On April 30, 2018, our HIST 390 class talked about various advancements in technology throughout history and discussed the impact that they had on society.  As technology slowly began to become more and more advanced, it seemed that jobs and occupations became more and more deskilled as a result.  Technology just seemed to further sever the connection between objects and labor meant to obtain said objects.  For example, 1905 – 1925 became the “Acoustic Recording Era”, or the “No Microphone Era”.  Back then, singing was instead done into a big cone that was supposed to capture all of the potential sound that was supposed to be recorded.  Eventually, electrical recording after 1925 with vacuum tubes and microphones replaced such practices, with the ribbon mic being fairly popular, as artists could swear that you could hear the difference.  It was then replaced by tape recording in 1952, which revolutionized the game completely, mainly because people realized that you could whisper and talk normally into it and the recording would still be heard loud and clear.  Frank Sinatra was an example of an artist who benefited greatly from this change, as he could get away with his whispery and low voice type of singing.  This, however, also had an effect on politics.  Before this time, politicians had to be loud in order to be heard, but with this new advancement in technology, politicians such as Franklin Roosevelt could initiate “fireside chats”, which were basically Franklin Roosevelt talking normally to the American public about issues concerning the country and what he was planning to fix such issues.  Technology didn’t stop there, however, by the 1970s there was multitrack tape, and by the 1980s there was digital recording, which connected sound waves and converted it into sampled information, with sampler sound typically running at 44,000 times per second.  The creation of mp3s then helped make sure that even more audio information was not “lost” in the process.

There is really nothing more to say other than what a marvel technology has become, especially when comparing everything in the past to today.  I can only imagine how hard it would have been for Frank Sinatra or Franklin Roosevelt to succeed without such technological advances to aid them in taking advantage of their own personal style of doing things.  They probably wouldn’t have been famous or even a singer or politician to begin with if these advances in technology hadn’t happened!  How lucky for the two of them, as well as many others just like them.  I can only imagine how much work it would have been to have made and recorded music back in the day.  It must’ve been a painstakingly long and annoying process just to get the sound “just right”.  Nowadays with autotune, however, I wonder if, in the future, technology will become so advanced that even those who are normally not very good singers will also become famous?  Yes, we can make jokes that that already happens today, but how far can we possibly take it in the future as technology continues to improve?  The celebrity scene may actually get legitimately exciting because of it.

On April 23, 2018, our HIST 390 class (as an extension of our previous April 18, 2018 class) discussed the complexities of the originalities of music and how GarageBand relates to such a mystery.  As discussed in class, Dan Emmett was a songwriter and entertainer who performed in black face and wrote the famous song known as, “Dixie”.  Supposedly, however, Emmett had a small notebook containing all of his songs, songs that were arguably written by the Snowdens, a black family.  It’s safe to say that this has caused its fair share of controversy.  This brings up the question if Dan Emmett was as musically creative as people had originally thought, even if he did not outright copy the Snowdens’ music and simply based his off of theirs, which brings about the argument that creativity needs limits, otherwise the infinite amount of sheer options would only overwhelm people if they ever attempted to be creative.  It’s one of the reasons why our professor encouraged those who did not know what to do for their original song to find another song and simply change the genre of music or change it around a bit.  Yes, it seems like even GarageBand has features that can help the creatively challenged be a little more creative, as midi files of original and well known songs can be found and used as a base for anyone who is in desperate need of inspiration.

While I personally don’t care about a possible conspiracy about a man and a family that existed a fair amount of time ago (even though I probably should), the discussion of limitations to creativity is an interesting one that certainly piques my interest.  While it is true that the possibilities of creativity are theoretically limitless, the fact remains that there exists no such person that can tap into all of it.  Humans each have their own little suspension of disbelief, and anyone that goes beyond that is either considered crazy or weird.  Let’s be honest, a guy flying on a pizza shooting eyebeams is technically creative, but there is certainly a sizable amount of people that would just shake their head and denounce the very premise as too stupid to be true or to put money behind it.  Heck, there are actual machines and programs nowadays that can arguably be more creative than a human can be!  I’ve actually heard about an A.I. that has been created that can actually create music indiscernible from human composed music, as creativity uses specific parts of the brain and, under the hands of the right programmer, computers can imitate such processes and make beautiful music all by themselves.  You honestly wouldn’t be able to tell the difference otherwise!  There truly must be limits to creativity, otherwise, computer programs that attempted to imitate our creative processes would simply crash under the infinite amount of possibilities, wouldn’t it?

On April 16, 2018, our HIST 390 class discussed different philosophies, ideas, and beliefs, with some concerning what an ideal U.S. should look like and some pertaining to technology.  The first thinkers whose ideas that we examined were that of Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton’s.  Thomas Jefferson, when he was alive, had believed that the U.S.  must remain an agricultural nation of small independent “yeoman farmers”, and that being anything but would make the country corrupt.  He argued that a country and society of wage earners was hardly any different from a society of slaves.  After all, a society of wage earners will need to cater and grovel to a boss’ commands, and surely no one wanted that.  Alexander Hamilton, however, wanted the U.S. to be a diverse and industrial nation, arguing that freedom was realized in prosperity and individual diversity, not in land ownership.  Jefferson thought that the U.S. should properly utilize the space to the West of the country, and that if they obtained and realized the potential of that extra land, then the U.S. would certainly remain a nation of farmers forever; while Jefferson believed that the U.S. should ignore the extra space and move through time to the industrial future.  Jefferson believed that the U.S. should be surveyed in industrial 640 acre “nations” and believed that for the nation to survive, there needed to be a high degree of uniformity firmly established; while Hamilton equated freedom with market opportunity and with social diversity with the ability to specialize according to your talents under federal states.  Jefferson believed government should be weak and minimal in its influence and that, in order for a nation to survive, it had to establish its identity quickly and have a high degree of uniformity.  Individualism would lead to state control.  In the end, these two couldn’t have been bigger opposites!

The next ideas that we discussed were centered around technology and naturalism.  When one observes humanity closely, one can see that people tend to cluster, whether it is in reading or watching T.V.  Sadly, many can justifiably say that the local community has been destroyed by industrialization.  No longer do people meet up with one another at the usual rendezvous and hang out anymore.  Instead, everyone is much more transfixed and focused on their own personal interests and communicate through other means, such as phones and emails.  People no longer cluster physically anymore (or, at least, not as much as they used to).  The concept of anonymity one gains when surfing the Web has also altered people’s perceptions of honesty, as the more people seem to like you, the less honest you are with people you seem to be.  The pressure to meet other people’s unobtainable expectations has only worsened as the internet has gotten more and more advanced over time.  In a way, the Internet has destroyed the idea of mutuality, as now it has infamously become what everyone else wants with you either adhering to it or not.  There are very little compromises and understandings in this new and dangerous environment, and it is even worse for the self-absorbed and constantly needy.  Do you want to be raised by people in your life, or yourself?  Because if not the former, then the Internet gives you the perfect avenue to interact with those very much like yourself.  While it certainly isn’t “robots taking over the world” bad, it is still a horrifying concept that will make anyone think twice as to how much time they spend online.

While I can understand both of Hamilton and Jefferson’s side of the argument, I would have to say that, especially in both hindsight and retrospect, I would have to agree with Jefferson more than I do Hamilton.  I have nothing against diversity, and I certainly don’t want to turn America into a country of drones, but in defense of Jefferson, that’s not exactly what he is proposing, and even if it was, it would be waved off as ridiculous anyways.  Diversity of thought and talent was always going to happen, there would just be no way one could keep their talents and passions hidden and locked away for so long without doing something substantial with it; and despite what other people may say on the opposite side of the political spectrum, everyone would like minimal government in the long run.  People just don’t like other people, especially people put in power, to get in the way of their own personal lives, and if anyone says otherwise, it’s usually because the true magnitude of living under that kind of power hasn’t dawned on them yet.  The most notable thing about what was discussed about Jefferson’s beliefs and ideas were that of uniformity.  Let’s be honest, the country today has become completely divided based on political beliefs alone, and it doesn’t seem to be getting better any time soon.  Both sides, Republican and Democrat or Liberals and Conservatives, are arguing about what the original intent and meaning of what it means to be a “real” American has shown that, after all these years, America has still somehow not truly found or settled into its own identity.  All political parties are arguing left and right about how America should be, and that is because the founders of this country did not take the time to specify what being an American should be.  Yes, I agree that people should be who they wish to be, but when a club specifies that you need to be an adult and have an ID to even get in, then America is in some serious trouble in the future.  Some more specific guidelines that weren’t left up to interpretation could have saved everyone a lot of trouble is all I’m saying.  As for technology, I doubt that it is really technology’s fault for the shortcomings of today’s society.  I personally believe that humans and human nature are pretty stagnant in the grand scheme of things, and that if any new trends pop up about us, then it is simply because something new has come up that has finally found a way to draw that out.  Has technology made us more self-absorbed?  Maybe.  But am I honestly supposed to believe that without technology, people would be less self-absorbed?  Technology simply makes getting what we want easier, and therefore means that some of those pesky “middle-men” that we were forced to deal with before have just been removed from the equation.  The problem isn’t the inanimate objects, it’s the people who are using them.  Always has, always will be.

On April 11, 2018, our HIST 390 class talked more about the aspects of sound and the music industry.  Looking back at my notes, it seems like another seemingly clumsy lecture, though compared to the previous one, I feel that there is a bit more of a connection between the two subjects here than meets the eye.  First, there were the aspects about sound.  For starters, amplitude is how loud a certain sound is, though if a victim of auditory masking, then one may not even be able to identify even that.  Auditory masking is the process or natural state of having other sounds cover one’s ability to hear the target signal (the target signal being whatever sound one is supposed to be engaging with at the moment).  In other words, attempting to hear your friend talk while their voice is being drowned out by all of the background noise around you is an example of target signal and the background noise being the example for auditory masking.  It can sometimes get so good that two different sounds could play at the same time, and most people probably wouldn’t even know it!  There can be times when there are definitely two signals, but most people would not even be able to hear two in the first place!  Listening to an orchestra is the perfect example of this as you realize that you cannot honestly hear all of the instruments, but it certainly sounds like you are.  Sound can even be masked before sound even happens due to there being a buffer in your brain that needs at least a second to process what it is hearing and forwarding that information for you to react.

That being said, just how much does the music industry know that the general public does not know?  As most people would not be able to hear the mixture of different sounds and signals, and if we assume that all music producers and writers spend who knows how many hours trying to get their songs just right, then just how do the music industry distribute their plethora of songs?  Well, surprisingly enough, they do it by masking their singer with predictable notes and beats, possibly to draw more attention to the song that they had produced (after all, it is common practice for the song to be made first and the lyrics second, so perhaps that is something that they want to emphasize and show off the most).  That being said, that won’t exactly automatically get people to appreciate or understand all of the intricacies of a song.  In fact, it appears that the general music-listening public has a habit of guiltily loving songs that are objectively horrible, whether these songs are only guilty of having a repetitive and boring beat or if the lyrics themselves are horrifying once you actually take the time to listen to them.  That is where musical pirates and DJs come in.  In a certain point of view, their cutting up and rearranging different sounds of preexisting music can make them out to be bold rebels, spitting in the face of the supposed law in order to emphasize the small and subtle parts of certain songs and put them into the foreground, where their listeners could gain a larger appreciation for.  They could arguably make a popular song more popular, though was that particular argument as truly sound as some would make it out to be?  One could argue that what makes a song popular isn’t how objectively good it is but how it is marketed and managed from behind the scenes.  It has nothing to do with DJs and music samplers helping the general public see just how good and underappreciated a song truly is, it is the people behind the band who know how to sell them and, in turn, their songs, which could just as easily be objectively bad.  As Stephen Witt writes in his book, “How Music Got Free”, “Morris had once been a gatekeeper, the guy you needed to get past to get into the professional music studio, and the pressing plant, and the distribution network.  But you didn’t need any of that stuff anymore.  The studio was Pro Tools, the pressing plant was an mp3 coder, and the distribution network was a torrent tracker.  The entire industry could be run off a laptop” (228).  As this quote shows, there used to be people behind the men and women who most people would rather flock to and take photos of (and to be honest, there still is).  It was these people who decided who would be famous and who wouldn’t.  It was their strategies and, most of the time, their songs that would be implemented and played to the crowds of adoring fans all around the world.  They didn’t necessarily have to be good, they just had to play their cards right and probably only have to make it halfway decent, at best.  The music industry is simply that, an industry that knows just what to do to make their products sell, nothing more.  Cranking out a song that actually ends up revolutionizing music is just a bonus and an afterthought.

That being said, if songs can theoretically be bad and can still be made into hits around the world, then what does that say about us?  Are humans just mindless puppets that truly devious people can easily control if they simply put the time and effort to learn?  Are people just so dumb or just have such bad taste that they cannot notice the absolute junk that they are being exposed to?  Do we just not know what we like to begin with?  It was at this point in the class where the professor posed the question, “What makes people like the songs that we do?”  It had been suggested that it was due to everyone pursuing a certain ideal when it came to music, though considering the fact that people ended up liking one song and disliking another, and with people liking a particular song while others could just as easily hate on that exact same song, it’s obvious that what exactly is the “ideal” music is up for debate.  That being said, I will promptly give my two cents on what the “ideal” music is.  Throughout the class, our professor repeatedly noted and used as an example the song, “Havana” by artist Camila Cabello, and each time he did, he admitted that he rather like it and could understand why other people wouldn’t.  While I myself find the song low-energy, repetitive, and boring, I can understand why some people would like it.  It’s a generic pop song, but the beat can be soothing if you allow it to be and while it does follow generic pop rules, the fact that there is also somewhat of a tango or flamenco sound to it broadens its appeal and sets it apart from other songs currently on the radio.  Granted, that does not automatically make it a good song, but its hook is admittedly a pretty good one.  Now look at the song, “Love Story”, by Taylor Swift, which is also another slow song, but it can also be seen as soothing while also being simple and pure due to the innocent nature of it.  It also helps that it is a mix of both the country and pop genres.  Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” is another pop song, but it utilizes sounds that would normally be found during Halloween.  Lastly, “Bohemian Rhapsody” by Queen is a rock song that actually takes cues from actually bohemian rhapsodies.  The point I’m trying to get at here is that these songs aren’t just generic pop or rock, they utilize aspects of other genres and cultures of music and find a way to use them and make something new and unique out of them, and I think that people take notice of that.  Now, I personally don’t hate popular music in the U.S. today, but I will admit that I do get bored easily by how radio stations keep playing the same songs over and over again.  It’s gotten to the point where I have actively used the internet and Spotify app on my phone to find music from outside of the country (foreign tracks, if you will) and I can safely say that I enjoy those better than popular music in the U.S. currently.  That’s not to say that I listen to traditional music (though those are indeed available), but the U.S., for better or for worse, has influenced music a great deal around the world, with many countries playing catch-up, but while also bringing their own unique cultural and traditional flair to it, producing tracks that are unique to even the multicultural U.S.  It’s Western Pop music through the lenses of outsiders, and I honestly feel that they are unique and pleasant to listen to because of that, and while the U.S. is definitely dipping its feet into this, its songs still feel generic American for the most part.  There is “Chotokkyu”, a Japanese boy band whose songs can be described as Eurobeat dance tracks with Japanese zaniness; “Cro” who is a rapper from Germany who fuses rap with pop to make something unique and different than the pop and rap collaborations the U.S. normally do; there is “CNBlue” a Korean band that seems to take more from Western rock and pop bands while also once and a while combining it with ballads that are more commonplace in the East; there is “Denver” a disco-pop-tech duo from Chile; “Elissa” a Lebanese solo artist who fuses basic dance beats with traditional Lebanese and Arabian music tunes; Khalil Fong, who is a resident of Hong Kong who specializes in soul-pop music; “Higher Brothers” a Chinese gangster rap group; “Man With a Mission” another Japanese band, but one that sounds like something that would fit right in with the pop-punk scene in the U.S.; “Stromae” a Belgian singer and songwriter who creates dance tracks that also incorporates serious subject matters into his lyrics and possibly ques from traditional French music; the list is endless! I believe that the ideal music is a music that can connect so many different cultures and aspects of music together to make something wholly original.  To put it simply, sometimes people like fast songs, sometimes people like slow songs.  Why not have a song that can be breathtakingly fast one moment, but then simple and slow the next?  A song that can get loud one moment but then quiet the next?  A song that utilizes traditional Asian drums at the beginning, African chants in the middle, and close out with a simple American country music tune in the end?  The ideal music could be something that encapsulates a little bit of everything, something that has universal appeal and intrigue and doesn’t limit itself to just one thing, perhaps?

On April 9, 2018, our HIST 390 class talked about sound, pitch, and various other sound-based and music industry terminology and trivia.  For starters, sound is pressure waves traveling through the air, and, when one can visibly see them, resemble ripples in water.  The pitch of a note is determined by “frequency” and how frequently it vibrates.  Overtones are harmonic sequences and are the reason why instruments sound different from one another.  Harmonic intervals are so important that they are actually built into the strings of a guitar, having physical proportions embedded into the very string.  Different combinations of notes determine different chords (chords being comprised of three notes, a root note and notes a third and a fifth away from said root note).  Vinyls were made by recording songs into wax, though by the 1950s, music was quickly switching to recording to tape.  Despite advancements into musical technology and hardware, however, there was ultimately a limit to all of it that those behind the scenes had to be careful of for one reason or another.  For one thing, producers had to account for the physical and amount of energy that their physical music products could handle.  And even then, they had to constantly remember that people, on average, could only her up to 20,000 hertz and nothing higher.  The switch to digital and analogue made things a bit easier, however, to fit these limitations.

While I could understand why our HIST 390 class would at least take a moment to talk about these concepts, when placed side by side, one after another like this, it really ended up feeling like a bit of a disjointed lecture.  It felt like we were going from one fact to another, as if following a checklist, and while the professor can actually do a pretty good job at making everything seem connected and intertwined with one another (which, to be honest, they probably were), when looking back at my notes about this particular lecture, I immediately became confused as to what the main idea of the entire thing was.  There’s nothing particularly wrong with sound, hearing, and music industry trivia, but as far as I can recall, and as far as I can tell from my own notes, it just seemed like a lecture with a very hard to pinpoint focus.  While I may certainly concede that this may be my own fault (and it probably is), having a lecture all about aspects of sound and then another part of the lecture being about the way the music industry and its physical products ultimately felt like two different lectures jammed into one.  Then again, we did lose a day in class due to the professor attending some personal matters, so maybe it was.

On April 2, 2018, our HIST 390 class discussed the concept of “data sampling” and discussed the history, ideas, and debate surrounding it.  To sum it all up, data sampling began to truly develop somewhere between the 1970s and the 1980s, especially with the rise of turntable technology and sound editing software, hardware, and systems.  This was especially true in the late 1980’s, where digital sampling had become more affordable.  Data sampling was the practice of people (usually men) taking bits and pieces of other people’s music, taking it out of context, and repurposing it, mixing it around with bits and pieces of other music and hopefully creating something new with it.  This process and practice aligned somewhat perfectly with Claude Shannon’s “information theory”, a theory where one of the main ideas was the fact that, in the future, information will be taken, handled, and transmitted into bits and pieces, which is exactly what DJs do with music.  While this type of information may seem inconsequential at first (especially with the generally low opinion the profession of DJ seems to carry around with it), the work of DJs, or at the very least, the practice of taking apart music and using bits and pieces of it to create something new, is more prevalent than one would originally think.  For example, one may have grown up with or at least have some sort of idea, knowledge, or recognition of the popular cartoon and kid’s show, “The Powerpuff Girls”.   Its theme song sets the mood and arguably encapsulates everything great about the show, something that any decent theme song should do.  That being said, however, the show’s theme song actually uses the beat from famous musician, James Brown.  Mind you, the theme song isn’t completely copying a song from James Brown, just the basic drum beat and arguably just making it faster.   While some would accuse this of being an example of very blatant stealing, another side of this would be that “The Powerpuff Girls” is acknowledging and respecting a part of musical history by using a beat from a relatively old artist at the time and introducing a great drum beat back for an entirely new generation.  It is in this way that sampling can easily be considered a practice that isn’t really about stealing from other, more successful artists, but as repurposing history.  That hasn’t stopped people from treating the practice like it was stealing however, and examples of the repercussions of such actions are just as many as examples of nothing truly bad happening at all.  Marvin Gaye’s family apparently sued Robin Thicke’s use of sampling one of Gaye’s songs (it was apparently used in Robin Thicke’s (in)famous song, “Blurred Lines”) and as a result, whenever the song plays on the radio, Marvin Gaye’s family monetarily benefit from it.  Copyright truly is a terrifying and complicated issue.

Personally, sampling seems like a fun, though complicated and hair pulling practice.  It definitely doesn’t sound like something that I would want to get into professionally, because if I ever did attempt to pursue being a DJ or music sampling and producing as my intended career choice, it seems like I would spend just as much time in a court room as I would in the music studio.  Again, in what should be an artistic profession, why is there so much scrutiny put into milking as much money as one possibly can from their work as possible?  All this seems to do is discourage creativity.  Yes, money is important, I’m not arguing against capitalism and people getting the money they deserve from their own hard work, but the human mind can be so limited!  Sure, theoretically speaking, the number of beats could potentially be infinite, but with how limited the human brain can be, why wouldn’t two different artists organically come up with the same beat?  Apparently assuming innocence until proven guilty does not truly exist in the music world, which is sad, because sampling does seem like a legitimately fun thing to do.  Taking bits and pieces of music and altering them bit by bit so that something new can be created, the possibilities are potentially just as endless as making original music, maybe even more so!  It’s just a shame that copyright laws hinder such potential creativity.

On March 28, 2018, our HIST 390 class discussed the complexities, intricacies, absurdities, and arguments concerning copyright and how it ultimately changed how the world works intellectually and creatively.  To start off, back in the olden days, property was usually acquired through the mere act of conquering those who previously had it or proclaiming that a divine being such as God granted you ownership of said property and that it must be handed over or the wrath of God would rain down upon them.  The only other way besides these that anyone could possibly see the logic of was the Labor Theory of Value, which basically meant that if you spent blood, sweat, tears, and time into something then that said “something” was no doubt supposed to be yours.  That being said, even the Labor Theory of Value was met with its own fair share of problems, which brought in the demand for a full-proof system in an attempt to dictate ownership, which led to the conception of the first Copyright Act of 1790… which, in turn, caused its own fair share of problems and absurdities.  For starters, one of these said problems was that dead people could legally stay existing as a disembodied immortal being, as copyright claims can stay active long after the said person dies, and if the conditions have been violated, the legal consequences could still be put into effect.  Also, when one actually takes a moment to look into the specifics of the copyright laws, if one were to implement them seriously, a lot of activities that people casually and nonchalantly do today can actually be met with serious legal repercussions.  DJs, whenever they are playing one of their remixes in the club, can technically be arrested for stealing the numerous songs needed to make the remix that he spent so long and hard to make.  The famous song, “Happy Birthday”, is one of the most protected songs today.  After all, when was the last time anyone on T.V. ever sang “Happy Birthday” on the birthday being portrayed behind the screen?  The song is apparently so protected by Copyright claims that almost no one ever dares to sing it, instead opting for other, more obtainable and problem-free, hit songs to sing.  As ridiculous as all of this may sound, however, there is a real debate around this issue.  After all, shouldn’t the artist who took the time, effort, and energy to bring forth what he or she made be given the due credit that they deserve, free to enjoy the fruits of their labors without having to worry too much about someone else stealing their work, claiming it as their own, and somehow finding a way to become even more well-known than them because of it?  Shouldn’t intellectual property be considered equal to physical property?  This was what we took time to discuss in class.

In my personal opinion, I find all of this fairly ridiculous.  While I can certainly understand not wanting to lose one of your creations to someone who saw your idea, did the exact same thing, and somehow got off better than you for it, in the end, if they were better at it than you, shouldn’t you be allowing them to share their improvements to your own work to the world?  It’s like how certain movie studios have the rights to certain properties and other movie studios, unless they strike a favorable deal with that studio, cannot and will not be allowed to make a movie about that property.  Think about how many good movies of the same superhero or character we could’ve had by now.  Think about how many enjoyably bad movies of the same superhero or character we could’ve had by this point.  And while, yes, that may be too many movies concerning the same superhero or character, those that are good or strike a chord with the audience (or multiple different types of audiences) will be remembered and thought fondly of.  We could have writers and studios making any movies that they want, but instead are forced to stay away from characters and ideas that they are passionate about simply because there could be a possible lawsuit because of it.  What if one studio produces a “Superman” movie that sucks?  Are we really supposed to just, as an audience, wait patiently until the rights to Superman change hands again for another writer or studio to try their hand at the character?  Wouldn’t it be better if writers were just allowed to write whatever movie they wanted and were passionate about instead of having studios forcing them to take turns whether they want to or not?  How would movies like these be fun to make?  How would movies like these be fun to watch?  Sure, you would end up having people a bit confused over what studios produced the third “Superman” movie this week, but maybe that particular movie will be the better of the three.  Yes, there will be an insane amount of competition between studios and writers if this were to happen, but in a way, if they play their cards right, they could come out all the better by the end of all of this.  Whether they produce movie after movie in quick succession with average or lukewarm responses, or if they choose to take their time to create quality content, they will build up a reputation for themselves and gain fans loyal to them because of it.  And yes, while there is still the issue of what happens if someone were to make something and someone else ends up stealing it and claiming it as their own, I would argue that worrying about money and fame isn’t what makes art true art.  For an artist, or anyone who works in any artistic activity, the hopes of getting paid and making money shouldn’t be the main priority.  When art focuses more on money and how to become more famous, I would argue that that would be no room left in a work for true art to truly shine.  Art is about self-expression, and if all you think about such trivial things such as money, the art will most likely reflect that, and who would want to look at that?

On March 26, 2018, our HIST 390 class discussed Dennis Diderot, the Father of the Encyclopedia, who wished to make books of all of the useful knowledge of the world.  In the end, while Dennis Diderot and his friends’ contribution to the recording of knowledge is much appreciated, one could argue that there would be better results and information if the encyclopedias were written by (at least) a crowd of people instead of one man and his most likely like-minded friends.  Indeed, the question of how much bias was present within these texts, intentional or unintentional as it might have been, is a definite concern, especially for those who wish to look at information and history not from judgmental, revisionist, and biased eyes.  Our professor then sent us out on an online research assignment which he termed a, “Digital Scavenger Hunt”.  The assignment was to look into as distant of the past as we could possibly go and essentially figure out how terms such as “hip hop music”, “salsa”, “jazz”, etc. were looked upon at the time.  The main purpose of the assignment was to look at and possibly discover the radically different viewpoints people of the past had with such terms and to come to our own conclusions about them.

It was here where I chose the term, “hip-hop music” to focus my research and study on.  Using Google Ngram Viewer, I was able to find that the earliest record of the term “hip-hop music” within the 1960s (more specifically, 1962 – 1969), but unfortunately, I was not able to find any documents or papers from that particular time frame.  I was, however, able to find excerpts of a book entitled, “Philological Papers: Volume 50” hailing from 1947 from Google Books.  This ended up being the oldest document I could find on the term, as ProQuest seemed to only have articles from 1990 onwards and other articles older than 1947 seemed to be referring to hip and hop as onomatopoeias and sounds rather than the actual genre of music.  Within the pages of “Philological Papers: Volume 50”, three pages are ultimately given focus by Google Books: pages 76, 77, and 78.  On page 76, the book seems to be discussing the controversial relationship hip-hop music and the subject of violence seem to have.  It refers to a paper titled, Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the Politics of Postmodernism, by Russell A. Potter, and says that, “Taking the violence out of context and moralizing it creates what Potter calls a ‘moral panic’ that erases what he sees as crucial to understanding the political import of violence in postmodern African American art, such as rap” (76).  Page 77 is then given a title of, “When the Oppressed Becomes the Oppressor: Willie Lynch and the Politics of Race and Racism in Hip-Hop Music” and on page 78, there is a section entitled, “History and Its Connection to Hip-Hop Music”.

It seems to be that hip-hop is as controversial and as adept at raising concern back then as it is today.  Racism, oppression, and counter-culture, even back in the 1940s, seems to be the biggest themes of hip-hop music.  Even back then, hip-hop music seems to be a way for black people to “stick it to the man”, point out and inform others of the poor, sad shape of poor, black communities, and even back then, when questioned about whether it was appropriate to sell to listeners, hip-hop artists and the people who see all of the potential good hip-hop music can do to raise awareness and move their hopes for a better life for the minority communities forward passionately defend it, with both sides shaking their heads and wondering why it is that they can’t see the other side’s point in all of this.  It seems that compared to other styles of music, hip-hop is a relatively new genre of music, and it shows no signs of slowing down and changing anytime soon.

On March 19, 2018, our HIST 390 discussed the questions that surround history as a whole.  When one really thinks about it, many people get their general knowledge of history through museums and history books, and while that is all fine and good, what happened if we were to find out that museums and the authors of those said books were purposefully tampering, making up, or withholding information?  While most probably won’t mind too much (and maybe get a little bit irritated for being lied to all of this time), true history fanatics would probably be outraged!  So much time spent committing a couple of historical facts to memory and spending time and energy studying a history based on the belief of these facts being real, only to find out that it had all been a lie or hadn’t been as accurate as you thought it was!  While there is probably never going to be enough proof or enough of a conspiracy to force trustworthy investigators to find out the level of accuracy the information books and museums present as true (and in all honesty, what if those investigators were in on the lie too), the thought is indeed scary.  After all, we have no reason to accept the history museums and books want you to accept (at least, at face value).  The purpose of the brain is to think critically about what we take in and decide for ourselves whether we believe it or not.  If we do not believe it, then that then leads to whether you are passionate enough to undergo an investigation of your own or if you are simply content of staying ignorant to what the real truth is and going on with your life.  After all, no one person truly has the right to force you into thinking what they want you to think.  Then again, maybe the less than preferable practices of history books and museums aren’t coming completely from a place of malice and desire of manipulation.  There have certainly been times when museums have considered changing a display simply because sometimes they feel that if they allowed people to see the actual artifact or display in the way that it was supposed to see, then people wouldn’t believe it and would accuse the museum of promoting propaganda anyway.  It truly is a complicated issue when one takes into account the suspension of disbelief the public may have.  After all, what’s the point of being completely honest if no one is willing to believe you?

A prominent example of all of this is the fact that there were black soldiers fighting for the Confederacy back in the Civil War.  It seems contradictory, doesn’t it?  Why would black people fight for a system that was actively enslaving and mistreating them?  There are multiple accounts of Union soldiers witnessing the black and white soldiers of the Confederacy fighting alongside one another seemingly with little to no issue, but at the same time there were accounts where, yes, while they were actually fighting together, it was probably because they were forced to due to a loss of too many soldiers on the Confederacy side.  Which accounts do we believe?  On one hand, forcing black slaves and citizens to fight for them supports the belief and narrative that the Confederacy was the side of immoral racism; but on the other hand, the accounts that vouch that they were fighting as one pokes a pretty disastrous hole into all of that.  Perhaps slavery in the U.S. was not nearly as bad as people made it out to be?  Perhaps we are simply taking these documents out of context?  Perhaps these were all fabricated for a sinister purpose?  We really have no way of knowing for sure, as there is actual credibility to all of these theories!

This truly is a predicament that I feel is of the utmost importance.  So many people draw from the past to make decisions in the present and future!  There are entire groups of people who use their ancestors’ pasts to define who they are!  Policies and philosophies are created due to people looking to the past and determining which patterns and similarities would consistently come up and determining whether the country or humans as a whole should emulate and follow such examples or not!  While the past surely should not define anyone or any place’s present or the future, many aspects of society draw from the past for guidance.  If the past is indeed being mistranslated, misinterpreted, or manipulated, then wouldn’t everything in our society based on it then be a society based on lies?  What a dilemma this presents to us!

On March 7, 2018, our HIST 390 class continued to discuss the unique history of music within the U.S.  Back in the day, the segregation between blacks and whites socially was noticeable.  American music executive of King Records, Sydney “Syd” Nathan, was able to make a noticeable amount of profit by selling songs twice to the public with one song being sung and performed by white artists and musicians and another version of it being sung by black artists and musicians.  Twice the songs, twice the profit.  With music being this segregated and this calculated, it makes one wonder what songs were real and which were simply subtle and calculated political and social moves.  What was the true soul of music if behind the scenes, music was always so meticulously and carefully thought out and made?  One of the biggest examples that give credence to these seemingly pessimistic fears was the concept of racial nationalism.  Racial nationalism is a belief system that advocates and tries to preserve racial definition of national identity.  The problem with the U.S., however, is that with both whites and blacks living within the country, it wasn’t as easy to define who U.S. citizens were as compared to, say, the almost completely white Ireland.  It then simply became a matter of defining what each race was.  When it came to the music industry, music executives and producers went out of their way to look for their idea of “authentic” black and white folks to sing the songs designed for black and white folks respectively.  In the end, both races ended up being romanticized to look better or worse, but always inaccurately, to the general public.  The music industry sought out singers, artists, and musicians who, in their minds, looked like customary and traditional examples of what their races were.  A clear example of this was the signing of Huddie William “Lead Belly” Ledbetter, who was signed by John Lomax all the way from his prison cell and was forced to maintain the image of a poor, black farmer or peasant that he definitely wasn’t throughout a good chunk of his career.  As much as he wanted to sing his own songs and show people the real him, his old image and what he used to be never truly left him.

What no doubt encouraged this thought process and behavior was the strange and unique relationship black musicians had with their white audiences.  As Karl Hagstrom Miller noted in his book, “Segregating Sound: Inventing Folk and Pp Music in the Age of Jim Crow, “Some black musicians found that they could make more money playing for white audiences than they could for black patrons” (65).  When comparing the amount of pay and tips a black musician would receive when performing in front of a black audience to performing in front of a white audience, the difference was as clear as night and day.  With black audiences, there wouldn’t even be enough for the musicians to buy themselves food and drink, but with white audiences, they would continue to pay and tip them for playing recommendations, serenading, and dances and bring plates of food along with them. It also helped that shows with white audiences always seemed to end around midnight while shows with black audiences seemed to continue on to the early morning, something that black musicians took notice of and appreciated, as they could get some much needed sleep for the day ahead.  What certainly didn’t help black audiences  was how much more rougher and less safe they seemed to be when compared to white audiences and how racial attitudes towards black musicians, when compared to blacks in general by both average white citizens and law enforcement, was very noticeably nicer.  With all of the perks that came with playing the music white people and the music industry expected from them, black musicians and artists were probably less inclined to step out of line and stand up for themselves creatively.

In the end, it is truly frightening how easy it potentially is to make people believe in something that is simply not true.  To be fed what were essentially beautiful lies about one another while also probably noticing the truth about each other that came with living with one another probably did not do the two racial sides any favors or relieved any actual tension.  After all, if you knew that what was being portrayed in the media about you was a lie and people constantly made assumptions about you because of it, it would probably get under your skin pretty quickly.  Likewise, if you saw how the opposite side was being portrayed in the media and knew first-hand how that wasn’t how they presented themselves of acted, you might grow bitter to how much the truth was being manipulated and resent the other side even more.  Sure, there was probably some good that came out of this, and perhaps there were some racial tensions that were relieved due to these practices, but in the long term, I just can’t see how this would all work out in the end.  If all we tell is lies, those who demand the truth will simply assume that everything else is also a lie and will try to fight against it, and more fighting is the last thing two sides would want if both sides desire peace and understanding.