UT Dallas “Sideshow” Performance Review

The “Sideshow” performance was held on the dates of April 8th, 9th, 10th, as well as April 15th, 16th, 17th of 2010. The performance discussed here was held on Saturday April 17th, 2010 in the University Theatre of University of Texas at Dallas. The original script was written by Bill Russell while the music was written by Henry Krieger. The theatre normally performs only one or two times per school semester of UT Dallas, but most of the performers perform with the Chamber Singers, or various other art groups at the University.
The musical aspect of the performance was fairly hidden during the acting. There were about 14 musicians and a conductor, but for the majority of the time, they could not be seen, only heard. They were normally hidden behind some sort of large prop such as the entrance to the circus or the entrance to a performance hall. The music consisted of several wind instruments such as the tuba, trumpet, trombone, and flute. There was also an acoustic guitarist, drummer, and a few instruments which were rarely played such as a chime. The conductor made sure everyone was tuned and ready to play before the performance, so the quality of the music was quite high. The texture (volume) of the music had to be kept quite low so that it would not drown out the performers while they were speaking during each act. The music was almost always in perfect time with the performers. No discrepancy was noticed between the music and the acting; this was probably due to the conductor paying close attention to the play and having a accurate sense of time. The rhythm was usually a fast paced one with almost a mystical tone to it so as to match the feeling of the play itself. As far as the singing in the play itself, it was fairly straightforward; almost no ornamentation was used because of the fact that most of the accentuation was done by physical motions. Things such as Hand gesture, facial expressions, and props were all used to accentuate the vocals of the performance. The singing was also in a play type call and response where they were practically speaking to each other, but in a musical fashion.
The performers were all dressed in brightly colored costumes, as would be expected for a play about circus performers. Make-up was also used to bring out certain aspects about the characters, for example “Jake” (Bryan Thompson) had scars painted onto his body to show how violent his character was. The interactions of the characters were also unique and a prime example of this was the connection between “Violet” and “Daisy” (Emily McCoy and Robin Clayton respectively). These two women were the primary characters of the play and they were connected at the hip to show their state of being Siamese twins. There was almost always someone moving during the performance and it made for a livelier and interesting show. Even the performers in the background would have facial expressions to match the situation of each act.
The majority of the audience on this night was made up of students. There were a few adults, some of which were probably parents of the performers, but the rest probably consisted of residents from nearby neighborhoods since UTD has a strong connection with the surrounding community. The rest of the audience consisted of students who either knew some of the performers or needed to see the performance for a class of some sort. The audience filled practically every seat of the auditorium this night, and, judging by the director’s (Kathryn Evans) comments on the opening of the first act, it was probably full on all the other nights as well.
The auditorium itself contains 275 seats with a large 40X40 foot stage (University Theatre). As stated before the auditorium was full, but vision was not obstructed because of the stadium seating. The was excellent lighting of the stage, and quite a bit of decorations and props such as a colorful curtain, podium for “The Boss” (Ruben Rosales), and a stage entrance complete with lights for “Violet” and “Daisy”. There was also a very large carpet with 5 differently colored circles to bring even more vibrancy to the stage. The performance was held at 8:00 PM at night on a rainy night, but one would never know about the dreary weather while inside the performance hall.
Overall the performance seemed to have gone flawlessly and was well prepared. The audience was polite and clapped when appropriate while the actors and actresses were ready and right on cue. The entire play was vibrant and fast paced, eliciting several different types of emotions.

Sideshow. By Bill Russell and Henry Krieger. Dir. Kathryn Evans. U.T. Dallas University Theatre, Richardson. 04/20/2010.
Sommerhalder, Christian. Program notes. Sideshow. 04/20/2010. Richardson: U.T. Dallas University Theatre.
"University Theatre." School of Arts and Humanities. University of Texas at Dallas. Web. Mar.-Apr. 2010. .

Beginnings of Rock and Roll

Taking a start from Elvis Presley, Rock and Roll began unraveling from a blues/jazz rhythm. Rock began to take on several characteristics that blues did not contain though. For example, there was quite a bit more emphasis on the singing, usually having a lead singer. But small ensembles were used as well for the rest of the instruments such as bass guitar, and the drums. Also, electronics began to take a part in the songs whether it be on an electric guitar (which began to take hold in the 1940’s-1960’s) or the bass guitar. Also amplifiers began to take part in the music during live performances while new effects were being used in the studio to create new sounds: feedback for the first time was loved instead of hated. Rock started with the use of the 12 bar blues scales, but as the genre grew, artists began using some external (but traditional) major and minor scales. From the genre exploded: whether it be punk rock, hard rock, or even death metal, artists began experimenting and seeing just how far these new electronics could go. With new modes like grunge, or metal artists saw new ways to send out their new found genre of rock. Bands such as Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Sex Pistols, and the Talking Heads all kicked of Rock and Roll by experimenting with new things, even if these new things involved drugs to make their songs more interesting.

Gullah Culture

The majority of the Gullah music itself contained drumming with an extremely fast paced music with no breaks or pauses. It was an interesting polyphony of loud screaming voices and several drums. The drums of the Gullah culture have a very interesting background, because it used to be a calling signal which signaled their rebellions again racism and discrimination (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKzyAWKi0oo). It seems as though most of their music is rooted in the history of racism and their gaining of freedom. Not only this, but now they sing about preserving their culture and keeping it alive from wide spread tourism and invasion. To demonstrate this concentration on their culture, there sometimes is a constant chanting of a certain word like “strawberries” for emphasis on a certain topic in the videos. It seems as though much of the music was based on a religious aspect as well due to the fact that much of the singing and dance takes place in churches. Also, the second video initially takes place in front of a sign saying “Agape Ministries” which is definitely relating to a religion, possibly Christianity. The culture also involves quite a bit of dancing as well, almost every time there are drums in the videos there is dancing as well. The dancing seems to be planned for the most part since several people end up doing the same thing and are right on beat with each other. The culture/language/music is an interesting combination of African culture and Western culture as well. Only the future will see if the Gullah people can preserve their culture from tourism or not.

Performance Report 1

The performance “Shakespeare in Song” was held in the Jonsson Performance hall at 8:00PM on March 27th, 2010. The songs were performed by approximately 20-30 UT Dallas students, and were composed by Shakespeare himself, Roger Quilter, and Matthew Harris. The program director, Kathryn Evans, was the director of the performance.
The musical aspects of the performance were fairly basic. It was polyphony of the 20-30 voices of the students accompanied by one grand piano. Now, although the word polyphony was used, it may almost be considered a homophony because the variations were so closely related between the piano and the voices during certain pieces. The texture of the voices as compared to the piano was about equal; as the volume of the voices went up, the pianos volume did as well. Dividing the vocals by pitch, the volumes of all were about equal as well (one could hear a little bit of each although the alto and bass pitches probably stuck out more.) The voices were smooth and surprisingly clear and understandable compared to most operas. The typical operatic vibrato was still there but one could clearly distinguish what the singers were saying. The tempo of the music changed right along with the mood: if the songs were happy, then the tempo began to increase pace, while if the mood was more somber, the tempo slowed. This tempo change occurred not only in the larger group setting but also in the solo/duet/trio settings. Also, through the performance there would be intermittent monologues or conversations between two or three persons. These would also be accompanied by song, and the elements stayed more or less the same except for the fact that the person would have to change his/her volume to suit the microphone.
The performers initially processed into the auditorium in a single file line, and all (even the pianist and director) were wearing medieval costumes to create the mood for the musical. While singing, some of their facial expressions also brought more emotion into the play as some would smile or frown, depending on the situation the song was describing; also, their eye contact was either at the audience or gazing at the director (Kathryn Evans). For the monologues, there seemed to be no correlation in which character each person played except for gender (as in skin color, deepness of voice, etc. didn’t matter). Lastly, no props were used in the play except for a single beer bottle to show drunkenness; mostly hand gestures were used to express various emotions and situations.
For the size of the performance hall, the audience was pretty sparse. About 20% of the seats in the hall were filled and even less were filled after the intermission. This audience consisted of either students at UTD who would be considered “insiders” of the music culture, as well as parents of the performers and possibly even adults from the surrounding community. The lack of attendance may be due to several factors including: students not liking Shakespeare, it being a weekend, and the time of night it was at. Normally for these types of performances, audiences know not to clap until a major intermission or until the end of the entire performance. In this instance, though, the director actually turned and told the audience to clap after each act; this ensured that everyone would clap at the same time and there would not be any confusion.
The Performance was held in the Jonsson Performance Hall on March 27th, 2010 at 8:00PM as mentioned before. The actual performance began approximate at this time, approximately at 8:03PM or thereabouts. The performance hall seats about 196 people and has 8 rows of seating(utdallas.edu). In the beginning the performers marched in from a front entrance of the auditorium and stood on the series of bleachers so that they were all visible. One microphone was set on the audience’s left side of the stage and three were set on the right for the solos. Otherwise, the stage was left fairly plain so the attention was more on the performers.
All in all, the performance was organized well and performed punctually. The musical aspects were more or less typical with no specific variations from the majority of operatic type performances.

Shakespeare in Song. Shakespeare, Roger Quilter, and Matthew Harris. Kathryn Evans. UT Dallas Students. Kathryn Evans. Jonsson Performance Hall. Richardson. 3/27/2010.

Sommerhalder, Christian. Program notes. Shakespeare in Song. 3/27/2010. Richardson: Jonsson Performance Hall.

"Jonsson Performance Hall." UT Dallas. http://www.utdallas.edu/ah/events/jonsson.html.

Blog Ten-Rossini's "The Barber of Seville"

I chose two acts from the same play of Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville”:


The first act appears to be the barber himself, while the second act shows Rosina, a beautiful and wealthy woman who has been locked away from society. A link between the music and the story is quite visible: for example, when the mood changes to happy, the tempo increases and facial expressions accompany it; these are known as cabalettas. On the other hand, when the mood moves to somber, the tempo slows and tones lower; these are known as cantabiles. Both acts that I chose seem to be cabaletta arias, so a happy solo in the play. The first the act contains a “Rossini Crescendo” which was known as a building up of excitement by repeating a single word. In this case, the word is “Figaro” which means barber in Italian. On the second video, Rossina’s aria, she appears to have received some gifts. As the tension builds when she is about to unwrap the gifts, her pitch begins to get higher and higher and the speed of her singing increases as well. The stage and props in the second scene also play a large part in explaining the story. For example, when Rossina receives the presents she begins on a second floor balcony and almost seems reluctant to come down, which shows the story’s idea that she had been cooped up in her room by her parents. Rossini’s inclination for theater as opposed to the usual complete focus on music definitely brought a new spin on opera.

Avatar Music Culture

The music from Avatar has such a unique sound included with the typical Western culture that I cannot pinpoint where it is even from; and, from what I can make out from my research, this seems to be the idea. It appears as though James Horner and Wanda Bryant wanted to make a music culture unique to the Na’vi tribe and therefore created their own by combining forms from various real cultures. Horner wanted to combine this Na’vi music culture into a traditional Western orchestral sound in the Soundtrack. If you listen closely, one can most definitely hear this in the soundtrack of Avatar: for example, the song “Pure spirits in the forest” has several sounds that seem like they may have come from some sort of primitive tribe. The musical instruments sound like they are archaic and could have been made out of materials from a forest. An example in the “Pure spirits of the forest” song is the flute that you can hear: the timbre is not as high quality as the rest of the instruments and it appears as though this was done on purpose. Also, some of the sounds in this song are quite unique and resonate similar to a marimba combined with various other sounds that could definitely be associated with various tribal instruments. One can easily pass up these little nuances in the music since they usually only consist of part of the songs. Lastly, the drums are quite prominent in the music, and in the movie they can be seen in various forms; again, these were modeled after true instruments such as the Japanese Taiko. This only scratches the surface of the effort put into creating an entire music culture and putting it into a Western album; the feat is quite impressive!

Obzeet Music Ethnography

Introduction

Obzeet is a South African restaurant located nearby the intersection of Frankford and Preston in Richardson Texas. The restaurant is one of the most laid back restaurants I have even been to with a quiet environment to eat in with a patio on the backside of the building. Even the name means “groovy”! The music culture of Obzeet fits right in with the environment of the restaurant too: laid back. Although there are several different genres of music in Obzeet, they all have one thing in common: they are not there to impress, they are simply there to enjoy music. The music in Obzeet ranges from jazz to rock (with several variations of each in between) and is a very soothing mix of these genres for the enjoyment of the people who eat there.

Methodology

Before this assignment I had been to Obzeet several times but had never viewed it in this way. Sharing in this music culture, then, was as easy as going to the restaurant and having a meal. The music is normally played outside on a patio in a nice relaxing atmosphere. Lately with the cold and rainy weather though, the music was done inside of the store which branches onto the restaurant itself. The majority of my information came from two sources: waiters/waitresses and (in a lesser amount) the musicians themselves. I never actually set up a formal interview with any of the waiters or waitresses simply because they did not have time during their work schedule to have a full on conversation. Therefore, as they came to our table to serve us I would ask questions as we went and slowly gain information from there. These sources gave me more information towards the restaurant itself and not as much information about the bands themselves because for the most part they did not know too much detail about the bands (several bands cycle through as time progresses). The other interview conducted was with the two members of tu-tones; this interview was fairly short as well since it was during a 15 minute intermission, but it gave me sufficient information to get an idea of their inspirations and their repertoire.

Aspects of the Obzeet Music-Culture

There are certain aspects of this music culture that make it unique. All of the music is in a slow tempo, and relaxed form. The focus of the restaurant is not always on the music itself; sometimes it is more of a background ambiance to set the mood for the meal. Other times, though, the music takes center stage (literally and metaphorically) while interacting with the audience and causing them to dance. For example, 3 of the 4 times I went to Obzeet, Eric Erickson was playing a solo acoustic set. One of the techniques that Eric is known for is that he brings with him a home-made repertoire of songs that he knows how to play and the audience is allowed to select which song they would like to hear next from this list. This helps give the audience a more welcoming feel, and shows that their opinions are important. This was demonstrated by the fact that the same elderly couple was there every Tuesday in the past and each time they would choose the same song to hear and begin to dance with it. (Upon further investigation from the waiter, I found that they met at Obzeet, got engaged and even married there all with Eric playing; this shows a great appreciation for the music from these customers.) More recently, the duo “Tu-Tones” was playing on a Friday night (the music starts about 7:00pm on live music nights) and I got a chance to talk to them and discover a little more detail about the culture at Obzeet. The Tu-Tones are a duo that travels around Texas and not only in Obzeet, but Obzeet is a regular venue on their schedule. They were unlike any other band I had seen before in the fact that “Mr. 18 Karat” plays the guitar, drums, sings and sometimes plays a tambourine all at once! “Stompin’Bill Johnston” is more of a main vocalist (lyrics only occur in about half of their songs though) and a harmonica player for the duo but can also play several other instruments such as the guitar, and a synthesizer. This unique blues band takes their music from several older blues legends such as Little Walter and Jimmy Reed, and these inspirations come out in their songs (the majority are cover songs of these previously mentioned artists and various others, but some are originals). The cover songs that are performed by the two men take certain ornamentations and blues scales that are very familiar to the 1960’s and 1970’s form of blues, which demonstrates how the Tu-Tones continue to bring out these traditions even today. In addition to drawing off of previous artists, several features that seem to be the norm at Obzeet show from these two talented men; the first being the enjoyment of their music. I could see from the smile on their faces while they played that this wasn’t just another job, it might as well have been a very enjoyable hobby; the interview only backed up this idea as they stated: “you ain’t workin if you’re havin fun right?”. The majority of the bands that play in Obzeet take this attitude on as well. So much so that every artist that I tried to find using other sources (besides the www.Obzeet .com website) simply did not exist on the internet. Popularity is clearly not a huge concern for these musicians, and most don’t even have albums to sell to the public. The artists’ relaxed attitudes vibrate throughout the restaurant as you can see when you look around at the other customers tapping their feet and, every once and a while, dancing along to the music. The materials used in the restaurant and the band are even relaxed, with running water to sooth your nerves, loose clothing to give the band a relaxed feel, and ambient lighting to calm your soul.

Conclusion

Most of the features that have been mentioned can be expanded to practically every band that plays at Obzeet: overall it all comes down to the open and accepting environment. There are no fancy clothes here, no worries about peoples’ opinions, race, or religion; simply a mellow environment where people can enjoy themselves and this includes the musicians. Of all three musicians that I have experienced in Obzeet, these characteristics hold true and I will have to assume that this holds true to the other bands from what the waiters/waitresses have told me (the third was not mentioned due to the fact that I saw him several months ago and do not recall his name).

Tu-Tones Live at Obzeet­. By Mr. 18 Karat and Mr. Stompin’Bill Johnston. The Obzeet Restaurant, Richardson. February 6^th, 2010.

Sommerhalder, Christian. Program notes. Tu-Tones Live at Obzeet. February 6^th, 2010. Richardson: Obzeet.