AMERICAN MOSAIC - Traditional Music? Heck No, It's Techno

AMERICAN MOSAIC¹ - Traditional Music? Heck No, It's Techno
By Dana DeMange,Shelley Gollust,...

Broadcast: Friday, July 29, 2005

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HOST: Welcome to AMERICAN MOSAIC, in VOA Special English.

I'm Doug Johnson. On our show this week:

We hear some techno music…

Answer a question from a listener about American states called commonwealths³ …

And report about a theater festival in the state of West Virginia.

Contemporary American Theater Festival

Shepherdstown is the oldest town in the state of West Virginia. Every summer, it presents the newest American plays during the Contemporary American Theater Festival. Barbara Klein tells us more.

BARBARA KLEIN: Historic⁴ Shepherdstown, West Virginia, is on a hill near the Potomac River. The first Europeans arrived in the early seventeen hundreds. Shepherd College was established in eighteen seventy-one to teach languages and science. The Contemporary American Theater Festival has taken place at the college every summer since nineteen ninety-one.

Four new plays are being performed this month. Three of them are based on the September eleventh terrorist⁵ attacks on America or the war in Iraq.

 
Carolyn Swift and Lee Sellars in 'The God of Hell'
One of the plays is by the famous playwright⁶ Sam Shepard. It is called "The God of Hell." A mysterious stranger arrives at a quiet farm in the state of Wisconsin. He questions the farmer's wife. He is looking for a man who is hiding in the house. The stranger is a government agent and the man he is looking for once worked on a secret project. This man later becomes the victim of torture.

Visitors at the festival also saw a play called "Sonia Flew" by Melinda Lopez. An American family is celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah in two thousand one. But the recent attack on America is causing tension.

The college graduate son, Zak, announces that he is joining the armed forces. But his mother, Sonia, opposes this action. Sonia relives her past as a teenager in Cuba forty years earlier when Fidel Castro came to power. Her parents sent her to America against her wishes. She never saw them again.

"American Tet" by Lydia Stryk (pronounced strike) is about a family living on a military base. Elaine is the wife of a retired⁷ American military officer who fought in the Vietnam war more than thirty years earlier. She teaches the husbands and wives of soldiers in Iraq how to deal with Army life. Her own son Danny is a soldier guarding prisoners of war in Iraq. He returns home on leave for a few weeks. But he does not want to return to the war.

The last play in the theater festival is "Father Joy," by Sheri Wilner. Abigail, a young female sculptor⁸, is struggling to create work that is meaningful. Her former art professor is a famous environmental sculptor. They fall in love. At the same time, Abigail's father is slowly "disappearing." This play is not about war. It is about the value of art, the power of time and the nature of love.

Commonwealth² or State

HOST: Our listener question this week comes from Vietnam. Nguyen Van Kien wants to know why the state of Kentucky calls itself a commonwealth.

Four states in the United States call themselves commonwealths. They are Kentucky, Virginia, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. These four are no different from the other forty-six states in the country. The structure of government in a commonwealth is the same as in other states.

They are called commonwealths because this is the official name used in their state constitutions. To understand why Kentucky is called a commonwealth, we need to consider United States history after the American Revolution.

Thirteen American colonies had just won their independence from Britain. Representatives from each of the colonies came together to write a federal Constitution in seventeen eighty-seven. Similar constitutions were being written in each state.

The term commonwealth was popular during this period in history. It described a state or nation where the people come together for the common good. The term dates back to Oliver Cromwell of Britain. Cromwell helped lead a series of civil wars against King Charles the First during the sixteen-forties.

The wars led to the trial and execution⁹ of the king. The defeat of King Charles the First briefly¹⁰ ended the royal system of government in Britain. It was replaced for several years with a commonwealth ruled by Cromwell.

Lawmakers in the United States used the word years later to describe their states. Virginia, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania were former colonies. They wrote constitutions after the American Revolutionary War. Kentucky became a state a few years later. It was created out of Virginia in seventeen ninety-two. It is possible the term commonwealth carried over when the Kentucky constitution was written.

Techno Music

Today we present a kind of dance music that we have never talked about before. Electronic music is very popular in the United States as well as around the world. It is also known as "techno." Pat Bodner tells us more.

PAT BODNER: Techno is not produced by traditional musical instruments. It is made using machines like the turntable, drum machine, and bassline sequencer. The people who make techno music are usually called DJ's. They use these machines to make noises that sound like the drum instrument. To this drum beat they can add repeated sounds. Sometimes DJ's include voice recordings¹².

Techno developed in many different ways around the world.

 
Kraftwerk
Music experts often say the German group Kraftwerk made some of the first techno music. Here is their song "The Robots."

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Experts say techno then developed in the American city of Detroit, Michigan. It soon spread all over the world. There are many kinds of techno. Each kind has different influences. Here is an example of "breakbeat" by an American DJ named DJ Abstract.

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Another kind of techno is called "trance". This example is by the German DJ ATB.

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To listen to more techno, visit Ishkur's Guide on the Internet. The address is www.ishkur.com/music.

 
DJ Talvin Singh
We leave you now with an example of "fusion¹³" techno. This is several kinds of traditions mixed together. Here, the DJ Talvin Singh combines Indian music with the techno sounds of "drum and bass¹¹."

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HOST: I'm Doug Johnson. I hope you enjoyed our program.

Our show was written by Dana DeMange, Shelley Gollust and Jill Moss¹⁴. Caty Weaver¹⁵ was our producer.

Join us again next week for AMERICAN MOSAIC, VOA's radio magazine in Special English.

1 mosaic   

n./adj.镶嵌细工的，镶嵌工艺品的，嵌花式的

参考例句：

• The sky this morning is a mosaic of blue and white.今天早上的天空是幅蓝白相间的画面。
• The image mosaic is a troublesome work.图象镶嵌是个麻烦的工作。

2 commonwealth   

n.共和国，联邦，共同体

参考例句：

• He is the chairman of the commonwealth of artists.他是艺术家协会的主席。
• Most of the members of the Commonwealth are nonwhite.英联邦的许多成员国不是白人国家。

3 commonwealths   

n.共和国( commonwealth的名词复数 )；联邦；团体；协会

参考例句：

4 historic   

adj.历史上著名的，具有历史意义的

参考例句：

• This is a historic occasion.这是具有重大历史意义的时刻。
• We are living in a great historic era.我们正处在一个伟大的历史时代。

5 terrorist   

n.恐怖主义者，恐怖分子

参考例句：

• Without the gun,I'm a sitting duck for any terrorist.没有这支枪，我就成了恐怖分子下手的目标了。
• The district was put on red alert during a terrorist's bomb scare.这个地区在得到恐怖分子炸弹恐吓后作了应急准备。

6 playwright   

n.剧作家，编写剧本的人

参考例句：

• Gwyn Thomas was a famous playwright.格温·托马斯是著名的剧作家。
• The playwright was slaughtered by the press.这位剧作家受到新闻界的无情批判。

7 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。

8 sculptor   

n.雕刻家，雕刻家

参考例句：

• A sculptor forms her material.雕塑家把材料塑造成雕塑品。
• The sculptor rounded the clay into a sphere.那位雕塑家把黏土做成了一个球状。

9 execution   

n.死刑，实行，执行，履行，演奏，表演

参考例句：

• The musician's execution was perfect,but he played without feeling.演奏者的技巧完美，但他演奏得毫无感情。
• His original idea was good,but his execution of the scheme was disastrous.他的设想很好，但实行起来却糟糕透顶。

10 briefly   

adv.简单地，简短地

参考例句：

• I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
• He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。

11 bass   

n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴

参考例句：

• He answered my question in a surprisingly deep bass.他用一种低得出奇的声音回答我的问题。
• The bass was to give a concert in the park.那位男低音歌唱家将在公园中举行音乐会。

12 recordings   

n.记录( recording的名词复数 )；录音；录像；唱片

参考例句：

• a boxed set of original recordings 一套盒装原声录音带
• old jazz recordings reissued on CD 以激光唱片重新发行的老爵士乐

13 fusion   

n.溶化；熔解；熔化状态，熔和；熔接

参考例句：

• Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc. 黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。
• This alloy is formed by the fusion of two types of metal.这种合金是用两种金属熔合而成的。

14 moss   

n.苔，藓，地衣

参考例句：

• Moss grows on a rock.苔藓生在石头上。
• He was found asleep on a pillow of leaves and moss.有人看见他枕着树叶和苔藓睡着了。

15 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

• She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快，而且布的质量很好。
• The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。