Soundscapes

Question 1

What is the Sakakeeny article?

Answer 1

Sakakeeny “Under the Bridge”: An Orientation to Soundscapes in New Orleans (2010)

• History of soundscapes in New Orleans
• Complex relationship of sound and place
• Environments marked by history of development projects that have margnialised African Americans

Question 2

What are Jazz funerals and parades?

Answer 2

• Jazz funerals: originally for men but now also women (since late 20thc) – march through street to burial site with beat of brass band, starts with slow dirge then upbeat dancing, celebratory music.
• Second line parade: organised by social aid and pleasure clubs. Street parades with brass band music and large crowds – the name/tradition comes from the second line of people behind the jazz funeral.

Question 3

how did music defy segregation?

Answer 3

• Jim Crow laws were state and local laws that enforced racial segregation in the Southern United States – black music carried on in public even with this –
• ‘White flight’ – white people moved to suburbs and were subsidised by government programs who didn’t loan to black people.
• Interstate 10 highway was crucial to racial division of the city – isolated tourist zone from black neighbourhoods – and residents saw it as a means of disabling them socially and economically (structural violence)
• but its integration into jazz funerals powerfully reappropriates the political infidelity of the interstate’s construction with the joyful sonic presence of parades.

Question 4

What is the structure of a parade?

Answer 4

1. Choose an appropriate tempo (you want people to dance but not get confused and fall over – usually 120-124bpm)
2. Sequence your songs continuously (keep the energy rolling)
3. Good relationship between musicians and audiences (musicians react to audience response)
4. Good confusion! Improv – no talking just vibes. Improv
5. Wide streets=more noise (more dancing room – you want to keep it upbeat…but narrower roads=shhhhhh)
6. Under the Bridge=Peak moment (this is when musical and environmental forces connect sonically – big hype!)
7. But don’t go wild – still follow conventions. (honouring fallen members by pausing at their home – single dirge played)

This demonstrates how sound facilitates relationships between people and places.

Question 5

how did people in new orleans take back power sonically?

Answer 5

• Invasive effects of gentrification after 1970s city planning, closed bars and 1990s noise abatement campaign.
• These displays of exuberance in 2000s parades are important – they are taking place within a racialised power system (aggressive policing) which hearkens back to the slave dances in Congo square
• All these people: clubs, bands, residents, dancers in congo square – all invested sounds and places with meaning.