had it so that if blacks and whites talked to eachother, and somthing was seen as in appropriate, blacks were liable to get hurt or killed.
This section speaks to the improtance of poetry, and music being a powerful form of poetry. Blues is evendice of a culture mostly ignored for quite a long time. The fact that Cagen and black culture was mostly ignored shows a tendency to ignore or downplay the importance of other peoples cultures.
That about sums up what we discussed in class this week. Im sorry if i wrote a lot.
To begin I would like to let everyone know that may be reading this that I am a horrific speller. So be aware that there most likely will be many errors in what I say. This blog is a summery of what we talked about in class, written from the notes I took there. I would also like to say that I believe Mr. McPhee chose me to do this first week because I was late to class that day. I don't really believe what I just said but lets pretend I do.
Anyways on to the summery for the week of september 11th through the 15th.
Day 1: I was doing homework when I looked at the clock and realized that it was 3:05 rather then 2:05 like I had thought. Realizing I was 5 minutes late I grabbed my stuff and ran over to the science building arriving 7 minutes late. When I arrived Mr McPhee was in the middle of explaining what I am doing right now, the weekly summery. Oddly enough I was the person chose (at random he says) to do the first weeks notes. After saying that he chose me because I was late I took out my notebook and began to take notes.
The class began with many questions about our blogs. Most of the people in my class did not know what we should write about, and Mr McPhee attempted to remedy this. (I don't quite remember everyones name yet so please bare with me not mentioning and specific students) After some discussion we his on the fact that your blogs can be on all sorts of things, but if now and then you are able to link it to the class that would be best. Blogs are supposed to be you writting about what interests you (or complaining about what annoys you) so you can do it on any number of things. For this class, however, we should try now and then to hit on somthing relavent to the class. For this we can discuss what we thing of chapters in the book, music concerts you go to, or really any idea that comes up in class that you would like to list your thoughts on.
From there we went on to spend the rest of the hour discussing our performances. People did not know what exactly we were supposed to do, I myself am still unsure as to what I will be doing, maybe if I learn enough guitar by that time I will play something, but you never know what will happen. Anyways, we can do our projects on anything that you can relate to class, but you must be able to respond to questions about it. Music, art, videos, if you can relate it to class you can do it. Mr McPhee also offered to perform for us in a multitude of ways, including: Singing, Acordian, Drums, and Harmonicas.
Finally on the first day we were told that Open mic night will be thursday the 21st in Oyate for anyone who is interested.
By the way, I'm sorry if Im being long winded.
Day 2: I was not late this time.
Class began with a little discussion about what good things have happend to us so far in college, but it quickly moved on to a question someone had raised a few days before; Why were there so many musicians with blind in their names? Our class discussed this and I will now go through much of what we said as quick as I can. Most of the musicians with blind in there name were actually blind (there were a few impersonaters). But why were there so many blind musicians at this time? Our answer was that at the time there was little blind people could do, and it is said that the blind develope better sences of hearing. Music was a resonalbe option for these people and could allow them to get by. From there we briefly talked about a armless guitar player...
From there we talked about what Mr McPhee had been wanting us to talk about: why was the poetry reading metioned at the begining of Deep Blues? There where many ideas put forth and I will do my best to report on them. What this section is showing is the differences in culture between the Blacks and the Whites of the time. While white (middle class and the rich mostly) people listend to poetry and folk balleds the black of the time were creating there own poetry inside of blues music. Blues held influences from the African American culture brought over with them from Africa. Africa had very differnet music then then Europe, so it is no suprise that African American music went in a differnet direction from what Whites were doing at that time.
There was a visable cultural seperation between the two groups. Whites that socialized with blacks were rare. When Lomax (that recording guy) was going onto plantations to record black music he was nearly arrested for not getting permission from the plantation owner to talk to them. Times had it so that if blacks and whites talked to eachother, and somthing was seen as in appropriate, blacks were liable to get hurt or killed.
This section speaks to the improtance of poetry, and music being a powerful form of poetry. Blues is evendice of a culture mostly ignored for quite a long time. The fact that Cagen and black culture was mostly ignored shows a tendency to ignore or downplay the importance of other peoples cultures.
That about sums up what we discussed in class this week. Im sorry if i wrote a lot.
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