Bill Kelso

                       The Changing Appearance of Mankind II

While evolutionary pressure forced changes in our legs, feet, arms and hands, natural selection also modified our skin and facial features.

                   Our Changing Skin. The Rise of the Naked Ape

Like our primate cousins, the great apes and chimpanzees, our early ancestors were covered in fur. But after spending a million years on the East African savannah, our ancestors became naked apes, losing all of their hair except for their heads, eyebrows, under arms and genital areas. 

The key questions is why did we become naked apes once we lived on the ground rather than in the canopy of the rain forest. The answer is tied up with our new lifestyle and eating habits. In the tropical forest, we were primarily fruit eaters, but once we relocated to the savannah we had to change our diet.

In place of being fruit eaters we had to become omnivores, eating anything we could find in the savannah. Initially proto humans probably began to rely on chewing rough tubers and plants as well as eating meat they scavenged from left over carcasses on the savannah plains.  Generally large predators only eat about half of their meat on the animals they prey on, leaving plenty of left overs for vultures, foxes and our early ancestors. 

But once humans began to develop tools for hunting such as spears and later bows and arrows, they started killing larger prey. Unfortunately, humans are not very fast. Potential prey such as zebras and antelopes can flee their predators at fifty to fifty five miles per hour. While cheetahs can run around 60 mile per hour and leopards 55 miles per hour the fastest human Usain Bolt can only averaged 28 miles per hour even when he is setting the world record in the one-hundred-meter dash.

To make up for our lack of speed, humans were blessed with incredible energy. While we could not outrun the animals we hunted, we could at least track them for long distances and eventually wear them down. But the trouble with adopting this new lifestyle is that our early ancestors faced the prospect of dying from heat stroke. While other predators such as lions or leopards retained their fur, they could still excel as hunters and not overheat because they usually killed their prey after short burst of speed.

Given our slowness of foot, that option was not open to us. But by shedding our fur and becoming naked apes, our hominid ancestors now acquired the ability to sweat. Whiles some animals like dogs pant to cool off, we humans acquired the more efficient method of cooling our bodies by perspiration which involves the body releasing liquid from its sweat glands. 

In light of this new method of cooling our bodies, humans could now continue their new lifestyle as hunters on the African savannah without worrying about dying of heat stroke. While their hunting methods certainly differed from that of the big cats in Africa who often ambushed their prey, humans still managed to become the top predator in Africa. 

                                          Why We Still Have Some Hair

While our human ancestors lost most of their hair, they retained it in three places. First we kept hair under our arms and on our genitalia. In both of those cases there would be friction from parts of bodies rubbing against one another. The hair helped cushion our bodies from possible rashes due to friction.

Secondly we keep hair over our eyes. We retained eyebrows because they serve the very useful function of keeping sweat or perspiration out of eyes when we actively hunting prey. 

Finally we retained hair on the top of our heads to protect our scalps from overheating in the tropics. When we later discuss the rise of different races among humans, we shall see that curly hair is a much better reflector of heat than straight hair. That is why Africans, who evolved around the warm equator, tend to have kinky hair which basically means curly hair. 

Once humans migrated out of Africa to more northern latitudes, humans likewise retained their scalp hair. But in the cooler climate of northern latitudes human wanted to retain rather than disperse heat hitting their head.  To solve this problem humans in northern latitudes like Asians and Caucasians evolved straight rather than curly hair. In the more frigid climate of northern latitudes straight black hair was more effective in retaining heat than curly hair.  Whether humans developed straight, or kinky hair depended in large part on whether they evolved in the hot tropics or the colder temperate regions of north of the equator.

                         Our Changing Face. How we acquired a prominent Nose

Finally if losing our fur dramatically changed our appearance, changes to the shape of our faces also dramatically altered the way we looked. In fact, for the average human the most important point about a person’s appearance is the overall shape and possible symmetrical nature of his or her face. When Lucy and her relatives descended to the ground, their faces had relatively long snouts as their jaws extended beyond their faces. Their faces were radically different from that of a modern human. Like chimpanzees, our early ancestors like Lucy also did not have a really pronounced nose. Their noses were basically flat  and essentially embedded in their faces.

To appreciate this difference first hit the link below of the profile of a chimpanzee. As you can see their lips and mouth extend way out beyond their face. In contrast if you now hit the link below for the profile of a human being, you will notice that their mouth has receded in size and their face has become much flatter.

                                            A side profile of a chimpanzee

                                           Profile off a Human Face

As the mouth of humans has declined in size and their face has become more vertical in nature, their nose which was embedded in their face began to project outward and become a prominent part of their appearance. From the two links listed above it is very clear that the shape of your mouth and the size as well as the shape of your nose are connected. When you alter the size of your mouth you are basically altering the overall look of your face.

                              Why our Faces Changed I: We Became Less Violent

The obvious question is why the facial appearance of early man changed so much over time. The answer appears to be two fold. 

First, as we shall see in a later post. as humans descended to the ground, they became less violent with one another. Chimpanzee society is a very contentious and often violent society. To intimidate their fellow chimpanzees, chimps will often flash their canine teeth, teeth we often call fangs, to frighten potential rivals or enemies in a troop of chimpanzees.

                                     The Large Canines of a Chimpanzee

With the passage of time human populations became less violent. Once humans began to cooperate more and intimidate their associates less frequently,  they began to lose the large canines possessed by their chimpanzees cousins. As their front teeth began to decline in size the mouth naturally began to shrink in size.

                       Why our Faces Changes II. We Started to Eat Cooked Meat.

If the decline in violence in human communities was one reason why some teeth became smaller, a much bigger reason was the change in our diet. When our early ancestor descended to the ground 5 million years ago they often ate very rough and hardy tubers, or nuts. If they were also able to scavenger some meat from a carcass, it was probably dried out and very tough and hard to chew. In light of this diet our early ancestors developed large molars and premolars and even large incisors to cut and grind down their meals. 

But once humans began to hunt and acquired the ability to use fire to cook their meat, their diet completely changed. As their food became softer and more tended, our human ancestors needed smaller teeth to process their meals. As our teeth became smaller, our faces became flatter, and our noses became more prominent.

Bill Kelso

                   The Changing Appearance of Mankind III

To see how natural selection altered our make up, we finally need to analyze how our torso and pelvis also changed once we began our new life on the savannah of eastern Africa. 

                       The Overall Dimensions of Mankind

One of the most striking differences between humans and great apes is their overall shape. While male great apes, who have large bellies, tend be heavy set and pudgy, homo sapiens have a much thinner and leaner profile. The obvious question is why the two hominids differ so much in their overall appearance. The answer has everything to do with their diets.

Once humans began to hunt game and acquired the ability to cook their meals, their digestive track began to change. When animals eat high quality foods, they can get by with relatively small digestive tracts. In contrast, when an animals such as a great ape eats low quality foods such as the leaves, twigs and fruit of a tropical plant, they have to developed much larger guts to properly digest their meals. 

As we shall explain in a later post, when humans shifted to a high quality high protein meat diet, their bodies no longer needed to devote so much of their caloric intake to creating a large and complicated digestive tract. As their bodies began to consumer high quality food, humans could divert their source of calories to enhance the size of other organs such as the growth of the brain. As our bodies became slimmer, our brains became larger, greatly increasing our level of intelligence. 

                                              The Growth of a Barrel Chest

At the same time as early humans acquired a slimed down digestive tract, they also acquired a much larger barrel chest. This development was a dramatic change from the anatomy of a chimpanzee. Chimpanzees have a conical shaped chest which is large at the base but narrows at the top.  Given the dimension of their checks, chimpanzees don’t really have a waist. 

Among humans, with our barrel more rounded chest, we have a clearly defined waist. But the key point to keep in mind is that our enlarged chest will play a key role when humans acquire the ability to talk and sing. With an enlarged chest we acquire larger lungs which enables humans to possess a greater source of air to use in producing sounds. Without the modification of our anatomy, we would lack the physical ability to produce the melodies and harmonies of music that enhance our lives today.

                                           The Development of a Short Pelvis.

The last major development of the human body is the growth of a short pelvis. The pelvis which consists of a round group of bones is the middle part of your body just below your abdomen that connects your torso to your legs. While chimpanzees have a tall pelvis it is much shorter among humans. Although this anatomical difference may seem like a minor change of limited significance, it constitutes a major development in enhancing the tool making and tool using ability of early humans. 

Because humans have a short rather than a tall pelvis they can more easily rotate they pelvis when they throw an object. This anatomical change thus enables early human to accurately throw objects at possible predators when they ventured on the African savannah.

To appreciate the significance of this development, pretend you are a pitcher for the San Francisco Giants. If you try to imitate a pitcher throwing a ball at a batter you will quickly see that when you bring your arm over your head to release the ball, you will end up rotating your pelvis and hips which in turn will rotate your leg and foot. The rotation of your pelvis which constitutes the follow through on your pitch enable you to throw the ball in an accurate fashion.

Because of their larger pelvis, chimpanzees cannot rotate their pelvis and hips and consequently cannot throw objects very accurately. As a consequence chimpanzees who have well developed arms, tend to throw objects in an underhand manner. The difference in their anatomy explains why humans can better defend themselves against preys than chimpanzees 

                                                            Conclusion

As the changing environment forced humans to live a different life style on the African savannah, it likewise modified their overall appearance. For example, as humans began to hunt and cook meat, their bodies became leaner, freeing up calories to build bigger brains rather than a larger and more complex digestive system. As their barrel chest replaced the conical chest of chimpanzees, they developed larger lungs which later facilitated their ability to speak and sing. Finally as their pelvis grew shorter, they developed the ability to rotate their hips which enhanced their ability to throw objects accurately, affording them protection against dangerous predators. Of course millions year later, our shorter pelvis also enabled the Dodgers to hire pitchers likely Sandy Kofax and Don Drysdale who managed to win many a baseball game with accurate pitching. An ancient evolutionary change greatly enhanced the joy of Dodge fans in the 1960s.

Bill Kelso

The Growth of Racial Differences

The subject of racial differences has always been a controversial issue in discussing the rise of humans. To hopefully shed some light on this topic this post will analyze both why racial differences arose in the first place and when they developed. 

To fully understand the rise of racial differences in the human population, we need to keep in mind two points. First, if we focus on the question of when human races initially arose, we must realize that the development of distinct racial groups is of recent origins. In our earlier discussion about the emergence of man 5 million years ago, we mentioned that proto humans had a light complexion that was covered by fur. When our early ancestors subsequently became naked apes, probably around 2 million years ago at roughly the same time that humans replaced Australopithecus on the savannah plains, the resultant new species of mankind had essentially a white or very light complexion. Given the vulnerability that the loss of fur posed for early man, our ancestors who were naked apes, quickly acquired distinctive racial profiles.

Secondly, we have to remember the rise of all three racial groups, Blacks, Asians and Caucasians are nothing more than biological adaptations to different types of environments. Just as the lower extremities of our bodies evolved different types of feet and legs when we chose to live on the African savannah, both our skin and our faces likewise evolved different colors and facial features as we began to live on the very sunny and hot plains of east Africa. 

                                   The Emergence of the Black Race

Of the three racial groups in the world today, blacks were probably the first to emerge. To understand why that is the case, we should understand what unusual environmental challenges early humans faced when they became hairless. More so than any other later racial grouping, the early humans living in Africa faced the danger of intense ultraviolent rays and the problem of overheating. 

                                  The Unusual Climate of the Equator

The reason for the danger is that the tropical equator of Africa, where early humans first evolved, faces much more heat and sunshine than other areas of the planet. First, given the curvature of the earth the sunlight that hits the equator strikes a relatively smaller source of area than it does at norther latitudes.  Because that region’s sunlight is more concentrated, the area around the tropical equator receives more sunshine and heat than areas north and south of the equator.

Secondly, because of the tilt of the earth, the equator faces the sun all year round whereas the more polar regions may face diminished sunlight for roughly half a year.

                                     The Equator’s Impact on the Black Race

Faced with the above environmental constraints, the problem for early man was that as soon as humans lost their hair, they ran the risk of being exposed to lethal amount of ultraviolet light and heat at the equator, two conditions which could lead to serious medical problems such as folate depletion and DNA damage. 

Ironically enough, if becoming a naked ape enabled early humans to solve the problem of overheating, it created yet another problem in that it exposed people to the danger of ultraviolet rays. The symptoms from exposure to high levels of solar light include fatigue, a sense of weakness, neurological problems such as spina bifida as well as serious pregnancy issues which may involve your newborn children having an incomplete brain or spinal cord.  

To protect themselves from these harmful rays, humans quickly developed dark skin pigmentation which protected them from the rays of the sun. As everyone knows if you go to the beach and sit in the sun for hours and you are white, your body will become heavily sun tanned to protect your skin from ultraviolet rays. But if you extend your time in the sun and actually live in a hot sunny climate, your body will adjust by acquiring a much darker and permanent change in your skin color. One of the first biological reactions of humans to becoming naked apes was the development of our first racial grouping, which was the creation of black human beings.   

If the black race first appeared roughly 2 million years ago in Africa, it soon spread to other parts of the world when our early ancestors began to migrate out of Africa. The earliest movement of our relatives out of Africa was eastward roughly paralleling the location of the equator. As Africans moved out of the horn of Africa they moved eastward, following the coastline of the Indian ocean settling in India, Papua New Guinea and finally Australia. In light of this pattern of migration, there was a belt of dark skin humans that stretched from Africa eastward to India and Australia.

                               The Rain Forest’s Impact on the Black Race

While the constant sunlight at the equator was the primary reason for the development of the black race, another factor that darkened the skin color of Africans was their changing environment.  

When the proto human population of Africa began to expand millions of years ago  in the search for food from east Africa to northern Africa, they initially found desirable living conditions in their new neighborhood. But before they knew it, a radically changing climate ended up transforming their new northern homeland into the Sahara Desert that presently still exists in northern Africa. 

As the climate changed, early man in northern Africa faced a loss of their habit, food supply and drinking water as their former home turned into a bleak waste land. In search better living conditions, early Africans began migrating south into the denser jungles that makeup the rain forest of equatorial Africa.

If you recall an earlier post, you may remember that the growth of the Rift valley millions of years ago transformed the tropical rainforest of east Africa into a semi dry savannah. But around 2 million years ago, a second and even more dramatic environmental change occurred, which we hinted to above, which also led to dramatic changes in the climate of the continent. But this time it was not the growth of another rift valley, but the growth of a new ice age that dramatically altered the environment of north Africa. At roughly the same time as our species of humans began to replace our earlier Australopithecus cousins, the earth began an ice age that lasted from 2 million years until 10,000 years ago.

As a result of the above climate changes, Africa evolved into a land with three distinct geographical regions. 1) First in the east, stretching from Ethiopia to South Africa is the savannah, where early man first arose, 2) secondly in the north is the Sahara Desert, which before the Ice Age was a habitable grassland once occupied by the growing African population that spilled out from the eastern Savannah until the climate turned cooler, and 3) thirdly below the Sahara Desert is the tropical rain forest where early Africans sought refuge from the desiccation of their northern homeland caused by the cooling of the earth. 

You can easily identify these three regions in the topographical map listed below. The brown areas on the far right are the African savannah and rift valley, the home of early man, while the white areas at the top of the African map are the former grasslands of Africa that the ice age converted into the Sahara desert and finally the green areas in the middle of the continent are the rain forest of west Africa.

                                                   Topographic Map of Africa

As many of the early humans in Africa began a new life in the jungles of the rain forest, their bodies began to racially adjust one more time. If the latitude of the tropics was the main reason why people initially became dark, the new home or environment for many Africans fleeing from the north was a second factor the led to changes in their skin tones. Because early men were basically hunter gathers, there were real advantages for black Africans to become even darker in their new environment. The more completely individuals blended into their environment, the more success they had in hunting down their prey.

                                       Racial Variations Within the Black Population

In light of the above environmental pressures, the African population evolved into roughly two separate populations with various shades of skin color. If we were to examine the African population after the advent of the ice age, we would have found identifiable racial differences differentiating Africans on the eastern savannah from African living in the western equatorial rain forest. To illustrate these differences, look at the following two hyperlinks. The first picture is that of a San Bushman, part of a population that may represent some of the earliest humans that originated in eastern Africa. While the individuals are black, these Africans are fairly lightly colored. In contrast, if your look at the pictures of Africans from West Africa, you can see that their bodies have a much darker tone

                                                         Pictures of Bushman

                                                        Pictures of West Africans

But these kinds of racial differences should not surprise us as they are true of all races. When we look at Caucasians, we shall see that there is a big difference between whites from Scandinavians countries who are often blond with blue eyes and fair skin and Caucasians from Arab countries who have black hair and brown eyes. Similar Asians from Southeast Asia are much darker than northern Asians from countries like Korea.

However, the differences in the appearance between east and west Africans did not last long. Several thousand years ago, individuals from west Africa began a major migration of out west Africa into eastern Africa. This famous migration, which is called the Bantu migration, a name which refers to many of the languages spoken in western Africa, eventual lead to a mixing of the two populations. While today it is still possible to make an intelligent guess as to whether somebody is from Ethiopia in east Africa or Nigeria in west Africa, the Bantu expansion has clearly made the process much harder 

                                           The Bantus migration from west to east Africa

                                   Tomorrow we will analyze the evolution of the Asian Race.

Bill Kelso

                         The Emergence of the Asian Race

If the rise of the black race occurred roughly 2 million years ago when we became the naked ape, the emergence of both Asians and Caucasians as separate races is an even more recent event. The fossil evidence indicates that the rise of Asians and Caucasian among modern Homo Sapiens may have occurred somewhere between 40 to 30 thousand years ago. Since modern Homo Sapiens evolved around 250,000 years ago, the rise of two new races is a fairly recent occurrence. 

                            How the Higher Latitudes Shaped the Asian Race

The incident that spurred the creation of two new races, Asians and Whites, was the decision by modern Homo Sapiens to leave the tropics and migrated to higher latitudes in Asia and Europe. As the population of early human in Africa began to increase, there was growing competing between different groups of early humans for better hunting grounds. To avoid conflict at home as the continent filled up with people, early humans decide to travel north in pursuit of better hunting and gathering opportunities. What seemed like a simple economic decision at the time, eventually radically altered the appearance of the human race.

Once again changes in the latitude and later the environment that early Africans migrated to and eventually colonized eventually led to the creation of multiple racial groups on the planet. While the origins and early presence of the black race was shaped by the climate of the equator, the origins of the two lighter color races, Asians and Caucasians, was shaped by the very different conditions at the higher latitudes. 

If the areas of the equator suffered from two much sunshine and heat, higher latitudes suffer from too little sunlight. As is obviously the case, the factors that explain why there is an excess of sunlight at the tropics, also explains why there is a deficiency of sunshine at higher latitudes.

For example, because of the curvature of the earth, sunlight is widely scattered over a large area of land, diminishing the intensity of sunshine in northern latitudes.  But even more importantly because of the tilt of the earth, northern areas of the planet will often only receive minimal sunshine or ultraviolet rays for many months of the year.

                                       The Danger of Too Little Sunshine

Just as dark skins provide an evolutionary advantage to Africans living next to the equator, lighter skin colors provided a similar biological advantage to individuals living north or south of the equator. While too much sun and exposure to ultraviolet rays may cause medical problems, exposure to too little sunshine can be equally harmful to the health of humans. When individuals live at high latitudes with minimal or mild sunlight, they are at risk of suffering from vitamin D deficiency. The medical problems caused by our body’s inability to produce vitamin D in low sunlight are numerous ranging from minor problems such as fatigue to more serious illness such as developing rickets, suffering from a variety of cancers, experiencing cognitive decline, having immune problems or plagued by cardiovascular disease.

Faced with the above medical problems, humans evolved much lighter skin coloring once they migrated north to overcome the problems of less sunshine. Because individuals with lighter skin tones have less melanin, they can absorb UV radiation, more efficiently which enables them to produce vitamin D more effectively. Because the further north individuals go, the less sunshine they encounter, the greater is the biological pressure on individuals to evolve whiter skin tones. 

While the concern of this post is with the evolution of humans it is interesting to note that the development of different races among humans is a trait that it shares with many other animals. For instance, in the southern part of the US, there are numerous bears that all have black fur. But if you travel north to Montana or even Alaska the black blacks have evolve into brown bears or grizzles. If you go further north to the arctic, grizzle bears have evolved once again into polar bears. As the above examples reveal evolution’s impact on our skin or fur covering is not just limited to our own species, but affect many other animals species as well. 

                                    Why Did Two Light Colored Races Appear

Because of the distinctive environmental pressures cited above it is easy to understand why humans all became distinctively lighter in color as they moved north. But the question that remains to be answered is why human created two new racial groups rather than just one.

Why don’t all humans in northern latitudes look alike? The answer is that when modern humans decided to migrate north, they left in two distinct waves. These two waves in turn followed very different migration paths which resulted in the separate groups living in very different environments.  To fully understand why Asians evolved differently from Caucasians we need to examine in more detail 1) the actual migration route Asians followed as well as 2) the climate of their final destination. As we shall see shortly many physical anthropologists think the physical makeup of Asians primarily reflects their settlement in a very cold climate.

                                The Migratory Path of the People who Became Asians.

The migration path of individuals who evolved into Asians has two separate parts. In their initial or first leg of their migration out of Africa, they primarily departed from either the horn of Africa through Saudi Arabia or from Egypt to the area east of the Caspian Sea. To quickly find this body of water, click the link below and place your mouse on the map, which will enlarge the lands masses and clearly make visible the Caspian Sea. If you are still uncertain of this location, it is the area just north of Iran which is colored green. From this area, the groups that in the future will become Asians will turn east and travel towards China.

                                                    Map of the Caspian Sea

Now that we know where the Caspian Sea is, we need to take a larger bird’s eye view of the world atlas and compare the different routes the two groups took out of Africa. While the group that became Caucasians took a turn left and migrated northwest into Europe, settling eventually in areas close to the Arctic Circle, such as northern Russia and Scandinavia, the individuals who would be Asians settled in at lower latitudes. The areas in the map  listed below which is colored blue will become the home of Caucasians and the grey area under the blue portion of the map will become the residence of Asians.

                                          Percentage of the population who are blond

Since the travelers who migrated towards Europe settled in area of much higher latitude than those living east of the Caspian Sea, they faced real risks of vitamin D deficiency. Given these medical threats, natural selection created individuals with very white skins, and even blond hair. 

Since those who became Asians settled in an area at a much lower latitude, they faced less danger than their European counterparts of experiencing little sunshine. As a result, the biological pressure to lighten their skin tones was less intense. In the above internet link, we see that all those who develop fair skins and even blond hair, are primarily from Scandinavia and northern Russia.  Because Asians occupied lower latitudes they retained their black hair and evolved generally darker skin tones than their Caucasian counterparts. 

                                            The Second Migratory Path of Asians.

As significant as the first part of their journey was, the second part of their trip by the people who became Asians was equally important. After they reached the areas east of the Caspian Sea, the future population of Asians began a 3000 march eastward through what is today called Siberia, a journey that probably took several thousands of years to complete. This was a long and dangerous migration during a hard and unforgiving ice age.  

Before examining this environment of Siberia, it is helpful to understand how Asians settled East Asia. While Europeans colonized their continent by traveling from the south to the north, Asians colonized their continent by traveling from the north to the south.

Dzungarian Pass

If we look at the following link, it becomes much clearer how the settlement of Asia differed from that of Europe.  As the future population of Asians migrated eastward, they followed the Tien Shan range of mountains until they came to one of the most important mountain passes in the world, which is called the Dzungarian Pass, a pass that separates the Tien Shan Mountains from the Altai Mountains. Once you hit the following link, scroll down and you will clearly see the pass separating the two red circles outlining the different mountain chains.

                                                      Map of Altai mountains,

Once we know where the Dzungarian pass is, we can take a larger view and see how the people who became Asian settled their continent. If you put your mouse over the light purple area in the following internet link, the country today called Kazakhstan ends where the Dzungarian pass begins. As Asians poured through this gap between the above two mountain chains, their group split with some traveling northward around Mongolia to become the future populations of Koreans and Japanese.

                                           Map of Europe and Asia and Route of Asians

Leaving aside the development of northern Asian populations, the remaining migrants went southward in what is today called China. If you look at the letter a in the name for Mongolia and scan downward in the following duplicate map of Asia, you will find the city Xian (pronounced Shian) which will become the first capital of the Chinese people. Over thousands of years, the Chinese will move southward, eventually conquering the whole country. In the process they will also spin off other Asian groups such as the people of Thailand and Cambodia who will all migrate from south China into Southeast Asia, becoming separate Asian ethnic groups. Asia is thus settled from the top down as opposed to Europe which early humans colonized from the bottom up.

                                         Map of Europe and Asia and Route of Asians

If you are wondering whether some people elected not to go through southward through the Dzungarian Pass you would be absolute right. Those individuals will eventually end up in Alaska and become the indigenous Indian population we find in north and south America today.

                                     The Impact of Climate on the Asian Population

Given both the length and time involved in their long and difficult route through Siberia, it should not surprise us that their journey had a profound impact on their racial identity. Leaving aside for the moment the fact that Asians and European initially elected to settle at different latitudes, their different routes out of Africa resulted in these two separate populations facing very different environmental and weather conditions. This latter situation may surprise you as both groups began their norther migration to Eurasia at the very same time as the earth was in the midst of a severe ice age. From 2 million years ago to 10,000 years ago temperatures on the planet dropped significantly.

Even though the world as a whole was in an ice age, the severity of that ice age varied from one region to the next. For example, in a planet as diverse as ours, there is a significant difference in the climate of a maritime as opposed to a continental land mass. While the overall planet was cooling, a maritime area like Europe which is surrounded by water on three sides was considerably less frigid compared to a continental land mass like Siberia which experienced the full force of the ice age. Since Siberia was distant from any bodies of water, she experienced a dry windy climate with incredibly low temperatures.

Why these two different land masses faced such different climates is a topic we will explore in the next section.  But the significance of these climate changes is that they equaled the impact of latitude in shaping the creation of two new races. As we saw earlier, the impact of latitude on the creation of Asians and Caucasians was primarily limited to the color on their skin. 

In this post, we want to show how the climate and environment of Siberia and Europe, in contrast, had a much larger impact in shaping their bodily and facial characteristics rather than their skin color. When blacks, Asians and Caucasians finally evolved, they all had slightly different types of scalp hair, facial hair, noses, and eys as well as skin color.

                          How a Cold Climate Affects our Facial and Bodily features.

Hopefully as the follow discussion will make clear, the distinctive appearance of Asians may reflect their development in a very cold climate. In the 19^th century biologists formulated two separate rules suggesting how living in an intensely cold region will affect an individual’s anatomy including his race. 

Bergman’s Rule

While physical anthropologists have modified their findings, the first rule which is called Bergmann’s rule states that in colder climates individuals are likely to have more compact bodies than in warm areas. In a very cold climate, the last thing you want is to have a body that is tall, thin and lanky. The reason for this development is that individuals who have compact bodies have a lower surface area to volume ratio than in lanky body types and are thus less likely to lose heat to the environment.

Allen’s Rule

Complimenting Berman’ s Rule is Allen’s rule which argues that in cold climates individual will not want to have appendages such as large noses or ears that extend out from your body. The larger and more extended your facial features are, the more likely they will become frozen and cause bodily harm. As was true of your body the more compact and rounded your facial feature are the smaller the ratio of surface area to volume which conserves bodily heat.

                                     The Bodily and Facial Features of Asians

When we look at the anatomy and facial features of Asian, they seem to reflect the above two rules. For instance, today you find very few lanky Asians. When we look at the average height of someone from both Japan or China, we find that the average female is 5.2 feet tall and the average man is 5.7 in both countries.  Among Mongolians who are in the middle of Siberia, there is a slight decrease in height as men average 5.6 feet and women are even more diminutive at 5.1 inches.

Body Size

As further confirmation of the role climate may play in shaping your physical appearance, we can compare Asians to what Europeans called the elongated African of East Africa. In East Africa, which is a relatively hot and dry Savannah, we find many tribes such as the Somali, the Fulani, and the Tutsi who are thin and lanky and close to 6 feet tall. The Maasi who live in Kenya are the tallest of the East African tribes and average over 6 feet 2.5 inches tall.

Facial Features: Noses and Eyes

The facial features of Asians also lend evidence for Allen’s rule. In contrast to Caucasians who have the largest noses of all three races, Asians tend to have relatively small noses. If viewed from the side Asians tend to have a lower nasal bridge than Caucasians, and a rounder tip. A bridge of a nose is merely the boney upper portion of your nose that connects with lower portion forming the nostril of your nose.

If you compare the profiles of Caucasians and Asians, Asians will also have a flatter shaped face. These features are well suited for a group of individuals who spend thousands of years slowly traveling through a very frigid Siberia.

The same principles apply to the makeup of their eyes. While we will discuss this topic in more detail in the final section of this post, Asian eyes are less rounded than Caucasian eyes and have a special fold at the bottom of their eye which is called an epicanthic fold. Evidently all humans have the ability to produce their fold, but if you possess a large nose, as do Caucasians, the fold remains hidden. 

Once again, this unique anatomical feature benefitted Asians traveling through Siberia. Because the Siberia is landlock, Siberia was not covered with snow during the Great Ice Age. As a result the population that would became Asians had to deal with intense dry cold winds which created large dust storms in the center of Asia. These storms were especially dangerous for the eyes of people living or traveling through Siberia. By developing the epicanthic fold, Asians developed some protection for their eyes as the epicanthic fold shielded their cornea from potentially damaging  dust winds.

Facial Hair: Scalp Hair and Bearded Hair

Finally the scalp hair of Asians is well adapted for living a prolonged period in a cold climate. While Africans generally have very thick scalp hair that is kinky, which is just a synonym for curly hair, Asians tend to have straight hair of average thickness. Why the difference? In Africa individuals developed thick kinky hair because it is very effective in diffusing heat from your head, preventing people’s scalps from overheating in the tropics.

Since Asians were living in a very cold climate far from the equator, they evolved straight hair thet helped them retain rather than diffuse heat from their scalps. But like their African ancestors, they kept the black color of the Africans ancestors because the color black retains heat. 

Since the color of your hair is genetically related to the color of your skin, Africans could do very little about the color of their hair. But in light of the thick and curly nature of their scalp hair, dark hair has little negative effect on the health of Africans. But for Asians both the color and shape of their hair helped them adapt to their cooler climate.

When we look at facial rather than scalp hair, we also find that Asians are the racial group least likely to have beards. As we shall see when we discuss Caucasians, while a beard may provide some warmth for men in mildly cold climates. they can be downright painful in a very harsh and intensely cold climate. When it gets very cold, you facial hair will freeze causing incredible discomfort.

The Color of Your Skin

Finaly the harsh environment of Siberian even had an impact on the skin tones of Asians. As we discussed earlier, the latitude at which you live is the primary determinant of your skin color. But the environment may also influence the overall color of your skin. Just as the rain forest of Africa darkened the skin tones of Africans, the dry windy and very cold climate of Asia affected the appearance of people’s color in Siberia. 

With the absence of snowfall in Siberia the winds stirred up huge dust storms of soil called loess that was yellow in color. Since early humans were primarily hunter gathers, they naturally wanted to blend in with their environment to enhance their hunting skills. While their latitude gave future Asians an olive color to their skin, they evolved a slighter lighter and yellow skin color to reflect their environment.

                             Tomorrow we will look at the rise of the Caucasian Race.

Bill Kelso

                   The Emergence of the Caucasian Race

While the Asian race evolve around 40,000 to 30,000 years ago, Caucasians may have evolved a few thousand years later than their Asian counterparts. 

      The Impact of Latitude on the Racial Makeup of Europ

Based on the above accounts, we now know that the racial characteristics of Caucasians are a reflection of both the latitude as well as the particular environment in which they evolved. If we look at both of these factors in more detail, we can gain some insight as to why Caucasians have different racial characteristics than Asians.

For instance, when we look at the latitude of Europe, it is easy to see why Scandinavians have fair skin and perhaps even blond hair. While Asians occupied lands at mid latitude, Caucasians colonized land at some of the highest latitudes on the planet.

But if you look at the populations of many European countries, especially those in Western Europe, it appears that a large segments of Europe, besides Norway and Sweden, have light brown or blond hair with blue eyes. Given the wide dispersal of light skinned individuals it is difficult to believe that latitude completely explains why so many individuals are fair skinned. Many Europeans at lower latitudes have the skin color of Scandinavian who live at much higher latitudes.

                            Europe’s Bantus Migration. The Impact of the Vikings

The above racial patterns suggest how complex is Europe’s racial makeup. Just as Africa had a Bantu migration that affected the skin tones of people in east as well as west Africa, Europe has had a similar migration that affected that affected the color of northern as well as southern Europeans. But in Europe’s case the dispersion and mixture of skin color was a result of a violent Viking invasion of western Europe during the 8^th century rather than a peaceful migration of European people. Furthermore whereas the Bantu migration lead to a darkening of the skin color of Eastern Africans, the European version of the Bantu migration lead to a lightening of the racial features of Southern Europeans.

                                  Percentage of the population who are blond

To prove this point hit the above link which we used before and you will notice that the countries that have the most blondes besides the three Scandinavians countries are Ireland, France and England and Estonia, all countries that the Vikings occupied during the 8^th century. The Vikings attacked Europe in two waves, with the Norwegians and Danish conquering Ireland, France, England and much later Italy. In contrast, Sweden, which is east of Norway, attacked Eastern Europe and even conquered the early territory that later became Ukraine and Russia.

For instance, Ireland is listed in the above map as a country with a significantly blond population. But initially the Celtics were a population that migrated from Eastern Europe to the west coast include France and the British Isles. As I have mentioned before probably the classic appearance of an Irishman is Pierce Brosnan who had jet black hair, reflecting his ancestors from southeast Europe. In light of the lower latitude of southeast Europe, it is not surprising that immigrants from that part of Europe look nothing like Scandinavians. If you recall who had Irish surnames in our class, you will recall that perhaps as many as 30% of our classmates who are or were Irish had jet black hair. 

But after the Viking invasion and conquest of Ireland, Scandinavian genes were widely spread among the Irish population. As a result among our classmates with Irish ancestry, perhaps 70% look like me and hve light brown hair with blue eyes.

The same pattern is true of France. Just as Vikings occupied much of Ireland, they also conquered and occupied much of western France. If you have ever watched any movies about WWII you have probably heard about Normandy, the site where American landed when they invaded Europe during WWII. It turns out that Normandy stands for northern men or Vikings. The Vikings who controlled western France, also invaded England and later Ireland from their base in Normandy. 

Today, because France was once occupied by the Normans, you can find many French men with blond hair and blue eyes. However, the Vikings from France not only lightened the skin color of England but also of Ireland. After conquering England, the Normans also tried to subdue much of Ireland. As we discussed in an earlier post when looking at people surnames, Irish names like Fitzgerald, Barrett or Burke reflect their ancestral link to the blond Vikings from Normandy.

Finally even the Swedes played a part in shaping the racial makeup of Russia. Even the word Russian means a person who rows which essential means a Viking. In the same way that the Vikings played a major role in creating Ireland, they also played a key role in creating the countries of Ukraine and later Russia. The blond hair of Putin as well as that of many other Russians may reflect some genetic links with the early Vikings who helped settle their country. 

                        The impact of the Environment on Europe’s Racial Makeup

While the above examples show how latitude influenced the skin tones of Europeans, we now need to study how the environment of Europe also influenced their bodily and facial characteristics. 

                          The Important Role Water Played in Creating Caucasians.

However before beginning this discussion, it might be beneficial to know why a maritime climate is so much more mild than a continental climate. Because the word maritime refers to the presence of a sea, the answer must obviously lie with the unusual geography of Europe. Unlike Siberia and northern Asia, Europe is surrounded by a whole series of seas. In the north is the North and Baltic Sea, in the west is the Atlantic Ocean and in the south is the Mediterranean Sea.

Specific Heat

The presence of so much water surrounding Europe has a major impact on its climate for two reasons. First water has an unusual chemistry which makes its resistant to sudden temperature changes. That special property of water is known as its very high specific heat capacity. While this term may seem overly technical, specific capacity merely refers to the ability of water or any substance for matter to either absorb or lose heat energy without having its own temperature rise or fall.

While an increase or decrease in ambient temperature or climate of an area will quickly raise or lower the temperature of soil or sand of a continental land mass, a similar increase or decrease in climate will have minimal impact on a body of water. Obviously the reason why it is hard  to raise or lower the temperature of water is because water’s specific heat is twice to six times higher than the elements found in solid ground.  This means that it takes a much greater decline in temperature during an ice age to cool the oceans than it does to cool a land mass. 

This resistance to sudden temperature changes in water explain why land adjacent to large bodies of water tend to avoid the extremes of temperature found in isolated land masses. In a state like Florida with a long coastline, the areas adjacent to the seas are thus always more stable than the areas interior to the state which more quickly can become very hot or very cold.

The Interesting case of Ice Cubs.

The unusual heat capacity of water even explains why ice cubs are so effective is cooing our drinks. If water had the much lower specific heat of soil, as soon as you took an ice cube out of the freezer, it would quickly lose its shape and its cooling ability. Because as mentioned earlier water has a specific heat that varies from twice to six times that of soil, ice cubs retain for some time their ability to refresh and cool your drink. 

Water and its unusual heat capacity also acts as a conservative force in moderating the world’s climate. If it were not for the size of the oceans and the usually specific heat of water, the problem of global warming would be much serious than it is presently. When the atmosphere heats us, the oceans absorb much of that heat without increasing their own temperature, thus moderating temperature increase on the planet.

Balancing the Earth’s Heat Balance.

Besides the impact of its unique chemistry, water has a second and equally import role in moderating Europe climate by its ability to regulate the world’s heat balance. As we mentioned earlier, because of the curvature of the earth, the equator receives much more sunshine than the higher latitude of the planet. Whenever there is a disparity in the amount of heat or energy one part of the earth receives, ocean and wind currents act to redistribute and balance the excess heat of the tropics by transporting it northward. In the Atlantic Ocean the current that serve this function is called the Gulf Stream. It basically takes the excessive heat the tropics receive and transports it north to Europe. The following link clearly demonstrates how the oceans currents of the Atlantic Ocean play a major role in warming the peninsular of Europe.

                                     The northeast direction of the Gulf Stream

The interaction between these two properties of water dramatically altered the climate of Europe from Siberia and Asia. The warm water brough north by the Gulf Stream and the specific heat of the bodies or water surrounding Europe, tempered the climate of the area. When people subsequently migrated to Europe they encountered a very different environment from that facing the people traveling through Asia. 

One of the most striking differences between Europe and Asia was that the European peninsular was extensively covered by ice. Since Europe was surrounded by water, she was subject to considerable precipitation and heavy snowfall. While the population that became Asians faced bitter cold, harsh winds of loess soil and a dry climate in Siberia, the settler of Europe encountered a more placid, milder and wetter maritime environment.  In place of dealing with the arid and howling dust storms, of Eurasia, they faced the relative calm of a peninsula covered by snow.

                           The Bodily and Facials Features of Europe’s Caucasians.

The effects of this climate on the bodily and facial features were radically different than those facing Asians. Since the temperature in Europe never equally those found in Siberia, Bergman’s rule did not apply to the European immigrants. 

Body Size. 

Today in Europe man average around 5 feet 10 to 5 feet 11 inches in height while women average 5 feet 7 inches. Only the Massai men from eastern Africa who average 6 feet 2.5 are taller than the Europeans. While the intense cold of Siberia led to more compact body types in Asia, the more mild climate of Europe created taller, and lankier Europeans.

Facial Features: Noses and Eyes.

The facial features of Caucasians in Europe are also very different from those in Asia. Of the three main races, Caucasians tend to have the largest noses. They generally have a large bridge which is the bony part at the top of your nose. Because both Africans and Asians have a flatter bridge which is often called a low nasal bridge, their noses tend to be less prominent than those of white Europeans.

The reasons why Caucasians tend to have larger nose than other races are two fold. In the southern part of Europe or in northern part of the Arab world, the climate is often hot and dry and evolution favored the development of a larger nose which could moisturize the air before people inhaled it into their lungs.

At higher latitude many Scandinavians also evolved generally larger noses because a more prominent nose enabled them to warm the air in their nasal chamber before they inhaled it. A large nose for Caucasians helped shield their lungs from air that was either too dry or too cool, thus protecting their lung tissue.

While a very intense cold lead it to develop a rather diminutive and rounded nose among Asians, in the less severe cold of Europe it led it to enhance and enlarged the noses of Caucasians. The later adjustment enabled white Europeans to more easily modify the air they inhaled. While one kind of biological adjustment was optimal for an intensely cold Siberia, a different pattern of adjustment was more efficient in the moderate environment of Europe. 

In a similar manner, the differential adjustment of eye shapes  of Caucasians and Asians also differed from one region to the next. Because of minimal winds and cold in the small European peninsula, Caucasians evolved no special feature to protect their eyes from the elements.  Unlike Asians who faced harsh dry winds, and evolved eyes with a lower epicanthic fold to protect their corner from hard dry wind, Caucasians eyes faced few environmental challenges. As a result their eyes were generally round and unprotected.

Facial Hair: Scalp Hair and Bearded Hair. 

However, there were some biological similarities between the two races. Because Europeans like Asians were living in relatively cold areas, neither developed kinky hair. Instead both races developed straight hair which was more likely to retain than disperse heat from their scalps. But because of their high latitude, Caucasians evolved a range of colors for their scalp hair from black to brown.

Caucasians also were more likely to develop beards because in a mildly cold climate, a beard helped keep an individual warm. In contrast an Asian living in Siberia had to worry that a cold wind could freeze the hair on his face, making his life very uncomfortable.

The Color of Your Skin

Finally, as we have seen the latitude at which you live is the main determinant of your skin tone. But the surrounding environment can have a secondary effect on your racial appearance. Since early men were hunter gathers, they naturally wanted to blend in with their environment. For instance, if you had a white face in a dark tropical rain forest, your ability to be a successful hunter might be compromised. The subject of your hunt would quickly realize their precarious situation and seek to frustrate your effort to track them down. 

For the new arrivals in Europe, their environment was covered in snow. Given the constant moisture in a maritime climate surrounded by seas, early Europeans had to operate in a white environment that experienced numerous snowfalls. To blend in with their environment, having a white skin served a useful purpose Besides their high latitude, early Europeans were under biological pressure to evolve very light color skin tones in an environment covered in snow.

                                                          Conclusion

In the roughly 5 million that have elapsed since early proto man was forced by the rise of the Rift Valley to abandon his life in the trees for a life on the savannah of eastern Africa, humans have undergone tremendous evolutionary changes. The rise of 3 main separate races has been one of the most notable changes in the anatomy of early man.

While the subject of race has generated much controversy and debate in the history of the world, we have to realize that racial differences are of recent origins. Only blacks from Africa can trace their racial origins back any significant period of time. It is only when humans became the naked ape and lost most of their hair that people became black to shield themselves from the dangerous ultraviolet ray of the sun.

If humans had been content to remain in their original home close to the equator, we would have only had one race for all of mankind. But because human populations began to expand, individuals started to migrate out of Africa. When they went north the human need for sunshine to manufacture vitamin D led them to evolve much lighter skins. 

As a result, the development of the light skinned Asian and Caucasian race are fairly recent development. In a life span that reaches back close to 5 million years ago, early humans only became Asians or Caucasians some to 40 to 30 thousand years ago, an infinitesimal small time given the life of our species. We also have to keep in mind that the earliest ancestors of both Caucasians and Asians were Africans with dark skins.

While both Asians and Caucasians developed lighter skins as they migrated north, the environments they settled in were so different, that it is not surprising they evolved into two different races.

In case any of our classmates want to learn more about this subject, this topic is treated in books on physical anthropology and human paleontology the two social science disciplines that study the origins of man. 

Because this process was so complex it may be hard to keep all of the factors shaping our appearance clear. To simplify matters, I thought I would finish this post with a short outline that summarize the difference between the races.

Bill Kelso

        An Outline of the Development of Different Races

The Original Location of the Three Major Races

1.Blacks

a. Latitude. The Equator at Zero Degree Latitude.

b. The Environment. The warm Savannah of Eastern Africa and later the very warm rain forest of Western Africa

2. Asians

a. Latitude: Mid latitude

b. The Environment. A continental climate consisting of dry, windy and harsh cold conditions in Siberia.

3. Caucasians

a. Latitude: High latitude fairly close to the Artic Circle

b. Environment. A maritime climate consisting of the semi cold snow-covered peninsula of Europe.

Racial Features

A.Skin Color

1.Blacks. The skin color is light black in east Africa as well as a darker black in west Africa.

2. Asians. An olive color skin tone. Their skin color may also reflect the yellow color of the loess soil of Siberia

3. Whites. They obviously are the color white, but Scandinavians are much fairer and more likely to be blond than other Europeans. As you move south towards Greece or Arab countries, individuals will have black hair and a darker white skin tone.

B. Body Shape

1. Blacks. The elongated Blacks of east Africa such as the Massai are the tallest and most lanky of all populations

2. Asians. They tend to have compact bodies. You find very few tall, thin and lanky Asians.

3. Whites. They cover the gamut of bodily types but next to east Africans their population include many individual with a lanky build.

C. Noses

In an earlier post we mentioned that until humans began to eat cooked meat, which shrank the size of their teeth, the nose of early man was buried in their face. It is only when early humans started eating softer foods that the shape of their face became flatter, prominently projecting their nose beyond their mouths. 

The link listed before shows the profiles of chimps and their extended snout which is called a prognathism. Once humans lost this prognathism and their snout declined in size, their noses projected outward, occupying a prominent position on their faces.

                           How the Jaw of Humans shrank creating Prominent noses

However, once humans began occupying different environments the early nose underwent significant modification. 

1.Blacks They also have a small bridge which is the upper boney part of their nose. In contrast, they often have large nostrils which are made up of cartilage and skin. Unlike Caucasians who needed a large prominent nose bridge in the Middle East that could moisturize the dry air they were breathing, Africans living in the rain forest of west Africa livid in a very humid and wet environment and thus had no need for a large nose. African blacks could thus directly inhale air from their surroundings without fear of harming their lungs.

2. Asians. Since they travel through and settled in a very cold climate, they evolved fairly small and rounded noses which did not extend very far from their face.

3. Caucasians. Because their environment was very different from the tropic rain forests of west Africa and the extreme cold of Siberia, they tend to have prominent bridges. These extended noses helped moisturize the air in the dry area of Arabia as well as warm the air in the more moderate cold climate of Scandinavia.

D. Eye Differences

1.Black eyes tend to be round and have an upper lid crease. Since their environment was radically different from that of Asians they also lack an epicanthic fold that protected the eyes of Asians.

2. Asians. Their eyes differ in two ways from that of Caucasians and Blacks. If you click on the following internet lick you will see that they have an epicanthic fold at the bottom of their eye and they also lack the upper lid crease at the top of their eye, two features common in black and white eyes. While the epicanthic fold provides protection from the wind at the bottom of their eyes, the top of their eye is smooth and lacks the extra fold common among whites. By having a smooth price of skin at the top of their eyes, Asians avoid collecting dirt that were all too common in the middle of Asian dust storms.

                     The Differences in the shape of eyes in Asians and Caucasians

3. Caucasians. They tend to have round eyes with double crease at the top and no epicanthic fold at the bottom of the eyelid.

E. Scalp Hair

1.Blacks have very thick and curly or kinky scalp hair. Because the thickness of their hair protects their scape form the heat of the sun and the kinky texture of the hair tends to dissipate heat away from the scalp , their scalp hair helped keep them reasonably cool in the hot tropics.

2. Asians. Because they evolved in a cold climate, they tend to have straight hair which is always black. Black hair unlike blond hair is likely to retain the heat and straight hair is less likely to dissipate heat from you scalp, keeping your warm in a very cold climate.

3. Caucasians. They also have straight hair but it is often brown or blond. Like Asians their hair is straight in order to retain heat. While the blond hair does not retain heat, the color of the hair reflect the overall color of their skin.

F. Facial Hair

1.Blacks. They have facial hair

2. Asians. They are the least likely of the three main racial groups to have beards. In a very cold climate facial hair might freeze making life for a person with a beard very uncomfortable.

3. Caucasians. In the semi cold climate of Europe, a beard might provide some degree of warms for people living in a snow covered environment. 

Bill Kelso

               An Introduction to Music

                             Learning about the Three Faces of Music

Like many of our classmates, music has been a real source of joy in my life. Along with sports, it was one of my favorite actives as a teenager. 

Despite the pleasure I gained from listening to my records, my understanding as well as knowledge of music was always haphazard in nature. While I picked up some information over the years, I always wished a had a better and more comprehensive knowledge of the subject. In preparing this post I sought to achieve that objective. I wished to see if I could better organize how I came to learn about and understood music. I hoped that this and subsequent posts might also be of some benefit to other people like myself who love listening to music, but have a limited understanding of music but want to learn more.

The longer I thought about my interest in music, the more I realized that there were three different experiences that primarily accounted for my curiosity in music. Those three experiences made me realize in turn that there were perhaps three main ways to think about music. The explanation as to why there are three reasons is probably related to the fact music has three different dimensions or faces.

A Teenager Interested in Music

The first experience that made my appreciate the first face or nature of music occurred when I had become a teenager. As I have mentioned earlier, my initial interest in music developed in junior high as my brother and I spend many an enjoyable hours at Towers records listening to and eventually buying 45 records. While we both had meager allowances from our parents, my brother and I could pool our money and buy a single 45 record that we would then listen to for hours on end. Despite the incredible sense of joy listening to music in the record booths at Tower records, neither my brother nor I were ever certain why we preferred one types of music over another.

                                                                  (1)

                                                  The First Face of Music

                                            Learning the Components of Music

The problem was made worse by the fact that both of us knew absolutely nothing about music. If somebody told us that a song we were considering buying had a great melody, or that the lead male singer had a robust baritone voice, neither my brother nor I would have had any idea what we had been told. None of those concepts were familiar to us. The key components or elements that make up music, such as melody, which we call the First Face of Music, were totally beyond our comprehension. As a result, if we were asked what type of music we liked, we were at a loss of words to explain why we favored some 45 records over others.

Similarly we were never sure nor aware of what genre or kinds of music we preferred. At that time in jr. high we were probably unaware of the word “genre” let alone what the term actually meant. More often than not we had  no clue if we were listening to Doo Wop, Rhythm and Blues Rock and Roll or something called Country music.  I am not certain that beyond the words rock and roll, that we were aware there were many forms of popular music.

Admittedly, after several hours in the listening both at Tower records on Saturday we primarily asked each other really sophisticated questions such as “Do we want to buy it and can we afford it?” The only limit on our buying decisions was that if we bought an Elvis Presley record, we had to also buy a Pat Boone record so that our parents would not think we had become juvenile delinquents.

Even then our parents questioned our musical taste. I remember we tried to win over mom and dad by playing Elvis’ song “You ain’t nothing but a hound dog” for them. Our efforts fell flat. For my parents what was most problematic about the lyrics of this song was that Elvis claimed that if you were a hound dog, you had never caught a rabbit and even worse that you were not a friend of his.

My parents, after listening to these lyrics, just stared at us and explicitly asked what was the meaning of the song. My brother and I naturally went totally blank. We did not have a clue. But to defend ourselves I told my mother that since my brother and I were only in the 7^th and 8^th grade, I was positive by the time we went to high school, we would finally know the answer to their well thought out questions about hound dogs.

Unfortunately by the time I graduated from Cal and enrolled at CK. I still was unsure what a hound dog was or why he had a problem with rabbits or why Elvis refused to be friends with him. But thankfully my parents had forgotten their question, and we were never punished for buying songs that we had no idea what they meant. And I must admit that now that I am 79, I still have no ideas what the “King of Rock and Roll” was talking about. 

To overcome my early inability to talk about why I liked music, I thought I should try to learn as well as even write a simple post to discuss some of the key elements that make up music.  As noted before this aspect of music can be called the First Face of Music. I thought this kind of post might be of some value to our classmates, who were not in band, and, like me, were unfamiliar with the terminology of musicians. 

But I must admit I am hesitant about writing about the key elements of music. After all many of our classmates such as George King, a successful professional musician, Diana Helms, an experienced singer who has had many solo engagements as well as Kathy Peron, a highly regarded teacher of music in Sacramento whose father was also the very respected department head of the music department at McClatchy, are just a few of many of our classmates who are more knowledgeable about this subject than I am. Despite my many limitations, I was hoping I could point out a few principles of music as that I have learned both in preparing this post as well as over the years as an untutored fan of Rock and Rock that might be of interest to some of our classmates. 

How Young Kids Listen to New Genres of Music.

The second reason I became interested in music occurred when I got a job teaching at the University of Florida. For the next 30 or so years I spent a lot of time with young kids aged 18 to 22 or if they were in graduate school 22 to 26.

When they often showed up in my office, I would always try to get to know them by asking them about their lives. Almost inevitably they started telling me about their musical preferences. 

I quickly realized that since the 1960s people in the country had become much more affluent. Many of kids I met came from families with major stereo systems and had extensive record or CD collections. Before long they started mentioning singers and styles of music I had never heard of.  The white students would often talk about bands like Aerosmith, Alice Cooper or Motley Crüe who were either Heavy Metal or Glam rock, while black kids would mention Rap music and discuss singers named Tupac Shakar or Snoop Dogg, both well known for west coast G-Funk Gagster Rap. (I know you don’t believe me but that is really what the music is called).

And in fact, in a few embarrassing cases, the students even mention how much they liked U2. Naturally confused, I replied “you’re talking about the American spy plane, right?” Stunned by my lack of knowledge about “the real world” they were all very polite and quickly informed me it was an Irish rock band.

The more my students talked about their favorite bands, including U2, the less confident I became that I knew much about popular music. But to become better informed and knowledgeable about the musical tastes of the students, I began to learn about their preferred artists and listen to their favorite songs. Given my age I natural thought the music of the 50s and 60s was superior to anything the younger generation preferred.

                                                              (2)

                                             The Second Face of Music

                               Learning about the Genres & the  Evolution of Music

After these musical discussions, it dawned on me that if I wanted to learn about the elements of music, I had to know how the different genres treated issues like melody, harmony and rhythm. While knowing the elements of music would undoubtedly improve my enjoyment of music, it was an important but incomplete way to understand music. It was clear that the younger generation were listening to a differnt genre of music than we listened to in the 1960s. I wanted to know why they were attracted to a differnt form of music than our generation enjoyed.

But to understand how music had evolved over time, it was necessary to trace how one genre of music often grew out of and modified the music that preceded it. I decided to call this aspect of music the Second Face of Music.

Just as early Rock and Roll music grew out of a combination of country music from Nashville and the Blues from the Delta region of Mississippi, Soul music developed out of a synthesis of Rhythm and Blues and Black Gospel music. The earliest form of Rock and Roll developed by Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis was initially even called Rockabilly music to show how rock and roll had been heavily influenced by the Nashville sound. 

Similarly Ray Charles who was instrumental in combing Rhythm and Blues with black Gospel music to create Soul music adopted many gospel musical traditions such as the call and response nature of black gospel tunes in his most popular songs. In light of these developments, if you wanted to appreciate how music had changed over time, you had to be aware how one genre had morphed into a related but very different form of song. For instance, after studying different genres you quickly realized that many forms of music often had either a different approach to melody or possessed a unique way of structuring songs than their predecessor.

 Teaching Cultural History

Finally a third reason why I became interested in learning about music also occurred when I was teaching at UF. After a few years of lecturing on a variety of subjects, I asked my department if I could teach a course on ethnic and racial history. I wanted to teach this subject to primarily learn about my own family as well as to learn how the experience of the various Irish groups differed from that of other immigrant groups in America. While my grandfather on my mother’s side was an immigrant from Ireland, my relatives on my father’s side were Scotch Irish who had originated in the Appalachian hill country of Kentucky. But since my Scotch Irish relatives had all died before I was born, I knew very little about what their life as “hillbillies” was like.

When I was preparing for class some of my colleagues suggested that a good way to learn about an ethnic group would be to study the nature of their music. Their music often told you a lot about their customs as well as the hardships or obstacles they faced in adjusting to life in America

                                                             (3)

                                                The Third Face of Music

                       Learning How Music Reflects the Ethnic and Political 

                                                 Divisions in America        

I thus realized that a third face of music was its mirror into the lives and difficulties various ethnic groups faced in adjusting to life in the US. While professional musicians may want to talk about music and its unusual melodies, harmonies and rhythms, historians and anthropologists often wanted to talk about American music because it offers them an insight into the culture and politics of the different ethnic and racial groups that make up America. 

                                                Where do we Go From Here?

The following three posts will thus look in more detail at these three distinct faces of music. 

The First Face of Music. The Elements of Music

Because the next post will discuss the first face of music in that article we will focus on questions of how notes or pitch create music and how various songs have distinctive characteristics. While some songs have memorable melodies, others are noted for their remarkable and complex rhythms. This first approach to studying music is how most musicians and fans try to comprehend the nature of music.

The Second Face of Music. Different Musical Genres

In the second post, we will try to develop an outline of how popular music has evolved world wide as well in America. While we earlier described how American music has been Africanized, we have to realize that migrants from Africa  have had the same impact of music in South America as well as the West Indies. After taking a view of the evolution of popular music worldwide, we shall focus on developments in the US. But in this post as opposed to an earlier post on Jazz music from the 1920s to 40s, I thought I would concentrate on songs from the 50s and 60s. 

In particular I want to study Doo Wop. For some reason that music has always fascinated me. When taking the car out to run errands, I subscribe to Sirius radio, but I primarily listen to only tunes from the 50s and 60s in completing my tasks. I also wanted to examine Doo Wop music because it was the predominate type of music that was played in the 1950s. If you ever went to a party, kissed your date good night, listening to the radio or went to those wild jr high makeup out parties (or so I was told actually happened) the odds are that you were listening to Doo Wop music.

I was fortunate to find a lot of links to some of the most popular songs of the 1950s like “In the Still of the Night” or “Earth Angel.” Hopefully those songs will bring back a lot of wonderful memories when we were really young teenagers.

The Third Face Music. A Study of our Ethnic Heritage       

In our final post we will explore the third and last face of music which will tells us a lot about the various ethnic and racial groups that make up our country. This later approach to music is more how social historians study music than individuals who are more musically inclined.  

Instead of focusing on topics like melody or harmony, in this approach we are more likely to ask questions about why musical genres evolved the way they did. For instance, we may try to answer why James Brown developed the more edgy Funk Music in opposition to the smooth tones of Motown. Or finally why Rap Music made a dramatic break with the crossover music developed by both Rhythm and Blues and Disco. 

As we shall later see, Rap musicians and Disco may have very different ideas about how African Americans should relate to the rest of the country. As was case of those who developed Bebop Jazz, many Rap artists talk about what they perceive as the problem of cultural appropriation. Because they believe that only black musicians should be able to play music created by black artists, they want to create a form of music that is only meant for black audience. 

As the above examples amply demonstrate, the different types of musical genres may thus reflect political divisions within both the black and country music population. While some musicians may want to contribute to the development of a melting pot view of society and foster integration, other musicians may want to create a separate black or country music tradition that appeals only to their particular ethnic group. 

Besides analyzing differences within ethnic groups, we can also study music to learn how minorities adjusted to life in America. Whether it is the music of the blues that depicts the life of a sharecropper on a southern plantation or the song of a country singer describing the life of a coal miner’s daughter, music helps us understand how ethnic groups coped in their new homeland. 

Finally given the hostile political divisions in the country, we can see how the disputes between the politically left and right in this country, also affect how people view various forms of music. In particular we will see how many people who view themselves as progressive will have a negative view of country music, a type of music which is more likely to hold traditional and conservative views. 

Despite the importance of this third face of music, I realize that most individuals can enjoy music without knowing about either the history of the subject, or its historical significance.  But that fact primarily explains the immense popularity of music in the country today. It is very clear that people can both enjoy music as well as study music from three different perspectives. 

                                                           Conclusion

Because music covers such a broad range of topics, it can appeal to people with very different interests. Whether you are just interested in listening to a beautiful melody, understanding the evolution of American music, or gaining some insight into the lives of American ethnic groups, listening to popular music can be either an informative, or a purely an enjoyable pastime or some combination of both experiences. Music has something to offer everybody.

Bill Kelso

(1)

       The First Face of Music

       Understanding the Components of Music

Every form or genre of Music has its own distinctive traits or characteristics. In fact within various types of genres such as Rhythm and Blues individual songs often have their own special unique character.

But unless you know something about the nature of music, you often can’t recognize the uniqueness of the music you are listening to. Admittedly people can enjoy music without knowing much about the design or structure of the songs they are hearing. But generally, it is more enjoyable to appreciate music when you have some basic understanding of how music and songs actually work.

In the following post, I want to give a very straightforward and simple explanation of some general musical concepts. If you know a lot about music this explanation probably appears to be simplistic in nature. Unlike many professional musicians in our class, I am just a long time music fan who has only a rudimentary grasp of music. 

As I mentioned earlier, my interest in music began when I was hanging out at Tower records as a junior high student with my brother and has continued over the past 60 years spending or perhaps misspending thousands of hours listening to all kinds of great songs. Fortunately, after spending so much time enjoying a variety of artists, I even managed to learn something about the nature of music.  This outline is intended for people like me who appreciate music but have limited training in musical theory. I am hoping that there might be a signification number of classmates who might enjoy gaining a greater understanding of their favorite singers.

At the end of this article, I try to cite links to various popular songs so that you can see the various principes discussed in this post. But even if you have no interest in reading about music, there are links to over 24 tunes that you may just enjoy listening to because they are great tunes.

                                    Where does the Term Music Come From

Before starting a discussion about music you may wonder where does the term music come from. The terms is of ancient origins. It originated with the Greeks who believed that their Gods had assistants called the Muses whose job it was to protect and entertain their Supreme Beings. To perform that latter job, the Muses were responsible for inspiring musicians and singers to turn in unforgettable performances to please the Gods. When a singer performed well, when he or she was also inspired by the muses, his or her actions were considered “Music.” So music was exceptional entertainment for the Gods inspired by the muses.

                A Quick Note on How to Proceed

Now that we know where we got the word music, we have to ask what exactly is the topic of music that enables us to entertain the Gods or other humans for that matter. 

If you have a limited background in music, the following brief section of this post may seem overly complex. If that is the case, skip the following discussion of “Notes, Pitch and Intervals” and go the section entitled “The Four Major Elements of Music. Unfortunately, the most difficult section of this post for non-music majors is at the very beginning of this article. However, the next section is much easier and there are lots of video links that make the four elements very clear and easy to recognize. Finally, the very last part of the post on the nature of songs is extremely easy and most people will probably know much of the material that is discussed there.

                                                       What is Music

If you are willing to learn the vocabulary musicians use to talk about music, we can first ask what the definition of music is. The answer is that musical is basically the organization of sound over time to create a pleasant listening experience.

But when talking about sounds, music uses the language of notes to describe that sound. Thus music is the organization of notes over time to create a pleasant and enjoyable listening experience.

a. Notes & Pitches

But what is a note. The term is often used interchangeably with the word pitch and tune. While notes and pitch are very similar, there are subtle distinctions between the concepts that are not worth describing in this short post. 

As is obviously the case, when singing or even talking or playing an instrument, we can create sound or music that can vary from a very high pitch to a very low pitch.  In roughly two thousand years of western civilization, many people thought certain pitches sounded so attractive to their ear that musicians came to exclusively use them in their compositions. To develop a European musical tradition a variety of composers over time went one step further and decided to give these special pitches a name which we today called a note. 

b. Pitch Notes and Intervals

In the west we have identified 12 notes. That means that historically western music is basically composed of these 12 notes. Besides these notes the interval between notes is also crucial to western music and that harmonious interval between notes is called an octave.  Whether it is a symphony, a concerto or your favorite pop song, western music will contain 12 familiar tones confined to each octave.

If you own a piano it is easy to identify western notes, are they are 7 whites keys which are called C, D, E, F, G, A, B. and the five black keys which are called sharps and flats which are played between the above notes. 

c. Scales and Keys

However, while western music has 12 notes, musicians tend to rely on just 7 notes when composing a song. In the lingo of musicians, we say composers tend to rely on scales of just 7 notes, some of which are called major and other minor scales within each octave.

Some studies have argued that because the short-term memories of humans is limited, humans have trouble remembering more than 7 tones.. Possibly for that reason most songs have 7 notes in their scales rather than 12 in order to help us remember the song more easily.

                                The Four Major Element that Make up Music

Now that we have a basic conception of music, we can focus on the four main elements that make up music: They are 1) Melody, 2) Harmony, 3) Rhythm and 4) Beat. As for a final comment we shall also look in more detail at certain kinds of notes found only in black Blues music.

1.Melody

A melody is an agreeable succession of different notes that creates a unified and pleasurable musical sound. While this idea sounds simple, it can be quite complex. In the three hundred years leading up to popular music in North and South America, German composers made a concerted effort to developed complex and sophisticated melodies.

While melodies are primarily know for stringing together a series of pitches, a melody is also shaped by the time each pitch sounds. For instance, in Dixieland and Big Band versions of jazz melodies are noted for their swing notes which means the band is alternatively lengthening and shortening the time various notes are played.

Because of the central role it has played in making music, many songs are notable for their unforgettable melodies. Although it is often a subjective experience and people may disagree about what is a special melody, I have listed below links to three songs that I think are exceptionable. They are Frank Sinatra’s “Summer Wind,” Ray Charles’ “Georgia on my Mind,” and Henry Mancini’s “Moon River.” As the above list indicates, most memorable melodies, but not all, are sing by Crooners who dominates the airways from 1940s to the 60s.

Frank Sinata singing Summer Wind

Ray Charles singing Georgia on my Mind

Andy Williams and Moon River

2. Harmony

Harmony, in contrast to melody, simultaneously plays different notes on top of one another. It thus tries to blend or harmonize different notes at the same time.

You can also think of melody as music moving horizontally while harmony is a vertical musical addition to the above melody. When musicians talk about harmony, they use the notion of cords to describe the blending of notes. They also talk about cord progression as the harmonies in a tune may vary over the length of a song. 

When we examine Doo wop music, in our final post, we should realize that it is noted for its three and four part harmonies. Doo Wop music, which initially consisted of groups of young men singing, was noted for its ability to blend a wide range of voices from first tenor (falsetto) to second tenor to baritone to bass. In many songs there is a progression as the bass will begin the song, followed by other voices entering one a time until full harmony is achieved. If you are unclear what these terms such as tenor or bass mean, we will get to that topic shortly.

While beautiful melodies are the distinctive traits of many songs like “Georgia on my Mind,” other songs stick in your mind because of their unusual harmonies. Among groups who are noted for their distinctive harmonies are the Beach Boys, and the Bee Gees. Below are three other groups with distinctive harmonies, the Everly Brothers, the Mammas and Papas and Simon and Garfinkel.

The Everly Brothers

Video of the Mammas and Papas singing California Dreaming

Simon and Garfinkel singing the Sounds of Silence

3. Rhythm and Beat

A third and fourth component of music is rhythm and beat. While many people think they are the same notion they are actually very different. Rhythm refers to the playing of notes and rests (silences) in time. In addition to playing when notes are played musical rhythm also stipulates how they are played and with what intensity. 

Beat in contrast refers to the tempo at which the rhythm is played. If a sing has a regular rhythm it can be played at a very fast or very slow tempo or beat. 

As we have mentioned before, from the 17^th to the 19^th century western music had been heavily influenced by Germans and Austrians who had stressed the importance of melody and harmony. In the 20^th century western music underwent a fundamental change as African Americans came to dominate western popular music. In place of melody and harmony they stressed rhythm and even polyrhythms in the songs they made.   

Over time musicians in the west have introduced even more involved and dense rhythms. For instance, when African Americans developed the blues in the Delta region of northeastern Mississippi, musicians in Chicago and Memphis increased the instrumentation and sharpened the complexity of rhythms, transforming the Blues into the Rhythm and Blues. 

Later James Brown developed a genre of R& B which is called Funk music which involves even more complex polyrhythms. In his autobiography James Brown even argued that music which stressed melody and harmony was obsolete and that his Funk tunes represented a new kind of music because it showcased the importance of rhythm. 

As a means of comparison, we could argue that the layering of different forms of rhythm on top of one another is the equivalent in African American music of what harmony represents in western music. While harmony consists of piling different pitches on top of one another, African American rhythm often consists of piling different rhythmic patterns on top of one another. While harmony tries to reconcile or blend many types of voices, African rhythms often try to reconcile many types of rhythms.

To appreciate how an emphasis on rhythm changes the very character of music, watch the following link we have shown before in which Paul Simon sings his song “The Obvious Child.” The shift in the character or nature of Simons music from his stress with Garfinkel on harmony in “Sounds of Silence” to his stress on rhythm in “The Obvious Child” is striking. 

But besides noting how the song stresses rhythm, pay attention to the opening scenes of the video where three young drummers start playing on the footsteps of a church. Brazilian Samba music, in comparison to Rhythm and Blues and James Brown’s modification of it in Funk, has become famous for developing even more sophisticated and complex polyrhythms than its American counterparts.

Paul Simon Singing “The Obvious child” in Brazil

Finally, to appreciate how James Brown has added to the rhythmic complexity of traditional rhythm and blues music, watch the following video of a musician playing incredibly complex rhythms. The above musician also has a nice demonstration of syncopation in black music, which is the tendency of black musicians to stress the back beat or beats that are normally very weak in their music.

The Ten Funkiest James Brown Songs

4. A Final Note on Pitches and Notes

Finally to finish up this section on music we need to take a second look at the idea of pitches or notes. As we mentioned earlier, sometimes musical pieces in certain genres vary the duration in which they play various notes. For instance, Jazz is noted for varying the duration of its notes which are called swing notes.

But besides varying the duration of a note, some forms of black and even rock and roll music will also either depart from western music by introducing totally different notes or by bending or blurring musical notes. 

a. Blue Notes

In the blues or even in some songs like the Rolling Stones “Satisfaction” musicians will often deliberately sing notes that fall between the traditional notes of western music. It is possible that African music also embraces notes that failed to make it into the western cannon of what was acceptable music, and these notes are called blue notes. However, for many westerners the blue notes of African songs were too discordant or disagreeable to the ear to merit consideration.

b. Bending a Note

For similar reasons much of classical western music would never even consider bending a note. Bending a note is a technique commonly performed on an electric guitar where a musician pushes strings out of their normal alignment while playing the guitar. Bending strings produces a fluctuation in the pitch of a tune that creates a type of wailing like sound that is similar to creating a long drawn out cry of grief. 

Bending a note naturally disrupts achieving any kind of tonal harmony in a song. For western music to achieve functional harmony, music had to have clear definite pitches and a logical relationship between them. Western classical music was consequently less tolerant of acoustically unclear sounds. In search of tonal harmony musical tones not only had to be restricted to the twelve tones of western music but they also had to be precisely and clearly expressed. For that reason, most, but not all classical western music would shy away from bending a note.

If that is the case, then why did so many blues artists deliberately modify the traditional musical practices of the new homeland. For the blue artists of northwestern Mississippi their music was designed to express their anguish with their lives as poor sharecropper on the old cotton plantations of the south. While classical musicians wanted to create beautiful and harmonious music for their aristocratic patrons in 18^th century Europe, the poor blacks of the south wanted to create a form of music that expressed the deprivation, and hardships of a life spent as a sharecropper on a southern plantation.

As the following two video demonstrate, there is no better musician than BB King who can bend the notes and captures this sense of hopeless in the two following songs. 

BBK Why I sing the Blues

BBKing singing The Thrill is gone

5. A Quick Summary

Now that we have taken a quick surrey of the key elements of music, it might be helpful if we circle back and relate these different elements to different forms of American popular music. For instance, American songs with the most pleasant melodies were often sung by the Crooners who dominated American music after the breakup of the Big Bands. In contrast, music that was characterize by complex and involved rhythms were overwhelmingly Rhythm and Blues tunes. If we asked what type of songs had the best harmonies, the answer was numerous forms were equally effective.  While the Everly Brothers played country rock music, numerous rock and roll bands such as the Beach Boys or the Mammas and Papas as well as the Doo Wop singers were also famous for their rich harmonies. And as discussed above the musicians noted for their use of both blue and bended notes were overwhelmingly blues singers like BB King.

Bill Kelso

                           (2)

  The First Face of Music Continues

            The Nature of American Songs

While understanding the main elements of music is a necessary step for understanding American popular music it is not sufficient. To fully appreciate popular music, it also helps to understand the nature of songs. Of the vast array of songs we hear on the radio they often differ in fundamental ways. In the following section we shall look at four key elements that often differentiate one song from another. 

For instance, some songs are narrative songs that tell a story while other songs are emotive in nature expressing an emotion. 

Secondly, songs also differ in their language as some have nothing but complete sentences while yet other songs are full of grunts, moans, shouts, aha or ooh ahas.

Thirdly, some tunes will supplement their traditional song format by adding a chorus to respond to the lyrics of the lead singer This arrangement is which the lead singer and the chorus engage with one another is a staple of soul music. These types of songs are know as call and response forms of music. 

Finally songs may differ in how they are sung. There are certain genres of music in which the lead singer will use a falsetto voice to convey the theme of the song. However, in the vast majority of songs the singer will use his normal baritone of soprano voice to convey the lyrics of the tune

1.The Nature of a Song

As mentioned above songs can often be divided into either narrative songs which primarily tell a story or conversely into emotive songs. Emotive songs in turn can be divided into tunes which try to either express an emotion by the singer or conversely elicit an emotional response in the audience. While the difference between these two types of songs is clear, many tunes try to bridge the gap and achieve both goals simultaneously.

While a narrative story might tell about an incident in one’s life, an emotive song would be like James Brown’s tune “I feel Good” or Diana Ross’s song “We will be together” or numerous tunes by Aretha Franklin such as “Respect” or “Who is ‘Zooming Who.” In emotive songs the lyrics are often minimal and very repetitive in nature. The listener or audiences’ response to the music is often more immediate and visceral rather than cognitive. Emotive songs want to stir an emotional reaction, to make individuals feel either sad or happy or expectant that things will eventually get better.

In contrast the main point about narrative songs is that you have to listen to the whole narrative before you can grasp the point of the song. In emotive songs, in contrast, you don’t have to think about anything as the song is upfront about eliciting an emotional response from you in its claim that either “I feel good” or “We’ll be together.”

While it is important not to overstate the case, generally country and folk music is more narrative than rhythm and blues. Among the best recording artists who primarily sing narrative songs are folk artists like Harry Chapin and country singers like Bobby Gentry. In Harry Chapins song “The Cats in the Cradle” he is telling you a story about how his indifference to his son when he was younger, later comes back to haunt him when he was older. In contrast, Bobby Gentry’s song ”An Ode to Billie Joe” is about the everyday cruelty of people towards those are suffering from emotional problems and her family’s failure to see and understand their own daughte’s sense of grief..

a.Two Great Narrative Songs

Harry Chapin Cat's in the Cradle

Bobby Gentry Singing ode to Billie Joe

b. Emotive Songs. Focus on the start of the following songs.

While there are many singers who primarily sing emotive songs, James Brown, Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross are three of the best known. Amber Riley uses Diana Ross’s song to try to cement ties among her high school Glee class who are graduating and going their own separate ways.

Amber Riley singing we will be together

And an even more emotive song is Aretha Franklin’s rendering of “Who is Zooming Who.” In case you are not up on your street lingo, zooming means you are checking out somebody. In this case the singer is suggesting that someone who thinks they are checking her out, is actually being zoomed themselves. 

I included two version of Aretha Franklin singing this song. The first one enables you to appreciate the unusual lyrics  and language of the song. But the second one shows that this is a truly an emotive song as Aretha Franklin has the whole audience emotionally responding to her performance by standing, clapping and swaying to her singing. If you only want to watch one video choose the second one as few singers can match the personal charisma of an Aretha Franklin performing live.

Aretha Franklin Singing Who is Zooming Who

Aretha Live singing Who is Zooming Who

2. The Language of a Song

When songs are either narrative or emotive in nature, it often affects the language of the song. In narrative songs, the singer usually sings in complete sentences that are well constructed as the singer develops his story line. 

Because emotive songs either want to express or elicit an expression in their audience, they often rely on moans, shouts, aha, or grunts to get people riled up. If you recall Amber Riley rendition of Diana’s Ross’ song, she starts off with ooh, ooh aha aha. Later when she discusses her sorrow about breaking up, there are more moans indicating her emotional distress at the moment. Similarly, Aretha Franklin starts off in “Who is Zooming Who”  with the lyrics of “Ooh, boy, uh hug, ah yea and oh, yeah.”

In light of the above distinction the most interesting songs are those that try to bridge the difference telling a narrative while trying to evoke an emotional response. While most of the song may rely on complete sentences, there will periodically be shouts or moans to get listeners aroused.  A good example of this middle ground is found in Michael Jackson’s song “Billie Jean.” 

The song is about Billie Jean’s claims that the singer is the father of her son while the singer adamantly insists that Billie Jean is not his lover. Halfway through the song, indicating the singer’s frustration with Billie Jean, Michael Jackson just shouts. In any case the following clip is American music at its very best.

Michael Jackson singing Billie Jean

3. Adding and Subtracting Elements from a Song. 

A third factors that distinguishes one song from another is its addition or subtraction of elements that are traditionally found in the Great American Songbook, 

Again, African Americans often played a role in revising how American songs were often performed. One of the major factors that was responsible for this change occurred when Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin in the 1960s decide to synthesize traditional Rhythm and Blues with African spiritual or gospel music. This new sound or genre of Rhythm and Blues became known as Soul music.

a. Call and Response or Shout and Response

One elements of black gospel music that Ray Charles in particular has adopted is the creation of what are called “Call and Response”  or “Shout and Response" musical songs. These forms of music evidently appeared during slavery as the foreman of a cotton-picking crew would shout out an order and the crew would respond. When black churches were formed, they incorporated this same format into the sermons and gospel music. As the minister preached, the congregation would response. Later when black churches created gospel music they incorporated the interaction of the minister and his congregation into their music. The shout and response of later gospel music was like having a conversation during the singing of a song. The singer and the chorus constantly interacted with one another, sometimes in a confrontational manner

In the following link, you can see how Ray Charles uses this format in his song “Hit the Road, Jack”. In most cases shout orcall songs involve a somewhat monotonous response by the chorus to the calls of the singer. While Ray Charles tries to explain his action, the response of the chorus repeats over and over again the phrase “ Hit the Road Jack.”

Ray Charles singing Hit the Road Jack

If Ray Charles played a major role in altering traditional American songs by adding a chorus to the singing of the song, James Brown, who invented Funk Music, also dramatically altered the tradition American song by introducing what is called a ”Musical Break.” Whereas Ray Charles added to the traditional American song, Brown tried to subtract from traditional songs by introducing a cut or break in the melody and rhythm of a song.  During this break the rhythm section stops play while usually an instrumental or percussion section fills the gap. 

b. The Cut or Break

This cut or break, which we will illustrate in a moment, is responsible for the term break dancing. When Rap music replaced rhythm and blues, DJ would often combine tapes of numerous funk songs, consolidating all of the break or cut sections from various Funk songs. When rap DJ played these music interludes at parties, male dancers would rush to the dance floor and perform their acrobatic style of dancing. Hence this form of dancing became known as Break dancing.

The following link to James Brown performing is interesting because it shows the “cut” half way through his song as a Sax player interrupts the song for a short solo break. In addition, like Ray Charles, Brown has a conversation with his chorus as they respond to his calls. As is obviously the case this is an emotive song as the lyrics are rather sparse. Finally in an excellent example of how African Americas tend to fuse song and dance, James Brown engages in some fancy footwork.

James Brown Singing Papa's got a new bag

After seeing James Brown use the cut in his song, Ray Charles will do the same in his song “Unchain my Heart.” Like the previous song, you can see both the use of call and response and cut in the same song. This combination of these two techniques became very popular in African American music.  

Ray Charles Unchain my Heart

4. How Songs are sung.

A final point that distinguishes one song from another consists of how they are sung. In particular some songs are notable because the lead singer will use a falsetto voice to convent the theme of a song. 

Before developing this point, we first have to realize that not every singer has the same range in belting out a tune. While some singers have high pitched voices, others are low pitched and yet others have incredible agile voices which enables them to sing in a variety of pitches. 

To distinguish one singer from another, musicians have come up with a four fold typology to distinguish the singing style of male artists and a three fold typology to compare female singers. In general females have much higher pitched voices than men.  The various distinctions are listed below.

Males                                                     Females

Countertenor                                          Soprano

Tenor                                                      Mezzo Soprano (Half Soprano)

Baritone                                                 Contralto

Bass

a. The Vocal Range of Male Singers

1)Countertenor

The highest pitch for a man is called a counter tenor and individuals who have this capacity often sing in a falsetto which we shall shortly explain what that means. Famous singers who would be consider countertenors would be Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees or Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin.

Barry Gibbs singing Counter Tenor of Falsetto

2) Tenor

Just below the counter tenor are tenors and there are over 7 varieties of them. They all generally sing in a semi high voice. Among famous tenors would be Eddie Floyd, Justin Timberlake, Elton John and Bruno Mars. Michael Jackson is also a tenor but many think his voice is androgenous and he often hits notes that you could mistake for a female singer.

Eddie Floyd singing Knock on Wood

3) Baritone

A baritone is the most common singing voice of most male singers and would include Tom Jones, Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra and David Bowie. Like Tenors there are many varieties of Baritones. Below is a video of Tom Jones who has a very robust baritone voice.

Tom Jones singing it is not Unusual. 

Notice his unusual dance steps. He certainly is no Michel Jackson.

4) Bass

Finally the last singing style for males is called bass but is pronounced base. Since in everyday parlance the base of a building in the bottom floor, base means the lowest pitch of singing. Singers noted for their low voices would include Barry White and Tennessee Earnie Ford. If  you are our age you should remembers Ford’s country pop hit “Sixteen Tons.”

Video of Tennessee Earnie Ford singing 16 tons

Why the Preference for Falsetto

Now that we realize that singers can vary in the way they sing a song, we need to ask why falsetto is often a very popular way of presenting a song. 

Certain groups often believe that a falsetto best reflects their larger purpose. For instance, the Catholic church thought that when their choir sang in a falsetto it was comparable to heavenly angels singing. When some of their best singers from choir started to grow up and their voice changed, the church often had them castrated so they could continue to sing like the angels.

Similarly, many forms of country music such as Bluegrass as well as Black Gospel as well as Rhythm and Blues singers and Doo Wop groups make extensive use of falsetto. Why is that? We know that when people become excited or emotional, the pitch of their speech becomes much higher. For singers who are belting out emotive songs, they often believe that if they sing in a falsetto, their voice will elicit a more positive emotional response from their listeners. A good illustration of this point is found in Pharrell Williams’ song “Happy.”

Pharrel Williams singing Happy

A final and more sophisticated way to use falsetto is when artists selectively use it to highlights parts of a song. For instance, Marvin Gays, a very talented Motown singer is primarily a tenor. But when he is singing a love song and comes to the most import emotional part, he will temporarily resort to a falsetto to heighten the emotional intensity of his recording.

b. The vocal Range of Female Singers

While falsetto singers are often found among male singers, that terms is rarely used to describe female singers. Generally the vocal range of women singers is much smaller than men as there are very few women who can sing at the bass level. Most female singers probably belong to the group of the Mezzo Sopranos which means half soprano as it falls in between Soprano and the lower pitch of Contra Alto.

1) Mezzo Soprano Singers

Some prominent Mezzo singers would include Beyonce, Aretha Franklin Adele, Sheryl Crow, Miley Cyrus, Ella Fitzgerald, Taylor Swift, Witney Houston and Amy Whitehouse.

2) Sopranos

The two alternative types of female singers are harder to find. But there are several prominent sopranos and they would include Christina Aguilera Julie Andrews, Celine Dion and certainly Maria Carey. Of all American singers Maria Carey probably has the greatest range as she can hit high notes that are beyond the range of most other female singers

3) Contra Alto 

Our final type of female singer is the contra alto and this is easily the rarest types of woman artists. But there are a few notable exceptions and they would include Tony Braxton, Cher and most notably of all Stevie Nicks, the lead singer of Fleetwood Mac 

To appreciate how the way a song affects its very character watch the two following links, one with Maria Carey singing “Without You” and the other staring Stevie Nicks belting out “Stand Back.” When you listen to Marie sing “Without You” notice that she will sing the female equivale of a falsetto when she comes to the most dramatic part of  the song about how she can’t live without the love of her life. In this sense Maria Carey is like Marvin Gaye as she varies the pitch of the song to magnify its emotional impact on you.

Maria Carey singing Without you. 

Stevie Nicks Stand Back 

Stevie Nicks’ lower pitched voice seem almost harsh in comparison to Maria Carey sweeter and softer high pitch voice.

                                                   A Brief Review

 Now that we have reviewed some basic principles of music it might be helpful to consolidate these points in case you ever want to analyze either an old favorite tune or a possible new download on Spotify. In listening to a song you can ask the following questions.

1. What Genre is it.

What genre is it: Rock and Roll, Rhythm and Blues or a sub-genre of Rhythm and Blues such as Funk of Disco? We will do more on this topic in another post over the next couple of days.

2. The Singer

Is the singer combining song and dance as many African artists do or is he or she just singing?

3. The Nature of the Music. 

What is your overall impression of the music? Is it stressing 1) Melody, 2) Harmony, or 3) Rhythm & 4) Beat. Is the artist 5) bending any notes or introducing new blue notes into the melody?

4. The Nature of the Song

I) Finally, is the song a narratives song or an emotive song?

2) Are the lyrics full of moans shouts and grunts or complete sentences.

3) Does the song use the African America gospel device of either call and response or breaks and cuts?

4) How is the song sung? Is the singer using a falsetto or a more common baritone if he is a man. If the singer is a female, is she a mezzo soprano or like Stevie Nicks a sub alto who can be as gruff as a male singer. Or does the singer vary his or her pitch when he or she hits the main theme of the song? 

Bill Kelso

                                                         (1)

              The Second Face of Music

       The Development of Different Forms or Genres of Music in                                                  the Western World

In the western world of Europe and the Americas we see the growth of Classical and Romantic Music in Europe from the 17^th century  to the 19^th century which will be then be displaced and rivaled by the growth of Popular Music in America & Latin America in the 20^th century.

                                      A Quick Overall Outline of Western Music

                                                   17^th to 19^th Century

                                 Germany and Austria dominate Western Music

         17^th                                                   18^th                                      19^th

Baroque Music                                   Classical Music                       Romantic Music

Bach                                                     Mozart                                   Beethoven

Handel                                                                                              Ricard Wagner

                                                 20^th  Century to the Present

In the 20^th century countries in North and South America replaced German and Austria as the main centers of musical creativity. The creation of this new types of popular music is dominated by African Americans in three regions in the new world: South America, the Caribbean and the US. Below are the new types of music genres produced in North and South America.

                                                                        (1)

                                                                South America

                  Argentina                                                                                          Brazil

                 Tango                                                                                                Samba

                                                                                                                           Bossa Nova                                                                                

                                                                          (2)                                                                 

                                                                     Caribbean

Jamaica                                                          Cuba                                           Trinidad

Reggae                                                           Conga                                          Calypso

                                                                        Mombo

                                                                         Salsa

                                                                            (3)

                                                                   American Music

                                                 Genres and Sub Genres of American Music

                                                                  The 19^th Century

                                                                            (1)

                                                                  Minstrel Shows

                                                                            (2)

                                                                  Military Bands

                                                                             (3)

                                   Brass Bands

After the Civil War most American cities established Brass Bands, an idea popularized in the movie “The Music Man.” As America industrialized, more and more American cities decided to create their own brass bands. This idea was that music would entertain blue collar workers and thus help dampen class conflict in a growing industrialized nation with a large working class  population.

                                                                            (4)

                                             John Sousa and the Marching Military Band

                                                   This idea became popular after WWI.

                                                             Early 20^th Century

   There are six new forms of American music by the beginning  of the 20^th century.                                        

                                                                             (1)

                            Ragtime

                                 (2)

                                                                             Jazz

                       (3)

                                                                             Blues

                                                                               (4)             

                                                                            Gospel

                                                                               (5)

                                                                 The Age of the Crooner

                                                                                (6)

                                                               Harmony Group Singers

                                                                           Do Wop                

                                                   The Middle to Late 20^th Century

During the middle of the 20^th Century American music is  dominated by the following               three forms of music   

                        1)                                                    2)                                           3)

       Rhythm & Blues                              Rock & Roll                           Country Music

     1.Rhythm & Blues                             1. Rockabilly                          1. Traditional Country

      2. Soul Music                                    2. Pop Rock                          2. Honky Tonk

     3. Funk Music                                     3. Niche Rock                      3. The Nashville Sound

    4. Disco                                               a. British Rock                     4. Folk Music

                                                                 b. Surf Rock

                                                                 c. Psychedelic

                                                                 d. Heavy Metal

                                                                 e. Grunge Music

                                                          Late 20^th to the 21^th Century 

                  1.   Rap Music

                  2.   EDM Music

                                  (Electro Dance Music)

Bill Kelso

                                                        (2)  

                         The Continuation of the Second Face of Music

 The Development of Different Forms or Genres of Music in America. How Music has evolvved  in America.       

        American Music

                        Genres and Sub Genres of American Music

                                                       A.

                                The 19^th to early 20^th Century

Below are the various musical genres that dominated the  19^th and early 20^th century.

                                              The 19^th Century

                                                        (1)

                                                 Minstrel Shows

                                                         (2)

                                                 Military Bands

                                                         (3)

                 Brass Bands

After the Civil War most cities established Brass Bands, This idea is popularized in the movie “The Music Man.” It was part of industrialization as  most cities established brass band in the hope that this form of music would entertain blue collar workers and  thus help dampen class conflict.    

                                                            (4)

  John Sousa and the Marching Military Band. This idea became popular after WWI.

                                                    Early 20^th Century

                                                               (1)

                                 Ragtime Music

                   (2)

                                                            Jazz Music

                                                                (3)

                                                            Blues Music

                                                                 (4)             

                                                         Gospel Music

                                                                 (5)

                                                   The Age of the Crooner

                                                                  (6)

                                                          Doo Wop Music 

                          B.

                                            The Middle to Late 20^th Century

American music eventually is dominated by the following three forms of popular music. As you can see these three forms of music soon diversity creating numerous sub genres of R & B, Rock & Roll and Country Music. The precursors of these three forms of music either die out which is the case for Ragtime, the traditional Blues and even Doo Wop or they become popular niche forms of music, such as Jazz, a form of music that  has many fans but lacks widespread national appeal.

         1)                                                        2)                                                 3)

Rhythm & Blues                                    Rock & Roll                              Country Music

1.Rhythm & Blues                                 1. Rockabilly                    1. Traditional Folk Music

2. Soul Music                                          2. Pop Rock                     2. Hillbilly Music

3. Funk Music                                          3. Surf Rock                    3. Cowboy and Country

4. Disco                                                   4. British Rock                 4. Singing Cowboy

                                                                5. Psychedelic Rock        5. Honky-tonk

                                                                6. Progressive Rock        6. Bluegrass County

                                                                7, Glam Rock                    7. The Nashville Sound

                                                                8. Hard Rock                    8. Bakersville Sounds

                                                                 9. Heavy Metal                 9. Popular Folk

                                                                10. Shock Rock                10. Protest Folk   

                                                                 11. Punk Rock                 11. Outlaw Country

                                                                 12. New Wave                 12. Neo Traditional

                                                                 13.Grunge                       13. Country Pop

                                                                                                           14.  Protest Country

                                                                             C.

                                                           Late 20^th to the 21^th Century 

                 1.   Rap Music

                  2.   EDM Music

                            (Electro Dance Music)

                                     D.

Among black forms of music, there soon opens up a divide between those genres of music that stress cross over music that appeals to whites as well as blacks and those genre that want to create a separate form of black music primarily performed and enjoyed by black audiences.

                 Cross Over Musical Genres                         Separatist Musical Genres

                       Dixieland Jazz                                                 Bebop Jazz

                       Swing Jazz

                       Cool Jazz

                       Doo Wop                                                                 

                        R & B                                                                   Funk

                      Motown                                                                  Rap

                        Soul

                        Disco

Bill Kelso

                             The Second Face of Music

                                The Different Genres of Music

                                          Doo Wop Music

In a previous post we looked at Jazz music, a form of music that was popular from the 1920s to the 1960s.  While this music had a big impact in its day, probably most members of our class were not familiar with it. 

In this post I would like to change course and analyze a type of music that most of our classmates are probably very familiar with. That form of music today goes by the name of Doo Wop. It was basically a musical genre that appealed to young teenagers and was immensely popular from 1950 to 1962.

As you may have noticed in an earlier outline, Doo Wop was a form of primarily African American music like Ragtime and Jazz, that preceded the development of Rhythm and Blues. While some music critics wants to consider it an earlier form of either R&B or Rock and Roll, the music differed from those later developments by its emphasis on group harmonies rather than rhythm.

                                                 How it Developed

The music first developed after WWII in poor neighborhoods primarily black and later Italian in cities like New York or Philadelphia. The singers were very young, in many cases teenagers as young as 13 years old. 

Because they were very poor, young men would hang out in street corners looking for ways to amuse themselves. To gain some notoriety or prestige in their neighborhood, groups ranging from 4 to 6 individuals started singing. Given the quality of their singing, before long, members of the neighborhoods started to turn out to hear these young men and their performances became very popular.

In light of their appeal, many local gangs decided to adopt their singing groups to enhance their prestige and control of their hood. Since street gangs in the 50s were not as violent as they are today in major cities, gangs would often compete with one another by seeing who had the best Doo Wop group.

As their popularity grew, many Doo Wop singers held out hope that they could make it as professional singers. Because of changes in the recording industry, many small independent record producers acquired the ability in the 1950s to produce vinyl records for a minimal fee. These record companies quickly moved to record these new youth groups as they soon found a demand for their songs among teenyboppers, young kids fascinated by popular music.

                                                How Did They Learn to Sing

The fact that the early Doo Wop groups were primarily poor minority kids naturally raises the question of how did they learn to sing Doo Wop with its complex harmonies? The answer is that they had two mentors. 

The Impact of Vocal Harmony Groups

First in most cities as well as the black community, there was a tradition of vocal group harmony going back to the days of barber shop quartets of the 19^th century. In the black community there were similar vocal groups including the Ink Spots and the Miles Brothers who had a significant following in African American neighborhoods.

The Impact of Black Churches

However, the biggest influences on the new Doo Wop groups were the northern black churches where they learned to sing Gospel music. Historically you have to realize that the black church has always played a very important role in the life of the average African American.

When Africans were brought to this country as slaves, the slaveowners tries to make sure that their field workers were from different tribes or regions of Africa. By selecting their slaves from separate areas of Africa, plantation owners hoped to make it difficult for their slaves to become organize and protest their enslavement. 

Given the lack of organizations, the black church arose to fill this void by enrolling new arrivals from Africa in their congregations. While slave owners  were opposed to most black organizations, they were willing to tolerate black churches, because they believed that if their slaves became Christians, they were less likely to protest or become violent.

When African Americans started moving out of the south at the start of the 20^th century to escape the Jim Crow practices, black churches in the north assumed the role their counterparts had performed in the south. The black church had two major impacts on the development of Doo Wop groups.

First to attract parishioners to their services, black churches established extensive musical programs. They made a concerted effort to get as many of their members involved in their choir and musical program as possible. It was in these numerous musical activities that young men and women learned about singing and the difficulties involved in harmonizing many different voices.

If you watch the following video of Amber Riley singing a gospel tune in a black church, you can see why some many African Americans became successful musicians.

                                         An Example of Gospel Music

                                         Amber Riley singing a gospel song

Besides teaching young kids how to sing, African American churches played  an equally important role in teaching young men and women how to conduct themselves. Faced with intense racial bigotry in the north as African Americans migrated from the south, the northern as well as southern black churches sought way to limit racial hostilities.

To disarm those who feared this influx of blacks into their neighborhoods, the church tried to demonstrate to Americans that African Americans were respectable individuals who upheld the highest of American values. Rather than contesting America’s belief system, the church affirmed its belief in the America idea of hard work and equal opportunity. But equally important the church insisted that young kids behave themselves and appear well dressed and neat. The churches believed that if its members were the model of respectability, they would disarm those who feared the creation of an integrated society.

When Doo Wop groups started to sing and even began to appear on regional and later national TV, they were always well groomed  and well dressed. While many of their songs were grammatically incorrect, they were never vulgar or disrespectable towards other members of society. On the contrary their songs for the most part were about falling in love and being hopeful for the future. They also taught other young kids how to handle romantic breakups  and undoubtedly provided comfort to millions of distraught teenagers.

                                          How Did they Get the Name Doo Wop

While I mentioned at the start of this post, that most members of our class would be familiar with this music, I should have said that they would probably unfamiliar with  term Doo Wop but not the songs of its  most popular groups. It was not until the early 1970s, the DJs and radio states starting using the term Doo Wo to describe the music of the 1950s. 

As is often the case, if you are living through a period in which major change is occurring whether it is in politics, economics or music, it is often difficult to grasp what is happening. It is only later with hindsight that you can understand what transpired in in the years before. That was the case with Doo Wop. Only after the  Doo Wop movement had died out, did  people realize that Doo Wop was different from both rhythm and Blues as well as Rock and Roll.

As for the term Doo Wop, it was one of the many non sense syllables widely used in Doo Wop songs. Like Jazz where  musicians like Ella Fitzgerald often used scat  in belting out a Big Band song, Doo Wop singers used a variety of words to try to imitate the sound of musical instruments. But unlike Jazz they tended to repeated over and over again their non sense syllables. In a variety of songs, the words doo wop, doo wop doo wop are repeated again and again. They were primarily harmonic chants behind the lead singer.

                                  What are the Characteristics of Doo Wop Music

If we had to summarize what Doo Wop music was, we could probably point to five traits that distinguished the music: 1) Vocal group harmony 2) Acapella 3) Wide range of voice from based to Falsetto,  4) Acapella Instrumental 5) Simple  music and Lyrics.

Vocal Group Harmony

They often relied on complex harmonies. Sometimes they would start with a base singer and then work their way up to  a lead singer in high tenor completing the group harmony. In other cases they varied the harmony of the group but often end up finishing the song in falsetto.

They also relied on so called blow harmonies. Instead of relying on humming as the predominant background support,  they would blow air out of their mouth creating sounds like ha oo or ah hoo.

Wide range of voices

In spite of being young kids from a particular neighborhood, it was often amazing the wide range of voice parts that were found in their music.

Nonsense Syllables

As discussed  before Doo Wop imitated Jazz singer by using nonsense syllables. But in contrast to the sophistication of a singer like Ella Fitzgerald, they tended to repeat the same limited non of non sense syllables over and over again.

Acapella

Acapella  means voices without accompanying instrumentation. It is an Italian word and it means as in the chapel style. For the longest time, church choirs sang without any instrumentation. While the earliest Doo Wop group were purely acapella, as they progressed and became more popular, they often acquired light instrumentation.

Simple Melody and Lyrics

In most cases the melody and lyric were very simple. If you listen to the Chiffons song “He is so fine,” you realize how simple are the lyrics of the tune.

                                 The Development and Decline of Doo Wop

The rise and fall of Doo Wop was sudden and perhaps to be expected. As the initial Doo Wop groups did well, securing ample playing time on the radio, other groups started to copy them. When the major record companies saw small independent recording firms sell lots of records, they created their own Doo Wop groups, many of them made up of white singers. While the initial Doo Wop groups were all male, female Doo Wop groups started to form. Because Doo Wop had arisen in rather poor and often unsecure neighborhoods, few parents allowed their daughter to become street corner singers. As the Doo Wop music  moved from poor neighborhoods to more affluent recording studies, women Doo Wop groups became more prevalent.

But as sudden as the growth of Doo Wop was, its decline was equally rapid. The chief cause of the music decline was the rise of R & B and Rock and Roll. Many successful Doo Wop groups quickly made the transition to the new forms of music sweeping the nation.

Many Doo Wop singers, like Diana Ross quickly made the transition to Motown. Within a few years many of the group disbanded and their lead singers became individual singer. On the male side, the Doo Wop Groups Dion and the Belmonts broke up and Dion pursued a career as a solo pop rock star.

                           A Major Crossroads in the Developments of Black Music

                                          Criticism of Doo Wop by Rap Music

While Doo Wop music was popular in the 1950s, it as well as other musical groups that followed in its footstep like Motown or Disco came in for withering criticism with the rise of Rap music in the 1990s. Rap music, which believed Doo Wop and its followers were too accommodating to the values and life style of white Americans, had no desire to produce cross over songs that appealed to all Americans. In place of integration, they often favored the creation of a unique black form of music that was only meant for black audiences. They often used Ebonics or African American language  to make it difficult for white American to understand the lyrics of rap music.

In place of singing innocent songs about falling in love, Rap DJs preferred to talk about the violence that marked the inner city.  Rap artists also rejected the idea that African America should present themselves as respectable members of the community to allay any fears in the white community about the growth of the black population.. As a sign of protest against black churches and their stress on well dressed and civil behavior, they embraced the image of the outlaw or bad boy of black music. 

In contrast to the more polarized atmosphere of today, Doo Wop represented a more innocent and less confrontational form of African American music. In that sense while Doo Wop grew up in the inner city and represents a form of Black music that appealed to those who grew up in the 1950s, today Doo Wop would  has few fans in comparable indigent neighborhoods.

                                   How to Make Sense of the Following Hyperlinks

Since at its height there were close to 80 or 90 Doo Wop Groups, I could only list links to a few groups. There were several ways of organizing the music. I could have listed it by male or female groups or black and white groups.

But since most of their songs were about teenager love, I grouped the tunes by subject matter. I created 5 listings: 1) The Prelude to falling in love 2) Being In Love 3) Alternative Boy Friends 4) Breaking Up and 5) Doo Wop groups that had made the transition to R&B or Rock and Roll.

1.Prelude to Falling in Love

The Lovette covering for the Chiffons

The Chffons singing One Fine Day

The Spinners top hits

The Satins a Doo Wop group

This is a song by Frankie Lymon who started singing at the age  of 13 with his group The Teenagers.  I  don’t know why Dick 

Clark did not have the whole group on.

Little Bitty Pretty One

2. Being in Love

Does this song from America Graffiti remind you of cruising K street after a football game.

16th Candles in the movie American Graffiti     

The Penguins singing Earth Angel

Video of the Doo Wop the Accents

Video of Dion and the Belmonts

3. Alternative Boy Friends

The Angels singing My Boyfriend is Back

4. Breaking up of Dealing with Life’s Difficulties

Video of Drifter singing up on the roof

Why do Fools Fall in love. Frankie Lymon

5. Groups making the Transition to R&B and Rock and Roll.

Watch the Transition to R& B as Jennifer Hudson and Beyonce portray the rise of Diana Ross and the Supremes

https://.youtube.com/watch?v=uZgo9g8v76U

Watch the transition to Rock and Roll as Dion from Dion and the Belmonts transitions to a solo pop rock career.

Dion singing about run Around Sue

Bill Kelso

       I should have included this post with the earlier discussion about the elements of music. I guess I am getting absent minded.  The most interesting point about this topic occurs at the end of this post were we see how the human singing and speaking voice is comparable to the way a wind reed instrument like the saxophone works.

                                                                  (3)

                                         The First Face of Music Continued

                                    How do Singers and Musicians Make Music

In studying music a basic question to ask is how do humans make music?

What is Sound?

As we shall see in a moment, whether we are talking about humans speaking, yelling or singing or playing instruments, they all basically rely on the same principles of physics. Any type of sound whether it is the spoken word or the sounds of an instrument like a guitar depends on individuals making vibrations in the air.  Sounds is a kind of energy that makes a continuous vibration of air molecule which eventually leads to the development of a sound wave. 

Because of limitation in our ability to see, we don’t notice  the sound wave that people emit when they are speaking or singing.

These sound waves eventually enter our ear which cause the ear drum to vibrate, and that vibration is interpreted by our brain as a distinct sound. 

How do Singers create great Tunes.

In a minute we shall see how instrument causes vibrations in the air. But how do humans achieve that same goal when speaking or singing. The answer is found in our vocal cords. If you put your hand on your throat and feel your Adam’s apple, your vocal cords are right behind them. 

When we choose to sing, our brains tell our lungs to shoot air up trachea. That air then opens up our vocal cords which also causes them to vibrate. As our vocal cords vibrate, they create sounds waves which travel up to our mouth and nose. Our tongue and teeth and facial airways then bend or adjust these waves to create the sounds of our language.

While vibration cause sounds, the frequence at which the air vibrates affects its pitch. The faster the air fluctuates or vibrates the higher the pitch of the resulting sound and conversely the slower the air vibrates the lower the note or pitch. By using a  variety of techniques delineated below, musical instruments can either increase or decrease their vibrations thus allowing them to alter the notes they are playing.

How do Musical Instruments Make Sounds.

Like the human voice, musical instruments make music by vibrating the air around them. They can do this in one of three ways through the vibration of 1) strings, 2) air or 3) the striking of a surface which is called percussion

                                         The Three ways of Making Music

                                     1)                             2)                             3)

                   Strings Instruments     Wind Instruments      Percussion Instruments

1) String Instruments

The first type of musical instrument is called a string instrument. Most Rock and Roll bands primarily rely on string instruments like the guitar to make their music.

a.How they Work

To get a string to vibrate, we can either pluck it, strike it, bow or hit it. For instance we can either pluck or strike a guitar string, bow a violin’s strings or hit a piano key, which in turn will cause a hammer to strike a piano string. 

However regardless of how you manage to cause a string to vibrate, it will probably not make that loud of a sound. In contrast to hitting a loud drum, vibrating strings have limited noise making abilities. Strings instruments thus rely on the design of their instruments, which are often called a soundbox, to clarify and amplify their sounds. For instance in an acoustic guitar, the body of the guitar magnifies the sounds created by the vibration of its strings. However given the limitation of string instruments, if you ever attend musical symphony you will notice that the string sections of violins is much larger than the horn section of an orchestra. The sheer number of violins make up for the limited ability of string instrument to generate loud sounds.

b.The main strings instruments

Violin            Bowed

Bass             Bowed

Cello             Bowed or Plucked

Guitar            Plucked

Harp              Plucked or struck    

c. Changing the Pitch of a string instruments

There are three ways musicians who are playing the above instruments can play different notes. There are three factors that will cause a string instrument to vibrate more rapidly:

1.First is the length of the string. When an instrument has longer strings, it will vibrate slower and make lower sounding notes than shorter strings. By moving his hand on the strings of a guitar, a guitar player can change the notes he is playing.

2. Second is the weight of the string. If an instrument has thick strings, it will make lower notes than thin strings.

3.Third is the tightness of the string.  A tighter string will always make a higher note than a loose string.

2) Wind Instruments

Our second types of musical instrument is called a wind instrument. If string instruments dominate present day rock and roll music, wind instruments dominated the four major types of jazz music.

a.How they Work

When a musician blows air into the mouthpiece of an instruments, he causes the air in the pipe of the instrument to vibrate creating music. With wind instruments there are three ways musicians can cause the air to vibrate. He can either1) blow on a reed which will vibrate, causing in turn the air in the instrument to vibrate, or 2) he can use his lips to directly blow into the instrument or 3) he can flutter into a flute like instrument. Fluttering means that the musician produces music by directing a focused stream of air across the edge of a hole which will cause the wind in the flute to vibrate. 

b. The main Wind Instruments are”

Reed instruments

Saxophone 

Clarinet

Oboe

Basson

Lip Instruments

Trombone, 

Trumpet

French Horn

Tuba

Flutter Instruments

Flute

c. Change Changing the Pitch of a Wind Instrument

There are two ways musicians playing the above wind instruments can change their pitch. First they can either shorten or lengthen the column of air in their instrument. The shorter the column of air the faster it will vibrate and the higher the note. Conversely the longer the column of air the lower the pitch of the horn. In most cases musician who play wind instruments rely on either valves to lengthen the air column in their instrument or they open and close holes along the length of the instrument  or in the particular case of the trombone the can use the slide of the trombone to actually change the physically length of the tube. 

Secondly musicians can alter the pitch of their horn by altering the way they blow into their instruments. In the brass playing world this is called buzzing. To produce high notes, the musician does not necessarily need to blow harder but to blow faster. To achieve that goal the lips of the player need to produce a high pitch which is achieved by making their lips tighter in the middle of their mouth. For similar reasons, when musicians play with a smaller mouthpiece it makes playing higher notes easier in that the mouth piece stretches a section of their lips enabling them to buzz a higher note.    

 3).Percussion Instruments

Finally our third type of musical instrument is a percussion instrument. Because Rhythm and Blues music is primarily noted for its rhythms, percussion instruments have always played an important role in African American music.

a.How do they Work.

When a musician plays a percussion instrument he either strikes, shakes, or scrapes a surface to cause vibrations in the air.

b. The Main Percussion Instruments are:

Drums, Piano Gongs                    Strike

Rattles                                        Shake

Bones                                         Scraped

c. Changing the Pitch of a Percussion Instrument    

To change the pitch of a percussion instrument one can either tighten the skin of a drum or use a thinner skin on a percussion instrument to create a higher pitch. 

                                     Which Instrument is like the Human Voice

An interesting question is to ask which musical instrument comes closest to imitating how we create words or songs. The answer would be a wind instrument like a saxophone or a clarinet that relies on a reed to creates music. In the human body we exhale wind from our lungs which blows air at our vocal cords which in turn acts like a reed in a musical instrument to create sound waves.  As our vocal cords vibrate, they cause the air in our upper vocal tract to also vibrate causing sound waves which our mouth, tongue, teeth and nose covert into speech or song.

Bill Kelso

The Benefits of Alumni Associations

As our time draws near, I thought I would comment on recent studies on “Life in America” that reflect positively on the growth of high school alumni associations. Besides our McClatchy website there is another on line alumni association called Classmates which originated in 1996 and today has over 40 million visitors. I am not sure when the company that provides our alumni association was created but it was probably fairly recently.

The growth of on line alumni association has surprised many people because over the last 20 years most American organizations have seen their membership rolls decline and decline significantly. As the same time more and more Americans tell public surveys that they feel isolated, and alienated and have few friends.

         The Changing Nature of Modern Society

This change in the personal relations of individuals did not occur out of the blue. While we may have not always been aware of how our society has changed, the above development may reflect innovations in our modern society that occurred in the last 120 years. Given our short life span, we often cannot understand how dramatically our lives have changed from that of our grandparents and even parents. 

While we have not always realize how our world has developed, as America has become a modern industrial nation we have witnessed both a growth in collectivism and a growing sense of individualism. Whereas most governments provided few services in the 19^th century, today government plays an all encompassing role in our lives. The collective power of the state regulates all aspects of our life from dictating what kinds of energy we use to regulating what kind of food we eat. 

Similarly America has also seen a tremendous growth in the role of the individual. But unfortunately, that sense of individualism has often been accompanied by a growing sense of isolation.

That sense of being all alone was a dramatic change from our recent ancestor's life on the farm. Since most of us lived in rural areas prior to the advent of the 20^th century, everybody knew everybody and felt that they were part of long term community. The negative side of that sense of community was that everybody knew everybody else’s business and people constantly gossiped about one another. While people had limited privacy, they at least knew they were part of a small town and never had to worry about being alone or isolated.

But when American began to industrialize 120 years ago, our lives dramatically changed . Most of us moved to large urban communities where we interacted with people who were basically strangers to us. Whether we were shopping, inquiring about government policy or dealing with the police, we had little personal contact and knew nothing about the lives of the people with which we had to interact. Individuals increasingly found themselves on their own with little support from others as they sought to adjust to this new impersonal world.

        Why the Discipline of Sociology was Created?

Because life had changed so dramatically, a new disciplined called sociology was created around the turn of the 20^th century to study these changes. On the one hand, sociologists examined how the structure of society had changed as we now lived in large cities and even attended large impersonal schools where we knew only a fraction of the student body.

But besides studying how the structure of society had changed, they also wanted to focus on how the behavior of people had changed. Increasingly they realized that individuals had to learn how to deal with an impersonal society in which they were dependent on strangers for the necessities of life. Even if they did not want to, people had no choice but to rely on outsiders to fix their cars, to buy clothes or to shop for groceries. Sometimes they found store clerks were friendly but in most cases they found that the people they dealt with were often impersonal and only concerned with completing the transaction.

Sociologist further realize that in large schools, or working for large businesses individuals could feel that at times that people neither treated them with respect nor were concerned with their well-being. If people reached out to others, they found to their dismay that those they tried to befriend were often inconsiderate or abrupt in their reactions.

                 The Danger of Isolated Individuals

As sociologists studied this new modern industrial world at the start of the 20^th century, they had two worries. First they were concerned that the new liberated individual from a small town might feel neglected, and lonely and abandoned in an impersonal city.

                   The Danger of Collectivism

As serious as this problem was, sociologists secondly became even more concerned when WWII broke out 30 years after the creation of a modern industrial state. They became concerned because they increasingly started to worry that as individuals became isolated and alienated, they might try to find some sense of meaning or community by supporting collective movements like Nazism. If individuals felt lost in an impersonal and anonymous city, they might seek a sense of belonging by supporting an aggressive nationalist doctrine like Nazism. Their government’s constant parades and talk about national destiny may give people a sense of identity that they lacked in an impersonal modern world. The quest by individuals for a sense of community could possibly lead them to embrace a political movement that was authoritarian in nature.

                  A New Hope to Avoid Society’s Ills

However, when WWII finally ended, analysts were hopeful that the US could create a new more resilient form of society that would avoid the two excesses of individualism and collectivism. 

The answer they believed lay in creating a decentered sense of community in which intermediate associations like neighborhoods, the church or secondary association like the Rotary Club or the Boy Scouts provided people with a meaningful identity and a sense of belonging. If people felt accepted by a network of smaller associations, they would no longer feel isolated or alienated. They would also be less likely to embrace political extreme movement that offered them a false sense of community.

                          The Disappointing Data

Unfortunately, as people started to look at the alternatives to collectivism and individualism, the data on these new alternatives was not always reassuring. 

                     A Typology of Neighborhoods

For instance, when sociologists looked at how people interacted with their neighbors, they found the ties were often intermittent and limited in nature.  Generally, today sociologists argue that people live in one of four types of neighborhoods.

1)The Communitarian but Parochial Local Neighborhood

In this case people live in a stable community and strongly identify with their family and neighbors.  But they have few contacts with people outside of society and are indifferent about most social issues.

2) The Diffuse Neighborhood

In this type of neighborhoods, people have low levels of interaction with neighbors but members may have considerable ties outside the neighborhood.

3) The Anomic Neighborhood

Similarly, people living in anomic neighborhoods likewise lack any interaction or connections with other residents. The word anomic means they lack clear moral values and their neighborhoods may have high levels of social disorganization and crime.

4) The Stepping Stone Neighborhood

Finally, this neighborhoods comprises residents who live in the neighborhood only for a short time. The homes may be starter homes for people who once they save up enough money move to a new neighborhood. Interaction within the neighborhood is thus fleeting in nature.

                 Other Social Outlets. The Church

An alternative avenue for people to build social ties is to make contact with people through their church or synagogue. But here again the data is not promising.

                              Non Religious

Millennials                  Gen X                        Boomers

40%                             30%                             22%

Increasingly Americans are becoming secularized with fewer and fewer Americans choosing to remain religious and participating in religious activities.

       Other Social Outlets: Secondary Associations

Besides churches, another alternative is for people to join associations like the Boy Scouts or the Rotary Club. But in an important study a while back, researchers found that people are less likely to join any kind of organization. People increasingly seem to prefer to fly solo. The most important study documenting this phenomenon is called “Bowling Alone.” Even when it comes to recreational activities people seem to prefer being on their own, rather than bowling with others, when playing their favorite sport.

                                                    Other Social Activities.  

          Friendship at Work in the Gym or your Favorite Bar. Friends with your Children

Finally, in place of joining a formal organization like a Bowling League or the Rotary club, another alternative is to informally find friends through work or in your spare time such as in a gym. Unfortunately, even this option has decline in popularity. Today people report having fewer friends than 60 years ago. 

Besides having fewer friends, we now known that more women are choosing to remain single. Among families fewer and fewer couples are electing not to have any children at all. The possibility of becoming best friends with your children is an option fewer parents enjoy today than in the past.

                               Can It Get Worse?

While there has been a decline in personal relations, social ties and group membership, declining social ties is only part of the problem.

One serious factor inhibiting the growth of a decentralized pluralistic sense of community is the growth of an adversarial American culture. Sixty years ago, America would have been described as a high trust low conflict society. Today it is more accurate to describe the US as a high polarized and adversarial society in which people have lost trust in their government and each other.

                             Serious Problem: The Internet and the Cancel Culture

In rural societies people interacted with one another on a face to face basis. If someone were rude or inconsiderate, the person offended could directly confront the person exhibiting a lack of manners. But today with the internet, people can attack others and remain anonymous. The incentives for people to be civil and polite has thus declined significantly.

Serious Problem. The Polarized Nature of American Society

The above difficulties with the internet have become magnified with the growing polarization of America. Whereas in the 1960s people could disagree with one another and remain friends, that is less true today. Increasingly people are saying that they would never be friends with people who held opposite political values. In fact political scientists have invented a new phase “The Big Sort” to describe how people are electing to live only in communities where the vast major of people share their values.

While people have always held strong political beliefs, political disputes have become more serious for two reasons. First people have become more judgmental about those who disagree with them. Instead of just saying we disagree on this issue, people are more likely to question the character of the person they disagree with. That raises the second problem, and this is the growing tendency of people in America to attack those with opposing views on an ad hominem basis. Ad hominem means that instead of dealing with the content of a specific policy, you attack the person who disagrees with you on a personal basis. That is you call the person a name or attack his psychological stability.

Because of the increasingly popularity of ad hominem attacks it is easy to see why Americans say they increasing don’t trust their fellow Americans. The growing hostility and polarization of American politics has made many Americans fearful or wary of interacting with others. In dealing with other people, you have to be aware that you may be subject to a very hostile internet attack if you disagree with some one’s political values.

         What is Unique about Our Alumni Association

In light of what has been happening in the US over the last 20 years, the success of the McClatchy Alumni Association is rather remarkable.

At the very time in which more and more Americans feel isolated and increasingly are choosing to “Bowl Alone,” the Alumni Association has continued to attract new members while staging many successful reunions. Furthermore, the class reunions havebeen well attended and elicited positive comments from those attending the gatherings.

The one bright spot in this overall decline of relationships in America, has been the growth of high school and college alumni associations. In a country where personal ties have become frayed, and people are less inclined to join secondary associations, our alumni association has become an organization where people look forward to seeing one another. It is nice to see people accept and welcome one another other because we simply all grew up together.

To give credit to all of the people I just wanted to thank David and Bunny as well as all the other members of reunion committee for making our alumni association so successful. That would include Susie Arnold, Raymon Perez, Joan Bullock, Jim Di Pinto, Patti Barbara and Susie Waters. I apologize if I have left out any member of the reunion committee.

We are truly fortunate in that both our classmates and alumni association have been such a positive development in our lives.

Steven Lindfeldt (MidTerm)

Bill, great column. I think that political scientists should share the discovery of the "Big Sort" with sociologists who have been calling it "Sorting". I have had  experience with "Sorting" as my nephew and some of his offspring have "Sorted" themselves to the stinkin state of Texas. Remember  Joe Guidera? I will compare the songs I have on my ipod to your ipod. Unless I am the only person left "bowling alone" with a ipod.

Steve

Bill Kelso

Steve

You made me smile when you said you still listen to your ipod. For a minute I thought you were going to tell me you still listened to your collection of 45 vinyl records from Tower Records. But since I am not much of a high tech guy, I think your use of an ipod is pretty much keeping up with the times. However, a few years back Linda showed me how to download tunes from Spotify. You might also try that as it an easy way to listen to music.

Also next week I will send you a list of my favorite types of music. It will be interesting to see what another senior citizen from the 60s likes to listen to. I must warn you that I am pretty much stuck in the past. I think the music from the 50s through the 70s was the best music the country has ever produced. When I write you let me also know if your parents were fans of either Pat Boone or Elvis. I was wondering how many of our classmates had fathers and mothers who were not big fans of rock and roll.

Bill

Allison Oakes (Sabraw)

Hello Bill - I so much enjoy reading all of your post.

My favorite music is jazz. Easy listening. I enjoy UTUBE jazz selections on my FLIP6 DEVICE THAT plugs  into my computer. I can have the FLIP6 outside and without any concern about where my computer is. SO- surround sound is my thing.  

I have no recall about what my mom listened to. She enjoyed her martinis' and that I do remember ! 

All else is good. My best to you as always. allison

Bill Kelso

Dear Allison

It sounds as if you have an incredible sound system. I did not understand everything you told me but it sounds very sophisticated 

I’m also glad you like jazz. It is great music. It is interesting how diverse  the musical tastes and prefernces  of our classmates may be. While I think Jazz is wonderful,  I guess my favors singers range from the Doo Wop groups to Rock and Rollers like Elvis, Bobbie Rydell and the Beatles to R&B artists like Jackie Wilson,  Ray Charles and Aretha.

I think we were lucky in that we got to grow up when there were so many talented musicians around. When I think back on our junior high to our young adult years, some of my best memories are relaxing listening to the all great singers on my Tower Records' collection from the 50s, 60s and 70s. 

In fact maybe my memory is failing me, but when Roger and I use to hang out at your house in junior high, I think we enjoyed ourselves by listening to a lot of Doo Wop songs on the radio. Those were great times as we had a lot of fun when we were jr. high kids. Your comments brought back a lot of nice memories.

So take care.

Bill

Allison Oakes (Sabraw)

Dear Bill, Always good to receive an email from you. You do contribute so much great data on numerous subjects.

I enjoy your amazing information and detailed information on music. Music of our younger years that continues to be a significant 'head liner' today for many people. I do enjoy the tunes of years past. 

Since I have enjoyed various music available on UTUBE and now just plug my JBL-FLIP6 (available at Best Buy for about $70.00) My music interest have turned to various music selections. Especially due to the FLIP6 - I just select the music of choice via UTUBE, turn on my FLIP 6 and Oh-La ,,,,,,, I take the Flip-6 outside, upstairs....etc and hear so very much. Since I have previously mentioned that my hearing sucks/i.e. sorta deaf.... I 'm enjoying tunes perhaps louder than most people prefer  which is A/OK with me.  Meditation to ROCK & Roll - its all available in a very simple manner. Not sophiscated or expensive.  In the past couple of years I have enjoyed HAUSER. .....scope it out and let me know. 

Our class reunion is almost here. I will not be attending. My ability to hear clearly what is being said is uncomfortable for me. Although I now have a Cochlear inmplant. Words that are being said are mumbled. I do hear  fairly well  while enjoying a cocktail with a couple of friends in a none noisy enviornment.  AH - its just life and the mixed issues of one's body, aging and Life in General. 

Bill, I pray you continue to hang in and do ok. Today is Sunday. My special day that I spend time in my Back-40 to meditate and give thanks to our maker.....

Thank you again Bill - Allison

Bill Kelso

Dear Allison

I am so sorry to learn that you lost your hearing. But I am also glad to know that you had a cochlear implant and that you are doing much better today.

It is great that you did not let you handicap keep you down and that you were able to take advantage of all the improvements in medicine today to regain much of your hearing.  

I know you would have liked to go to the reunion. But with all the people in one room at the reunion, it could be difficult to hear anyone with all the background noise. 

Like you I can’t make it either. I get too exhausted quickly and an unable to make long trips let alone last through a four hour lunch. But fortunately David and the reunion committee do a good job providing us with pictures of the event. That way we can both attend the reunion in spirit if not in person.

In any case you take care. I am very happy that you are doing much better these days. In cases like this I am often reminded of something Dennis De Cuir said to me ten years ago when we reconnected after a hiatus of some 50 years. He said he thought we lived in unusual times. Of all of our classmates Dennis has this  unusual ability to coin a phrase that seems to capture the very essence of a moment. 

When I think some 65 years ago Roger and I and you were hanging out in your backyard or living room listening to some Doo Wop group like the Drifters or the Penguins, I would never have imagined that 6 decades later we would be able to compare notes on getting old. Dennis was right these are unusual times. But these are unusual times that are also enjoyable times. 

Despite all the limitation of getting older, you are hanging in there and getting on with your life. That is great news. As is always the case, I wish you the best.

 Bill

Barbara Alexander

Hello Fellow Graduates of McClatchy Class of '63. I'm sorry to say that I won't be attending our reunion this year. I'd planned on going but life has interfered. I hope you all have a great time and am looking forward to the photos! Thanks to all of who who give their time organizing and planning. You do a wonderful job. I really enjoy this forum so thanks to David Grandstaf for all his hard work. Until I see you next year stay healthy and happy, and be sure to party, party, party at the reunion!! 

Dennis De Cuir

Barbara,

Sorry you couldn't make it. It was lots of fun. Spoke to Sally for a good long while. Hope you're well. We are fine.

Best,

--Dennis

Roger Kircher

I enjoyed the 61st very much and looking forward to next year. Sutterville, Joaquin Miller, Cal and McClatchy friends and aquaintences there. Thanks to all volunteers and participants. 👍

Barbara Alexander

Hi Dennis. Yep, I was sorry to miss out on the festivities. It would have been fun to reminisce with you and Sally about our days as the primier folk group at McClatchy HA! A lot of treble cleffs have gone under the bridge since then 🎶 so my memories are hazy but I do remember our trip to the Berkley Folk Festival to sing "We go. A'marchin' off to War" for Pete Seeger. Ah, the good old days. Take Care, Barbara

Bill Kelso

                                     A New Species of Man

I thought our class might be interested in a fascinated article in the Wall Street Journal about how mankind may soon undergo a fundamental change in the way we interact with one another. Among physical anthropologists there is the belief that because of advances in technology and Artificial Intelligence we might be on the verge of creating a new species of human beings.

But we should not be surprised by this change. In just the past 2 million years, physical anthropologists have discovered 8 species of humans who at one time or another lived on planet earth. For instance, 400,000 years ago an earlier form of human beings called Homo Neanderthal man appeared on the scene and lived until about 40,000 years ago. During this time on earth, Modern Homo Sapiens (which includes us) developed around 200,000  to 250,000 years ago and shared the planet with this early version of human beings for about 160,000 years.  Eventually modern humans prevailed as the declining number of Neanderthals finally died out somewhere in southern Spain by the Mediterranean sea.

However, by the end of the 21^st  century we may evolve into yet a ninth and newer form of human being that we may called a cyborg or a transhuman that may be a combination of human biology and silicon chips. Maybe another name for this new species will be Homo Silicon Sapiens. In the process, Modern Homo Sapiens like us will become an extinct species studied by physical anthropologists for ou primitive life styles and means of interreacting with one another. What is most interesting is how this new species of humans will communicate with other member of its species.The following articles describes how this form of human behavior may be both fascinating and scary.

This article is also interesting because it suggests you ought to enjoy your classmates while you can. In the future the people who attend McClatchy may be nothing like the people we grew up with.

Are You Ready for a Brain Chip? It’ll Change Your Mind

These implants will help us do amazing things. The downside is that they may destroy humanity.

Smartphone ownership is nearly universal. It isn’t mandatory, of course, but you’d be seen as an eccentric if you didn’t have one. Rejecting smartphones means you’re old-fashioned, possibly a bit of a crank.

There is very little that is completely independent of these devices. So, yes, you can do without a smartphone. But it isn’t easy. It won’t be long before there is a similar concerted effort to make brain-implanted chips seem normal. It is a matter of years, not decades. These won’t be chip implants permitting paraplegics to regain their independence. These will be implants marketed to everyone, as smartphones are now. And if you decline to have a chip grafted onto your brain, you’ll be a backward, out-of-touch misanthrope.

The benefits of brain chips will be vastly beyond what external devices offer today. We will be able to take “photos” of anything we see with our eyes, just by thinking. Ditto video—in 3-D. We will be able to send messages to friends by thinking them, and to hear their replies played in our minds. We’ll have conversations with friends remotely, hearing their voices and ours without actually having to speak. We’ll be able to talk to anyone in any language. We’ll be able to remember an infinite amount of information, to retrieve any fact by asking our brain chips. We’ll be able to pay for things without carrying a wallet or a phone. We’ll be able to hear music piped directly into our brains. To watch movies. To take part in movies. To be totally entertained in new virtual worlds.

We’ll even be able to go to sleep quickly, whenever we want. And we’ll be able to get counseling instantly if we ever have suicidal thoughts.

We’ll be able to get advertising pumped directly into our brains, to have images hover before our eyes that we can’t turn off—except for those opting for the premium subscription. Our memories will be organized for us by artificial intelligence under policies crafted by experts who will have society’s best interests at heart. We won’t have access to information that might be, say, Russian propaganda. If we have criminal ideas, or perhaps just countercultural notions, they will be referred to the proper authorities before it’s too late.

In other words, it will be every dystopian sci-fi drama rolled into one.

How helpless would we be if tomorrow the internet were suddenly and permanently turned off? Think how much of our lives, memories and relationships is already stored and remembered for us online. We don’t know our best friend’s phone number. We don’t even know how to spell. We don’t need to.

But transhumanism—transcending human “limitations” through technology—becomes dangerous when a human, deprived of that technology, would be not only inconvenienced but unrecognizable. 

Imagine a world in which not only our friends’ phone numbers but all our experiences with them, and even their names and their faces, are remembered for us and stored remotely on servers somewhere—available for us at any time. Until they’re not. What would be left of a generation of humans who had never had to use their own memory or do any of their own reasoning until, one day, all the chips were turned off? Would there be any human left, or only an empty shell?

It doesn’t take an atomic bomb to destroy humanity. There are other ways. If you don’t get a brain chip, you’ll have a hard time competing or even living in the modern world. You won’t be able to retain endless information, to pick up new skills instantly, to communicate with anyone anywhere. You’ll be out of date. You’ll be an obsolete human. You might be the last human. So maybe you’d better get the brain chip after all. Remember, it’s optional.

Mr. Gelernter is manager of RG Niederhoffer Digital and an expert in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

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