For some strange reason I can only post short messages so please if you want my opinion email me at HWFAPAC@yahoo.com
But let me just say I think december is quite rude and in my opinion wrong because anyone can learn with music.
Bless you HWFAPAC, it seems that the teachings of Hip Hop and Rap have not served you well in the art of comunication…but yet…
… I think, that you, with your audacity, will turn out just fine.
Listen carefully to what I write.
Milum.
Excuse me milum but i am not really a big rap or hip hop fan and as for comunication skills i have great comunication skills i jut can’t seem to get my entire thoughts posted because for some strange reason the computer keeps logging me off.
and thank you for the compliment to whatever level you ment it if you wish to hear my thoughts I implore you to e mail me.
**HWFAPAC, ** what kind of computer are you using? Is it an older one? Maybe you are just timing out; it happens to all of us around here now and then.
I’d love to hear what you have to say, in more detail. Maybe I’ll try e-mailing you and one of us can share your thoughts with everyone.
I would like that. The computer is not that old. It’s about 2 years old with a dsl engineand i am baffled to why it does this.
It doesn’t prove anything, but here are two recent examples of rap getting negative press.
How many high schools are there in the US? I have no idea on the details of that article, but if 5 high schools in Chicago feature a teacher augmenting their classes with a lesson using hip-hop in some way, say, once a week then the article is being entirely accurate about Chicago. Now if a high school in Alabama, one in Maine, one in Kansas, another in Oregon and one in Hawaii also feature teachers doing the same thing, the article is correct. It doesn’t mean the scholarly sky is falling in, however.
Then what’s your point in posting it? I don’t think anyone here ever said that some rap was negative. Since there’s been no info posted that any teachers are planning on using negative or profane or gangsta rap in the classroom, I dn’t see why these cites make a bit of difference.
Do you have anything against Englisgh madrigals, which are staples of numerous student choirs, and many of which are based on famous poetry of the period? I’m guessing no. But would you if I told you my college choir director, a composer, told us that many references to death in English madrigals are actually references to orgasm? Lends a whole new perspective, doesn’t it?
That should be, “that some rap wasn’t negative.”
That’s what I get for pre-caffeinated posting.
An inability to swallow humble pie.
The first article seems to have been a missed opportunity for you to start a rant about the deteriorating quality of news writing, these days, rather than going on with a conflation of uneducated opinions regarding performers as opposed to the genre.
The second article appears irrelevant to this discussion: I can easily picture similar comments from a U.S. judge called upon to evaluate the content of a piece written in modern East End slang (with constantly changing meanings) based on Cockney. In fact, the point that the language is fluid would make it difficult for a hip urban U.S. judge to arrive at a decision in the case presented. However, none of that has anything to do with the quality of the music or the validity of the genre, in any case.
Gangsta rap is a single sub-genre of the larger rap/hip-hop style. I agree that it is odd to read of the back-and-forth murders committed within the community of Gangsta Rap producers. Of course, it is not immediately clear to the outsider how much of the warfare is drug-related or how much of it is a carry-over from people springing from a drug-dominated situation. (And, of course, pointing to the violence, here, as if it has never occurred elsewhere conveniently ignores the rise of medieval and Renaissance music guilds who enforced their own brands of conformity with methods that would have been right at home among the Teamsters or United Mine Workers in their most violent decades.)
However, to associate the violence connected to a minority of Gangsta Rappers with all Gangsta Rappers, who are, in turn, a minority within the entire hip-hop genre displays a woeful lack of logic–and still makes no argument against the use of the technical elements of the genre as a teaching tool.
Some worthwhile reading for the Hip Hop hataz.
To My Most Respectful Friends…
About the point one of my students gets insulted…“it seems that the teachings of Hip Hop and Rap have not served you well in the art of comunication”…I might get a wee bit nasty. He was invited and then insulted. He is a gentle soul…I am not. Read carefully what I write…some things I will accept…some will simply make me unpleasant.
Hi Willie, and welcome to the boards.
The problems your pupil is having with posting to the boards is probably due to what time of day he is attempting to post at, as it gets pretty busy and the hamsters that keep the board running are flat out.
It wasn’t an intentionally “bad” insult, more a gentle jibe due to situations created. I wouldn’t worry too much about it. I’m sure it will work out just fine.
One thing to note is that he was not insulted by the person who invited him.
This is a wide-open forum (not as wide open an an unmoderated newsgroup, but still open to anyone who happens to come along). If you browse around, you’ll note that cheap shots and curmudgeonly one-liners are part and parcel of the way things go, here. One (ancient) rule of message boards (throughout the internet) is that one should lurk before one posts. This gives one an idea of the tenor of the place–how nasty? how nice? are jerks prevalent? rare? etc. Being invited for a response, of course, would tend to interfere with lurking, as one may wish to provide the invited response before one has had time to size up the group. However, since this thread has now been open quite a while, I would invite you to take a look around and get a flavor of how we do things.
And, of course, regarding any single comment by any individual in any forum, the adage “Consider the source” is always appropriate.
Stick around. Encourage HWFAPAC to return and look around, as well, lurking without posting until s/he is comfortable. Get to know the posters and the types of humor (and intensity of disagreement) that is common, here.
And don’t take it personal–life ain’t nohow permanent.
I’d like to invite him back, but only if he’s comfortable. Sit down, I’ll pour a cup of tea and we can chat amiably…
I’ll still e-mail if he insists, but I’d rather he shared his thoughts with the whole group, provided he’s overcome his technical difficulties.
Really, we’re not all grumpy!