MUHI102 001 FL-Mr. Gregory Lawrence Becker (PQZN)

In order to write Blues lyrics, you have to have the write style and mind set so the lyrics match the musical style. The first thing you must achieve is getting some depth in your lyrics. Blues sing about some meaningful stuff, you should do the same. But you can't bedirect about want your trying to say, the use of metaphors and symbolism is a good idea to use. The use of these literary terms will make the listener interpret what your trying to say instead of just putting it right out there.

The mood of your song/lyrics should be sad or tragic. The lyrics should pertain to something that you, personally have experienced. Something that makes you sad. The lyrics should also be in the present tense, as in the bad times are happening to you right now. Also, the use the term "I" should be put into use, sense it will be a song about you.

The lyrics should start bad, keep up with the bad, and end with the bad. No resolve should be attempted. It's blues, not a very happy thing.

Well, at first I saw the authors as being from the south. Their first remarks towards African-Americans seemed to be hinted with racism. The constant word of the word "negroes" and "barbaric" made me think that they didn't accept African-Americans. But, after reading through the whole introduction I came to the conclusion that during that time period, the use of these terms referencing towards African-Americans are somewhat accepted as a proper way of addressing them.

The authors view on the music however was from the get go met with enthusiasm and interest. The detail they went into in order properly catagorize and organized the "Slave Songs" was astonishing. At the very end of the introduction the last thing that is said is ".... the Editors submit it, nevertheless, to the public judgment, in the belief that it wil be pronounced deserving of even greater pains and of  permanent preservation." This request show that they know the importance of preserving this cultural/musical time period in American history. Because it was a such a profound movement in expression and musicality, something that this country had of it's own.

As for how the authors want to readers to percieve African-Americans... They want the reader to see past all the preset  characteristics of a "slave" to be, in some ways, wiped away by showing that through all the pain and misery that slaves had to endure, they were not  culturally or spiritually defeated. A good message to be sent during this time period, African-Americans are human too.

I think that the character of Edna is able to seperate herself from the role of the "mother-woman" by having a mind of her own. Back in the time period that this story takes place in, women were characterized as being more or less an extension of their husbands. The husband is the one the made all the decisions in their wife's life which was socially excepted in that time period.

In the case of Edna, she begins to question this setting that she supposedly was in some way forced into which causes her mind to find herself as a human being. These questions find answers with in simple everyday experiences such as the sights and sounds of the ocean and the listening of her friend Mandamoiselle Reisz play the piano. These experiences cause an awakening inside of Edna that begin to bring out her individuality. This individuality is also represented in the story through her art work, as the story goes on, and Edna seems to become more and more aware of herself, her art strarts to represent this awakening.

The love that she develops for Robert is also a representation of her new lease on life. she found a man that truly made her happy. That stirred a passion in her that she never felt before. So, she held on to that. This also seemed to be a main catalyst in her changing.

Hi, my name is Greg Becker. I am a Sophomore Music Ed. student. But, I am actually at Junior standing... didn't make it my first audition. I am from Pittsburgh from the borough of Castle Shannon where I went to Keystone Oaks High School. My favorite thing outside of music is hockey. I love to play, watch, and talk about it.... by the way, Go Pens! Thats a little bit of me in a nut shell, looking forward to meeting all of you.  P.s. Sorry for the delay.

My favorite section of the Blood Wedding ballet video is the section where the bride is dancing solo accompanied by the flamenco band. I like this section both for its musical and dance characteristics.

The first thing that jumped out at me is how intense the bride dances. Almost every movement that she makes is accentuated by these loud stomps of the heels of her shoes. This gives the section a percussive element that goes along with the varied acellarandos and rallentandos that the section has. It also deffinitively places the end of phrases with loud, marcato like stomps that place a period at the end of the musical sentence.

As for the music, it has this nice flow between slow, stretched out sections to these dramatic, rampid paced sections that just cause the music to flay by and demonstrated the emotions that are being felt by the bride. I'm currently playing a solo work for marimba called Predludio in E minor (by Ney Rosauro) that has this same idea involved within it. It has a middle section witch is suppose represent this ripping flamenco guitarists just demonstrating all the drama that can possibly be conjured up. It is so much faster than other sections of the music that it just jumps off the page, like these guitars do during this scene with the levels of emotion changing within the bride.

As for a correlation to the music through out the ballet, something that really stands out to me, seeing how all of the important dialogue in the video is done through dance, is the music. It really, at some points of the video, describes what emotions are to be seen through the dance. At some times it seems to dictate how the dance should be instead of it complimenting the dance.

Violence, Desire, and the Unconscious: Act 3 Scene 1 page 86- Bride: "With your teeth, with your hands, away you can, take from my clean throat the metal of this chain, and let me live forgotten back there in my house in the ground. And if you do't want to kill me as you would kill a tiny snake, set in my hands a bride's hands the barrel of you shotgun. Oh, what lamenting, what fire, sweeps upward through my head! What glass splinters are stuck in my tongue!"

The bride wants the character of Leonardo to forcefully and violently free here from this turmoil that she is living with. She has a desire to die in order to just take away the decisions of life and allow herself to finally be free of these hypothetical chains that are around her neck. She is so hell struck with being absolved from this turmoil that she is willing to take her own life in order to not deal with it any longer.

It could also be said of this passage that becoming unconcsious to the matter is a goal of the bride's. She wants to be forgotten, although she is referencing more towards death as a solution. But by being unconscious she is free.

The most obivious pro of discovering new music that is outside the borders of familiar music is that it expands your taste/ear for different genres and styles. By doing this, it allows our musical minds to adapt and be more active. This is especially a good thing for music majors to participate in because it expands the knowledge that we already have. This knowledge then can be used later on in order to create unique musical compositions and arrangements that will have all sorts of styles incorporated into it.

Now as for people that just stay focus on one type of music, there is nothing wrong with that. If someone can listen to nothing but metal all day thats fine. But, being someone that does listen to metal, its great whenever The Afro-Cuban All-stars pop up in a shuffle.

The authorship of a piece is something that is of great importance in some ways and in other ways not so much. One thing about knowing who the author is can be attributed to how that particular author writes pieces, such as style, and personality that is given to the piece that a listener/reader could be aware of if he or she knew who the author was. Theses characteristics could then be interpreted more accurately because of know what to look for.

But at the same time, not knowing who the author was can make this mysterious scenario that we as listeners have deeply engulf ourselves into the piece in order to not miss a single detail. So in some way the ambiguity of the author can create a greater learning experience to the listener.

As for the edits that early performers may have made to a piece is something that I think would also have a double edged sword. On one hand the listener loses the original affect that the original author meant to portray. This could ultimately cause a confusion within the music as to how the music and lyrics are meant to corrolate with one another. But on the other hand its just like today's musicians taking ideas from other musicians in order to expand their musical pallets by combining their ideas with another's.

Language in its own right is a form of music. It has this flow and tempo about that is projected by the already melodic tones that the human voice produces. The words that are in language call for a certain tempo/musicality of sorts. This can range from something that happy and upbeat to something that is sad and mono-tone. To obtain this in writing would be a difficult task in order to reproduce the original idea of how a certain text should be recited. Multiple factors would need to be put into play such as fonts and bolded letters, proper punctuations and phrasings. But this is partially the beauty of the particular reader, it has unlimited possibilities of interpretation.

Something I found interesting was in Esra Pound's poem Cantico Del Sole. The repitition of the line "The thought of what America" is met by this almost mono-tone hopelessness like this America of sorts is non-obtainable. As if it will and does not exist. But then as he goes on saying "The thought of what America would be like if the classics had a wide circulation." This has this rise in pitch that seems to signify what the hope is and where is actually lies. But then it is once again met by hopelessness.