Musical Performance Visit Project

On the night of January 24, 2008, I attended the IU Art Museum’s Coffee House Night expecting to attend a performance featuring a musician who is a master of the Zimbabwean hand piano. Upon my arrival I discovered that the musician reported to be performing that night was unable to do so. Instead I stumbled upon a one man performance of Latin classical guitar, which is a form of music to which I had not been greatly exposed. The musician’s chair, Marshall Amplifier, and a couple of weathered, acoustic guitars of an unknown brand were set up in a rather central area of the second floor of the IU Art Museum. Surrounding the musician were a large array of sculptures and paintings depicting Buddhist and Hindu deities. It struck me as being rather curious that a Latin guitar performance was taking place in such a setting, but I can only presume that this was probably due to this particular section of the second floor having the most open space for him to utilize. The guitarist was a male of about 35 years of age who was of European descent and was dressed in a black suit, which seemed to match his long, dark hair that he had tied back in a ponytail. Many students and other patrons of the museum were present and were engaged in viewing the displayed works of art. Many passed by the scene of the performance, but only a few seemed to take any notice of the guitarist.

The guitarist played a variety of fascinating classical songs which struck me as being possibly of Spanish or Italian in origin. He rapidly plucked and strummed each successive note with his quite long fingernails. Each song differed greatly from every other he performed despite the fact that they were composed of what I presume were derivations of musical scales. Each song had definite divisions based on the progression of rhythm and note patterns. These subparts of each composition were further emphasized by alterations in tempo and mode of strumming or plucking of each note. Each song varied in length, structure of the progression of each segment of the music, and general sonic atmosphere produced.

After forty minutes or so of performing, the guitarist took a break and talked to a few of the nearly onlookers. I used this opportunity to ask him a few questions and gain more of an understanding of his art. He identified himself as Atanas Tzvetkov, a PhD candidate in the IU School of Music from Bulgaria. He informed me of the origins of many of the songs which he performed, and also told me the address of his website, where some of the compositions were identified. He said that the original context of what he played was that they were written during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by a number of known composers from various parts of Eastern and Central Europe who based all of their works on traditional Latin folk music. Atanas seemed to indicate that though professional musicians composed these works, it did not differ from the original style of Latin tradition. It seems that though this is deemed by many to be a type of folk Latin music, many composers have embraced the style and have allowed this form to continue and progress in a professional as well as a folk context.

This blog entry is my 1st Encounter Project: Musical Performance Visit.

Folklore as a Part of My Life

According to Sims and Stephens, folklore is a form of knowledge that learned and transmitted in an informal setting and is an expression of values and beliefs that can take a multiplicity of forms. This expression is transmitted as an expression of one’s life experiences in the form of the arts and other mediums of communication (Sims and Stephens, p. 7-8). Based on this concept, one expression of folklore that is important to me within the context of my everyday life is family stories, particularly stories of my ancestors, within my immediate and extended relatives. Though the reminiscing of events relating to my ancestors is present on both sides of my family, my mother’s side abounds with tales of the past. Many stories are often recounted about my German ancestors who lived in rural parts of upstate New York during the nineteenth century. Such stories include the realities of having an agrarian lifestyle, accounts of serving in the Union Army during the Civil War, and other anecdotes relating to the interaction of the particular personalities of my ancestors and their contacts outside of the family. Some of these stories are quite humorous, such as how my great-great-great grandmother would begin preparations for a meal by walking to the hen house and grab two chickens by the neck and would then proceed to kill them by swinging them and hitting their bodies against the side of the coop. In contrast, some of the stories were rather unpleasant, such as haw my great-great-great grandfather was wounded in the ankle at the Battle of the Wilderness, and that his wound never truly healed. Until his death, nearly sixty years after he received the wound, he had to dress his ankle each day due to how it would ooze from a seemingly perpetual infection. In addition to these anecdotes, many other facets of my ancestry have been verbally transmitted through successive generations. These include many words that are German in origin. For example, members of my immediate and extended family all use the word “gwensch,” which is intended to mean “to squeeze,” when speaking to kin. This word “gwensch” actually is derived from the German word “quetschen,” which does in fact mean “to squeeze or to grasp.”

The primary reason why these ancient family anecdotes and unusual words are of a great importance to me is due to the fact that they have allowed my entire family to feel great ties to their past, and ultimately to have a better understanding of themselves. In addition to this, these common tales of ancestors allow for the creation of a sort of identity shared by the extended family that is the result of established social ties.

This blog entry is my response to the Chapter One Reflection Question.