The Grocery Food Market in Norway free essay sample

I would say that the grocery market in Norway is a whole big competition. There’s a few big chains, such as Rema 1000, ICA and Kiwi, along with some other chains and small grocery shops in people’s neighborhoods. It’s hard to know who is the biggest, because in a grocery shop, prices mean everything. People want it cheap, and people want choices. With as many big shops, we get choices, and we get choices in the shop as well. Choice to choose quality, choice to choose the cheapest. In the UK, Tesco is today a monopolist in the market; they have over 30% share in the market. But in Norway, none of the companies have a remarkable bigger share than the other. The market is an oligopoly, meaning that the market is dominated by many large companies, all of them being oligopolists. You can’t say if the market is elastic or inelastic, because it’s different departments. We will write a custom essay sample on The Grocery Food Market in Norway or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page But for example normal groceries suck as milk etc. , the market is very much elastic. People won’t buy it if it’s a huge difference in price, but all of this has to be together with quality. People know what they have in grocery stores, and they’re most often aware of what supermarket is the cheapest and also aware of what they want – quality or quantity. The grocery food market in Norway – cheap chains versus expensive. Our demand for cheap or expensive chains is very unpredictable. 1. Place factor – where is the chain? Is it near yourself? 2. Demand for that particular chain increases in the area because there’s not any options. . Supply of groceries depends of ability of the firms to respond market demand, and of course, the grocery market will always be there, it’s just a competition, who are going to win the audience? 4. Time element – some suppliers can respond quickly to market demand – other cannot. If there’s a product that is very popular at the moment, the chain who has the most of it will be the winner. 5. It is very important to have complementary goods in the market. That will make your sales even higher. In demanding one good, the costumer would be likely to demand another good.   Look at Kiwi and Jacob’s in Norway for examples. In the area I live, these two are competitors because they are the only two grocery chains in the area. Kiwi is a quite cheap chain with cheap groceries, while Jacob’s focus on more expensive products with better quality. JACOB’S Supply and demand – more exclusive chain, demand will always be the same even though prices go up because people like quality. There will be less quantity but higher price, but people would still want it. Supply will shift upwards because there’s an increase of cost. Price will be higher both because they know people would still buy it, and because they need to cover the high costs. Exclusive products are more expensive, and they keep on rising. ANOTHER OPTION Rise in the cost of production, supply shift upwards. This might be because there are luxury groceries, and they will charge a high price to cover the costs of quality. Less demand for luxury brands and supply will also shift. This will probably be because a change in income. Quantity will be less, price slightly more. Even though what happens, there will be a quite high price. KIWI – cheap chain Supply and demand for Kiwi. More people want cheap groceries, of course. More demand for cheaper groceries, and supply will also shift. Quantity will be more, price slightly less, than for example Jacob’s a swell. People want it so they are able to sell more; therefore they need more quantity.   There’s very hard to get into the market, both locally and in a bigger span. There’s a few that dominates, but actually, there’s not many â€Å"exclusive† chains, so that’s a gap in the market in Norway. There’s not really any competitors for Jacob’s, but their aim should be to get people to focus on quality so that they can get customers from the cheap chain market. Competitors for Kiwi, on the other hand, are many. You have Rema 1000, for example. For Rema 1000 it’s important to be where people live. Groceries are very demanded, so it’s important to be where people shop. Conclusion Right now, there’s more people wanting to buy cheaper groceries; this is because there’s less money because of lack of jobs, and people have to be more careful with it. Jacob’s have gone down the last few years, but they’re loyal customers will always be there, who are the rich people in Norway. Kiwi will also always have many customers, because they have many stores all over Norway. But they need to look after their competitors, because there’s many small and cheap chains that focus on price rather than quality in order to get a bigger market share!

Discipline as an integral part of effective police supervision

Discipline as an integral part of effective police supervision Introduction The police department, as faction of the judiciary and law enforcer, cannot be allowed to be tainted with traces of indiscipline. It is a ridicule and an outright insult to the judicial system in its totality. The duty to ensure that unbecoming behavior and unacceptable professional conduct does not gain ground in the police force is bestowed on the police supervisor.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Discipline as an integral part of effective police supervision specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More For the effective role of supervisor to be fully realized, the individual supervisor cannot overlook the importance of a disciplined force. Without discipline, the supervisor will have failed as an individual and failed the whole institution as well. This essay looks into the maintenance of discipline among the police as an integral part of effective police supervision. Fostering discipline in the police force Supe rvisors as disciplinarians The ability to maintain discipline among the subordinates is one way of measuring the suitability of a supervisor for the role. The sergeant is the most important party in the police force, and his position the most challenging one. â€Å"It is the sergeant†¦who plays the pivotal role and, in large measure determines whether the police department will face unfair labor practice charges, costly arbitrations, lengthy litigation, and more union activism,† (More Miller 2007, P.314). The police are the point of connection between law enforcers and the society. They have been given discretion to deal with matters concerning the public such as determining when to arrest a suspect or when to shoot. â€Å"The powers that police hold and exercise†¦if improperly used, reduce public confidence in police, decrease respect for the law, and increase fear amongst a community, thus destabilizing it,† (Office of Police Integrity 2007, P. 18). When a supervisor sleeps on his work as the disciplinarian organ of the institution the result is; â€Å"lower quality of service provided by a given department and undermine the integrity of the entire profession,† (More Miller 2007, P. 316). Further, â€Å"poor supervision and the lack of effective disciplinary mechanisms allow ‘loose cannons’ who are in positions of power to abuse that power,† (More Miller 2007, P. 317). Being the one who has the most contact with the subordinates, he can use that advantageous position to create a police force whose professional standards are not tainted with unethical issues. The discipline could be constructive or punitive. Constructive refers to disciplinary measures geared to create internal discipline of an officer while punitive comes way after the employee has been found to have committed an indiscretion and is intended to make him not repeat the act, and should only be used when all other alternatives are depleted.A dvertising Looking for essay on political sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Good disciplinary measures Sergeants, when they notice indiscipline, should not wait until the situation gets out of hand. They should take corrective measures with immediate effect. â€Å"Failure to act promptly and decisively tends to perpetuate the problem and sets the stage for more debilitating interpersonal conflict,† (More Miller 2007, P. 301). It makes other subordinates believe that the disciplinary measure laid down by the organization are merely for formalism purposes and are not really applicable. Further, they show that the supervisor is in control and has the authority over the subordinates yielding respect from them. The disciplining should also be firm and fair and must be seen to be applied indiscriminately and equitably. â€Å"A great sergeant establishes a sense of equity. This doe’s not mean people are always treated equally, just always fairly,† (Werder, 1996). They should not be in violation of any written law or accepted rules of procedure and the subordinate must be able to understand his reasons of being disciplined. The root of the indiscipline and motive of performing the act must be established through enough evidence and the errant subordinate must be given a chance to be heard and explain his case. Further, other less serious disciplinarian measures such as formal reprimands or arbitration should be tried out before the supervisor can jump to the more serious ones such as demotion or discharge. The measure adopted should be reasonable and not excessive taking into consideration the circumstances of the particular case. The disciplinary measure should be less bureaucratic and filled with many formalities. A research currently conducted showed that â€Å"amongst the significant defects with the current discipline system, are the numerous, inconsistent, excessive ly formal and slow review and appeal processes available,† (Office of Police Integrity 2007, P. 14) The employees should be properly informed of the unacceptable form of behavior to avoid a situation where the employee was unaware of the existence of the offence in the first place. â€Å"Once, the subordinate knows the rules he knows what to expect in case of failure to follow the disciplinary code,† (Shimansky 2006).Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Discipline as an integral part of effective police supervision specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More The discipline measures adopted must have just two objectives i.e., to act as a future deterrence both to the deviant subordinate and to the others or to change the specific individual and ensure he is reformed. Any other objective of the supervisor such as to muster control of the subordinate or to settle some old scores, will be inappropriate and an abuse of pow er. The supervisor must at all time guard himself against making an emotional decision on discipline matters. They must remain in total control of the situation without having to be accommodative of subordinate’s improper behavior. As much as supervisors are mandated to maintain discipline, they should not take to themselves the habit of nosing around the private business of the subordinates. All their actions should be confined to circumstances within the formal business of the organization. What the subordinate does outside the employment circle should be a no go zone for the supervisor. The most effective manner of maintaining discipline is by outlining some procedures and principles, uniform to the whole organization, that every individual has to adhere to. The rules must also prescribe the right punitive measures to be undertaken in case of the subordinates defying such rules. This makes the system a lot more formal and will yield respect from subjects. It will also ensu re uniformity and avoid situations where the subordinate feels unfairly handled. They must, accordingly be communicated to all the subjects in a manner to obtain acceptance from them. Rules which are not generally accepted by the subjects often result into a situation of chaos and unresolved conflicts. Positive discipline These are measures taken by the supervisor long before any indiscipline has been detected. they are more of preventive measures as opposed to curative. They are aimed at securing the officers loyalty to the principles and procedures and get them to adhere to such policies willingly, without being sanctioned. The subordinates are driven by â€Å"the human tendency to do what needs to be done, to do what is right in a given situation, and to voluntarily comply with the reasonable standards of performance and conduct that apply to all members of the workforce,† (More Miller 2007,P. 291).Advertising Looking for essay on political sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More The supervisor has the duty of ensuring that create this kind of dedication from the subordinates. They develop self-discipline where the subordinate decide to give their all to the better performance of the whole institution for which they work for. Here, the supervisor simply acts as role model to be emulated. They take a personal decision to motivate the subordinates through recognition and rewards. They create an environmental that is necessary for the growth of such a self-driven employee. A supervisor who has acquired skills and expertise to achieve this is a quality staff to the institution. Conclusion Discipline in the police force is one of the most important things and the topic should be handled with care. Lack of discipline in the force means that the indiscipline is extended to the society in general since a person who is undisciplined himself cannot function to the right standards. But as much as we delve in punitive discipline institutions should realize that the most important discipline is the positive discipline. When subordinates are internally disciplined, the effects will be long lasting as opposed to corrective discipline which is administered after some malpractice has already happened. Police supervisors should seek to adopt methods of according positive discipline if they want to be effective in the role in the long run. References More, H and Miller, L. (2007). Effective Police Supervision: Coaching, Counseling and mentoring, 5th Ed, Chapter 11-13, copyright Mathew Bender and Company, Inc, a member of the LexisNexis Group Office of Police Integrity. (2007). A fair and Effective Victoria Police Discipline System, Victorian Government Printer, session 2006-2007, P.P No. 3 Shimansky.B. (2006). Discipline as an integral Part of Effective Supervision, retrieved from web. Werder, E.J. (1996). The Great Sergeant! Personal Qualities of a Great Sergeant, National Executive Institute Associates, Major Cities Chief’s Association and Major County Sheriff’s Association.

Genetic Drift and the Founder Effect Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Genetic Drift and the Founder Effect - Essay Example This reduces variation in genetic characteristics with reduction in population size but retains the developed genetic frequencies as the population grows (Shulka, 2009). An example of the bottleneck effect is the case of white elephants that were protected from extinction. The resultant thousands of the species that originated from about 20 animals exhibits â€Å"no variations in 24 proteins† that significantly varied in the originally large population (Russel, Hertz and McMillan, 2011, p. 440). The founder effect, however, is characterized by movement of a small section of a population to a different locality. The reduced population leads to convergent traits that are retained within an internally growing population (Jurmain, Kilgore and Trevathan, 2008). An example is the â€Å"Old Order Amish of Lancaster County,† a small community that originated from a trio of immigrants. The emergent community however developed a convergent high frequency of â€Å"Ellis-van Creveld syndrome† leading to higher frequency and more significant dwarfism as compared to the original population (Russel, Hertz and McMillan, 2011, p.

Reggio Emilia Approach Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Reggio Emilia Approach - Essay Example According to Gandini, this was the time when men and women became motivated towards building schools by themselves for their children. At the same time, teachers also began to work hard in creating fresh methods of educating in order to "support the new democratic society." The schools built up at that time merged the theory of "social services with education." There was a sequence of national regulations accepted during the years 1968 and 1971 which made it feasible for the progress of Reggie Approach. According to Rinaldi, who is an educational director, the teachers worked as a steady piece in order to establish a new strength, and had rights to assign certain working terms like the authority to suppose, to arrange, and to understand various things. Every single child has prospective, inquisitiveness, and divert ness in communal dealings, creating affiliations, building their knowledge, and bargaining with whatever their surroundings offer them. When a child takes part in a commotion, it is necessary that they pick out their wrong doings and correct them. This step can help kids in becoming more practical and solving matters more by themselves. Teachers' role here is vital, as they should give children enough space to correct and improve themselves without being criticised and pointed out by teachers. Due to their young age group, they are tending to be more proficient than any other age group. The Reggio Emilia Schools take this picture of children as being more enthusiastic and confident towards life instead of being dull and dependent. "Children's Relationships and Interactions Within a System" Schooling involves paying attention to each child individually with respect to their behaviour with their family, other mates, their teachers, their surroundings, and their society. "The Rights of Children, Parents and Teachers" All children have their own rights of getting worthy care and proper schooling which could further enhance their prospective and abilities. "Parents have the right to be involved in the life of the school; teachers have the right to grow professionally." "The Value of Relationships and Interactions of Children in Small Groups" Children get this chance to work along with their teachers and in a form of huge cluster of children, or a small one, or as an individual. Teachers are supposed to choose that which type of grouping is suitable for each child depending on the type of project and work assigned to children, children's interest in the project, and the duration of time taken by them to complete the task. The teachers play a vital role while making children work in small groups in order to make children comprehend their tasks better. "Cooperation and Collaboration as the Backbone of the System" Collaboration between all elders in the educational institute should be inclusive of asking questions about various things, sharing their views, and developing a trust in each other. For the sake of achieving this goal, all teachers should pay close attention towards children, enquire about their interests and explore their knowledge and ideas.

The Twilight of the Golds for 3 questions Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

The Twilight of the Golds for 3 questions - Essay Example In the movie Twilight of the Golds, the wife of Rob Stein, Suzzane experiences cognitive dissonance. This happens when her husband through laboratory tests finds that their unborn son could likely be gay. The husband tells her to abort, and she agrees to. However, after she converses with a gay colleague, and he suffers assault; she decides not to abort. The stress that arises from the assault of the colleague makes her reconsider her decision. On one hand, she would like to abort the baby to save her marriage while, on the other hand, she feels empathy towards her unborn child by likening it to her brother David and her gay colleague. Therefore, Suzzane wants the baby, but she does not want a homosexual baby. She says that she would have preferred if the baby were handicapped rather than homosexual. She uses this excuse to justify her decision to abort the baby. She also wants to keep the baby since it is her first pregnancy, and she wants to have a child. However, the fact that her husband is willing to leave her if she brings the unborn child to term makes her want to get rid of it. Suzzane is always at a crossroad and thus experience cognitive dissonance. She is trying to balance her life on all sides and to do, so she has to eliminate or repress a path of thought to make peace with herself, but in the end, she decides to have a baby. Rationalization is a defense mechanism that allows one to make up excuses or lies to oneself and others about a particular negative experience by trying to explain why things happened the way they did. It attempts to make reality fit into one’s emotions instead of perceiving it as it really is. This mechanism usually shifts the blame, shame, or embarrassment from the one experiencing it to an outside element say a person or a situation. For example, Rob Stein is a character in the movie who practices rationalization. First, he accepts to have to perform the experimental

The History Of The Blues Harmonica Music Essay

The History Of The Blues Harmonica Music Essay The harmonica is a free reed instrument; this means that sound is generated as air flows past a thin strip of material and makes it vibrate producing sound. Air pressure is usually generated by breathing or blowing into a hole, cane or pipe. The air flows over one side of the reed, creating an area of low pressure and causing the reed to flex towards the opposite side. The frame enclosing the reed is built so that when it flexes it blocks the air flow, reducing the low pressure area and allowing the reed to bend back. The harmonica is known to have different names like the Gob Iron, the Tin Sandwich, the Mouth Organ but most commonly the harp, probably because of its mechanism being so similar to the Jews harp, which consists of a single reed mounted on a frame that is plucked to create a note that resonates in the players mouth. The first free reed instruments were invented in the Ancient Far East and were not known in the West until quite recently. Among these ancient instruments there is the khaen of Laos; which consists of various pipes bound together in a set of rows, very much like a pan pipe, or the shÄâ€Å"ng of China and the shÃ…Â  of Japan, which are more of a group of tubes, traditionally inserted into a hollow dried fruit like a gourd, which nowadays is made of steel. (see Illustration x) These traditional instruments have survived to modern times and are currently used in social music and courtship rituals, and the sheng is still one of the instruments used in Chinese opera. The metal free reeds system used in the khaen and sheng is thought to be the ancestor of the reeds used in harmonicas in the present. The shÄâ€Å"ng was brought to Russia at the end of the 18th century. It seems it inspired a lot of devices in the early 19th century, which was the foundation for the development of the more modern free reeds. A Czech organ builder named Franz Kirschnek fashioned a new kind of free reed to be used in organ pipes. He might have just adapted an earlier model of free reed or he actually come up with the idea completely independently. Harmonicas, as we know them today When we talk about the harmonica as we know it today, it is hard to determine exactly who the inventor was. There were no factories at the time, and it was a case of individual artisans who were trying out new ideas. At the time, many people tried to construct instruments with free reeds in Vienna, Paris, London, and America, so its not clear who might have been the first but credit does go to a young German by the name of Friedrich Buschmann, who later on was also known to invent the concertina. He was a clockmaker, and around 1816 he devised an object used as a piano tuner and called it mundaeoline, which is German means mouth harp. What can be determined is that one of the oldest artisans to make harmonicas was Christian Messner. Around the late 1820s he got one of these little harmonicas from Vienna, thought it was an interesting instrument, repaired it and awoke an interest in his colleagues, who asked him to make them one too. He saw it could become a lucrative business and became the first harmonica maker in South-West Germany. At this point it was only possible to blow into harmonicas; it was later, around 1847 when Johannes Richter added a secondary draw reed plate under the blow plate. From 1840, Messners nephew Christian Weiss decided to set up his own small company and began to work on his own designs. In 1857, another young clockmaker named Matthias Hohner bought and managed to copy one of Buschmanns creations. With this and a bit of espionage from the Weiss Harmonica Company he managed to introduce his own design. He gave the instrument a nicer look, ornamenting its cover plates and displaying his brand name. He was a talented salesman and businessman. He improved production and bought out his competitors. By the 1870s, mass production began at the Hohner Company and they started an aggressive overseas marketing campaign; the harmonica now looked very much like the ones we know today. The American civil war made the harmonica very popular in the USA. Hohner had already sent harmonicas over and the soldiers found it easy to play and carry. Within a comparatively short space of time, the Hohner Company was shipping millions of Richter Marine Band harmonicas to America every year. Around the 1900s, half of the harmonicas made in Germany were sold to the United States. In the 1920s, Hohner was making over 50 million harmonicas every year, and distributing them all over the world. From then on they have been the leading harmonica company. Up until then, harmonicas could only be played in a major scale (or natural minor), so by blowing naturally, you could not get any half steps or sharps and flats. For example, a C Major scale would be: C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C and that would be the C Diatonic harmonica. It would be like only playing the white keys on a piano. Hohner then decided to develop a chromatic harmonica that could play all 12 notes of a scale, making it a very versatile instrument which is used for music which requires a great variety of notes. It is specially used in jazz, pop and of course classical music. Although it allows the possibility to play any scale, in any key, it cant bend notes very well so the player cant really achieve a bluesy kind of sound as well as on the diatonic (bluesy sound explained further). In the Seydel Factory in Saxony, they still use the original machines that were used 130 years ago to make their harmonicas and although the parts are mass produced they must still be assembled by hand, someone at some point in the line of production must check and fine tune the harmonica manually. Special small plates and files are used to make precise adjustments to the reeds and it is a task that cannot be undertaken mechanically; every reed must be tuned by hand. The harmonica is one of the most portable instruments; it fits in any pocket or bag and is easy to carry around. There are endless stories about how harmonicas saved lives; from stopping bullets by being in the soldiers uniform in the right place at the right time, to other stories of many musicians that made a living out of playing it. It is a close and intimate instrument, and very personal as players wouldnt let other people play their harmonica (especially for hygienic reasons). Companion of isolated men, from prisoners, soldiers and shepherds to astronauts, as it was the first musical instrument in outer space. On a Gemini space flight in December 1965, astronaut Wally Schirra reported an unidentified flying object in a polar orbit, We have an object, looks like a satellite going from north to south, probably in polar orbit. Looks like he might be going to re-enter soon. You just might let me pick up that thing. I see a command module and eight smaller modules in front. The pilot of the command module is wearing a red suit and then played Jingle Bells on a four hole, eight-note Little Lady Hohner harmonica that he had managed to smuggle on board. It is an extraordinary little device, invented as a toy, considered a beautiful instrument and that has now been with us for over 150 years and will still go on for many more. How do harmonicas work? Parts and Mechanisms The harmonica was initially designed to be able to play various notes at the same time in combinations that were harmonic and made intuitive sense because they could automatically support melodious notes. By blowing and sucking the player can easily get the notes sounding right, without the need to work on getting the notes to sound clearly like on the guitar, it is a bit more like playing keys on the piano. Anyone can buy a good functional harmonica without having to spend a lot of money, and that is something you cant say about guitars or keyboards. Although usually out of the box harmonicas need a lot of fine tuning and customizing for advanced and professional playing. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦they are raw materials waiting to be formed in to a real instrument. Then again that also happens with most professional instruments. The basic mechanism is as explained in the previous section about free reed instruments. For the purpose of this analysis from now on when the harmonica is mentioned, it will be referring to the ten hole diatonic, the most commonly used harmonica for folk, rock and of course blues music. The diatonic harmonica consists of two cover plates, two reed plates and a comb (see illustration x). Cover plates cover the reed-plates and are usually made of metal. There are two types of cover plates: traditional stamped metal open designs like the Hohner Marine Band, and enclosed designs such as the Suzuki Promaster. The first are usually lighter and smaller than the enclosed ones which often are heavier but give out a louder tonal quality. The comb is the main body of the instrument. Its the central part of the harmonica and its what everything is bolted or nailed to. Its called a comb because it looks very much like a hair comb. As air goes though the harmonica, it usually carries saliva, so this inner structure must be made out of a type of material that can resist exposure to moisture and that way avoid expanding or smelling. Traditionally they are made from pear wood, although they can also be found made out of plastic or metal. There are two brass reed plates on a diatonic harmonica, each with 10 to 12 reeds riveted on to it. The reeds are shorter for the higher pitch, so the lower the note is, the longer the reed. The top plate is for the blow notes and the bottom is for the draw notes, so the reeds are facing the opposite direction. After a while reeds do go out of tune, and some notes might lose their brightness, they start to sound flat and inconsistent. That indicates the harmonica needs re-tuning. Although every hole in the harmonica can easily produce one note as the player blows air in to it, and one as he draws air, there are many more hidden notes that can be found by bending (a term used by guitarists, who actually bend the strings up or down to create a subtle change in the pitch) or overblowing. (see illustration Bendable Notes Chart) If while doing a draw note, the airflow is increased, the draw reed over-flexes and the air pressure causes the blow reed from the same hole to vibrate too, making a new note pop out, so basically you are drawing air through the blow reed. The best way to understand how air pressure is changed is by whistling and trying to change the pitch of the initial note. The changes your mouth, tongue and throat make are similar to the ones a harmonica player makes when he bends a note. Bending notes is a tough technique for beginner harmonica players and it is where the secret to getting a bluesy sound lies, because its the way to get the flat third, fifth and seventh; the blue notes. The Bluesy Sound The term the blues usually refers to melancholy and sadness and is constantly heard in lyrics to describe a depressed mood. Blues is a form of expression and a feeling that is brought to a musical form. In very technical words, the blues form is characterized by specific chord progressions also found in other genres like folk, jazz, and rock and roll. The twelve-bar blues chord progression is one of the most common, although there are others like the eight-bar, used in songs like Key to the highway, originally by Big Bill Broonzy, or the sixteen-bar as in Ray Charles Sweet 16 Bars or in Herby Hancocks Watermelon Man. The basic twelve-bar framework blues progression has a distinctive form in phrase and chord structure and duration. The structure is based on the Tonic, Subdominant and Dominant chords of the key. For example: A blues song in the key of C would have the following structure: Take the Tonic Subdominant Dominant chords and play them in the following order: T T T T | S S T T | D S T T So the chords for a blues tune in the key of C would be C, F and G and they would be played in the following order: C C C C | F F C C | G F C C Fitting the lyrics in this structure makes them sing very much like poetry sound when it is read out loud. The structure consists on an AAB pattern, consisting of a line being sung over the first four bars, in repetitions over the next four bars, and a longer finishing line over the last four bars. Using Robert Johnsons Sweet Home Chicago as a standard twelve bar Blues example for analysis, we find the following pattern: Bar 1 Bar 2 Bar 3 Bar 4 A Come on, Baby dont you want to go Bar 5 Bar 6 Bar 7 Bar 8 A I said, come on, Baby dont you want to go Bar 9 Bar 10 Bar 11 Bar 12 B To that same old place Sweet home Chicago This progression of chords is the basis of thousands other rock and pop songs that often have a blue sound even without using the traditional twelve-bar arrangement. The harmonica player has to be very aware of what key and chord the song is in, because he has to fit in that progression or the notes he plays would not sound right. He then also has to know very well when and where to fit in the blue notes that, for expressive reasons are played flattened or gradually bent (minor 3rd to major 3rd, explained further along) in relation to the pitch of the major scale. After all, the blues is a feeling and although it can be analysed technically as any other musical genre, to play it right it has to be felt. Like Muddy Watters puts it when youve got no bread and your love sick youve got the blues. And although people cant even begin to imagine slavery, working in the cotton fields, or being racially discriminated like it was in those days, they can still feel the romanticism of that feeling in a sense of a Im with them! support. The blues is not all just about playing the twelve-bar, like Mick Abrahams from Fleetwood Mac says in the documentary Blues Britannia Can Blue Men Sing the Whites, If you can play one note in the twelve-bar solo and make somebody cry or laugh, or all the lovely emotions that are associated with music, thats truly to me the blues its almost a prayer Nonetheless some blues artists also used the blues as a base for more comical, raunchy lyrics, such as Big Joe Turners Rebecca (Rebecca, Rebecca, get you big legs off me, Rebecca, Rebecca, get you big legs off me. It may be sending you baby, but its worrying the hell out of me) or Tampa Reds Tight Like That (There was a little black rooster met a little brown hen, made a date at the barn about a half past ten). What got the Harmonica in to blues? The main thing that got the harmonica into the blues was its inexpensivenessà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ which now is a thing of the past as Paul Jones lead singer and harmonica player for Manfred Mann, says in the documentary Tin Sandwich Anyone?, and it is because at the time they were an affordable instrument that the African Americans managed to popularise by introducing it to the blues. Little Walter was quoted saying When I started to play harmonicas, they were a dime! Now theyre a dollar and a half! Those people ought to remember who popularised them that way! The first harmonica recordings made around 1924 by many unknown musicians totally revolutionised the way the instrument was played, and gave way to the blues harmonica as we know it. The harmonica allowed for some very visceral, meaningful sounds that almost felt like wails of pain and sorrow. They almost felt like an extension from the voice and were definitely very expressive and profound close intimate instruments. It was amazing how such a small simple instrument was able to communicate so many things and create so many different effects. Harmonica players at the time discovered that it was possible to lower the pitch of some of the notes by changing the shape of the air space inside his mouth whilst playing: Bending. They also found that drawing instead of blowing, and not playing in the key of the harmonica, but in the key of the dominant 7th chord, they could create sounds that had nothing to do with the major-key folk for which the harmonica was originally intended: the Cross Harp. Train imitations and fox-chases, or many of the typical blues licks, would have been unimaginable without these two features. Bending is probably the first way the player starts hearing a bluesy sound coming from this little instrument. Bends are essential for blues and rock harmonica sound, due to the sad and soulful sound the instrument can draw out. That wailing and howling of the blues harmonica is achieved by bending. Playing the harmonica in the same key as the song is in would mean the player is in the first position or strait. He would be mostly using blow notes and it is the way he would get a melody, or more of a folk sound. The cross harp, or second position, consists on taking the harmonica in a different key from the song (being in the circle of fifths) and mostly playing draw notes. For example: Accompanying a guitarist playing a song in A, the harmonica player could play an A harmonica in first position, or a D harmonica in the second position. Both would fit in but the D harmonica would make it sound more bluesy than the A harmonica. The way the cross harp works is that there are only so many scales one can do on each harmonica. On a piano or a guitar all scales can be played from all keys on the same instrument, but on the harmonica the player has to change keys. This way draw notes can be played easier and so can the blue notes. Usually beginner harmonicas come with a cross harp chart in the box (see illustration. x), where you can see what key you have to be on to sound bluesy or melodic. Many other techniques can be also used in combination. Vibrato, commonly used with other instruments, can also be done on the harmonica. Vibrato, as the name indicates, gives the notes a vibrating sound. Usually it is made by contracting the muscles on the throat and varying the airflow. Another typical way to do it is by opening a closing your hands around the instrument freeing more or less air. Vibrato is a very common effect used by singers and other instruments. Thanks to the way the harmonica is constructed, it also allows the player to play chords. A chord is a set of two or more notes played together harmonically. By stretching the mouth over two, three or four holes and playing them together as one melodic note you can get chords on the harmonica. By playing chords the player can also get a vamping effect, which is achieved by alternating chords and single notes to accompany himself while playing a song. The idea of vamping is to fill in the silences in the melody with chords in the right beat. By keeping that beat going, the player can make it sound like two harmonicas are playing; one doing the chords and another one doing the melody. Little Walter and Sonny Terry were both known for great vamping in their tunes. Usually their sound was very rich and full and the harmonica sounded more powerful. The Blues Harmonica Blues Origins and Background The blues goes back to the 17th century, in the United States. Blues is defined as the folk genre for the African-American population, mainly the Deep South, which originated from their spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. At the time united states were a British colony that brought slaves from Africa who populated most of the south of the country. They worked on the tobacco, cotton and rice plantations and were not allowed to practice their cultures and religions. The first bluesmen were people that used to sing about how their life was to try and relieve the pain. In a way they were trying to send messages that travelled from plantation to plantation, to show what being a slave was. Blues became, for the African-Americans, a form of expression and a way to tell their stories. It was emotionally deep, straight to the point and full of meaning. John Mayall, from the Blues Breakers says the main charm about the blues is that it has such an authenticity about in the fact that when you listen to it you hear these stories, and visualize that these are real stories. And often they were, as narrative of the lyrics was usually about the cruelty of police offices, oppression at the hands of white people and hard times. For example, in Blind Lemon Jeffersons Rising High Water Blues, he tells the story of the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 where he lost his girlfriend: Black water rising, Southern people cant make no time, Black water rising, Southern people cant make no time, And I cant get no hearing from that Memphis girl of mine After the war, lyrics became simpler and focused almost entirely on relationship despairs or sexual worries. Themes that recurrently appeared in pre-war blues such as economic depression, farming, gambling, magic, the devil, fires and floods were less common in post-war blues. Other lyrics by artist like Skip James, Reverend Gary Davis or Blind Willie Johnson were also artist recognized by more religious or spiritual performances, highly influenced by the Christian conversions. 1920s, First Harmonica Recordings As for the harmonica, Pete Hampton was probably the first African-American harmonica player to be recorded. Despite a productive recording career in the early 1900s with songs like Nigger Blues, he only seemed to have used the harmonica for one particular song titled Mouth Organ Coon, where the harmonica probably adopted the term Mouth Organ. He already used many effects including vocalising through the harmonica, the use of fox chase and train-like rhythm arrangements and simultaneous whistling. Hampton used an F diatonic harmonica and he played it in first position. Soon after that, Henry Whitter was the first to record in the cross harp position. Even though he was a white musician, he had adopted a remarkable African-American influence on his harmonica playing. He claimed to have made test recordings in March 1923 and recorded the final tracks around December 1923 in New York City, recording the first three harmonica solos. The tunes appear to be in the key of A, and Whitter played in the second position on a D harmonica. He also had a train imitation, this one played in first position in what looked like a key of B although it might have originally been played on a C harp, an slowed down at some point. Another early country music star was DeFord Bailey who became the first African American performer on the Grand Ole Opry, which was a weekly country music stage concert in Nashville, Tennessee that presented different artists from the genre from 1925. Bailey could play various instruments but he was best known for playing the harmonica and he played every Saturday night for 15 years, after he had to leave because of a dispute with management. He developed the fox-hunt and train techniques and he used a custom made megaphone to amplify the sound from his harmonica. At the time, music was totally acoustic and the harmonica could be played comfortably and heard perfectly while accompanying a guitar and a singer. Some players used a class or a jug to funnel the sound and gain a bit more amplification like DeFord Baileys custom megaphone. (See Pic XfunnelX) By then, the harmonica had proved to be an interesting new instrument full of different sounds and effects, radically departing from the manufactures intentions of a toy. 1930s, Lomax and the re-discovery The Emancipation Act of 1863, between 1870 and 1900, which freed the Black communities from slavery and had permitted them to build up the so called juke joints as places where Blacks could go to listen to some music, dance or have a gamble after a days work. Performances where held in places like the Cotton Club in Harlem, New York or many bars along the famous Beale Street in Memphis. This style was known as the Delta Blues, which consisted on traditional, rural country blues performed acoustically in more of a polished city urban style, also introducing new sounds like the bottle neck slide guitar and the floorboard stomping. By the end of the twenties, Vaudeville and tent-show singers, circus artists, boogie-woogie pianists, jug and jazz bands were to be heard at some point playing some form of the blues. Blues was becoming a vehicle for some people to earn a living by playing and entertaining the audiences. It was exclusively race music and the majority of white people didnt really know what it was or nor have the interest to listen to it. Outside the phonograph stores, black people would stand in line anxious to obtain the latest blues disc and by now there was already a reasonably large archive of blues music given by artists like Lead Belly, Henry Thomas and Big Walter Horton. Many harmonica players were recording in duos with guitarists like Hammie Nixon and Sleepy John Estes, or trios like Sonny Terry, Blind Boy Fuller and Bull City Red. Around the 1930s, John Lomax, pioneering musicologist and folklorist, together with his son Alan Lomax made a great number of non-commercial recordings for the Archive of American Folk songs. They went around the south of the United States with a mobile recording device, capturing many root songs, field hollers and ring shouts. This contributed in a great way to the blues because they managed to capture, catalogue and generate an archive of traditional and rural sounds. The instruments flexibility also captured the attention of classical music during this decade. Although some conservative musicians didnt approve of it and degraded it by considering it a toy, young Larry Adler managed to perform a minuet by Beethoven and later on had works written for the instrument by the composers like Ralph Vaughan Williams, Darius Milhaud, Malcolm Arnold and Arthur Benjamin. 1940s, Pre-war and Post-war Blues During the war, the United States experienced a shortage of harmonicas mainly because materials like wood and metal that were used to make harmonicas were in short supply due to military demand. Another problem was that Germany and Japan were the primary manufacturers of harmonicas and of course where the Axis powers opposed to the United States and the allied forces. Companies like Finn Harkon Magnus, developed a molded plastic harmonica that used plastic combs and far fewer pieces than traditional metal or wood harmonicas, which in a way made the harmonica more hygienic and far more efficient to mass produce. The sound from these harmonicas was inferior to the traditional ones but their inexpensiveness made them become a common toy among children. Between the late 30s and the 40s, many African-Americans were starting to migrate to other states further north in hope to find more acceptable working conditions. Many musicians based in Memphis moved to big cities like Chicago and New York encouraged by their music and the idea of making a living from entertainment. It was the beginning of what would later be called the Chicago Electric Blues. 1950s Chess Records and the Chicago Blues The 50s were the beginning of an era of high quality harmonica players. For instance Sonny Boy Williamson II, is one of the most important harmonica players of this era. The blues gradually began to use more electric amplification for the guitar, double bass, and vocals. Using a full blues band, as he usually played backed by a piano or a guitar, a bass and a drummer, Sonny Boy became a popular act in the South with his daily broadcasts when he was hired to play the King Biscuit Time show, advertising the King Biscuit brand of baking flour on the radio. Sonny Boy Williamson II also helped popularize the cross-harp technique and his way of playing which was very expressive, very sensual and very technical. Another key factor to this new era of blues harmonica was the Chess brothers. Leonard and Philip Chess were two Jewish immigrants from Poland who came to Chicago in 1928. They owned some bars on the south side of Chicago, their largest establishment being a nightclub called the Macomba. The Macomba had live performances and many of those were blues entertainers that had migrated to Chicago from the Mississippi delta during the late 30s and 40s. The Chess brothers realized that these artists were not being properly represented or recorded, so they decided to start recording them themselves. They entered into a partnership with Charles and Evelyn Aron in Aristocrat Records who had just opened Aristocrat Records to record blues, jazz and rhythm blues. The most important artist they recorded was McKinley Morganfield, who went by the name of Muddy Waters. He had come from Mississippi to Chicago a few years before and had been working on his own until he met the Chess brothers. His first records where of himself accompanied by a guitar or a piano. His deep raw singing style reflected the spirit of the blues and was quite unique. The Chess brothers were able to build Muddy Waters into Chicagos leading blues singer through their connections with radio stations and local clubs. In late 1949, Leonard and Phil Chess became the sole owners of Aristocrat Records and reorganized the company changing its name to Chess Records. Historically, the music business had always been dominated by a few major record labels which were Columbia, Victor, Decca, Capitol, Mercury, and MGM. These major labels had paid some attention to the blues and other root genres but had always placed the artists on secondary labels that were focused toward the race audience. Chess Records grew in those early days of both rhythm and blues and along with other independent record companies like Atlantic, Aladdin, Specialty, Imperial, Modern and King were giving the public music that they could not get from the established major record companies. Other young Mississippi bluesmen that were drawn to Chicago joined Muddy Waters band. One of the most brilliant musicians to play with Muddy was Little Walter Jacobs, whose outstanding harmonica made the band even better. The young harmonicist revolutionized the instrument by playing the harmonica through a microphone, typically a Bullet microphone sold for use by radio taxi dispatchers. He cupped in his hands around it with the harmonica, and tightened the air around the harp. It gave the instrument a punchy, mid-range, powerful, distorted sound that could be heard as loud as an electric guitar. MUCH MORE ABOUT LITTE WALTER His style, is amps and effects, his solo career. In 1952, Chess formed a subsidiary label called Checker where Little Walter recorded some of his own work. His first release was an instrumental piece called Juke which topped the Rhythm and Blues charts for eight weeks. He was able to top the charts again in 1955 with the song My Babe. A young record producer in Memphis Tennessee named Sam Phillips was recording a 300 pound farm worker named Chester Burnette, who became known as the Howlin Wolf. At the time, Phillips, who later established Sun Re

Gender Roles in Society Essay -- Gender Role Behaviors and Attitudes

â€Å"Boys will be boys, and girls will be girls†: few of our cultural mythologies seem as natural as this one. But in this exploration of the gender signals that traditionally tell what a â€Å"boy† or â€Å"girl† is supposed to look and act like, Aaron Devor shows how these signals are not â€Å"natural† at all but instead are cultural constructs. While the classic cues of masculinity—aggressive posture, self-confidence, a tough appearance—and the traditional signs of femininity—gentleness, passivity, strong nurturing instincts—are often considered â€Å"normal,† Devor explains that they are by no means biological or psychological necessities. Indeed, he suggests, they can be richly mixed and varied, or to paraphrase the old Kinks song â€Å"Lola,† â€Å"Boys can be girls and girls can be boys.† Devor is dean of social sciences at the University of Victoria and author of Gender Blending: Confronting the Li mits of Duality (1989), from which this selection is excerpted, and FTM: Female-to-Male Transsexuals in Society (1997). The clusters of social definitions used to identify persons by gender are collectively known as â€Å"femininity† and â€Å"masculinity.† Masculine characteristics are used to identify persons as males, while feminine ones are used as signifiers for femaleness. People use femininity or masculinity to claim and communicate their membership in their assigned, or chosen, sex or gender. Others recognize our sex or gender more on the basis of these characteristics than on the basis of sex characteristics, which are usually largely covered by clothing in daily life. These two clusters of attributes are most commonly seen as mirror images of one another with masculinity usually characterized by dominance and aggression, and femininity by passivity and s... ...socially directed hormonal instructions which specify that females will want to have children and will therefore find themselves relatively helpless and dependent on males for support and protection. The schema claims that males are innately aggressive and competitive and therefore will dominate over females. The social hegemony of this ideology ensures that we are all raised to practice gender roles which will confirm this vision of the nature of the sexes. Fortunately, our training to gender roles is neither complete nor uniform. As a result, it is possible to point to multitudinous exceptions to, and variations on, these themes. Biological evidence is equivocal about the source of gender roles; psychological androgyny is a widely accepted concept. It seems most likely that gender roles are the result of systematic power imbalances based on gender discrimination.9