Jerkin' (Weekly Blog #14)

New Boyz

Jerkin' or Jerk is a street dance that originated in Los Angeles. Since 2009, jerkin' has gained fans along the West Coast and has gained popularity on the East Coast.

The dance itself consists of moving your legs in and out called the "jerk", and doing other moves such as the "reject", "dip", and "pindrop". The rap group New Boyz wrote and recorded a hit in Los Angeles entitled "You're a Jerk", while the group Audio Push wrote and recorded "Teach Me How To Jerk". As the jerk culture continues to flourish, several new groups specializing in the Jerk style are being courted and signed by major labels. As Jerk music becomes mainstream, new dance crews and artists are competing and performing at events not only in Southern California, but spreading to other parts of the world. The Ranger$ crew not only competes in dance contests, winning numerous awards, but have recorded several songs and have been signed to a major label. I personally am a big fan of the Jerk movement and hope that it continues to flourish.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerkin'

The Jazz Age (Weekly Blog #13)

The Jazz Age was a movement that took place during the 1920s from which jazz music and dance emerged with the introduction of mainstream radio and the end of the war. This era ended in the 1930s with the beginning of The Great Depression but has lived on in American pop culture for decades. With the introduction of jazz came a new cultural movement in places like the United States, France and England. The birth of jazz music is usually credited to African Americans but expanded and modified to become socially acceptable to middle-class white Americans. White performers were used to popularize jazz in America. Cities like New York and Chicago were cultural centers for jazz, and especially for African American artists. In urban areas, African American jazz was played on the radio more often than in the suburbs. In the 1920s youth used the influence of jazz to rebel against the traditional culture of previous generations. This youth rebellion of the 1920s went hand-in-hand with fads like bold fashion statements (flappers) and new radio concerts. As jazz flourished, American elites who preferred classical music tried to expand the audience of their favored genre, hoping that jazz wouldn't become mainstream.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_Age

Rock and Roll (Weekly Blog #12)

Rock & roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Rock & roll is a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music. Though elements of rock and roll can be heard in country records of the 1930s, and in blues records from the 1920s, rock and roll did not acquire its name until the 1950s.

In the earliest rock and roll styles of the late 1940s and early 1950s, either the piano or saxophone was often the lead instrument, but these were generally replaced or added by guitar in the middle to late 1950s. The beat is usually a blues rhythm with a stressed backbeat, the latter generally provided by a snare drum. Classic rock and roll is usually played with one or two electric guitars (one lead, one rhythm), a string bass or (after the mid-1950s) an electric bass guitar, and a drum kit.

Rock and roll began achieving wide popularity in the 1960s. The massive popularity and eventual worldwide view of rock and roll gave it a widespread social impact.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_and_roll

Music and Mathematics (Weekly Blog #11)

Music theorists, at times, use mathematics to understand music. Mathematics is "the basis of sound" and sound itself "in its musical aspects... exhibits a remarkable array of number properties", simply because nature itself "is amazingly mathematical" (Reginald Smith Brindle, The New Music, Oxford University Press, 1987, pp 42-3). Though ancient Chinese, Egyptians and Mesopotamians are known to have studied the mathematical principles of sound, the Pythagoreans of ancient Greece are the first researchers known to have investigated the expression of musical scales in terms of numerical ratios; Particularly the ratios of small integers. Their doctrine was that "all nature consists of harmony arising out of numbers". From the time of Plato, harmony was considered a fundamental branch of physics, now known as musical acoustics. Early Indian and Chinese theorists sought to show that the mathematical laws of harmonics and rhythms were fundamental not only to our understanding of the world but to human well-being.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_and_mathematics

The Birthplace of Hip-Hop (Weekly Blog #10)

DJ Kool Herc

Hip hop is a form of musical expression that originated in African-American and Hispanic-American communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically in the Bronx. Hip Hop music consist of poetry that is spoken - rather than sung - over either original or sampled instrumental recordings mixed with new original sounds from drum machines, and/or other instruments. As of now, the culture has expanded way beyond its original roots and now is considered a worldwide subculture consisting of rapping, DJ’ing, hip hop dance, and graffiti art ("Four Pillars of Hip Hop").

The block parties of DJ Kool Herc at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue is considered the birthplace of hip hop. Herc would mix samples of existing records with his own shout outs to the crowd and dancers. Kool Herc is known as the 'father' of the hip-hop.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop

History of Blues (Weekly Blog #9)

Blues music is one of the only true American music forms. Blues has its deepest roots in the work songs of the West African slaves in the South. During their laborious work in the fields of the Southern plantation owners, black slaves developed a "call and response" way of singing to give rhythm to their hard work. These "field hollers" served as a basis of all blues music that was to follow. Following the end of the Civil war, black men could only pursue a few occupations. This included back-breaking manual field labor and becoming a traveling minstrel. Many chose the occupation of traveling minstrel playing raucous, all-night country dances, fish-frys, and jukejoints. These musicians relied on their physical stamina and mental collection of many blues songs. Although the lyrics of many blues songs are soulful and sad, the music as a whole is a powerful, emotive and rhythmic music celebrating the life of black Americans. The lyrics of the songs reflected the themes of their daily lives including sex, drinking, railroads, jail, murder, poverty, hard labor and love lost.

Source: http://academic.scranton.edu/student/pendraks2/page2.html

The Music of Belize (Weekly Blog #8)

The music of Belize has a combination of Kreol, Mestizo, Garifuna, and Mayan influences. Most of the music is rewritten in English. After many centuries of Maya habitation, Spanish followed by the British colonists arrived in the area, the latter keeping Belize as its only colony in Spanish-dominated Central America. More influential than the arrival of the European colonist was the importation of African slaves. Europeans brought polkas, waltzes, schottisches and quadrilles, and Africans brought instruments and percussion-based music. The Mayans made the first diatonic marimba. African culture resulted in the creation of music in the logging camps played by banjos, guitars, drums, bells, accordions and a donkey’s jawbone (played by running a stick up and down the teeth). One of the most popular musical styles created by Kriol musicians is brukdown. Brukdown evolved from the music and dance of loggers, especially a form known as buru.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Belize