A couple things I want to mention before I begin talking about our classes: I was record shopping (remember, I bought my husband a record player for his birthday) last weekend and I found a Bessie Smith album! I love her voice…just beautiful. Another album I found was a mix of African American artists of Virginia from the early 20th century. There was a short essay on the back explaining how the record was assembled and how little recognition these artists saw in their life for their amazing musical talents. However, the drawing on the back of the album showed a mild form of the elasticity of the black bodies in minstrel show posters. Certain features like the jaw were exaggerated, making the people look less human and more animal-like. I just found it very ironic that the record was supposedly celebrating these artists’ work in a way that was non-white-centric, yet the drawing was done in this style. Lastly, I was watching Jeopardy last week and there was a question about Bell Labs! I knew it right away and said confidently at the TV, “what is Bell Labs?” My husband was very impressed with my obscure knowledge.

Okay, now to class stuff. Monday we talked a bit about how American music up until about the 1960s was set to a swing beat. Then replaced by a rock beat around the time of The Beatles. There was very little in-between. Even gospel music followed this beat transition.

Starting in the 1940s, huge numbers of people flocked to New York from Cuba and Puerto Rico (along with other Latin American countries, but mostly these two) and influenced the music. Displaced persons influence musical traditions greatly. This might be why our music has very few chords now. This particular displacement created a Mambo craze in the U.S. What makes the music sound Latin? I couldn’t have told you, but now that I hear it, I really hear it. The clave (“key”) creates that sound that we know so well in Latin music or Latin-sounding music.

“Louie Louie” investigation – that’s funny. They ruled the lyrics unintelligible at any speed or any version. My high school fan section used to sing that at football games along with the band who played it. Funny.

“On the Floor” by Pitbull and J Lo – I heard it from the very first rendition of the tune that we heard. Probably because I listen to that song somewhat frequently on my workout playlist. The point is is that music has an international backstory that comes from displaced persons and/or sampled music. It creates a depth we may not have known about and helps us understand the music we hear everyday. This displacement is an engine of innovation and creativity.

On Wednesday we discussed Witt and some other stuff related to it. First though, Lalo Schifrin – creator of the Mission Impossible theme. A famous Argentinian-American who wrote it to sound vaguely Latin. It does a little, but had you asked me to describe it, I wouldn’t say Latin.

Now Witt. I wish I enjoyed this book more. I thought it would be like the first book we read this semester. I thought I would adore it and fly through it. It was written in a very accessible way which was great. It was written for an audience who knows nothing about the making of music – perfect, because I don’t. 🙂 I did think it was a little too casual, though. The parts I remember from the book are about how what’s-his-name is bad with the ladies, and what the people of Bentley, North Carolina do for nightlife.

I had no idea there was a such thing as an mp2. Who knew? The mp3 won out and it takes advantage of the fact that there are sounds that you can’t hear to make the files small. This psycho-acoustic realization was critical in the digitization of music. The ear is not a microphone, so you can get rid of the crap we won’t hear anyway. Branenburg develops the mp3.

Glover…should he have gone to jail? Someone said he’s an “engine of innovation, not a criminal,” but to me, this cannot be said in hindsight. If someone ignores copyright laws and makes something amazing, then goes to jail, people can’t say they were actually this fantastic innovator and not a criminal. Those things are not mutually exclusive – you can absolutely be both, but your ingenuity does not negate your criminality. The law is the law, and just because something good came out of it, doesn’t mean we can judge this system in hindsight and think we know what we’re talking about.

I was intrigued by the discussion of pitch. Pitch is distinguished by the frequency of the sound wave it produces. A difference in overtone series creates a different sound, despite the fact that they are playing the same note. A saxophone and a flute sound different even when they’re both playing a C. This is what the pipe organ does. You can play a note and then add different overtones to make it sound like different instruments. I did not know about this process at all and I find it very interesting.

That’s all I have time for. Papers and projects due before Thanksgiving must be done for other classes.

-Jessi Russell