I've decided to "add" to my blog summary, so here it goes...
The Little Rabbit also talked about how the radio show went, and I thought he made some good points. I agree with him that it would have been nice if more people had come from our class, even if just to eat pizza, listen to the show, and give a few suggestions. It seemed like some parts of our Jamboree included the whole group, and some people just ignored the other parts. I guess that happens sometimes.
I appreciated Nic's blog about smoking on his personal blog. It's really sad to hear about his dad's cancer, and people should think about the outcomes of their actions when they hear stories like that. It's hard enough for people to talk about their personal lives, so when they do, just listen! And think about what they say.
Megan discussed jamboree for awhile... she seem's to have been more outgiong at jamboree than many of us, and she also seems to have liked it better than many of us. Hmmm... could there be a conection??? She also talked about the fantastic music at the carol concert. I even found a compliment on a solo I played beforehand ;) And I must agree the the choir portion was amazing.
Lindsey had an entertaining discussion summary about our conversations (or lack thereof) regarding jamboree. It sure would be nice if everyone talked more...
Kelsey Jo had a pretty complete idea for a current events FYS, and it seemed like a good plan to me! I especially liked her ideas about learning how to distinguish real news to propoganda and talking to a real reporter. A current events class would be really good for all of us, since it's hard to make time for reading newspapers and such with homework and all, and it would be a good habit to get into.
Brady blogged about the swing dancing at jamboree, and it was interesting to hear how the live band was the biggest success of the show. Yay swing dancing!
Well, other than a lot of last minute discussion and blog summaries, that's all there was this week!
Adiós!
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Blog Summary
Yay! Blog summary time...
There were some pretty random blogs this week, which was fun.
jweb talked about Bob Dylan's song from the podcasts in relation to the war in Iraq, making an excellent point about how it's much easier to say the war is a good idea from over here. It's nice when people connect our class to the outside world.... makes it more meaningful and such.
kat discussed the glory of MPR, and culture jammer talked about how unpleasant music can become when it is blasted through the wall from the wall next to you. The little rabbit made excuses for not attending the jazz dance, and dooner talked about the sad story of his hs band director's 2-y-o son's death, and the inappropriateness of the phrase RIP.
Other than this, there have been a few blogs about our class discussions about jamboree and FYS in general. Most seem to support the idea of making FYS more current events-based, with several different ideas about how best to do that.
That's about all, enjoy your day :)
There were some pretty random blogs this week, which was fun.
jweb talked about Bob Dylan's song from the podcasts in relation to the war in Iraq, making an excellent point about how it's much easier to say the war is a good idea from over here. It's nice when people connect our class to the outside world.... makes it more meaningful and such.
kat discussed the glory of MPR, and culture jammer talked about how unpleasant music can become when it is blasted through the wall from the wall next to you. The little rabbit made excuses for not attending the jazz dance, and dooner talked about the sad story of his hs band director's 2-y-o son's death, and the inappropriateness of the phrase RIP.
Other than this, there have been a few blogs about our class discussions about jamboree and FYS in general. Most seem to support the idea of making FYS more current events-based, with several different ideas about how best to do that.
That's about all, enjoy your day :)
Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Gospel Playlist Part 1
I really actually enjoyed this play list, much more than the other ones! I expected I'd like it, because the gospel music is what I've really been looking forward to in this class. I'd heard a little before, and liked the style, but now I just like it more! Some of the songs I particularily enjoyed were "Prayer of the Doomed", "Blind Barnabus", "Present Joys" and "You've Got to Move". I have some thoughts on specific songs from the playlist.
"Move On Up A Little Higher"- I love Mahalia's voice! However, it was a little hard to understand the words. I also really liked the piano. She used many repeats of meaning, but I thought they were really effective. Sometimes, she repeated with the same words, but always increased in intensity. Other times, she repeated meaning, but with different religious symbols.
"You Must Be Born Again"- I had a hard time with the sermons. I tried to focus more on the interaction between the preacher and the congregation, but I really didn't agree with what he said, so that made it harder for me to take it seriously. Maybe that makes me a bad person... oh well. I did notice from the interaction I was able to focus on, that it sort of creates a melody.
"Prayer of the Doomed"- I love the sound of the large group singing, and the style of the lead singers with people singing behind them. The low, low vioces were awesome, and the analogies were really pretty. Unlike some of the music we've listened ot so far, I could really hear the emotion behind the words.
"Blind Barnabus"- I really liked the happy, catchy tune. I wonder if this is a way they passed down Bible stories- since they are telling a story, and it is such a fun song to listen to?
"Present Joys"- My first reaction was that it sounded like "Little April Showers"- the rain song from Bambi. It was just a neat song- all the different parts fit together in a unique way.
You've Got to Move"- This sounded like a dancing song. That made me wonder if it possibly had a dual meaning... like 1) you have to move cause this music makes it impossible not to, and 2) you have to move... for a more religious/ spiritual reason.
Yay good music!
"Move On Up A Little Higher"- I love Mahalia's voice! However, it was a little hard to understand the words. I also really liked the piano. She used many repeats of meaning, but I thought they were really effective. Sometimes, she repeated with the same words, but always increased in intensity. Other times, she repeated meaning, but with different religious symbols.
"You Must Be Born Again"- I had a hard time with the sermons. I tried to focus more on the interaction between the preacher and the congregation, but I really didn't agree with what he said, so that made it harder for me to take it seriously. Maybe that makes me a bad person... oh well. I did notice from the interaction I was able to focus on, that it sort of creates a melody.
"Prayer of the Doomed"- I love the sound of the large group singing, and the style of the lead singers with people singing behind them. The low, low vioces were awesome, and the analogies were really pretty. Unlike some of the music we've listened ot so far, I could really hear the emotion behind the words.
"Blind Barnabus"- I really liked the happy, catchy tune. I wonder if this is a way they passed down Bible stories- since they are telling a story, and it is such a fun song to listen to?
"Present Joys"- My first reaction was that it sounded like "Little April Showers"- the rain song from Bambi. It was just a neat song- all the different parts fit together in a unique way.
You've Got to Move"- This sounded like a dancing song. That made me wonder if it possibly had a dual meaning... like 1) you have to move cause this music makes it impossible not to, and 2) you have to move... for a more religious/ spiritual reason.
Yay good music!
Discussion Summary
I know there was alread a discussion summary for last week, but it's acually my turn so I'm going to do one anyway! :) On Tuesday, we listened to a cool presentation about that African singing group, which I really enjoyed. I thought the DVD of them sining in that church was especially cool, cause it was more authentic than I'm used to. Then we started with the junk band which was a little scary for some of us who like to read music, rather than just make it up. Thanks to Tyler and Joe, though, it started to go somewhere. We did the junk band again on Thursday, and it started out really well. I think everyone was more confidant, or at least I was. Then the cameras started rolling... and it got a little awkward. No one really wanted to look at the camera, but there was really no where else to look. I bet we look like a pretty stoic junk band. Oh well!
Friday, November 03, 2006
Jamboree Questions
So I'm supposed to work on organizing the line dancing section of our video, so I'd like to get some ideas of what you guys want from that. On the video, would you just like to see a short snipit of our class line dancing, if so would you like lots of time to re-learn it and practice, or just go for the humorous side of what you can do now (no offense). Or would you like it to show you actually being taught to line dance. Or do you have other ideas???
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Episode 5
So I finally got Episode 5 to download on my computer, but it took long enough! I think one of the best quotes in the episode was said right away. Harry Smith said "I would like to see more of you studying the beauty of nature around you." This fits with our class, because a lot of times this kind of relaxed looking around contributes to music. However, I think it fits better with the entire college setting, because often we get so wrapped up un our classes, we forget to just be amazed by the world and decide to learn things about it on our own.
When they talked about the "genuine anguish" expressed in the song "Penny's Farm", because I didn't hear that genuine anguish... I thought it sounded more like someone discussing the difficulties of life that they'd accepted.
In the Cajun Fox Trot, I liked the tune, and wondered what it would sound like on a different instrument... maybe like something we are more used to. I was also struck by the singer's apparant lack of pitch.... or is it supposed to sound like that?
I thought it was interesting how they talked about Harry Smith having too common of a name to become known early in his career-- I guess I never actually considered that a person's name could determine so much.
For awhile it was interesting to hear about how he was heavily into drugs and alcohol, and how he was basically crazy. But the "Harry" stories got overdone... just one or two would have gotten the picture across just fine.
I liked the sound of the Hawaiian Guitar in the song from sounthern Alabama, but it bothered me how the voices didn't match very well. They sang slightly different rhythms, and although they both used slides between notes, they did that at different times.
When they talked about him teaching Epistomology, I really really wanted to sit in on a class of this subject sometime. I think it'd be very interesting.
When they talked about the "genuine anguish" expressed in the song "Penny's Farm", because I didn't hear that genuine anguish... I thought it sounded more like someone discussing the difficulties of life that they'd accepted.
In the Cajun Fox Trot, I liked the tune, and wondered what it would sound like on a different instrument... maybe like something we are more used to. I was also struck by the singer's apparant lack of pitch.... or is it supposed to sound like that?
I thought it was interesting how they talked about Harry Smith having too common of a name to become known early in his career-- I guess I never actually considered that a person's name could determine so much.
For awhile it was interesting to hear about how he was heavily into drugs and alcohol, and how he was basically crazy. But the "Harry" stories got overdone... just one or two would have gotten the picture across just fine.
I liked the sound of the Hawaiian Guitar in the song from sounthern Alabama, but it bothered me how the voices didn't match very well. They sang slightly different rhythms, and although they both used slides between notes, they did that at different times.
When they talked about him teaching Epistomology, I really really wanted to sit in on a class of this subject sometime. I think it'd be very interesting.
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Line Dancing
So... line dancing. I kinda (really) have a big fear of performing... so I was really nervous (haha like you couldn't tell). But so yeah... thanks to all who participated and at least pretended to be interested--otherwise I would have felt even more dumb. But it was interesting to learn about the dance that accompanied the music that we've been studying, because a lot of times, the dance was the reason for the music. Bascially, I'm just glad it's done.
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