Today we continued to talk about the European beat as well as the “Sing” feel. I have heard a little bit of swing music and danced to it as well. The beat itself is interesting to dance to because your body naturally goes with the rhythm. We finished with that and then talked about Darktown  which were nicknames given to places where black people lived and was used by blacks and whites. I found this interesting that everyone used this phrase and there was no “politically correct” term. Knowing there was a time when terms like this were acceptable makes me wonder about how much America has changed and how much it still needs to change.

Today we talked about how the beat in music is equally emphasized in European traditions on beats 1 and 3. African music and now popular music has the beat emphasized on beats 2 and 4. I found this very interesting to talk about since I’ve been singing since I was eight years old and am now a music minor. I have sung in choir for 9 years and have sung a variety of different styles. However I have sung a lot of traditional music in foreign languages, mostly Latin, French and German. I noticed that the beat is emphasized more on the first and third beats. I have no idea why but I could pick this out a lot easier than I imagined I could in class. That being said, I have also sung a lot of pop style and contemporary songs as well and noticed the emphasis on the second and fourth beats. In fact we sometimes are required to tap the beat and just naturally depending on the style of the piece determines which beats are harder. I’m not sure why but this is the case for me and I can easily hear when the beats are being emphasized be it in an old piece of music from the Renaissance era or a song on the radio.

Today we discussed the Minstrel Show. This show was performed by white people with black faces and made American internationally famous. I found it appalling that people about a century ago found it acceptable to paint their faces black and perform in shows. By today’s standards, it’s very offensive to African Americans; especially in a country that is having somewhat of a resurgence of civil rights issues. Out of everything I saw I couldn’t believe that stars such as Judy Garland and Shirley Temple did shows in ‘Black Face.’ Hollywood was and still is very influential so having stars such as them and many others perform in black face made it seem socially acceptable to do so. The idea that people were okay with doing this and made money off it stumps me still especially in a country that prides itself on acceptance and diversity.

Today we talked about narrative, hypertext, authority/author and CERN. Everything was really interesting but I really enjoyed talking about CERN which is the European Organization for Nuclear Research. I liked talking about this most because I watch The Big Bang Theory and the characters talk a lot about the CERN equipment. However we also talked about hypertext links which allow people to click on something on one page and it takes them to another page. I found it interesting that anyone could construct a hypertext and hypercard but I still don’t understand how it works overall. I understand Meta-narrative, where you don’t know if something exists, you just assume it does, a lot better. If you assume it exists that you accept there is an explanation for it and makes the events tell a story.

After talking about this we moved onto the Internet itself. The World Wide Web makes it very easy to steal and share it is a subdivision of the internet itself. It is based on a set of communication protocols. A URL is a uniform resource locator and I was really happy to finally know what URL stood for. I also learned that HTTP stands for hypertext transfer protocol  and HTML stands for hypertext make up language. I found the concept that if it is on the internet it belongs to the world. Because usually if you post something on social media you assume it belongs to you since you posted it. However anyone can see it so in a way, anything you post does belong to the world. All in all the internet was born out of  large scale government funding and the idea of free information to be shared.

For the digital scavenger hunt I decided to look at the term “Bluegrass.” I decided on this term because my father plays the mandolin and I grew up hearing the music in my home. Bluegrass today is most associated with country style music, although not the same style. It is often played on the Grand Ole Opry by musicians such as Alison Krauss, someone who I have seen perform live before. It is often said that is has an “Old Southern Sound.” The oldest reference I found of Bluegrass music was in 1923 from a Wall Street newspaper issue. At the time no one had really heard of Bluegrass as many record companies did not sign any artists that played the style. It was written by Gail King, a woman who was based in the Ohio Valley area. She interviewed Bill Monroe for a Bluegrass Mecca who had said that the style of music was called something else before it was referenced as bluegrass. What it had been called before no one really knew. The style of music was originally from the old south so it used instruments like a banjo, mandolin, fiddle, bass and guitar. This is where the origins of the sound came from and those who played the music in the south and slowly transformed it to what the genre is today.