...As the lights in the lecture hall darken, thirty or so sleepy faces tilt up toward the bright, intently watching the white screen as it descends from the ceiling. This is a typical scenario for the freshman art students’ Tuesday lecture class, but on this one particular day, we are collectively able to muster an unusual amount of enthusiasm for this lecture. The reason? Quite simply, Pablo Picasso. Father of Analytical Cubism, one of the chief figures in modern art, as well as being one of the most well known and most popular, Picasso stands as a towering idol and inspiration to many of us as we recount his history. However, as the lecture goes on, I found out an interesting fact about the painter that took me by surprise. Whenever I though about Picasso and cubism, I had always assumed the style had been his own invention; an original, new way of painting that had come to him from some divine form of inspiration. It was revealed, in that dark room surrounded by other artists and victims of inspiration, that Picasso’s square, blocky, misshapen figures were created from the likeness of African art, or more specifically, African masks (“Picasso”). Admittedly, it is certainly not the most shocking thing I’v ever heard, and I wasn’t in any state of disbelief, but a familiar, uneasy feeling did come over me. I have a strong affinity toward many different forms of rock music, installed into me by my parents and the Beatles at an early age. And soon after I began to learn about the...
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...An Essay and Interpretation of: Blue written by Rachel Seiffert A) A summary of the story: The story is about the young couple Kenny and Marie. Kenny has rented a decayed flat which he has enabled. He has no job, but he is helping his brother-in-law, who gives him a sofa and some paint. His girlfriend Maria is pregnant. One day Maria comes over, Kenny shows proudly his flat to her. But Marie did not seem impressed. He cooks for her but the atmosphere seems uptight. After the dinner Maria will like to watch TV, but she changes her mind, and goes home. Kenney takes a bath and smokes a joint to forget all until next morning. The next day he eats dinner with his parents. On the way home he drinks a beer to forget all. The next day, he spends all the day in bed. He called Marie. She sounds happier and tells that her father has got a job again. Now everything will be easier. She says she would like to come over the next evening. Kenney was forced to borrow money from his mother, that he could afford food. They make dinner together. The next morning Maria goes home, but she is coming back few days later. This time they sleep together for the first time in a while. Next morning they are going to paint the flat. Maria decides it should be blue. The smell of the paint is making Maria a bit of sick, and she goes for a walk. When Kenny had finish painting he hands the keys back to the neighbour and leaves the estate onto the main road. B) An essay about the text: The theme in...
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...John Doe MU 010 Blues and Hip Hop Essay Comparing the Blues and Hip Hop To the inexperienced listener, the blues and hip hop might appear to be worlds apart musically and culturally. While these two genres are almost a century apart in their formation, they actually share numerous qualities in terms of musicality, culture, and purpose. The blues is a predecessor to hip hop and is one of the biggest influences on what hip hop became. Both genres inherited many musical elements from traditional African music, both genres are very referential to songs and artists who came before them, and both serve as outlets of expression for disenfranchised African Americans. While both genres have expanded and diversified as they’ve matured, both began with a minimalist sound. This means there was not an overabundance of instruments being played. The blues could simply be a single performer with an acoustic guitar, but often included a band consisting of a drummer and bass player as well. Hip hop could simply be a rapper performing with a prerecorded backing track, but often included a drummer, bass player, guitarist, and/or disc jockey. Unlike big bands or large ensembles, both genres’ emphasis was usually on a single performer while the other musicians were simply a backing band. In class we watched an interview with Eric Clapton where he said the blues appealed to him because it seemed like “one man against the world.” For the blues is was usually the singer/guitar who grabbed the...
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...Anna Munoz Dr. Jones DISC 1313 December 4, 2015 Music and The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s All forms of Black music, from jazz to rock and roll, played an important part in the Civil Rights Movement. The songs were sung for multiple purposes and played a critical role in inspiring, activating, and giving voice to the people involved. The evolution of music during the early 1950’s and 1960’s in the Black freedom struggle reflects the evolution of the Civil Rights Movement itself. The progressive thought of the 1950s nurtured new ideas and cultures including the Civil Rights Movement and the fast spread of rock and roll. One such cultural revival occurred after the end of World War II during a time of change, prosperity and restoration. The “Puritan dicta” outlined by Baldwin represents the American ideology before the Second World War. As the first settlers of this nation, the Puritans set the mold for many common American ideologies. In the Puritan view white represented good and black represented evil, including Africans and their culture. After the war, Baldwin states that the former puritanical views of whites will be challenged. Musicians such as Elvis Presley were the first to issue this challenge to white society. Early rockers like Elvis would pave the way for social commentary in music that would add much fire to the Civil Rights Movement. To fully understand the explosion of popularity of Black music in the years following World War II, one must understand...
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...Sandra Simonds ENG102 April 26 2016 Langston Hughes and The Weary Blues Langston Hughes was recognized as a significant literary figure during the 1920s, a period known as the "Harlem Renaissance" because of the number of emerging black writers. After graduating from high school, Hughes went to Mexico to visit his father, in hopes to convince his father that he should pay for his college education at Columbia University in New York City. On his way to Mexico on the train, while thinking about his past and his future, Hughes wrote the famous poem, "The Negro Speaks of Rivers." After arriving in Mexico, the tension between Hughes and his father was strong. Hughes wanted to be a writer; his father wanted him to be an engineer. After Hughes sent some of his poetry to what was known as the “Brownies” Book and “Crisis” magazines, it was accepted. his father was impressed enough to agree to pay for a year at Columbia University. It was there at Columbia University were he begin releasing more poems that he had written. Hughes embraced crafting blues music into his poetry because it expressed the worries of the common man in a simple and direct manner. Blues songs feature heavy repetition, and singers often seem to be laughing and crying at the same time. One of his best works was the poem “The Weary Blues” which came in first place in a section of a literary contest in an Opportunity magazine published in 1925. The title itself...
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...Biloxi Blues was written by Neil Simon as a semi-autobiographical play. The play demonstrates the conflict between Sergeant Toomey and Private Epstein through the eyes of another soldier called Eugene Jerome. The play is the second sequel in the Eugene Trilogy. Biloxi Blues the play premiered on 8th December 1984. Sergeant Toomey’s character in the play was played by Bill Sadler. Biloxi Blues the movie premiered on 25th March 1988. Sergeant Toomey’s character was played by Christopher Walken. In this essay, we will compare Sgt. Toomey character in the play and in the movie. Bill Sadler brings out Sergeant Toomey’s authentic character as an honest, complex and intimidating person. The play audience is able to see the punitive, unfairly competitive,...
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...English essay ”The Flowers” By Alice Walker The afro-american writer Alice Walker has written a short story named the flowers from 1988. The main character in the story is a little girl named Myop. Myop is a 10-year old black girl growing up in poverty, because she is a child of a sharecropper-family, (which was not unusual at that time). She is a really curious girl that loves to explore new things. She likes to play by herself in the woods and look after findings and flowers to pick. One day in the late summer, Myop is taking a walk in the woods. She walks a bit from where she lives to explore a new area where she has never been. The landscape is a bit different from what she is used to, there is a different atmosphere, there is more silent and there are different flowers growing. Suddenly when she is starting to retire home, she steps on a dead black man that had been hung and then laying on the ground. The meeting with the dead man is overwhelming and surprising for Myop. An important theme in the text is racism, because the story takes place in a time where segregation was extremely active and there was a lot of discrimination of black people. The story takes place in a child’s thoughts, so all the events are written from a child’s view. It’s 3rd person omniscient, the narrator has access to Myops mind, so the reader knows about her feelings, and thoughts, as seen in the following quotes: “She felt light and good in the warm sun” “…and she reached down quickly...
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...In Tracey Sherard’s 1998 analysis, “Sonny's Bebop: Baldwin's ‘Blues Text’ as Intracultural Critique,” which covers James Baldwin’s 1957 intuitive short story, “Sonny’s Blues,” she conveys that Baldwin created the title to be questioned for its connection to jazz or more specifically Bebop, so Baldwin’s intent of broadcasting African American struggles throughout history can be conveyed through a pair of brothers connected by this music, which acts as a medium for his ultimate message. The author portrays his story of the two brothers where, through music, they eventually accept their living conditions and overcome the emotional barriers that were placed on them due to not only their African American history, but also the conditions they were...
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...Contents The Blues – Traditions and Inspirations Origin 2 Musical Format Development Classification Influence References Origin Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States around the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. The blues form, ubiquitous in jazz, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll is characterized by specific chord progressions, of which the twelve-bar blues chord progression is the most common. The blue notes that, for expressive purposes are sung or played flattened or gradually bent (minor 3rd to major 3rd) in relation to the pitch of the major scale, are also an important part of the sound. The origin of the term of was most likely derived from mysticism involving blue indigo, which was used by many West African cultures in death and mourning ceremonies where all the mourner's garments would have been dyed blue to indicate suffering. Blues has evolved from the unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves imported from West Africa and rural blacks into a wide variety of styles and subgenres, with regional variations across the United States. The musical forms and styles that are now considered the "blues" as well as modern "country music" arose in the same regions during the 19th century in the southern United States. Recorded...
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...Origin of Blues Blues played an important role in the history of music as it heavily influenced many types of music, particularly jazz and rock. It originated around the 1890’s from the Afro-American slaves’ folk music, work songs and spirituals and was typically performed with one person both playing the guitar and singing. The music consisted of stories of family, struggle, sexuality and rural life. The beginning of the blues-singing period was during the Civil War in America. In 1863, President Lincoln adopted the Emancipation Proclamation into Law, which gave the slaves the freedom not to be bought and sold as slaves, to send their children to school, to be able to live with their families in a house rather than a slave cabin, to attend church and the opportunity to become teachers, preachers, politicians and landowners. This gave them a new attitude towards life. They began to sing openly without concern of white mans punishment, which also allowed them to explore and experiment with white 8 and 16 bar songs. Blues in its early days was a direct decent of African question and answer phrases but now it started to develop when it adopted the 3 line stanza (AAB) then furthermore into 12 bars. Although the blues music was influenced by European music the essential blue chords (I, IV, V) were from American music culture, which was most likely originated from their religious music. In between 1911 – 1914 W.C. Handy made blues popular. He released “Memphis Blues”(1912) and...
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...Essay 1 Artist: Laura Lopez Title: Michina, The Cat Style: Acrylic on canvas Date: unknown Dimensions: 2½ ft. high I think this piece of work is very beautiful and outspoken with its vibrant colors. I would have to say the canvas is about 3 ft. and 10 inches high, but the cat itself is probably 3 ft. high. I think the condition of the painting is perfect, there are no damages. I would think the color assortment on the cat, would represent the different moods the cat has. The gold around outlining the cat would represent royalty. The cat comes from high class. The cat seems to have different color whiskers, one side is gold and the other side is silver. Since it is women history month, I think this cat represents a woman and the reason for the two colors of the whiskers is because there are two sides of every woman. I would describe its’ features to be very distinctive but at the same time shows some carefree life. The cat only shows three paws, and I think the right paw is being blocked by the front paw. The head of the cat is a proportional circle, very concise. The eyes of the cat are colossal, and the pupils seem to be dilated as if the cat was surprised. The outline of the eye is the gold, the sclera is a light blue, the iris is a thin line of black, and the pupil itself is gold, shaped as a circle. There is a lot of emphasize on the eyes, and I think it’s because there is a lot of history. The cat has gone through a lot, and as a woman you can always tell by looking...
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...history of rock and roll is long and intricate drawing its roots from early American R&B, among other places. While most of the true innovators of rock music have been widely overlooked, white musicians have been profiting greatly off of the innovations made in music by black recording artists, specifically in the arena of rock and roll. It is widely accepted that rock music has its roots in the american blues. The history of the blues dates all the way back to slave plantations. This genre comes specifically from African-American folk music. Julio Finn the author of The Bluesman stated that: [White blues performers] can never be bluespeople...because the blues is not something they live but something they do- which makes all the difference in the world. What distinguishes the bluesperson from the bluesperformer is the cultural-racial make-up, which can only be inherited by a descendent of an ex-American slave. (qtd in Adelt 1) Whether this is true or not is a matter of opinion. What is intriguing about this statement though is the fact that virtually all blues music was originally composed...
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...The interaction between Blues and Jazz can be discerned when the origins of both music are scrutinized. The development of one is hidden in the roots of one another and both use similar sound patterns for instance. In this paper the readers will be presented a brief history of Blues & Jazz within the similarities of the two. If we trace back to the history of Blues music, the impact of African-American tradition is seen quite apparently. Blues music evolved from the songs sung by West African griots, the southern Black American songs of sadness and despair, and more hopeful Christian spirituals. It originated in the rural Mississippi Delta region at the beginning of 20th century. Similarly, Jazz music emerged as a blend of African-American rituals; the features carried from West African Black folk music developed in the Americas, joined with European music of the late 18th and 19th centuries and turned out to be the minor voicing characteristics of the Blues. Jazz emerged in New Orleans and was characterized by strong but flexible rhythms. Blues had its most brilliant years in America by the end of WWI. The American troops brought the Blues home with them, which they learned from the Southern Whites who had been exposed to the blues. After WWII, Blues had a different experience by the well-known Blues musicians as B.B. King and Buddy Guy by “amplifying guitar” and “emphasized drums”; thus created intensified sounds in Blues, the collection of which later called...
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...-Cover version phenomena – 1952-56. A black record would cross over from R&B charts, and a major record label would do a cover to eliminate the original version. Major record labels trying to control the popular music. -Was this practice racist? -Allan Freid white disc jockey played black music on white radio in 1951 – white kids listening to black music, transculturation Arc – 1948 black radio - Music becomes increasingly more popular over the next 10 years, Allan Freid (read the text) starts to help with the popularity. - Big enough in 1952 that record companies start to notice and the cover phenomena starts. - White covers sanitized lyrics to remove any sexual connotation. - By 58 the cross overs were no longer working “Sh- boom” 1954 * details on Moodle - B side of a record by The Chords who were doing an R&B cover of a Patty Page song. - Crew Cuts #1 for 9 weeks total 20 wks - The Chords – 1st R&B record to make Pop Top 10 in the 1950’s hit #5 charts 16 wks - Both versions played on the radio at the same time. Put out in direct competition with each other. Rock and Roll is a sociological term originally referring to white interest in black pop music, not a musicological term Only 20 spots on the R&B charts at the time Crew Cuts - No base voice in the chorus - Sax removed, replaced ya dadadadada - Slightly higher, softer, a little faster ...
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...In an article, “Understanding Jazz Audiences: Listening and Learning at the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival” Karen and Stephanie attempt to measure how Jazz audiences are influenced by a live performance at the Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival (EJBF) in 2007, and assess the role that music plays in their broader cultural and emotional lives. The authors use data gained through organizational surveys of fifteen performances to observe the audiences, venues and the experiences during the festival. This research focuses on assessing the audience profile which contends their motivation to participate the festivals and the factors to attend musical events. Moreover, the researchers examine audience expectations and their experiences of jazz listening....
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