Chances are, you are either sighing or groaning at the thought of Valentine's Day. What to do or not to do. What to get or not get. Where to go or how to avoid going out.
Whatever your feelings about Valentine's Day, chances are that at one point in your life, you were smitten. If not in a relationship, you probably at least had a special movie or song that spoke to you.
This is a republication of a previous blog post. This post was chosen as a winner of our first internal blog contest.
I’m probably what most people would consider a music geek. I have over 109 gigabytes (somewhere around 19,000+ songs) in my iTunes library, ranging from high-quality recordings of classical piano music to heavy, fast, grungy punk records of varying obscurity. But if I had to choose my most prized mp3s in my digital treasure chest, it would be the volumes of old blues recordings.
Whenever anyone asks me what type of music I like, I always struggle to explain what I mean when I say "traditional folk music." Many people think I mean country music, like the kind you hear on the radio- and yes, country as a genre shares a lot of roots with traditional folk.
Music is a universal language. Every culture around the globe celebrates music that is meaningful and unique. Regardless of the culture, music and instruments go hand in hand. Instruments from all over the world have played an integral part in the creation of music since the beginning of time.
I recently facilitated a "Read from the Start Workshop" on behalf of the Missouri Humanities Council, and one of the books we read and discussed was Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. To further enrich the reading experience, during the wild rumpus portion, I played them the song "Wild Thing," a crazy-popular hit from the 1960s originally performed by a British group named The Troggs. This led me to ponder, whatever happened to The Troggs?
We study our culture through a myriad of different media: literature, sociology, and politics. However, one of the most interesting ways to learn about a culture is through a type of study referred to as ethnomusicology. This discipline is the study of culture through music. Already, when we think about generations and locations, we think of different styles of music here in the United States. For instance, we often relate blues and jazz to the states at the south end of the Mississippi River. The baby boomers bring rock and roll to mind.
I’ll leave up to you to decide, I don’t want to start a top billing fight here. Luckily for us, the music company did this work for us. The Duke Ellington & John Coltrane recording is fantastic! I didn’t even know it existed until I saw the movie Love Jones. It was recorded on September 16, 1962 and released in February 1963.
I’ll leave up to you to decide, I don’t want to start a top billing fight here. Luckily for us, the music company did this work for us. The Duke Ellington & John Coltrane recording is fantastic! I didn’t even know it existed until I saw the movie Love Jones. It was recorded on September 16, 1962 and released in February 1963.
