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Protests Music History

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Joe Hill was a song writer and union organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World organization. The Industrial Workers of the World is an revolutionary labor organization where industrial dissatisfied workers seek for better working conditions and wages. Joe Hill was known for composing and writing political songs to aid the labor movement. Joe Hill strongly believed that music is a powerful way promote or spread political messages. Joe hill compose his songs in a very unique way. For example, he utilized traditional popular American songs and changed to his own lyrics in order to promote political messages. Many of his songs consist of irony, which directly convey political messages. His musics are very engaging, and creating a strong influence for many workers. The film clip of Bound for Glory is a perfect example of how protest songs are “magnetic” and their functionality. The goal of protest songs is to attract outsides into the movement and recruit new members for the union. This clip portrays Joe Hill’s music performance. The movie clip took place during great depression, where poor workers gathered together seeking for work opportunity. Joe Hill’s role in this film clip is to bring his political songs to live. The scene shows how the protest song brought these isolated workers into attention and they are very passionate about his music and they soon form into an organization.

Musical forms such as spiritual, work songs, field-holler and blues have similar background and origins. These form of music are very similar to each other and they typically reflect to the conditions in which the song creators were born and experienced. Mostly enslaved African Americans create this form of music and these forms of music can be trace back to the traditional African culture. In the times of slavery, slaves were treated badly, and they were not allowed to communicate with other slaves. They were separated from their families and friends. The reason why they are treated very strictly is because the most slave owners do not want the salves to unite and fight back. Nevertheless, slaves were surprisingly allowed and encouraged to sing and owners opposingly dislike silent slaves. Masters encourage slaves to sing because they believe that singing represent slave’s contentedness, in which singing shows that they are happy to work. Spiritual music was a religious form of music that served as a form of communication and expression for slaves. Spiritual helps slaves get rid of boredom from their daily tasks, and most important is that singing spiritual is a form of expression for slaves whether they are sorrow or expressing their emotions. Work songs are field holler are similar in many ways. Work songs and field holler have similar techniques from the spiritual. The slaves use these types of music as a form of safe communication. Slaves utilize work songs and field holler to convey messages to their surroundings. Blues are a form of African American music that was emerged after the Civil War, musical forms such as work songs and field holler shapes have similar characteristics as blues.

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