Jamboree

I must say I enjoyed the Jamboree much more then I expected. Going in i was not anticipating having that great of a time. But when I got there I was almost imediatly greated by a friend of mine (he is in the imperialism group) yelling about how potatos are wrong before being attacked by a bunch of people in paper hats brandishing duck tape weapons. Things did not stop there. I was arrested withing 5 minutes for wearing head phones (imperialism at work again) and i mangaged to break 2 other of there laws before escaping from prision. This was all very entertaining to me. Soon i began to defend our native booth, which happens to break just about every law imperialism put in place (Native dance, Native music, Native food, ect.), by removing potatos from our stand. The time I actually spent at our booth was rather tame. A few people came by and i gave them food and told them about our video and about the other groups swing dancing, but i did not end up doing to much. I had lots of fun though, siting there watching people in to cardboard ships throwing potatos at eachother in an epic battle. It was kinda funny coming back later to see how the imperalism group had their empire decline (Much like real empires). At first they were all in similar garb, jailing those who broke laws. But by the end their stuff was falling apart, they had a big mess on there hands, they were jailing there own people who were rebeling and the were stealing stuff from other groups. Everything about their little enpire was falling apart. I think i just might have been a better potrail of empires then they were going for. Well Jamboree was very entertaining to me. I had my doubts going in but i was proven wrong.

Looking toward Jamboree

As Jamboree aproches at the end of this week I just thought that I should reflect a little on what we have done. Ive made a fool of myself on camera, we have dance, played music, some of us have cooked, made listening things, and drew posters. It seems that jamboree and presentations have brought us a long way from what we were doing at the begining of the year. I can't remember the last time we discussed the book. I dont, however, see this as a bad thing. I like what we have been doing as of late, its been fun and related to the class. As most of our jamboree preperations are complete Im sure most people arent thinking to much about this class. Me, however, still have to think of the radio show. I think everything will go well. We are well prepared in my opinion.

Gospel listening.

So I went to listen to the second gospel listening today (11/19/06) one week after i listened to the other one. This time, however, the system seemed to be on the fritz. It took several minutes to load each song, sometimes would play multiple songs over eachother resluting in a chaotic mess on noise (Which the only way to remedy was to stop the song, which in turn made us have to reload the song for several minutes). All in all I would say I was there for around an hour, and only got half way through the list, spending most of my time being frusterated rather then listening intently.

From what I did hear though i got a picture that i hope is accurate. Many of the songs seemed to include one lead singer with a chorus line behind his singing lines in between his. Many times is felt kind of like call and response songs. The singers often felt like they were preaching rather then singing. Songs often had much clapping used as percussion, and the singers added rythems to the song.

All in all I was a little to frusterated with the system to do an decent job listening and writing about these songs. I hope by the time we get another listening assingment that the system is fixed.

Things to do

What a weekend. There were dance performances, jazz shows, and a 24 hour play. I managed to get myself to the Dance Performance and the 24 hour play, soory jazz show... at least i caught you last time. Anyways I would just like to say that these were both very good. The dance show had a varitety of diffecernt dances, so i liked more then others, and some that were just kind of funny (like the Pom squad...). But what im really glad I went to this weekend was the 24 hour play. All three of these short plays turned out very well, they were all funny, and they were all very good. I would like to suggest that anyone who missed these not make the same mistake next time around. The plays were very entertaining, and rather short so those of you who fear long hours in a theater dont need to worry. So i just listed three things people could have done this weekend. Don't say there is nothing to do here on the weekends.

Blog summery Nov 14

"Well in my search for recent blog posts I realized that there was not a whole lot of recent posts." -Jacknife's Jottings

The quote pretty much holds up for this week as well, with the exception that those of you who did blog almost all blogeged on the gospel music we were supposed to listen to. I actually feel like less of a slacker after looking through more then half blog pages. Its kind of ridiculous. There are people that haven't blogged in months and many others last blogs were the required ones for the folkways listenings.

Anyways, most of the blogs this week are on the gospel listening assinment. Most people took sides on whether or not they liked it, many in fact listed which ones they liked and which they did not. People also tended to make generalizations about the music, but some did things like comparing them to other forms of music. On that comes to mind was a blog was one where the author compared a song to Native American music. They talked about how the similarities and how the gosple lacked the powerful drum of the Native American Music.

There were several other blogs that were not about the gosple music. Several blogs were on various music shows that people have been to recently. I posted one on the Red Hot Chili Pepper Concert and someone else posted on the Decemberist Concert. There was also a nice blog by Jweb on the Blacks imitating Whites Piece that was posted on the main blog.

Well thats my blog summery. Hope you can get something out of this.

Red Hot Chili Peppers

So last weekend was the weekend I had been looking forward to for months. The Red Hot Chili Pepper Concert to which I had a ticket for the 15th row on the floor. The Concert blew me away, as i sang along to almost every song, including one of my favorites, I Could Have Lied, which i did not expect them to play. Needless to say it was one of the best shows ive ever seen.

After a while i got to thinking. What will future generations think of the music i am listening to now. Just as I look back on the music my parents grew up with, some good, some bad, (but thats true for all generations of music) I hear somethings that i just dont quite understand why people of the time thought they were so amazing. I mean, some of this is good, but i would not rank many older songs as my favorites. There are of chorse exceptions, but for the most part i wonder: What will people think of the music that my generation listens to? Where will musical forms go from here? Will my kids think of the red hot chili peppers as just some weird old band their father listens to? Is it a matter of what my generation grew up with as music? And what will future generations do to change the music?

These, I think, are a few interesting questions that i hope i remember in the future, say in 20 or 30 years. At that time maybe I will be able to reflect and find some awnsers to these quetions.