Porchfest Revisited: Photo Gallery

Sights from Porchfest

A table of snacks set up outside the "Comfort Ave" porch.

The guitarist and vocalist for a band, playing an instrumental section.

Lemonade for a dollar.

My friend Sandy could hardly contain his excitement.

The paint on some of these houses was more interesting than some of the music groups.

The signs for each band were especially detailed, and probably the most photogenic part of the day.

Week 3: Folk Music-- Porchfest in Ithaca, NY

Adventures at Porchfest

         As a fan of music and cool things in general, learning that the town of Ithaca has an annual folk music festival called "Porchfest," left me ecstatic and quite bewildered; I'm not used to living near a town with any cultural significance, let alone an entire folk music festival. I'm far more accustomed to Amish buggys and the smell of manure, than banjos and the sound of acoustic guitars. Needless to say, Porchfest had me brimming with anticipation and expectations that couldn't be higher.

Porchfest turned out to simultaneously be everything I did and didn't expect it to be. As far as my expectations are concerned, the location and aesthetics were exactly as I envisioned. On the north end of town, dozens of brightly colored houses scattered over several blocks contained a diverse mix of bands playing anything from "The Clash"-esque rock, to a genre of alternative that sounded like it belonged in a shampoo commercial and not on the porch of some stranger's house.

The Geronimo Line

The first porch that we wandered upon was home to a band called The Geronimo Line-- and the experience here set the tone for what was going to be an awesome day unlike any I'd had in a long time.

We arrived right as they were finishing a song-- they had a unique sound that caught our attention from across the street. Their sound resembled the Clash many ways, but had some key textural differences which immediately set them apart from the 80's punk rock band.

The instrumentation (and therefore texture) of The Geronimo Line consisted of drums, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, and some sort of string plucking instrument which I am unfamiliar with. Despite the fact that the instrument was somewhat exotic, it gave off a fairly familiar sound,  like that of an electric acoustic guitar. Thus, the texture is mainly that of 3 different sounding guitars strumming in some sort of repetitive pattern, while the drummer keeps a fairly basic pulse underneath. The song itself seems dark in tone-- there is certainly an abundance of minor chords there. The tune bounces back and forth between open and closed chords, until finishing on a closed chord.

The audience around me was small in comparison to some of the more mainstream sounding groups down the road. Regardless, the small but enthusiastic audience seemed to really dig the abstract sound, some people almost seemed hypnotized by the guitar riffs.

After they were done playing, the band was kind enough to give away their self-titled album to me for free, along with a sticker.

After leaving The Geronimo Line, we walked down the street and came upon another band, whose name I unfortunately forgot to write down. They were playing a harder brand of rock, catering to a larger audience than the previous group that we had just heard.

They had an interesting sound-- upbeat tempos with a more positive sound, yet they still maintained a similar texture as The Geronimo Line, albeit with a sound that is easier for the average listener to swallow. This was most likely due to the chord progression being more in tune with what most people would expect from a rock band.




I will be uploading more photos later today.

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Week 2: Cadence-- "Why does it always rain on me?"

Travis -- "Why does it always rain on me?"

              This song follows the structure of a Half Cadence in the first phrase, to a Perfect Authentic Cadence in the second phrase. This is easily distinguishable merely by the ear-- the first phrase of vocals ends on a V chord, and it feels incomplete. In fact, if the song ended right after that chord, it would have left most people feeling uneasy and the song seeming unresolved. That's why, in the second phrase, there is cadence that is built off of the root, leaving the listener of a much more stable and relaxed environment. This second cadence, a Perfect Authentic Cadence, to be specific, resolves the tension created in the first phrase. 

It was difficult, however, to find a song that followed this open/closed Cadence structure. 

For one thing, most songs that I would have liked to talk about were too complex harmonically, and simply did not follow such a basic structure. Many of those songs actually included many "Open" phrases, before only resolving the tension with closure in the chorus, if at all. 

In fact, almost every Alternative rock song that I explored from the past 5 years followed some other structure, or in the very least did not begin with an open chord cadence (Imperfect Authentic/ Half Cadence), followed immediately by a closed chord cadence (Perfect Authentic Cadence) in the next phrase. 

To finally find the song I chose, I had to travel back to 1999, when Travis released this song from the album "The Man Who." The 15 year age of this song may have been one reason that it contained this simple structure, as most other songs from today did not yield such good results. Another potential explanation could be the genre difference, as this song is considered Soft Rock, and only other music I searched through was Modern Alt. Rock. 

Regardless of the reasons why this structure has become seemingly less common, it is certainly an essential tool for songwriters in delivering good hooks in their music, and for capturing the eager ears of listeners who simply want the previous open phrase to be resolved!

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Week 1: Meter-- "Red Rabbits"

The Shins -- "Red Rabbits"

        Red Rabbits is one of those songs that almost no one knows but everyone has heard and can recognize. It's hard to dislike the soft reverberations and ethereal raindrops that make up the soundscape of this 2007 composition. 

The meter is a gentle pulse of four beats per measure. Each quarter note gets the beat, bringing the meter to a fairly simple 4/4 time signiture. 

It's pretty easy to distinguish this song's quadruple pulse-- after all, each phrase of the bubbly synthesizer melody is completed in four counts. This is further confirmed by trying to count the song  in measures of three, which yielded no positive results for any triple time signature: the song is written in phrases of four beats. 

The texture joins in conjunction with the meter as the primary vessel to convey the song's meaning to the listener. James Mercer, the singer of the Shins is well known for his cryptical and poetic lyrics, and the ones in this song live up to that reputation. In essence the song represents a contemplative sigh of a couple in a broken relationship. Alternating verses are spoken from the perspective of both the man and women, each indicating the thoughts being had about the past and future of their situation. This cognitive process is translated musically by ambient bubbly textures, providing the visualization of a slow hot spring or an ocean tide rising and falling in hypnotic rhythm. There is a sort of melancholy chill present, but that tone is held in check by the warm strum of an acoustic guitar, which adds a positive and almost optimistic feel to the composition. 

Regardless of it negative meaning, Red Rabbits is one of the Shin's best song's, but a lot of the nice relaxed feeling that come along with it can be tied to the meaning of the song itself-- a contemplative reflection of melancholy thoughts, tied together with a 4/4 pulse to provide the song with a heartbeat.

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