Event 3: Lecture

Today in the Royal Room of the GAA, Robert Cantwell gave an interesting lecture titled: "Twang: A Southern Note." In his speech, he touched on many profound, and complex, ideas that all connected "twang" and southern culture. Out of the many perspectives of how twang relates to southern culture, two specific ideas stuck out.

Cantwell first started out with letting the audience sample the intense introduction of Beethoven's 5th Symphony. Recognizing that the musical number was, of course, not a part of southern blue-grass, country, or any other southern-based music, he used the piece to support his perspective that southern music was, and still is, an extremely unique form of music. Cantwell then touched on the idea of twang actually being characteristic of only string instruments, mostly that of a guitar, banjo or fiddle. The twang sound that is heard when either of the strings are picked was a different sound that came out of the South in the nineteenth century and was completely different from the contemporary music that was normally heard at that time (referring to the earliest form of "southern" music). This "twang" that was heard in many forms of early southern music developed into modern day bluegrass and country music, but still retained the tone of pitch that was heard in the nineteenth century.

The second most interesting aspect of twang that Cantwell mentioned, was that twang had the ability to "negotiate" all the differences between the white and black race, whether it was musical, social or political. Cantwell further mentioned the periods in which Jim Crow was part of society and many poorer people had to resort to sharecropping to find money, creating an extremely large gap between the lower and higher social classes. Twang wasn't specified as any sort of particular trait that accompanied the South, rather, it was the South in its entirety: the South's history, whether past, present, or future. All those who lived in the South knew the South, which unified all social classes into a much larger category: Southerners.

As a university student, I had never attended any sort of academic lecture, not because of having little interest, but because I was never aware of such events. However, I believe it imperative that all students hear what professors, or others of prominence, have to say outside of class and in an even higher level of intellect. After half of the lecture had been completed, Cantwell's ideas became so complex, that it became exceedingly difficult to follow him and his perspectives throughout the rest of the lecture. However, many of his professional colleagues were right on top of things and asked even harder questions to understand, after the lecture was over. As a student, I think I became more aware of professors' intelligence and realized that even though some professors might be horrible at teaching, sometimes their level of intellect is far greater than students can attain.