MUHI102 002 FL-Mr. Kevin D. Woods (CJMP)

What makes blues is a interesting question. I love the musical style of blues music and I love the way that the music is delivered. Blues music is a feeling and a way to express yourself. The usual blues song usually is telling the audience a story about a hardship or a struggle in life. Even though those things are negative, in Blues music it seems to always show a silver lining in the problem, even thought the problem isnt solved, it has a way of expressing it that its life and i have to deal with it. The musical aspect of blues always has a certain pattern to follow. The piano playing has a pattern of chords and are strictly played in that pattern. The singer usually starts the song with a sign of beginning something or starting something. "I woke up this morning...." this is used alot in blues to show that it is the beginning of the story and the singer is going to finish off the hardships or experiences that they faced that day. I love the culture of blues music. It has a rich African American jazz feel and is the inspiration for most R&B music of today.

I beleive that the publishing of these slave sprituals is a big step in the time that they were published. The fact that slavery was going on and during the civil war these northern abolitionist believed that these songs were imapactful and meant something to African Americans. Being a African American, I have never heard these songs or knew that the exsisted. I was always taught about the Negro Spirituals, such as Amazing Grace, and Go Down Moses etc. These songs were sung during slavery as codes for people. Being taught about these songs showed that there were more musical background in the life of slaves.

"The muical capacity of the negro race has been recognized for so many years that it is hard to explain why no systematic effort has hitherto been made to collect and preserve their melodies,". This line from the text shows that these northern abolitionist really wanted to publish their works. They show in this quote that the music and culture of the slaves was very interesting to them and they wanted to learn and express how this great music was not preserved and collected. This was a big step for the African American race becasue it showed that even in times of hardships and in the trauma of slavery, great music still prevailed.

Music translation is a very hard to decern in different aspects. In poems and narrative works it is easier to translate what the writer is trying to get out, but in music people hear things differently and take it as their own. I believe that reading outloud makes the translation of poetry and narrative works easier to translate because you can hear it and try to figure out the emotions in the piece that the author is trying to express. The sound patterns in the different pieces also help with the translation of the piece. It would be hard to actually translate the poem the exact way that the author intended to, but you can try to hear it yourself to help with the sounds. In poetry using the sound patterns help because if there is rhyming in the piece it gives you a rhythm and meter for the piece. I believe the translation is hard and would be different from person to person.

Father-That one's looking for trouble. He's not of good blood. Mother-What blood would you expect him to have? His whole family's blood. It comes down from his great grandfather, who started in killing, and it goes on down through the whole evil breed of knife wielding and false smiling men. This converasation in the play "Blood Wedding" actually tocuhes on two of the topics. This passage speaks on gender roles, macalinity and femininity and also the topic of inheritance. In today's society people say all the time that traits and characteristics of people come from their parents or family through generations. In this passage the mother is tell the father that the trait of killing and agressivness has travled down the line to her son. This shows that even in diffrent cultures they have the same values as we do. People call that process generational curses or generational benefits. Some things that we have inherited from our parents and ancestors are hard to let go of because it is apart of who we are. Also later in the passage the father talks about their son having children, and how the father would like many sons, for hardwork, and some daughters to stay inside. This was also a passage that depicted the sterotypes of women and men. That men work, and do the hard "manly" things and women stay in the home and have children.

My favorite section of the Blood Wedding ballet video is the party song, "Ay Sombrero". I like how at first all of the wedding guest ae dancing together and the band is also playing and singing at the same time also. They also start with everyone dancing together and then they like branch of to let the bride and groom have their "first dance" together. Even though in this part of the video there is no talking, through the guests body language and their faces you can tell that they are having a great time. I also like when the bride tells the groom that she was tired or that she needed rest and then the Groom starts to dance with the mother of the bride, which is very common in most weddings. In watching this it also opened my eyes to see that all cultures have simaliar values and traditions when it comes to celebrations and weddings. The guitar struming was very intense and the music was faster than other parts in the video. The part that really got my attention was when Leonardo's wife realized that the Bride had left and her husband wasn't there either, and she was suspicious. She like stopped the whole party just by going into the center of the group dancing and changing the style and the mood of the dance, as to say "Stop!!! Where's my husband". It was also amusing when the mother of the groom gave her son back the knife that she had taken, as if she was saying "Son, I realize now that there is a time for you to use this, and for her to interuppt this gathering blood has to be shed". At first I thought I wouldn't enjoy this play because i thought that it would be weird without speaking, but it shows that dance, music and body expressions are all different types of languages.

I believe that there are many different pros and cons in discovering and listening to foreign music. I truly believe that music is a universal language, and personally I like coming in contact with different types and genres of music. Recently I have been introduced to Christian Rock music, which at first I was very skeptical because I mainly listen to Jazz, Gospel and Hip Hop/R&B music. A few pros to listening to foreign music is that you become aware of the different ways that music is expressed around the globe. At first just listening can be a struggle because it may be in a different language or something your not used to. If you become to think outside of the box and if you love music you will enjoy South African Gospel as much as you love music that you are worst to. The cons might be that you cannot find translation and cannot understand what the music is. I have also been listening to a cd with South African gospel music translated into english, and I love the instrumentation and the words because they have the same messages that we have as musicians. I think you should explore in music and never just keep yourself in a box, with the music that you only like.

I think that collective or anonymous authorship of a piece effects our relationship to the piece as an audience. When there is one thought process or one author of the piece, you will only get that authors viewpoint on the subject. If the piece is collectively brought together it shows that different people came together with the same ideas or opinions. It makes it more easy for us as the readers to interpret the piece because its coming from more than one person, rather than coming from one author. The performers would edit the text and I think that was to make the piece more of their own. When I play a piece, musically I cannot change anything but the style and the musicality i choose to use is up to me, and I believe thats what they did.

 

Hi I'm Kevin Woods and I am from Philadelphia. I am currently a IUP Junior but a Soph in the School of Music. I am a Music Education major and i am in the IUP Trumpet Studio. I love Jazz and The Philadelphia Eagles. I currently play for recording artist Prayz1 and have been working on horn parts for differnt artist in Philly and the surrounding area. I am excited to be back and this will be a great semester.