Category Archives: Musical

Preparing for Performances

Nationality: Native American
Age: 12
Occupation: student
Residence: Franklin, Tennessee
Performance Date: 4-25-2020
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

Informant: We played with xylophone for a couple of years before percussion. And once we were able to be in percussion, you got to use it a lot more. So it’s basically for the kids that wanted to have more time playing on it and making music with it and going more into depth with the instrument. That was for those students who wanted to.

Something we did, we would go around the carpet playing different instruments. So we would say like. . . like we had this certain beat that we would do on every single one. And to prepare for all of our performances, we would do a thing called “Rock your mallets to the top.” So we would say “Rock your mallets to the top.” Then you’d go to the bottom and say, “to the bottom do not stop. Hit them in the middle please. Hit them on your long tong C’s.” And then we’d change to D’s and then we’d change to minors.

Interviewer: Do you think you could do the whole thing for me?

Informant: It’s not very long. It’s . .  *laughs,  “Rock your mallets to the top. Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom. To the bottom do not stop. Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom. Tap them in the middle please, doo doo loo doo doo loo. Hit them on your long tong c’s. Boom boom boom boom boom boom boom.

So we basically would do that and then we’d switch instruments. And then she would say, uh, she would just count to 3 and, or we would do certain, different like patterns and she, our music teacher, would do it and we would repeat them back. And sometimes she would say, we’d put it in different, um, you could take certain bars off. We would do C pentatonic a lot, where you take off your F’s and B’s and so there would be groups of 2 and groups of 3 and then she would ask us to do a certain thing on a group of 3 and a certain thing on a group of 2. And that’s kinda how we prepared for every single one of our performances.

Background:

The informant is a twelve-year-old Native American girl from the Choctaw, Blackfoot, and Lakota Nations. She was born and raised in Tennessee and frequently travels out west to visit family and friends. She is in sixth grade.

Context:

During the Covid-19 Pandemic I flew back home to Tennessee to stay with my family. The informant is my younger sister. I was asking her about groups she was a part of at school.

Thoughts:

She emphasized that this was a musical group for those who wanted to dive deeper into the subject, in this case, spend more time learning the instrument. It was fun to hear the rituals and chants the students would use during practice and before a performance. Ritual is a creative process, key in attaining a certain frame of mind and promoting active engagement. It is also a picture of the beauty that can come out of community and teamwork. It is not solely about the individual. Rather, individuals in a group working together as a cohesive unit. 

Rave kandies and the process of trading them at festivals

Nationality: Korean/White
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA/Colorado
Performance Date: 4/19/2020
Primary Language: English

Main Piece 

Informant: The motto and the handshake of the community, and the code we live by is PLUR. It stands for Peace, Love, Unity, Respect. It means you’re peaceful, and not there to start shit. We gotta spread love, we gotta spread unity because we are all vibing together. Then there is respect, because you have to respect everyone there and the land where the concert is because we don’t want to leave trash around. 

One of the things that ravers do to express themselves are Kandies. They are bracelets made of elastic string and beads, they are really easy to make and people usually make them themselves, and then some people get really advanced. You can trade kandi with people, when you meet them usually you trade kandies when you are about to leave and there is a whole handshake for the trade. 

Interviewer: What is the handshake like?

Informant: First it is peace so you hold out a peace sign and touch both fingertips. And then you do love, so you make half of a heart with your hand and join it to theirs. So when they’re together they make one big heart. And then you do unity where you grab each other’s hands, like interlocking fingers. And then on respect, you trade the kandies and transfer it from your wrist to theirs while your hand is still interlocked. 

Interviewer: What are kandies usually made out of?

Informant: The kandies are usually handmade, they are made of beads. sometimes they spell out different artists, different DJs, different sayings. It is kinda like the pins at Disneyland, people are always looking to trade kandies with each other to collect memories of different times. 

Background

The informant is a great friend and housemate of mine, who is currently a senior at USC studying Health and Human Sciences whose family is living in a town four hours outside of Denver, Colorado. Coming from a military family, the informant has lived in various areas, the most memorable for him was New Orleans. The informant is half Korean and half Caucasian, and is a sports fanatic having played soccer for most of his life. The informant is also a very big raver, as he enjoys going to several festivals a year, originally beginning to attend in his senior year of high school. 

Context

One day while we were at our house I noticed that he had on a whole sleeve full of what looked like friendship bracelets, and when I asked him what they were for he explained that they were kandies for a rave he was attending that night. After he was willing to interview, I asked him about the bracelets and the customs of raves. 

Analysis

I think these folk objects are a very inexpensive and easy way to make and a great way for ravers to identify with one another when they are in crowds at large festivals. I think the practice of trading kandies and the handshake that goes along with it symbolize folk greetings at these festivals, and provide a sense of unity and togetherness. As the informant mentioned, it is also a way for people to remember certain festivals or raves that they attend. 

Camp Merrie Woode Table Prayers

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student/ Camp Counselor
Residence: Gastonia, North Carolina
Performance Date: April 21, 2020
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: 

Informant- Here are the breakfast, lunch, and dinner prayers. Each is sung in a large group and before eating. 

Breakfast prayer- “ god has created a new day, silver and green and gold, live that the sunset may find us, worthy his gift to hold” 

Lunch prayer- “for health and strength and daily food we give ye thanks o lord”

Dinner- “evening has come the board is spread thanks be to god who gives us bread”

Interviewer- Do you sing the prayer songs outside of camp?

Informant- I usually only say the prayers with other Merrie Woode girls. But when I come home from camp though, I find myself saying those prayers for a while. They are stuck in my head and are a habit. I hold on to what it means beyond just the prayer. It connects me to god but also connects me and my Merrie Woode family as a whole. It reminds me of being in the dining hall with everyone. 

Background: The informant is 18, a counselor at Camp Merrie Woode. She began attending Camp Merrie Woode at age 7 as a camper and returned every summer. Camp Merrie Woode is a catholic all-girls Summer camp. The Merrie Woode community is extremely important to her and represents a family. The prayers are an important connection for her to be thankful for her Merrie Woode family and to God. The prayers hold a religious aspect but also reflect the larger group of loving people that the camp. 

Context: This prayer is sung by a large group of people at mealtime at Camp Merrie Woode. The dining hall is a large room that seats over 200 people. The campers range from 6-13 and counselors are usually young adults. The groups sing the songs together in unison. The camp is in session only during the summer months. The camp is located on a lake in the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina

Thoughts: The oral tradition of dinner prayers allows for multiplicity and variation. This version of the dinner prayer is used in the specific Camp Merrie Woode community and creates a unity during the sacred time of prayer. The repetition of these phrases is important because it creates a community that sings and prays in unison. The large group of people participating in the prayer creates a powerful experience with loud voices echoing through the dining hall. This experience is an important aspect of singing prayer. The importance and meaning of the prayer represent the camp community. Even while not at camp, people sing this prayer and are reminded of the strong bond they share with the Camp Merrie Wood community. 

University of Alabama – Dixieland Delight Chant

Age: 20
Residence: New Orleans
Performance Date: 4/20/20
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

Dixieland Delight is a song by the rock band Alabama, but is more formally known as a chanting song during Alabama football games. It originally wasn’t intended as a song for the university’s football team, but they adopted it as their own. They add their own lyrics in between the verses of the chorus. It’s a tradition to sing it at the start of the 4th quarter of home games. The words between the chorus vary and expletives about their state school rivals in the region are added to it. Because of this her freshman year they weren’t allowed to play this song during football games, but this was lifted her sophomore year.

One constant verse of the song is as follows (additions are in italics):

“A little turle dovin’ on a Mason-Dixon night. F*** AUBURN.

Fits my life. LSU. oh so right. AND TENNESSEE TOO.

My Dixieland Delight.”

Context:

EG is a sophomore at the University of Alabama, and has attended football games for the past two seasons. Both of her parents attended the school and are also avid fans of the team. She was raised an Alabama fan her whole life and has never been otherwise. This was taken from a conversation at our house.

Thoughts:

This trend of chants is appealing to me as it takes a song and adds lyrics to it, similar to a mashup or a cover. This seems to be used as a method of getting the crowd at their games riled up so that they can have a lot of spirit. This being done at the beginning of the fourth quarter would mean that they get much more energy during for the final push of the game. This greatly reminds me of when the USC Band plays Tusk during football games. While we don’t use expletives during the songs, we do add our own lyrics. A similar style of song that is also in the SEC, Alabama’s football conference, is LSU’s chant to the song “Neck”. Students also chant it during games to the point where it got banned. (https://youtu.be/Ji-mFaIAcX4, Neck, LSU Band and Student Body).

Summer Camp Taps Tradition

Age: 22
Performance Date: 4/28/20
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

BO, a junior at USC, shared this story from a Musician Summer Camp he attended. He says, “Like at 10PM everynight we would all have to be in bed in our cabins while they play a military trumpet song called Taps. Everyone was supposed to be extremely quiet and if you made any noise you’d get in trouble. The idea was it was supposed to give everyone in the whole camp a few minutes of silence to reflect on their day.”

Context:

BO is a junior at USC. He attended this music summer camp from ages 12 to 18 and was familiar with lots of its traditions. This piece was taken during a text chat with BO.

Thoughts:

This tradition seems to reflect the discipline that they would teach at the camp. BO explained how they would train a lot during this musician camp, and discipline is a big part of this training. Playing Taps, a military song which is typically played during solemn times, shows how this moment at the end of their day is a time for them to reflect. The formal nature of it also shows how they are training their musicians to be disciplined, and self reflection is important to that.