Lesson 3 Saturday 23 July at 7 AM SLT
Information about class:
Theme: Dockery Farms and the Birth of the Blues.
During this class we revised Grammar and also we visited to great place where Blues was born: Mississippi Delta Blues. Of course we listened wonderful music.
Information about class:
Theme: Dockery Farms and the Birth of the Blues.
During this class we revised Grammar and also we visited to great place where Blues was born: Mississippi Delta Blues. Of course we listened wonderful music.
Dockery Farms and the Birth of the Blues
The first place for meeting
Context:
1. Grammar training. Conditional Sentences / If-Clauses Type I, II und III
2. Excursion
3. Reading
4. Listening
5. Watching
6. Homework and addition material
1. Grammar training
Conditional Sentences If-Clauses Type I, II and III
Conditional Sentences are also known as Conditional Clauses or If Clauses. They are used to express that the action in the main clause (without if) can only take place if a certain condition (in the clause with if) is fulfilled. There are three types of Conditional Sentences.
Conditional Sentence Type 1
→ It is possible and also very likely that the condition will be fulfilled.
Form: if + Simple Present, will-Future
Example: If I find her address, I’ll send her an invitation.
Form
if + Simple Present, will-Future
Example: If I find her address, I will send her an invitation.
The main clause can also be at the beginning of the sentence. In this case, don't use a comma.
Example: I will send her an invitation if I find her address.
Note: Main clause and / or if clause might be negative. See Simple Present and will-Future on how to form negative sentences.
Example: If I don’t see him this afternoon, I will phone him in the evening.
Use
Conditional Sentences Type I refer to the future. An action in the future will only happen if a certain condition is fulfilled by that time. We don't know for sure whether the condition actually will be fulfilled or not, but the conditions seems rather realistic – so we think it is likely to happen.
Example: If I find her address, I’ll send her an invitation.
I want to send an invitation to a friend. I just have to find her address. I am quite sure, however, that I will find it.
Example: If John has the money, he will buy a Ferrari.
I know John very well and I know that he earns a lot of money and that he loves Ferraris. So I think it is very likely that sooner or later he will have the money to buy a Ferrari.
If John has the money, he will buy a Ferrari.
John will buy a Ferrari if he has the money
→ It is possible but very unlikely, that the condition will be fulfilled.
Form: if + Simple Past, Conditional I (= would + Infinitive)
Example: If I found her address, I would send her an invitation.
Form
if + Simple Past, main clause with Conditional I (= would + Infinitive)
Example: If I found her address, I would send her an invitation.
The main clause can also be at the beginning of the sentence. In this case, don't use a comma.
Example: I would send her an invitation if I found her address.
Note: Main clause and / or if clause might be negative. See Simple Past und Conditional I on how to form negative sentences.
Example: If I had a lot of money, I wouldn’t stay here.
Were instead of Was
In IF Clauses Type II, we usually use ‚were‘ – even if the pronoun is I, he, she or it –.
Example: If I were you, I would not do this.
Use
Conditional Sentences Type II refer to situations in the present. An action could happen if the present situation were different. I don't really expect the situation to change, however. I just imagine „what would happen if …“
Example: If I found her address, I would send her an invitation.
I would like to send an invitation to a friend. I have looked everywhere for her address, but I cannot find it. So now I think it is rather unlikely that I will eventually find her address.
Example: If John had the money, he would buy a Ferrari.
I know John very well and I know that he doesn't have much money, but he loves Ferraris. He would like to own a Ferrari (in his dreams). But I think it is very unlikely that he will have the money to buy one in the near future.
If John had the money, he would buy a Ferrari.
John would buy a Ferrari if he had the money
→ It is impossible that the condition will be fulfilled because it refers to the past.
Form: if + Past Perfect, Conditional II (= would + have + Past Participle)
Example: If I had found her address, I would have sent her an invitation.
Form
if + Past Perfect, main clause with Conditional II
Example: If I had found her address, I would have sent her an invitation.
The main clause can also be at the beginning of the sentence. In this case, don't use a comma.
Example: I would have sent her an invitation if I had found her address.
Note: Main clause and / or if clause might be negative. See Past Perfect and Conditional II on how to form negative sentences.
Example: If I hadn’t studied, I wouldn’t have passed my exams.
Use
Conditional Sentences Type III refer to situations in the past. An action could have happened in the past if a certain condition had been fulfilled. Things were different then, however. We just imagine, what would have happened if the situation had been fulfilled.
Example: If I had found her address, I would have sent her an invitation.
Sometime in the past, I wanted to send an invitation to a friend. I didn't find her address, however. So in the end I didn't send her an invitation.
Example: If John had had the money, he would have bought a Ferrari.
I knew John very well and I know that he never had much money, but he loved Ferraris. He would have loved to own a Ferrari, but he never had the money to buy one.
Exersises for conditional
Express each idea in the three conditional tenses.
1. I am in a band. We made a lot of good songs. People love us. Now talk about yourself and the band in a conditional way.
Type 1: If I am in a band, we will make a lot of good songs.
We will make a lot of good songs
Type 2: If I were in the band, we would make a lot of good songs.
Type 3: If I had been in the band, we would have made a lot of good songs
2. I have chocolate. It makes me happy. What about you? Is it the same?
Type 1: If I have chocolate, I will be happy
Type 2. I would be happy if I had chocolate
Type 3. If I had have chocolate, I would have been happyType 1: If I am in a band, we will make a lot of good songs.
We will make a lot of good songs
Type 2: If I were in the band, we would make a lot of good songs.
Type 3: If I had been in the band, we would have made a lot of good songs
2. I have chocolate. It makes me happy. What about you? Is it the same?
Type 1: If I have chocolate, I will be happy
Type 2. I would be happy if I had chocolate
2. Excursion
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Throughout the South, large landowners opened their fields to sharecroppers who would lease plots of land to tend themselves. In return they had to share part of their harvested crops as rent for the use of the land. Contracts for sharecroppers were often harsh and many lived on the verge of starvation. Will Dockery had earned a good reputation for treating his African-American workers and sharecroppers fairly and thus attracted ambitious workers from throughout the South.
Close your eyes and imagine that you are transported back in time to the spring and summer of 1940. You are in the United States of America in the state of Mississippi, living near the river the natives called, “The Father of Waters”.
Think about all the emotions expressed in the music you listen to: joy, happiness, loneliness, nervousness, and, of course, sadness. Music with sad themes is often called the "blues."
Blues music developed in the United States among Southern blacks after the Civil War. When slaves were brought to America from Africa, they brought their musical traditions with them. Blended with folk and popular music of whites, these African musical traditions developed into the blues.
The blues is believed to have originated in the Mississippi Delta, a wedge-shaped region in northern Mississippi between the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers. This is a rural area where the poorest and most disadvantaged black people lived -- this lifestyle created a need for the expression of sadness that is so often sung in the blues. The conditions in this area -- poverty, racism, and inhumane working situations -- led many blacks to go north, to cities such as Memphis, Chicago, St. Louis and Detroit.
I’m walking along iron way. And I see many wood gray houses and dirty
3. Reading.
Youtube:
Dockery Farms began as a cotton plantation in the Mississippi Delta. Although cotton was king in the post-Civil War South, it has been the music from the fields and cabins of Dockery Farms that make it famous as a birthplace of the blues. From its beginnings in the late 19th century through the rise of such unforgettable Delta bluesmen as Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, Son House, and Howlin' Wolf, to the many legendary blues musicians today, Dockery Farms has provided fertile ground for the blues. The vivid poetry, powerful songs, and intense performing styles of the blues have touched people of all ages around the world. The music that was created, at least in part, by Dockery farm workers a century ago continues to influence popular culture to this day. It was a welcome diversion from their hard lives and a form of personal expression that spoke of woes and joys alike in a musical language all its own.
Will Dockery, the son of a Confederate general that died at the battle of Bull Run, founded the plantation. Young Will Dockery had graduated from the University of Mississippi and in 1885, with a gift of $1,000 from his grandmother, purchased forest and swampland in the Mississippi Delta near the Yazoo and Sunflower Rivers. Recognizing the richness of the soil, he cleared the woods and drained the swamps opening the land for cotton. Word went out for workers and before long African-American families began to flock to Dockery Farms in search of work in the fields and, as tenant farmers (sharecroppers,) they cultivated cotton on the rich farmland.
The Dockery plantation by its peak in the mid 1930s consisted of 18,000 acres and extended over 28 square miles of rich fertile lowland along the Sunflower River. Will Dockery managed the land until the 1930s when his son, Joe Rice Dockery, took over and maintained the plantation through the Great Depression until his death in 1982. His widow, Keith Dockery McLean then ran the farm, which diversified to produce corn, rice and soybeans. In 1994, she turned the farm over to hired managers. It was Ms. McLean that realized that Dockery Farms was a hotbed of the blues and later in her life came to take pride in the farm's significance as a source of this music. Since her death in 2006, her daughters and grandchildren have owned Dockery and have established a foundation in hopes of funding research into its extensive historic archives of the Delta Blues.
In the early 20th century, Dockery Farms was nearly self-sufficient, more so than its neighboring plantations. It had its own currency and general store, a physician, a railroad depot, a dairy, a seed house, cotton gin, sawmill, and three churches. There was also a school for the 1,000 to 3,000 men, women, and children who worked during the farm's busiest times as either day laborers or as sharecroppers. Farm workers often sang while working the fields and their music became their basic entertainment. The music from the fields and cabins of the farms in the Mississippi Delta became famous as the blues.
African-American men, accompanying themselves on guitars, banjos, harmonicas, quills and jugs, would sing versions of popular songs and variations of "field hollers" as they planted, weeded, and picked cotton. The first reported sighting of the blues, however, was recorded in 1903 at the Tutwiler railroad depot near Dockery. Here, composer W. C. Handy noticed a "lean, loose-jointed Negro" playing a guitar and pressing the flat of a knife blade against the strings down its neck. The player created a "bluesy" effect while singing "going where the southern cross' the dog," a reference to a locally famous juncture of train lines.
In 1900, Bill and Annie Patton and their 12 children took up residence at Dockery Farms. Their nine-year-old, Charlie, took to following guitarist Henry Sloan to his performances at picnics, fish-fries, and social gatherings at boarding houses where the day laborers lived. By 1910, Patton was himself a professional musician, playing songs such as his own "Pony Blues," often with fellow guitarist Willie Brown.
Besides his blues guitar playing and singing, Patton was well known for his stage moves. He danced while playing and swinging his guitar around, often playing it behind his back. These crowd-pleasing antics imitated by rock stars including Jimi Hendrix have survived today in the acts of bluesmen such as Buddy Guy. Patton's uninhibited physical activity while performing must have been exciting to the farmers and other workers who observed him at close quarters. His growly vocals and his dancing beat surely energized his audiences.
Patton and the other bluesmen based around Dockery Farms in the 1920s could make about $25 for a performance at a party. Although not much by current standards, this was about five or ten times what they earned picking crops in the field! In addition to the freedom from backbreaking work, the bluesmen won celebrity and the attention of women. They could travel from place to place and had leisure time to spend as they pleased. Like Patton, they may have all been avoiding the hard work in the fields, the so- called "honest day's labor," that was the source of Dockery Farms' agricultural success. But by playing their Delta blues
they created an art form that gave comfort and support to countless numbers of contemporary listeners. The bluesmen of the Mississippi Delta produced invaluable musical dividends to everyone who has learned their stories and heard their enduring songs.
Video:
4. Listening
Youtube:
With friends around and even pals that I know are true
Still I'm lonely, homesick and blue
There's no one who can cheer me when I'm alone
Longing for my Mississippi home
Way down in the delta on that Mississippi shore
In that muddy water, I long to be once more
When night shadows creep about and the whippoorwill call
You can hear old mammy shout, "Come in here, you all"
[ Lyrics from: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/j/jimmie_rodgers/mississippi_delta_blues.html ]
Way down on the levee, strolling in the pale moon light
You can see those steamboats and the fields of snowy white
That's a feeling I can't lose that muddy water in my shoes
When I get that Mississippi Delta blues
I long to hear them talk and sing those old melodies
Swanee River and Ol' Black Joe
That sweet magnolia perfume floating on the breeze
Way down south is where I long to go
Way down in the delta on that Mississippi shore
In that muddy water, I long to be once more
When night shadows creep about and the whippoorwill call
You can hear old mammy shout, "Come in here, you all"
Way down on the levee, strolling in the pale moon light
You can see those steamboats and the fields of snowy white
That's a feeling I can't lose that muddy water in my shoes
When I get that Mississippi Delta blues
More lyrics: http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/j/jimmie_rodgers/#share
Jimmie Rodgers (country singer)
James Charles Rodgers (September 8, 1897 – May 26, 1933), known as Jimmie Rodgers, was an American country singer in the early 20th century known most widely for his rhythmic yodeling. Among the first country music superstars and pioneers, Rodgers was also known as The Singing Brakeman, The Blue Yodeler, and The Father of Country Music.
5. Watcing
Ella: The tables are empty
The dance floor's deserted
You play the same love song
It's the tenth time you've heard it
That's the beginning
Just one of the clues
You've had your first lesson
In learnin' the Blues
The cigarettes you light
One after another
Won't help you forget him
And the way that you loved him
You're only burning
A torch you can't lose
But you're on the right track
For learnin' the blues
When you're at home alone
The blues will taunt you constantly
When you're out in a crowd
The Blues will haunt your memory
The nights when you don't sleep
The whole night you're cryin'
But you can't forget him
Soon you even stop tryin'
You walk the floor
And wear out your shoes
When you feel your heart break
You're learnin the blues
Louis: Yes, the tables are empty
The dance floor's deserted
And You play the same love song, Whoa, yes
It's the tenth time you've heard it, yes
Man, it's the beginnin'
Just one of those cluessssss
You've had your first lesson, Whoa, yes
In learnin' the Blues
Man, The cigarettes that you light, Whoa, yessum
One after another, you Tellin' me brother
Won't help you to forget her, Whoa, no
And the way that you love her
You only burnin'
A torch that you can't lose, Yeah
But you on the right tracks, Brother, ha ha ha hahaha
For learnin' the blues
D'ya See that Ella?
Now lookahere
When you at home alone
The blues will taunt you constantly, yessuh
Ba dit dit deet
And when you're out in a crowd
The Blues will haunt your memories
Bah da doh doh zet
The nights when you don't sleep, Yes, ha ha ha
The whole night you cryin'
But you can't forget her, oh yes
Soon you even stop tryin'
Man, you walk the floor
And wear out your shoes, sss
When you feel your heart break, yeah brother
That's when you're learnin the blues
Yessss
When you at home alone, the blues will taunt you constantly, yes
(Ella: Doobidee, dee dee dee, dee dee dee, dee dee dee dee doh, biddi doodi deedi baw bow)
Bah Bah Da det
And when you're out in a crowd, the Blues will haunt your memories
(Ella: Doodin doo doo, dadin dee dee, BaBadiddin Doodinidin Doodinidin Doo
Ba ba da doh zet
The nights when you don't sleep, hmmm, Ella
Ella: The whole night you're crying
Louis: Yeah, but you can't forget her
Ella: Soon you even stop trying
Louis: Yes Man, you'll walk the floor, that's when it's rough
And wear out that last pair a' treaders, ha ha
Together: When you feel your (Ella:) heart break
(Louis: [scat] Ella...)
Together: You're learnin the blues
This dance finished our lesson.
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