Keep your thinking caps on at Jamboree tomorrow

Remember that everyone should spend some time tomorrow going through Jamboree checking out everyone else's stuff. Just as you want people to come by and check out the work you've done, you need to give them the same courtesy. You might want to take some notes, as I'd like to discuss Jamboree some when we meet again next Tuesday. Questions might include:

• What was the general participation like? Did people interact much? What kinds of interactions did they have? Were those interactions mostly superficial, or have some thoughtful content?
• What did the whole set of booths say about human diversity (ostensibly the theme of FYS)?
• What were some booths that you thought were particularly successful in raising important issues or conveying important ideas?
• To what degree does Jamboree (in conjunction with the opening convocation and the common theme) succeed (or not) in generating some sort of "common experience" for first year students?
• What were the strengths and weaknesses of Jamboree as social event? As a piece of academic programming?

Have fun!

Booth sign up times, etc.

In case people don't remember when they've signed up to sit at the booth, I'll post what I have on the sign-up sheet:

• Set-up tonight: Joe, Tyler, David
• 9-9:30am: Mary Beth
• 9:30-10: Dan, Joe
• 10-10:30: Jesh
• 10:30-11: Cassandra, Brady
• 11-11:30: Brandon, Ashley, Michael
• 11:30-noon: Kat, Liz, Michael
• Noon-12:30: Adrienne (and noon section is downstairs dancing)
• 12:30-1pm: Jennie L., Megan (and noon section is downstairs dancing)
• 1-1:30: Christina, Jennifer H.
• 1:30-2: Machelle, Lindsey
• 2-2:30: Kelsey, Adam, Laura
• 2:30-3: Jeff, Andrew, Keli
• Clean up (3 until done): Emily, Tyler, Kelly, and Andrew

Note that Mary Beth is alone at 9, and Jesh is alone at 10, so if anyone can stop by and help them/keep them company I'm sure they'd appreciate it. In particular, we have three people signed up for each of 11, 2, and 2:30, so if any of those nine people wanted to move that would be cool. (If you're planning on moving, could you post a comment on this post to that effect so we don't end up with all three people trying to move from the same slot.)

I came by this evening, and it looks like a computer, projector, and screen are set up, but there is no other evidence of any sort of set up. The posters are still in the classroom (as of 6:30pm), and I have no idea where the movie is so we can test it at the booth. I'm currently at home grabbing some food but will be coming back to burn Adrienne's spiffy lyrics snippets onto CD and move my boombox and headphones over there.

Also, if you're unsure/anxious about what you're supposed to do while you're at the booth, now's a good time to ask. Similarly, if you're in a group and have instructions you want everyone to be aware of while they're holding down the fort, now would be a good time to post that info here or write it up and leave it at the booth.

Video

So... Steph has put in hours and tons of work into our video for tomorrow, so I think she deserves a round of applause. We would have very little for tomorrow without all her work, so thank you Steph!

new Posts

I posted my blog summary for quite some time ago and also a post on last weekend which I spent in Georgia at a protest. check them out!

culturejammer210.blogspot.com

thanks
-Christina

Late Discussion Summary

So this is a super super late class discussion summary. If you care to travel through time and remember what happened say o about a couple weeks ago you will have to check out my blog...... kelseyjowheaton10.blogspot.com
Thanks!
Kelsey jo

Tuesday Noon Section

So class was a little on the small side today, and we wanted to let the rest of you know what we're think about for next week.

The band is hoping to meet next Monday in the HFA at 3:30 so that they can practice a little bit before the Jamboree. At practice they are also going to decide if they will be practicing Tuesday during class.

We're planning to meet in Louie's on Tuesday again so that we can practice swing actually with music this time. Nic-could you bring a CD player for us and I'll see if I can track down a couple of discs of swing music.

We need to get a list of songs together for the radio show. It'd be good if we can all bring at least two ideas for songs to class on Tuesday so that we can compile it into one list which should last for our entire show. Then we can get a copy of our list to the other section so that we can make sure there are no repeats during the FYS radio time.

Everyone have a marvelous break and enjoy Thanksgiving!

Discussion Summary (a little late)

Just put up the Discussion Summary for 11/14/06. It's a little late, I know, I apologize. Just visit my blog >>> nievebloggin’

See you in class,

David

Blog Summery

My Blog Summery is up. Go to the Little Rabbits Blog to read it.

http://thelittlezajicek.blogspot.com/

Blacks imitating whites imitating blacks imitating whites

I'm reading a strange and often incoherent book by Nick Tosches called Where dead voices gather which, for all it's jumping about and disconnected tangents, has a lot of good material in it on the minstrelsy of the 1800s and early 1900s, and their connection to the music we've been studying. In and amongst all his ramblings I just got to this great quote:

As to the true origin of the cakewalk, it is believed to have begun at about the same time as minstrelsy, around 1840, with slaves parodying the formal dances of their masters. These burlesques came to be mimicked [by whites] in minstrel shows. After the Civil War, when blacks entered minstrelsy, they assumed parts in the minstrels' cakewalk. As Terry Waldo puts it in his book This Is Ragtime: "By the time the ragtime era began in 1896, the cakewalk was being performed by blacks imitating whites who were imitating blacks who were imitating whites." I'm sure the gist of this wonderful little observation can, with not much squinting, be applied to the whole of popular culture.

Ah, what wonderful stuff. It reminds me of this excellent essay, "When wrong is right", written by Ed Ward as a companion piece to the PBS documentary on John Lennon's jukebox. In it Ward argues that one of the great strengths of the Beatles' music was that they tried to copy the American R&B they loved and failed. In failing, however, they created new combinations and opened new doors:

This is what makes artists artists: they take little bits of things from here and there and put them together in unexpected combinations that seem new and original. Some of them are pretty obvious: one of Little Richard's trademarks is the "Ooooo!" he interjects into a lot of his hit songs. Richard got it from the world of gospel, where it's a standard of Alex Bradford, among others. The Beatles grabbed this little trick for themselves, and it's all over their first recordings: girls went wild when Lennon and McCartney stepped up to a single microphone, shook their mop tops, and went "Ooooo!".

Makes me want to go off and butcher a good song or two :-).

3pm line dancing moving to Thursday

The 3pm line dancing folks have tried a zillion places and just haven't been able to find any space that we can dance in Tuesday. So we're exploring doing the dance filming on Thursday instead.

Is there anything else that we need/want to film that we could do Tuesday?

Thanks! - Nic

Let's listen to some old (time) religious music

While we're working on our Jamboree stuff, I'd like to open up another box of roots music goodies, namely gospel/religious music. There are three major reasons for heading into this:

• Most of music we've been listening to is either solo or in small groups; a lot (but not all) religious music in performed by groups, often large groups.
  
• Religious music is wonderfully eclectic in terms of styles; the set I've picked out includes blues, country, choirs, quartets, and sermons.
• (Early) religious music features a significantly higher percentage of female performers than the blues and country we've been listening to; religious music was a more socially acceptable (and safer) venue for women.

Note that religion itself is not the point of this. While it was obviously important to (many) of the people that made this music, we don't need to like or dislike, agree or disagree with the religious views, anymore than we have to agree or disagree with the views expressed in any of the other music we've listened to in order to explore and discuss it.

I've created two roughly hour long listening lists of religious music in my iTunes library, and I'd like everyone to come up to the classroom (evenings or weekends) to listen to them over the next few weeks. Let's plan on listening to the first set by next Tuesday (14 Nov), and the second by the following Tuesday (21 Nov).

The sets contain music by a lot of names that should be familiar by now (Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, Skip James, the Carter Family, Hank Williams), lots of important people that you may not be familiar with (Mahalia Jackson, Fisk Jubilee Singers, Dorothy Coates), as well as lots of really obscure people that I know little or nothing about.

This leans more to the vocal than the instrumental, and there are some amazing bits of singing (solo and group) in these sets. (I only wish I could sing like that!) There are also some remarkable sermons. African-American sermons were commonly recorded and released in the 20s and 30s, and they demonstrate some wonderful relationships between speech and music in those churches. Most of these sermon recordings are old, but there are two from the 60s from the great Long road to freedom collection. One combines a song with an excerpt from a speech by MLK (nicely illustrating the important connection between gospel music and the Civil Rights Movement), while the other is a completely creepy re-creation of a slave church service combining "Amazing grace" with a most unsettling sermon (you have been warned).

While most of the songs are old (the bulk is pre-1940), I've also included a few contemporary songs. There are three variations of "Ain't no grave", one of which is quite recent, and there's a wonderful song by Lyle Lovett that combines country song writing with gospel performance style in a great way.

As you listen to each group, pick out a song to blog about. As well as writing about your general response to and thoughts on the music, I'd like everyone to say a little about one specific song and how it relates (preferably in a substantive way) to something else we've listened to, read about, or discussed in the class.

It's great music - enjoy!

An update on the paper on the song

Once upon a time there had been (in the syllabus) some noise about a biography paper, which was then turned (by an conjurer of strange skills hard to fathom) into a paper on a specific song. The people wrote blog entries (if but mostly brief ones) on what song they would like to write upon, but the promised details never seemed to materialize, remaining but a shimmering illusion on the horizon.

Or something like that.

With my father's illness and whatnot, it is now into November, Jamboree is growing nigh, and I still haven't done my part. Something needs to be done, and whatever it is needs to be reasonably fair to you folks.

So here's what I propose: The paper becomes extra credit applicable just to the performance part of the course. Now that the performances are done, I'll try to e-mail everyone a performance grade in the next few days. While there were some really wonderful performances, many (certainly many more than I expected) weren't really performances, being instead simple variants on a high school book report that didn't display much depth or growth or courage on the part of the presenter. Many of those aren't going to get great performance grades (probably C or D).

My idea, then, is for the paper to be an opportunity for everyone (but especially people who aren't happy with their performance grade) to beef it up; people who are happy with their performance grade can skip the paper and move on with other parts of their lives. For people who turn in a paper, I'll mark them on a 30 point scale, and then add those points to your performance grade (capping the sum at 100 points).

For people who wish to do a paper, you want to move past the basic details of the song you're writing about. It's good (important even) to know who wrote it and when it was recorded, etc., but that's the start and not the end. Why is the song or performance important? How does it speak to us and what does it tell us? Where does it fit in the narrative begun in our readings? Frankly, why would anyone give a damn? I'm not looking for a huge long beast, so don't just ramble on in the hopes that you stumble across something; figure out what you have to say that's important, and say it clearly and concisely. If you're struggling, run ideas past me or other folks in the class.

These won't be due until a week after Jamboree (Thursday, 7 Dec), but if you turn something in earlier I'll try to give you some early feedback on it so you have a chance to revise it if you wish.

Swing band - Do we need a new song?

The noon section swing band definitely made a lot of progress on "Haunted ballroom" yesterday, but I'm wondering if we might be better off choosing a different song. The chord changes in that song are really pretty complex, and it's not obvious that we're going to get up to a speed that people are going to be able to dance to. Brandon had several big books of songs - is there something there that we might be get up to speed on faster? Anyone else have a suggestion?

discussion summary

This is my discussion summary. I hope you enjoy it (that is if you actually read it..) http://greenstar419.blogspot.com/2006/11/discussion-summary.html

I've copied the music for the Noon folks

I've made a bunch of copies of the song ("Haunted ballroom") that the noon group is going to try to square dance to. They're hanging on the corkboard in the classroom, ready for you to swing by (hoo, hoo, hoo) and pick one up. (Feel free to ignore this if you're in the 3pm section or otherwise don't have a clue what I'm talking about.)

Tyler posted his discussion summary

Tyler posted his discussion summary and asked me to post the link for him. Go check it out: http://tylerisprobablythecoolestguyalive.blogspot.com/