In the beginning of class we talked about how music is different in today’s time due to the African decent of music. We listened to a couple songs and talked about the different beats and accents in music. This was nothing new to me since I played the violin for years but I thought it was really cool to hear the live performance when everyone was clapping on the wrong accented beat. I hate going to a concert and nobody knows how to clap on the right beat and together, so I can only imagine how the performer felt to hear that in the crowd. After discussing this topic we moved on to talking about minstrel shows. This was an entirely new topic that I was not familiar with. A minstrel show is when white men would dress up in white gloves with black face paint and exaggerated lips. Only white people could attend these comic shows and that makes sense due to the sensitivity of the subject. I personally feel that these minstrel shows are quite strange but I guess it was normal in the beginning of the 19th century when these came about. At the end of class we looked at how minstrel characters exist even in today’s society. Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny can both be considered minstrel characters. Mickey has white gloves and black ears and bugs bunny has white gloves and exaggerated lips. Until next class!