Authenticity in Music

Wow, I really enjoyed that article by David Pattie. Heady stuff. I felt like I was just trying to keep up with his ideas, but I am fascinated by issues of constructed personae in performance, etc. I come from a performing background (somewhat – I’m not an actor or anything) and worked for a time in Hollywood (the ultimate in the Inauthentic, some might say), so I really appreciate the idea of authenticity in performace – not just in music, but in acting and writing, for that matter. “Authenticity” is connected to, if not synonymous with, “truth,” and truth, I would argue is what art is ultimately attempting portray or express. I most appreciate a movie actor’s performance when it seems naturalistic and real. I appreciate music that comes from a genuine place. I admire people who are without pretense.
But yes, any performance is by definition artificial, so what I – and any audience member, I suppose – is looking for when seeking authenticity is in fact the illusion of authenticity. I think artists can sometimes transcend that barrier, however. There’s the idea of being “in the moment.” I can cite numerous examples. One that comes to mind is a recent performance on American Idol by runner-up Crystal Bowersox. Toward the end of a song, she broke down in tears because she was overwhelmed by emotion. It was terribly moving, and my wife observed at that moment, “She just won the competition.” Granted, she didn’t, but my wife’s reaction speaks to how powerful an authentic moment can be. Could Crystal Bowersox have premeditated the tears? Sure, but I instinctively think she didn’t. The moment seemed to real, too authentic. I guess another word that goes along with authenticity is intimacy. It was an intimate moment, and that’s something that all humans seek.
When it comes down to it, staged performance is just a figure for real life, anyway. We watch movies and plays, listen to songs, because they reflect our real experience. But the fact is our real experience with other people is often inauthentic, anyway. In most of our dealings with people, our true selves are covered over by façade. All of us present a face to the world. (Reminds me of a lyric from perhaps my all-time favorite singer-songwriter Billy Joel, who by the way I find authentic – “Well we all have a face that we hide away forever, and we take them out and show ourselves when everyone has gone.”) We only show our true face to a select few, if anyone. Is it any wonder that humans seek authenticity as a commodity? They don’t get enough of it in their real lives.
Anyhow, back to the discussion at hand, I believe musical performance can be authentic. If you glance at the transcript from our group’s most recent chat, I talk about how a song or performer is authentic if he or she expresses something in a way that feels true to life, or true to the life experience of his or her audience. Consider Taylor Swift. Her songs about teen love are pretty trite, and it’s easy to write them off as drivel, but they clearly connect with her audience. Does a sentiment have to be original to be authentic? Hardly. And yes, I think Pattie makes a point when he says that there is an unspoken agreement between the performer and his/her audience (at least the authentic performer): “that the music contains within itself a pre-existing truth, and that it is the task of both performer and audience to rediscover and re-express that truth.” Isn’t that why we attend concerts live rather than simply being content to listen to the song over and over again on CD or mp3 or whatever? There’s probably more fidelity (rooted in the Latin word for faith/truth, yes?) to the original performance on a recording, but we crave the rawness and immediacy of the live performance.
So what is authentic? Authentic is when the performer shows real emotion rather than staged emotion. Or when that performer’s staging of the emotion (because, again, all performance is inherently artificial) rings true for his/her audience.
Finally, just to touch on the second article about hip-hop, I think the same standard should hold for authenticity in rap: how real is it? By coincidence, a student came to me yesterday for help understanding, a really excellent article – “Hip Hop Planet” by James McBride – which examines the roots of hip hop.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2007/04/hip-hop-planet/mcbride-text.html

One of the most interesting points the writer makes is that hip hop has come kind of full circle as an art form; it evolved from spoken word performance, dancing, and drumming from West African, and in the present-day villagers in Senegal have embraced Hip Hop to express their day-to-day experience. That’s real.

PROPOSED ASSIGNMENTS
Assignment 1: Students list top 3 favorite musical artists/groups and 3 adjectives to describe each. We will compile a list on the board and then discuss what students like about them. SOCRATIC METHOD needed here to lead the discussion to the issue of authenticity (key words: "real," "truth," "believable," "identification"). Conclude the discussion by writing 1 paragraph discussion about what makes a singer/artist authentic.

Reflection Questions:
How do you define authenticity? What does it look like in a performer / performance?
Is authenticity an objective or subjective quality?
If something is planned or prepared for performance can it still be authentic?
Can a performance be effective or entertaining without being authentic? How?
Does something being authentic automatically make it artistic or entertaining? Consider freak shows, street musicians, zoos - are those authentic entertainments and is the authenticity something you inherently assume?
Cite a song, movie, story that you think is especially authentic. What is authentic about it?

Assignment 2: Identify a song that you think is authentic. Either play the song in class or bring in a lyric sheet and explain what is authentic about it. Identify a song that you find inauthentic. Either play the song or bring in the lyric sheet to explain why it is inauthentic.

News Log & Assignments

NEWS VIEWING LOG

• KSTP 10pm News Wed, June 2

• FATHER KILLED – Father killed by semi truck while changing tire on highway. Characterize him as a family man. He got his daughters to giggle. They are really playing up the sympathy. Showing grieving wife, daughters. 2 girls in car. “The girls told me they saw too much.” 120 seconds

• Nurses vs. Hospitals labor dispute – AD TRUTH TEST – Nurses set to strike on June 10th, hospitals have a 1 minute ad. The truth is the first casualty. Nurse’s spokesperson calls the hospitals’ radio ad outright lies. They play the ad. Point out that there are different perspectives on the claims. Pretty even-handed. About 180 seconds

• LAWMAKER REPRIMANDED. – Local lawmaker reprimanded for pushing special fishing law on lake on which he owns a cabin. Clip of Sen. Chaudry claiming he did not have his own interest in mind. Sen Linda Scheid of Brooklyn Park being critical. 60 seconds

• OFFICER FIGHTING TO GET HIS JOB BACK after being dismissed after a domestic dispute. 30 seconds.

• JAILED IN RWANDA – Local law professor in Rwanda has been jailed and allegedly attempted suicide. His family says the accusations are false. He is being accused of denying genocide. 10 seconds

• STANDING UP FOR OTHERS – teased for after break – image of man with terrible facial wounds – “How standing up for others almost cost him his life”

• THROWN IN JAIL – teasing how mowing lawn or kids playing in lawn could get you thrown in jail

• SOLDIER’S WELCOME – soldier returns from tour of duty only to get wounded.

o COMMERCIAL BREAK

• HISTORIC HOME FIRE – Firefighters tried to save a 100+ year old home on Lake Minnetonka. 20 seconds.

• BEATING VICTIM – Man comes to aid of gas station clerks clerk beaten with baseball bats after defending two clerks from bullies. Victim’s mother talks about how good deeds sometimes are punished. 30 seconds.

• MURDER SUSPECT – Suspect in 2005 Natalee Holloway disappearance in Aruba is now wanted in Peru murder. 30 seconds.

• SAW FREED – BP looking for new way to stop oil leak in gulf. Images of pollution and animals in gulf. 30 seconds

• NEW FINES – teasing the local fines story again. Fines or jail time.

• Dave Dahl – weather – something that hasn’t happened in weeks.

o COMMERCIAL BREAK

• Throw from anchors to weathercaster Dave Dahl

• Break an 11 day streak of above average highs, coolest since 65 degrees on May 11

• Pollen levels, comfortable now, but going up over weekend.

• LIVE RADAR some sprinkles, but moving away. Some rain, perhaps significant, coming late Thursday into Friday

• CURRENT TEMPERATURES, CONDITIONS

• HIGHS THURSDAY

• THURSDAY NIGHT SEVERE STORMS RISK

• Tonight and tomorrow’s forecast.

• 7 day outlook – approximately 180 seconds

• Back to anchors.

• NEW AT 10 – new laws in Glencoe

• Glencoe residents fighting the city’s wide-ranging nuisance ordinances. Angle – the city has gone too far. Reporter says, The city is interested in public safety, not making money (no one mentioned making money). Petition being circulated to put the ordinances on a November ballot. City official put on camera, stammers a response, looks kind of like he’s equivocating. 90 seconds

• CONTROVERSIAL AD – St. Cloud print ad accused of being anti-muslim. Pastor claims it’s about piety. Detractors say it’s anti-muslim. Pretty-even-handed. 60 seconds

• IDENTITY THEFT – Green Bay residents steal the identities of war veterans. 15 seconds.

• SOLDIER’S RECOVERY – A hero’s welcome in Rochester for the last hospitalized victim of the Fort Hood massacre. Ziglar incredibly survived tour of duty in Iraq and then was shot at Ft. Hood. His fiancée lives in Rochester. “Good example of Minnesota Nice. 60 seconds min.

• teasing next stories –
• GLOBAL WARMING – What do ghosts and global warming have in common?
• HIGHWAY ROBBERY – one of the most controversial calls in the history of baseball (pretty emphatic there) “That is not an overstatement” the sports guy says. Bad news for the twins as well, a couple players will be out.

o COMMERCIAL BREAK

• “Are humans really causing temperatures to rise and ice caps to melt?” More and more people don’t think so. Public opinion changing about global warming. Conference mocking people who believe global warming is a problem. A state senator blames the change in opinion on the Media. Anchor admits there were no other media outlets at that conference. It does seem to be fairly even-handed that they admit this; however, they give the lead to the people pointing out that almost as many people believe in ghosts (25%) global warming. tease story for tomorrow about why global warming is a local issue 150 seconds

• STUDENTS RETURNING HOME – High school seniors stuck in Guatemala are returning home. 30 seconds.

• “Almost had bseball history in Detroit. Wait til you see…” also… tease Ken Griffey’s retirement.
• Lottery numbers.

o COMMERCIAL BREAK

• Blown call costs pitcher perfect game.
• Twins lose 2 – Cuddyer to bereavement and Casilla to surgery
• Twins trail mariners 1-0
• Neshek starts rehab assignment
• Griffey Jr. retires
• Stanley cup finals update – Flyers def. Blackhawks
• golf tournament
• Praises umpire for admitting mistake

• Repeat 7-day forecast and then conclude


My reflection. I am generally pretty cynical about TV news. I really don’t watch it because I believe it to be mostly fluff. I think a majority of the stories on local news really aren’t newsworthy. Take the lead story about the dad who was killed changing a flat tire on the highway. I think there is some value in warning community members about the dangers of changing a flat on the highway, but really the whole of the story was spent showing the grieving wife and (step)children. It was pure melodrama; look at these sad images. The narrative was, a family tragically loses a loving husband and father. Very maudlin. Certainly I sympathize with the survivors for their loss, but I don’t find the content of the story journalistically important.

Of the other stories in the first 10-15 minutes, there were a fair number of stories that I would deem as significant and relevant, and I was pleasantly surprised at how even-handed the reporting seemed to be. Story #2 about the nurse’s strike was handled as a traditional 5 W’s story, and I thought the story in its examination of the truth or falsehood of the hospitals’ radio ad was quite balanced. I thought likewise of story #3 about the lawmaker being reprimanded. They provided both interview quotes from the lawmaker himself and a colleague who was critical of him.

I have mixed feelings about the anti-global warming story. I appreciated that the story provided time for an opposing viewpoint – a local lawmaker who believes global warm is a big problem – and that they answered her criticism that the media gives the anti-warming theorists too much attention by having a reporter acknowledge that they were the only news outlet at the conference. Even though they relegated this story to a slot between the weather and sports – about 20 minutes into the newscast – I still question why they found it to be significant at all. I suspect that the main reason they aired the story is because they had good footage of women dressed up as “mother nature” handing out pamphlets.

I think weather has obvious merits for being broadcast, but sports – as big a sports fan as I am – really is newsworthy only insofar as both news and sports tend to be male-skewing in their audiences, so it makes sense to report the sports on the news. Really, though, I think the sports report is a vestige of a pre-cable, pre-ESPN world.

PROPOSED ASSIGNMENTS:

Watch 3-4 news stories with the sound off and write what you think they are about based solely on the onscreen text and images. Now watch them again and summarize what they were really about. Is there a discrepancy between what the images and words say? Do you think this is intentional? What do you think has a greater impact on the viewer and why?

Watch the first 10 minutes of the news and log each story, describing in concise bullet points what the main idea of each story is. Now go back and decide on whether the story is one, more or all of the following: significant, relevant, sensational, practical, or has community impact. Finally, put the stories in the order that you think is most appropriate. Justify this order in a well-argued paragraph.

Choose a news story of at least 60 seconds in length and identify the narrative. Rewrite it as a 1+ page short story.

Criticial analysis assignment - Media Depiction of Teachers

Part I - Use a double-bubble map (a thinking map used for comparison and contrast - see example below) to compare and contrast a teacher from a movie or TV show to a real life teacher that you have. For each bubble cite an example to support the adjective that you use in the bubble.

Example of double-bubble map:















Part II: Choose one specific scene that particularly defines the teacher character that you chose and do a shot-by-shot analysis that explains how the director conveys this impression of the teacher using cinematic elements: dialogue certainly, but also sound, visuals, lighting, editing, etc.

Part III: Find a piece of nonfiction - blog, article, memoir, or even vlog - about a real-life teacher and cite at least five example quotes that show how the examples for the life of this actual teacher either supports the media portrayal you chose or contradicts it.

Blog 4 - Media Representation of Teachers

I am a sucker for teacher movies. I'm sure it's one of the reasons I became a teacher. I went to film school to become a screenwriter, and my thesis script was a teacher movie. One of my favorite books is Up the Down Staircase. All that having been said, I think the majority of teacher movies are a load of bullhoey.

The problem with Hollywood (no big news here) is that its depictions of teaching - and most any profession - is oversimplified. Sure, generally speaking, in movies like Stand and Deliver the teacher is heroic, but to an unrealistic degree. You can basically take any teacher-protagonist from any teacher movie, and he/she is the same character. (At this point, I am going to use "he" only to avoid playing the pronoun gender neutral game.)

He starts out with ideals, but quickly finds himself in over his head. He struggles at first, but sticks with it and makes a breakthrough by using unorthodox methods. He gets his unruly, underprivileged, often skeptical students on board with his outside-the-box program and teaches them to believe in themselves, despite resistance from any or all of the following: administration, colleagues, student's family and friends, society, his own family, the students themselves. Usually there is some crisis of faith - often represented by the failure or near-failure or even death or metaphorical fall - of a key student who has been closely working with the teacher, but the teacher and students rally to achieve success in the end.

This pattern fits for the story of Jaime Escalante and his math students in Stand and Deliver, Erin Gruell and her writing students in Freedom Writers, Louanne Johnson and her poetry students in Dangerous Minds, and on and on and on. These are real-life teachers. It's also true of fictional teachers like the title character in Mr. Holland's Opus or the Sidney Poitier character from To Sir, With Love. Granted, Hollywood is in the business of telling stories, and so these movies fit standard narrative patterns, but - and this is the point of the assignment - what is wrong with this picture is that it is unrealistic. It is sanctified. Problems are too easily overcome. If only a clever lesson plan and some chutzpah (or moxie or ganas) were all it took to transform students, a lot more students would be transformed.

I think parents expect too much of teachers partly - not all, but partly - because of teacher movies. Real change is gradual, incremental, glacial, even. Even when a movie shows change over time as in Stand and Deliver - I believe Escalante worked with those kids over 2 years - it doesn't feel as long because the movie is only 100 minutes long.

Another problem is that we teachers generally come in contact with these kids for 45-50 minutes a day, 5 days a week, about 33 weeks a year. In the movie, it looks much more continuous than that because of something called editing. All the other stuff gets cut out, but it's actually very difficult to have any continuity.

Finally, it goes counter to good storytelling practice to portray teaching as it truly is because so much of it is mundane and boring. No audience wants to see that. Even a documentary is edited. How much of good teaching is simply wait time? Monitoring who's on task? Grading papers? Planning lessons? Not exactly riveting action. For every effective minute in the classroom, I would argue two were spent trying to plan that minute. Teaching honestly is a round-the-clock job - at least it can be - and I don't think audiences appreciate that. Movies touch on the personal cost the job has on teachers only insofar as it serves the story, but the potential cost is so much greater. One of the greatest challenges is deciding where to draw the line between personal and professional time outside of the classroom because there is always more work to be done. It would be like asking a parent to delineate a clear boundary at home between "me time" and "kid time." It would be impossible.

On balance, the depiction of teachers as heroes is much appreciated, but something that I think we might do better without. We are human beings doing our best, and it sure would be nice if audiences (read: parents) had a better appreciation for that, especially when we don't measure up to these idealized versions of what movies build us up to be.