Manitoba Folkwalks Collection
Alan Lomax was an American folklorist and ethnomusicologist. He was one of the great field collectors of folk music and spent much of the early part of the 20th century driving across America in a car that he modified to house his recording equipment so that he could record the folk music of the American people. He contributed a large amount of recording to what would come to be the Smithsonian Folkways Collection. Smithsonian Folkways states that their mission “is to document people’s music.”
Manitoba Folkways is an endeavor similar in nature to Lomax’s and the mission of the Folkways Collection. Artists Jen Delos Reyes and Kerri-Lynn Reeves drove across Manitoba in search of examples of contemporary vernacular music about the lives of Manitobans. Manitoba Folkways is an audio portrait of the province today.
Purchase it here.
School of the Air Band Class
Music Education by Radio Broadcast is not a new concept. In the spirit of the former CBS School of the Air or the the University of Wisconsin’s “Wisconsin College of the Air,” among many more have inspired, School of the Air Band Class. School of the Air Band Class is a weekly broadcast focused on exploring music, social implications, collaboration, and group dynamics. Each broadcast is approximately 30 minutes in length.
These four weekly broadcasts will look at group singing and social music. We will listen to songs of Work and Play, Union and Protest, Choirs and A Capella and in the last week focusing on Bands and Groups.
Through recordings, readings, and activities listeners can engage in an exploration of social music. Weekly assignments will be given on the air that will encourage you to gather together a group to engage in these musical forms.
These readings and most albums featured on these broadcasts are available in their entireties at Ditch Projects in Springfield, Oregon from September 3rd–October 1st, 2011.
The broadcasts are available for download here:
Week 1: Work and Play
Week 2: Union and Protest
Week 3: Choirs and A Cappella
Week 4: Bands and Groups
To obtain copies of the weekly reading packets that accompany these broadcasts please contact me for pricing.
Special thanks to Stefan Ransom, sound engineer and editor of the School of the Air Band Class recordings.