For my music term scavenger hunt, I decided to look up ragtime music. First, I went to google ngram to take a look at around the time the term started being used.

I noted that using the term ragtime showed a sudden surge right around the turn of the century. When I started googling ragtime just to see in general what information I could find, I decided to search for the work “rag-time” as well since that term seemed to be more of the period.

For fun I decided to add creole in the list, since I think of Louisiana  and New Orleans with the term. I also added swing music because in an article I was reading, it said ragtime fell out of favor for swing music, which looks to be the case according to the chart.

I then added ragged music since that was also the term used, but it doesn’t seem to show up any earlier on here than ragtime. Even trying to look up that word proved difficult, so I just stuck with rag-time.

After quickly checking out google books and not finding much, I went to the Library of Congress. After searching ragtime and rag-time, the earliest known instance I could find was the Kansas City Daily Journal on December 21st 1896. I included the article below.

It came from an entertainment section on Music and Drama. The article uses the term, “The illustration of ‘rag-time music’ by Ben R. Harney claims to reveal the principles  of native American music, as expressed through the negro.” I thought that was an interesting way to described ragtime music. When the encyclopedia of Britannica says,

“Ragtime, propulsively syncopated musical style, one forerunner of jazz and the predominant style of American popular music from about 1899 to 1917. Ragtime evolved in the playing of honky-tonk pianists along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers in the last decades of the 19th century. It was influenced by minstrel-show songs, blacks’ banjo styles, and syncopated (off-beat) dance rhythms of the cakewalk, and also elements of European music.”

I guess that’s just an example of the product of the times.

I also found what seems to be the earliest use of the term in a advertisement for a show. In the paper The Sun on August 29th, 1897. They had Ben Harney advertised as a ragtime pianist. I thought that was pretty interesting.

I then looked up ragtime music as a general term online to get more info, I found that it was popular during the mid to late 1890’s. Yet, I was only finding stuff in late 1986 which is almost the late 1890’s. That seemed odd. I decided to look up artists to see if maybe I could  find instances of them  earlier than that. Google search lead to to figure out that Ben Harney was actually the earliest I could seem to find, at least, who was famous. (Although Scott Joplin did apparently play at the World’s Fair in 1893 but I can’t find a piece of physical proof from the time of his playing and what the music was considered.) This lead me to believe that the circle of people who listened to Ragtime music when it was getting popular were probably poorer folk. That seems to be the most likely explanation as to why there is no earlier instance of the word use I could find.

When I went searching further, the Kalamazoo Library website said that the first ragtime songs were cakewalk music and “coon songs,” and obviously terrible term. So, ragtime music probably went by other terms for a bit more 1896.

The Civil War was a time of shame for America. Or possibly, maybe this election is up there near that. Fighting amongst ourselves like children. Charming. Obviously, though, slavery is significantly worse than a sexist, racist man, and a woman who has done some questionable things with emails and other things.

“No evidence that thousands of blacks fought for the confederacy.” Part of me wouldn’t be surprised if they were signed up against their will, but so much livelihood depended on slavery, that why would they pull them? Then again, I’m unsure of the cost-benefit analysis of that. Also, maybe some of them signed up,  to be taken to areas controlled by the north and to escape. Then what about their family?

[After writing, I just remembered I have a letter that my dad found at this house that showed how much the cost of a slave was, $450 in 1812. Who would want to lose that much money?!]

We also mentioned in class arming them. If there was a disgruntled slaved, could he not take a gun and kill his own troops? If a slave felt like he was going to die anyone, wouldn’t he want to go out with dignity and taking someone with him? That sounds pretty romanticized now that I think about it. I’ll probably just blame media and it’s depiction of situations like that for that thought.

Louisiana Native Guard- Mixed group of creoles. Believed to be a group that fought for the south. Uncropped photo showed they were actually a part of the North. Ha. But, this made me curious about finding out what the internet says about this fact. First stop: Google.

I typed in “african americans in the confederate army” and the first website that popped up was The Root. This website article claimed that, yes, thousands of blacks did right for the confederate army. I tried to look for direct sources in the article, but all I could find was a bit about the author at the end.

“John Stauffer is a professor of English and African and African-American studies, and former chair of American studies, at Harvard University. He is the prize-winning author or editor of 14 books, including The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race; Giants: The Parallel Lives of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln; and The Battle Hymn of the Republic: A Biography of the Song That Marches On (with Benjamin Soskis).”

Oh, that’s a pretty good resume which would mean he had some qualifications in the subject. I found another article by him here: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2011/09/black-confederates/.

This one painted a clearer picture of there being “thousands” but that was less than 1% of the army. So, it’s really not as sensationalized as we believe.

HistoryNet claims there were also black confederate soldiers, but mainly as a labor force. So many there were a few legit black soldiers, but it seems like most were labor. Not a surprise, given the rights, or I should say lack thereof, they had in the south.

The Swing Beat! I am not a a  big smooth Jazz person  but I’m down  with the swing beat and Big Band Jazz. I actually took a class on the History of Jazz. And we got to look into the different types and the history of each and the break down of the music and the chord and the beats. I really enjoyed it. Granted, I’ve played music so I’m familiar with many things.

Sometimes I get so caught up in list listening to music for fun that I miss all the details put into it. I didn’t realize how many current song have swing beats in them until we discussed it in class. I really enjoy more modern pop/hip-hip music with the swing beat. It gives it a  really nice sound. To be fair though, I’ve been listening to a lot of music lately with that beat. It’s become a favorite beat of mine!  I digress…

I knew a bit about what we discussed in class, since I took that history of Jazz class. Though, in that class, I feel like we didn’t discuss race relations that well. I mean, in regards to race records. We discussed influences and what not, but I don’t believe my teacher ever specified the actually record label and the like. So I was fascinated that there were labels that only wanted black people, but also included white people in the background, but as a secret. I feel like that’s what they’ve done in the past but vice versa.

I remember us talking about Bessie Smith, but we focused more on Ella Fitzgerald in my other class, which seems odd since Bessie Smith was the first really big singer. I wonder who is technically more popular though.

Now, I briefly remember Muddy Waters, but I don’t remember discussing about his life. And the whole idea with the folklorists and going back to the roots was interesting. You can see how music music was packaged and sold even back “in the good old days” as many people like to say.

Time to talk about communication! Awesome. I use to study mass communications and use to host a radio show. That was super fun. It was also intriguing to learn about change in communication. In those classes we didn’t get into the railroad and time an importance in communication, but it make sense after talking about it now.

It never occurred me to how time zones were formed. Be railroads, timing only really directly affected the town or nearby towns, now, with railroads, communication had to change and time zones were born! And now, while things have been tweaked, they’ve been the same for a while. It’s particularly odd to know I exist right now while someone else exists in the exact same moment in a different time due to the time zones. Time and space really has changed, and electricity clearly changed it more. We’re no longer bound by the sun. Thank goodness. I do prefer the night!

Jumping over to our conversation on recording, oh man, I loved it! I mean, I didn’t realize that people would place instruments in different parts to get the correct sound the wanted before amplification! I feel a bit stupid to not have had that thought occur to me, but, I truly never though about it even though I did take a class on Jazz music and that’s the music popular at the time of these early recordings!

At the American History Museum, I was able to listen to early recording of voices and music like we did in class. I wish more people would know about that little exhibit. It’s remarkable to hear the difference in quality through the years and through the different types of recording. Plus, this type of recording is way easier to understand. The ribbon recording … ugh. No thanks.

Thank You Alan Turing for helping shorten WW2, and probably also being the reason for Blade Runner replicant test. Can Machine Think? Yes. I think so. Are they smart? Yes, I believe so. Are they alive? No. Can they feel? No.

It’s been weird to think about this class discussion. Because it was so hard to pinpoint the line of intelligence between humans and machines. What is the difference between learning and memorization? I know machines memorize, but they also observe patterns. Is that not how people work when they think? We, to understand something, have to see the patterns within what is being taught to us?

The only difference I can think of between us is the answer “why we do the things we do” and the emotions that drive us humans as a species. A Machine can agree someone should feel sad when another person dies, but not why we should feel that way or why we do.

That brings me to Blade Runner. In the film, if you talk to a Replicant, a robot, you would not be able to tell it was not human until it takes the Voight-Kampff test. A test to prove that a replicant is not human, mainly using the ideas of emotions. It should only take about 6 or 7 questions to determine if one is a replicant, at least in the book. Super cool, in my opinion.

Now, ENIAC and ARPANET are some of the coolest things I’ve learned about technology wise. I had heard of ENIAC in passing before, but I never learned the specifics. I also had no idea it was run by vacuum tubes, which, by the way, are still confusing to me. As are punch cards.

I never had to deal with punch cards, but I remember it being used in a quest in World Of Warcraft. So, I knew it was technologically related, but not exactly how it worked. Though it sorts of remind me of the music boxes that have a metal plates with dents in them. I know it doesn’t work that way, but, it’s just what I think of.

Arpanet is also cool to think about. I bet my father might have been able to use Arpanet during his time in the coast guard and government back in the day. I’m going to ask him and put it into this entry after. If so, I’m going to ask him to tell me about it. I know if he didn’t use it, someone he knows probably did!

I’m still struggling on Arpanet not being considered an intranet since it is closed. Why can’t it just be a special type of intranet. “An intranet is a private network accessible only to an organization’s staff. Generally a wide range of information and services from the organization’s internal IT systems are available that would not be available to the public from the Internet.” while Apranet “The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was an early packet switching network and the first network to implement the protocol suite TCP/IP. Both technologies became the technical foundation of the Internet.” Is it because arpanet was packet switching?

Ok, so, analog computers are awesome. This item was able to do so much even when the lack of computer power. I guess it’s been no surprise it was invented for the government for war related problems. I mean, I kinda knew that, but I never really thought about the beginnings to all the amazing technological advances brought on by war. So, I guess, there are still many benefits to war, even with all the killing. Is the trade off worth it? That feels like a loaded question.

Out of all the conversations we had, the most interesting was on transistors, came after the vacuum tube and the audion. I had no knowledge on them, outside of what they were. Even with the discussion in class, it was still hard for me to comprehend.

I would say, in general, I’m pretty smart, but even this is above my knowledge, and yet our species invented this! For something an ubiquitous as a transistor, I felt like I should have had more information on this item!

Fun Fact: the Nobel Prize for Physics was given to the people who invented the transistor. That’s clearly not enough for a product that is still used today, with only minor changes. Yet, how many people could tell you about transistors and the people who invented them? How many people can tell you about the invention of the computer, radio, television? Funny how history works. I mean, how many people know exactly how electricity works. We’ve discussed that but I still feel clueless.

I found it really interesting when we talked about Max Weber. He’s really important in my major, Anthropology. Even though he was a sociologist, they were important for helping create the field of anthropology. While studying him I never go into anything about his thoughts on information management and his thoughts on rationality.

Looking at the common beliefs for civilized societies back in Weber’s time, it’s so surprise that there was this idea that the modern world was rational. It also made sense we we go into how pensions and the like were paid during the times after civil war.

Learning about Montgomery Meigs was amazing. Mainly, I thought the tidbit of information on the Arlington Cemetery creation was the best thing I’ve learned about in history for quite a while. Meigs is the reason we have this amazing cemetery. This man was clearly intelligent. Although, he did make the IQ test for WW1 which was very within it’s time. They also have a tendency to be “easier” to a specific group of people, typically ones from a higher socio-economic group. I digress.

Oh… this book. I’m not the biggest fan of this book. It’s full of anecdotal evidence. If you’re going to start wildly claiming things about our brain, you’re going to need science to back it up. When I google “Are our attentions spans decreasing?” I see a lot of claims, but not actual scientific articles. Well, there was one that mentioned a study by Microsoft, but no one linked to the article and I didn’t see the past study where they would have compared the current attention span to past studies. Did they do past studies due to ADHD or actually decrease due to technology?

I decided to go to Google Scholar and see what sort of scholarly article I could find on attention span and technology. I could have been looking up the wrong thing, but I swear I was having a terrible time trying to find an article on attention span in regards to technology. I spent a good 10 minutes trying to find an article before I gave up. Now, if this was a research paper, I sure would have been pissed at my attempt to find a reliable source for the paper. Though, I’m still annoyed.

While I do believe our attention span could have changed due to technology, our culture has also been changed due to the technology. If our culture makes it ok to focus less, or for a shorter time, we’re going to adapt to that. I wonder how much of it is cultural due to the technology. I would attempt to search that, but I feel like if I cannot find an article on attention span, this was be practically impossible.

Well, while this book wasn’t terrible, I think it focuses too much on attempting to pass of anecdotal evidence as science and puts a lot of blame on technology when it could truly be our culture, or just how our brain chooses the function with a change in informational intake.

On another note. After we discussed in class about mouthing words when we read, I realized I did it. But, I only do that when I’m trying to slow my brain down and to actually understand what I am reading better. Otherwise, I can get suddenly be 10 pages ahead and no idea what I was reading.

The Loudness War. A war I’ve been completely in the dark about! Not going to lie, I laughed to see Miranda Lambert and Christina Aguilera mixed with Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. But it’s really interesting to see. I mean, I can understand that with hard rock you wouldn’t mind some distortion and loudness, I feel like that a part of the genre. But, for pop and country, why is that needed?

I remember when I bought my first pair of really expensive headphones. Wow, does that give you a better look into the production of music. I remember listening to so many songs and going, “Echo?! Why is there so much echoing in these songs?” It’s the weirdest phenomenon to me, even more so than the loudness war. I get how it can add some nice change and tone to the song, but it’s used so heavily. If you really want to hear it being used, look into Jay-Z’s The Black Album acappella soundtracks.

Also, an issue I can with music is how overproduced it all sounds. I mean, when you go to a concert, it honestly doesn’t sound that great because of all of the changes they make during the production of the song. When you listen to the recording on a CD, or whatever your format choice is, you can hear the changes they’ve made, but also not in a good way. It sounds fake. Don’t get me wrong, I still listen to popular music, but I do get frustrated with it sometimes.

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