B Clare

My name is Brian Clare. I am 17 years old. I play the guitar. I play Banjo, I play Basketball, I play Soccer, My sn is MrPyro4957
Myspace Layoutstable, tr, td { background-color:transparent; border:none; border-width:0;} body { background-color:000000; background-image:url('http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a167 /myspacepimper/bob_marley.jpg'); background-attachment: fixed; background-position:top center; background-repeat:no-repeat; border-color:ffffff; border-width:0px ; border-style: solid;scrollbar-face-color:000000; scrollbar-highlight-color:ffffff; scrollbar-3dlight-color:000000; scrollbar-shadow-color:000000; scrollbar-darkshadow-color:000000; scrollbar-arrow-color:ffffff; scrollbar-track-color:ffffff; }table table { border: 0px } table table table table{border:0px} table table table { border-style:solid; border-width:3px; border-color:ffffff; background-color:transparent; }table table table td { background-color:000000; filter:alpha(opacity=85); -moz-opacity:0.70; opacity:0.70; -khtml-opacity:0.70; } table table table table td {filter:none;}table, tr, td, li, p, div { font-family:Arial; color:ffffff; font-size:11px; } .btext { font-family:Arial; color:ffffff; font-size:11px; } .blacktext10 { font-family:Arial; color:FFFFFF; font-size:11px; } .blacktext12{font-family: Arial; color: ffffff; font-weight: bold; font-size: 20px; letter-spacing: .5px; } .lightbluetext8 { font-family:Arial; color:FFFFFF; font-size:11px; } .orangetext15 { font-family:Arial; color:FFFFFF; font-size:11px; } .redtext { font-family:Arial; color:FFFFFF; font-size:11px; } .redtext { font-family:Arial; color:FFFFFF; font-size:11px; } .text { font-family:Arial; color:FFFFFF; font-size:11px; font-weight:bold; } .whitetext12 { font-family:Arial; color:FFFFFF; font-size:11px; font-weight:bold; } a:active, a:visited, a:link { font-family:Arial; color:ffffff; font-size:11px; } a:hover { font-family:Arial; color:ffffff; font-size:11px; } a.navbar:active, a.navbar:visited, a.navbar:link { font-family:Arial; color:000000; font-size:11px; } a.navbar:hover { font-family:Arial; color:FFFFFF; font-size:11px; } a.redlink:active, a.redlink:visited, a.redlink:link { font-family:Arial; color:000000; font-size:11px; } a.redlink:hover { font-family:Arial; color:FFFFFF; font-size:11px; } .nametext{font-family: Arial; color: ffffff; font-weight: bold; font-size: 30px; letter-spacing: 1px; line-height: 35px;} a img{ filter:GRAY(Opacity=95, FinishOpacity=5, Style=1, StartX=20, StartY=40, FinishX=0, FinishY=0); background-color:000000;} a:hover img {filter: NONE}
Myspace LayoutsClare 1Brian Clare Perlioni English 101 10 December 2008Folk Revival And Music Media In America Today:When you put your ear to the street, you can hear the world turning in motion; the nine to five working man, high school kids looking for identity, the working class trying to live their lives everyday. In America, you can hear something different in the air, something relatively familiar, something old but new. This sound can be heard in the bars and coffee houses or even hidden in the streets of a big city. This sound isn’t a political debate or a music video, bloated with media sponsor and censor ship, this is the sound of something great and creative, a real celebration. This sound is the love for a music that has always been here. A music that is real and true, that allows the working man to brake away from his troubles for a little while and listen to real songs with real melodies played by real people. What I am talking about in this statement is American folk music. A genre of music that mostly is outside the world of the music media, and has had the reputation of being real and honest. Folk music is simplistic and allows musicians around the country to pick up their instruments and join in on a creative art. Today with mainstream music polluting young ears with computerized sounds and fake attitudes, more and more young musicians are reviving this old music for it’s real definition, the love for music itself. The earliest recordings of folk music can be dated back to the early 1900’s but Clare 2have been here since the beginning of the country itself. Charles Seeger (1980) described three contemporary defining criteria of folk music(Middleton 1990, pgs. 687-706): 1."schema comprising four musical types: 'primitive' or 'tribal'; 'elite' or 'art'; 'folk'; and 'popular'. Usually...folk music is associated with a lower class in societies which are culturally and socially stratified, that is, which have developed an elite, and possibly also a popular, musical culture." 2."Cultural processes rather than abstract musical types...continuity and oral transmission...seen as characterizing one side of a cultural dichotomy, the other side of which is found not only in the lower layers of feudal, capitalist and some oriental societies but also in 'primitive' societies and in parts of 'popular cultures'." 3. "a rejection of rigid boundaries, preferring a conception, simply of varying practice within one field, that of 'music'." Folk songs are commonly seen as songs that express something about a way of life that exists now or existed in the past or about to disappear (or in some cases, to be preserved or somehow revived). Gene Shay, co-founder and host of the Philadelphia Folk Festival, defined folk music in an April 2003 interview by saying, "In the strictest sense, it's music that is rarely written for profit. It's music that has endured and been passed down by oral tradition. Also, what distinguishes folk music is that it is participatory, you don't have to be a great musician to be a folk singer. And finally, it brings a sense of community. It's the people's music."(pg. 706) Folk music itself is blended with bluegrass, country, ragtime, jazz, blues, and old time music. It has also influenced rock and roll and even hip Clare 3hop. The first folk revival was in the period of the Great Depression when artist like Woody Guthrie and Huddie (Lead Belly) Leadbetter sang songs for the working man and fought fascism in the United States. In the early to mid 1960’s new folk revival artist like Bob Dylan and Joan Baez sang “protest songs” to fight for things like Civil Rights in America, and both preformed at Dr. Martin Luther King‘s “I Have a Dream,” speech(pg. 140). This era was known as the “Folk Revolution” and was joined by many young enthusiastic followers. The revival of the sixties had mostly died out by 1975. But, there was another revival in the second half of the 1990s. Once more folk music made an impact on mainstream music in America. There was a younger generation of artists, in some cases children of revival inspired artist. However, this time around instrumentation was largely acoustic rather then electric(like in the late sixties and early seventies), the skill level of players and singers was as high as before, and now the number of Folk Music Festivals were rapidly rising encouraging more new folk artist to emerge. So how did this come to be? Well, the awsnser is in the music market. Brian Hiatt and Steve Knopper wrote for Rolling Stone Magazine in November 2007, “According to industry insiders, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, and other ‘big box’ retail chains - which account for sixty-five percent of all music sales - have in the past year or so cut back floor space devoted to music. And Wal-Mart, the countries biggest music retailer, and other chains have told labels to expect substantial further cutbacks in the new year, perhaps as much as twenty percent. And digital downloaded music isn’t the Clare 4problem, it is only ten percent of music sales and its growth rate is also slowing dramatically.”(Pages 23-25). So where are all the music sales now? Surprisingly, the only thing going up in sales in the music media is turn tables and vinyl’s. David Browne wrote for Rolling Stone Magazine in June 2008, “In 2007 nearly 1 million LP’s were bought, up from 858,000 in 2006. Based on to-date sales for 2008, that number could jump to 1.6 million by the years end.”(Page 22) The article also claimed that, now folk legend, Bob Dylan was a best seller in the current record world. Bob Dylan also released his latest album, Tell Tale Signs(Released in October 2008), to be available on vinyl. In October 2006 Bob Dylan’s Modern Times hit number one on the charts and Dylan was also voted “Artist of the Year 2006” by 2,015 subscribers of Rolling Stone in January 2007(Page 17). The easiest assumption to make is a lot of the music lovers’ have found something outside the mainstream that they can identify with weather it is country, which has increased rapidly in popularity, or underground hip hop. The thing you must understand though is when you turn on VH1 and MTV, the two main sources of music television, you will most likely not find Bob Dylan or any other folk artist. Chances are you will find the mainstream music of today, which is dropping rapidly in sales, bloated with sponsorship and sex appeal, striving for sales in most cases. The reason why you don’t see a lot of the folk bands and artist on the mainstream media today is because of what the whole folk meaning stands for. As stated earlier, folk music isn’t for profit, it’s the people’s music, that’s what it is there for. A new popular folk trio, The Avett Brothers, would not even let banjo and guitar string companies sponsor them because of the notion Clare 5of “selling out.” So who are the big names in the world of American Folk Music today? Well one is the Avett Brothers, which I have mentioned. They are a three piece band from Concord, North Carolina with Scott Avett on vocals, banjo, guitar, and harmonica, Seth Avett on vocals, guitar, and high-hat, and Bob Crawford on up-right bass. They play with an old timey sound filled with a punk rock rage. A more standard folk group today is Old Crow Medicine Show. They are a five piece band of young men from all over the east coast. They have a jug band sound and play folk and blues covers from the early 1900’s. In 2007 Old Crow was nominated in the “Americana Music Awards” for best duo or group. Other great folk artist of today include Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, The Bright Eyes, and Amos Lee, all recognized for great live performances and very down-to-earth music. As the music keeps going there are more and more folk groups emerging from the American scene playing festivals and opening for some of the bigger folk names today. One folk band becoming quite big is the David Wax Museum who have opened for The Avett Brothers over the past year. They blend American Folk Music with traditional Mexican Folk music, and it is a truly remarkable sound and style. So if you want to hear simplistic music that is real, turn off the television and go out side. Put your ear to the street and listen. Listen to the bars and clubs, listen to the festivals. Listen to music in the streets of a city. Listen to the world around you. When you are able to brake away from reality for a little while and hear and see real people, real music, real folk, you have found a true celebration.