Reader reflections

I haven't gotten all the way through with the readings but I just wanted to jot some ideas down before I start working on my project.

Apparently America's social and political history is incredibly conducive for the creation of unique folk-song culture.  From the melting pot in American culture, we have so many influences coming into our folk songs--which across the world, is a medium to bring people together.  From Irish tunes to Quaker hymns to West African traditional songs, we now have two major strains of folk-song--the Black and White.  Of course this dichotomy is not hard and fast or even accurate (Solomon was invited to a KKK meeting...) but an interesting dominant culture (presumably, historically the White folksong) and an underground black, resistance culture (Mary, don't you weep!).

After all, music (and art I suppose) is an exercise to elevate the soul.  The song, as an activity with low barrier to entry (of course, unless you are tone-deaf) and public, is perfect for projecting personal or social expectations, to convey the values and desires of who is singing.  We talked about it last week, how our singing folk songs now is almost a primary source while the lyrics on the page is a secondary source.  Just the act of singing invigorates the spirit of the song in us.  Lomax does say, "try to feel these songs as they were intended to be sung and felt." Actually, this makes me sad now--where are the folk songs of today?  Are musicologists going to dig up our digital remains and try to sing Justin Beiber or Nicki Manaj and "try to feel" this music?  Yikes! This is actually pretty scary!

We also talked about this last week too--the democratization of the Internet and information/technology in general.  Has it eroded the concentration of our content or "zeitgeist?"  I think as a member of this generation, I have to lament the demise of our culture but I am really curious how future generations will come to see us--will we be mythogized like the kids of the 60's? Or thought of backwards and ignorant like the kids of the 50's (I Love Lucy and white picket fences and Cold War).  How did I get here from songs?  I don't know but I think this class brings back to life what we felt like are bygone eras and really is a lifeline.

I don't know why reading the reader made me feel so profound but I think the language of what Lomax wrote reminded me that the world had not always been this way--jaded, impersonal, and isolated.