This was a fascinating introduction to American popular music! So much of the listening helped to provoke very interesting ideas that I would have never expected.
Take "Long John" by Lightening Washington and fellow convicts for instance. I and countless other American children have been taught about work songs being tied to African American slavery, to include imagery about heading to freedom, many times tied to religious connotations and in turn conveyed many similar aspects and sometimes probably synonymous to black spirituals as described by Starr/Waterman. The scene being depicted could be interchanged between slave and prisoner, since those two terms are so much alike in themselves, and that is what strikes me. To ignore this fact is not something I ever consciously did, but I never really connected this before at the forefront of my mind, and it immediately grabbed my interest in listening when reading the analysis in the text, partly due to the fact that the example of a work song had been done at a prison. Recording did not exist at the height of slavery, and even though sharecroppers were around after the invention of the phonograph, it seems poignant to me that this example exists to show how the style continued to thrive, with little evolution, over such a period of time.
Another point that is prominent after doing the required listening is the stark difference between recordings of the same tune. Take "Soldier's Joy" from the old time music section. The regularity of the Skillet Lickers performance (with a bass line and clearly defined sections not to mention the added vocal line) in contrast to the much more almost slurred version (due to only being one instrument) of Tommy Jarrell was more profound than I was expecting going through the listening from one to the next, despite having read the text analysis direct before listening to each one. After listening to the Skillet Lickers version I found myself envisioning an arrangement for my small woodwind group, for it's upbeat and fun, but could also be utilized in unique ways when my ensembles goes to do school performances to do educational outreach, where we are expected not only to entertain, but to provide multiple facets of musical value for the students to learn beyond just showing skill as a performer. Then there are the two versions of "La Cumparsita" where I discovered that I recognized the tune only after beginning the audio for the Fransisco Canaro instrumental version. That is the version I have grown up considering to be the tango style. It was so eye-opening to discover that the version by Carlos Gardel was so indicative of early tango performance.
I was very intrigued by hearing mariachi performance of "La Negra," which I believe would be extremely useful in the instruction of "La Fiesta Mexicana" by H.Owen Reed for concert band. The third movement "Carnival" (after a few minutes) goes directly into a similar version of the tune and in this example it would seem that the director made sure to try and get the student to implement a more authentic performance in accordance to style from the gritos (yells) that are used and heavy use of wide vibrato by the trumpets. Start at about 16:05 in the recording https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EviV1lvCTi0 to see this in action. Did he play an original version of the song for the students first? That is unknown, but if I were to get back up in front of a concert band of high school students studying this piece for performance, I believe using this original version as performed by Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitian would be extremely useful, in addition to using more realistic techniques of the study of popular music, avid listening and imitation, regardless of the fact this may not be considered popular music today.
"Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair" was revelatory simply because of its connection to the television show I Dream of Jeannie. I honestly assumed before listening to this song that the television theme would have utilized more musical elements and motives even if drastically changed to the original. After intent listening it seems as if there are a couple moments when the original may have influences the theme but only for a few extremely short arpeggiated sections where diminution was utilized in the theme. With so very little to latch onto though in terms of musical material, I might just be imagining it and looking for something that is not there. It might very well be that the only similarity is the use of the first line as the name of the show.
Of the rest of the listening: Old Time Music ("Barbary Allen"), "Coo Coo," "Stack O'lee," "Enigue Nigue," and "After the Ball," the only one that I felt more than just a superficial appreciation of was "Barbary Allen." I found it obvious how much English influence there was in the piece through the British ballad tradition, but I could readily make out through the use of dialect how it has been adapted over time. I also agree with the text in which it describes her tone as "beautiful, and haunting" though I am not sure I concur with the description of "unaffected." There are moments when I heard very subtle slight distortions in her tone. This is not a bad thing however, I found it to be quite necessary in order to comply to the quintessential American style that she (and others) had adapted the song to.
If all the upcoming weeks of this class contain such interesting content in both the reading and the listening, this should prove to be a very interesting, fun, and enlightening course!
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