I agree that there is most likely an intended audience for the gospel music, and that knowing more about the people creating and listening to the music could make me be more open to/get more out of listening to the music.
At this point in the semester all of my classes are kicking it into high gear, and I know that I'm not going to start researching the artists and their histories to get a better understanding of music that as of yet, I'm not fond of if it is not required. Perhaps looking at the artists the same way we did with Jazz and Country music before listening to the playlists, would have made me more open-minded upon going into is. In all honestly even if the music just wasn't called gospel music I may have been more open-minded. (I grew up in a house were my parents' religion was pretty well forced on me until leaving for school this fall and thus have a hesitance/general dislike for overly religious things.)
Friday, December 01, 2006
Open Mic Night!
Last night was another open mic night put on by CAC concerts. I was at swing until about halfway through it, but I was able to catch the end of the open mic night. If any of you haven't been to one of these nights yet, I would strongly advise checking it out (the next one is January 25th and they usually run from about 9:30-11).
There's a lot of variety offered so it's probable that if you enjoy the audio arts at all, you'll find something you'll enjoy. Last night I saw several people playing guitar and singing, listened to a story about the sun burning out/apocolypse, and heard a couple of poems. It was a marvelous showing and the fullest (crowd-wise) that I've seen for the mic nights so far (this was the third of the year, I've made it to part of each of them). A couple of the performances that stick out were(I don't know everyone's names but I'll point out the ones I do know): the hobo song by a guy named Tyler, the Howard Dean song by Mary Ellen and someone else, the last guy's song about sleeping for a thousand years, and John Hanson's song "You're as pretty as a twig in the moonlight, twig in the moonlight. You're as pretty as a bat." (He played this song at the first open mic night too and people danced along to the chorus.)
Anyway it was a wonderful time and I saw a couple of you there. Hope you all had a good time as well and that the rest of you check it out in January!
There's a lot of variety offered so it's probable that if you enjoy the audio arts at all, you'll find something you'll enjoy. Last night I saw several people playing guitar and singing, listened to a story about the sun burning out/apocolypse, and heard a couple of poems. It was a marvelous showing and the fullest (crowd-wise) that I've seen for the mic nights so far (this was the third of the year, I've made it to part of each of them). A couple of the performances that stick out were(I don't know everyone's names but I'll point out the ones I do know): the hobo song by a guy named Tyler, the Howard Dean song by Mary Ellen and someone else, the last guy's song about sleeping for a thousand years, and John Hanson's song "You're as pretty as a twig in the moonlight, twig in the moonlight. You're as pretty as a bat." (He played this song at the first open mic night too and people danced along to the chorus.)
Anyway it was a wonderful time and I saw a couple of you there. Hope you all had a good time as well and that the rest of you check it out in January!
Jamboree
Well I made it out of bed and over to Oyate bright and early on Thursday to man the table at nine in the morning. This in itself is a huge (personal) accomplishment. Needless to say, there were few others out and about at 9, other than people from other classes who also were standing at their tables. Basically no one stopped by the table during my half hour there to do anything other than ask what was in the food (provided by the 3 o'clock section) so there wasn't a whole lot of good conversation happening then.
I stopped by the table again a little before our section started (at noon) and traffic looked like it had picked up a bit. Audience participation in the swing dancing took a while to arrive, but by about halfway through our section we were getting a decent number of stragglers to join in for at least a few minutes. Teaching the Charleston seemed to be what actually got people to come start in a little bit. It definitely helped once we had most of the class participating rather than standing along the wall. People also seemed to enjoy watching and (some) trying the floor spins.
All in all, the Jamboree went better than I expected after my early morning arrival where there was no one! It was nice to harrass some friends and get them to join in the dancing and just to see what the class had learned from the crash course of sorts that Christina and I gave them over the last few weeks in addition to what some of the class learned from actually coming to swing club.
If anyone is still interested in learning more swing dance moves, they should come by swing club. We're done for this semester, but will eventually be starting up again around January/February and we'll be continuing with lifts. Also there is a Jazz dance next week Saturday, December 9, that a bunch of people from swing are planning to attend.
I stopped by the table again a little before our section started (at noon) and traffic looked like it had picked up a bit. Audience participation in the swing dancing took a while to arrive, but by about halfway through our section we were getting a decent number of stragglers to join in for at least a few minutes. Teaching the Charleston seemed to be what actually got people to come start in a little bit. It definitely helped once we had most of the class participating rather than standing along the wall. People also seemed to enjoy watching and (some) trying the floor spins.
All in all, the Jamboree went better than I expected after my early morning arrival where there was no one! It was nice to harrass some friends and get them to join in the dancing and just to see what the class had learned from the crash course of sorts that Christina and I gave them over the last few weeks in addition to what some of the class learned from actually coming to swing club.
If anyone is still interested in learning more swing dance moves, they should come by swing club. We're done for this semester, but will eventually be starting up again around January/February and we'll be continuing with lifts. Also there is a Jazz dance next week Saturday, December 9, that a bunch of people from swing are planning to attend.
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