词汇提示

1.minstrel 吟游诗人

2.dialect 方言

3.melodies 旋律

4.folk songs 民歌

5.moderately 适当地

原文

Stephen Foster ? American Songwriter

Before radio and television, movies and recordings, entertainment was often a family or community matter.

Someone in the family could play a musical instrument, or a neighborhood musician would play for small gatherings.

In addition, there would be travelling groups of musicians, actors and clowns who would go from town to town.

In nineteenth century United States, one of the most popular forms of entertainment was the minstrel show.

Black slavery was still permitted in the southern states until 1865.

Even after that date, the lives of many blacks working on large farms or plantations did not change much.

They did hard physical labor in the fields, had little control over their lives, and very little time to relax with their friends.

Foster,who was born in 1826, made this situation the background for many of his songs.

White musicians would try to imagine the feelings of black men and women working on the plantations.

They would write songs in the dialect or speech patterns that they thought black slaves used.

In these songs, the black people would be talking about their hardships, falling in love, playing music and dancing, and finally growing old and dying.

They would play musical instruments, like the banjo, a small four-stringed guitar, which black people played often.

As a small boy, Stephen Foster had sometimes been taken to a black church by his family's black servant, Olivia Pise.

Here he first heard the melodies that inspired his own songs.

Only a couple of Foster's songs are based directly on "Negro spirituals;" but many of his songs have the natural simplicity and emotional power of folk songs.

The youngest member of a large family, Foster showed his musical talent at an early age.

Growing up in an energetic business family Stephen was expected to become a businessman.

And,for a while, he worked as a book keeper.

Foster attended minstrel shows and tried to get the performers to sing his songs.

Sometimes the performers would steal his songs and publish them under their own names.

Copyright laws were weak and rarely enforced,so some music publishers would just go ahead and publish a song without paying the songwriter.

Since Foster hoped to make a living as a songwriter, this was a problem.

Foster's first hit song was "Oh!Susanna" published in 1848.

It became popular with the thousands of men from all over the United States who were heading west to the Californian gold-rush of 1849.

Unfortunately,as an unknown song writer Foster received no money from his early songs.

He seems to have given them out right to the music publishers, just to establish his reputation.

Foster's name, however, was soon widely known,and in 1849 he was able to afford to give up book keeping, and marry the daughter of a Pittsburgh physician.

During the next five years, he earned a moderately good income from songwriting.

In 1851, a daughter Marion was born.

Foster wrote many of his best-known songs at this time - "Old Folks at Home"in 1851;"My Old Kentucky Home" in 1853, and "Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair" in 1854.

Difficulties in Foster's marriage began fairly soon.

He spent days locked in his room working on his songs.

Then he would rush out with his materials to the local music store, presumably to test out the songs on his friends.

Eventually,his wife and daughter left him.

Foster died alone in a rooming house in 1864.

However,there were very few typically American songs.

Foster provided many songs that expressed the life of nineteenth century U.S.A.

In a sense, Foster helped to create roots for American popular music.

翻译

斯蒂芬·福斯特?美国作曲家

在广播、电视、电影和唱片出现之前，娱乐通常是家庭或社区事务。
家里有人可以演奏乐器，或者邻里音乐家会在小型聚会上演奏。
此外，还有由音乐家、演员和小丑组成的巡回团体，他们会从一个城镇到另一个城镇。
在19世纪的美国，最流行的娱乐形式之一是吟游诗人表演。
直到1865年，南方各州仍然允许蓄奴。
即使在那之后，许多在大农场或种植园工作的黑人的生活也没有太大改变。
他们在地里干着繁重的体力劳动，对自己的生活几乎没有控制权，很少有时间和朋友们一起放松。
福斯特出生于1826年，他的许多歌曲都以这种情况为背景。
白人音乐家试图想象在种植园工作的黑人男女的感受。
他们会用他们认为黑人奴隶使用的方言或语言模式来写歌。
在这些歌曲中，黑人会谈论他们的苦难，恋爱，演奏音乐和跳舞，最后变老和死亡。
他们会演奏乐器，比如班卓琴，一种黑人经常演奏的四弦小吉他。
斯蒂芬·福斯特小时候，有时会被家里的黑人仆人奥利维亚·皮斯带到黑人教堂。
在这里，他第一次听到了启发他创作自己歌曲的旋律。
福斯特的歌曲中只有几首是直接取材于“黑人灵歌”，但他的许多歌曲都具有民歌的自然质朴和情感力量。
作为一个大家庭中最小的成员，福斯特在很小的时候就展示了他的音乐天赋。
斯蒂芬生长在一个充满活力的商业家庭，人们期望他成为一名商人。
有一段时间，他做过簿记员。
福斯特参加了吟游诗人的演出，并试图让表演者唱他的歌。
有时表演者会窃取他的歌曲，并以自己的名义发表。
版权法很弱，很少被执行，所以一些音乐出版商会直接出版一首歌，而不付钱给词曲作者。
由于福斯特希望以写歌为生，这就成了一个问题。
福斯特的第一首热门歌曲是《哦!苏珊娜》出版于1848年。
1849年，成千上万的美国人从美国各地前往西部的加利福尼亚淘金热，这个词受到了他们的欢迎。
不幸的是，作为一个不知名的词曲作者，福斯特没有从他早期的歌曲中获得任何收入。
他似乎把版权给了音乐出版商，只是为了树立自己的声誉。
然而，福斯特的名字很快就广为人知了，1849年，他放弃了簿记工作，娶了匹兹堡一位医生的女儿。
在接下来的五年里，他从写歌中获得了相当不错的收入。
1851年，女儿玛丽昂出生了。
福斯特在这个时期创作了许多他最著名的歌曲——1851年的《家里的老人》;1853年的《我的肯塔基老家》和1854年的《浅棕色头发的珍妮》。
福斯特的婚姻很快就出现了问题。
他一连几天把自己锁在房间里写歌。
然后，他会带着他的材料冲到当地的音乐商店，大概是为了在他的朋友们身上测试这些歌曲。
最终，他的妻子和女儿离开了他。
1864年，福斯特独自一人在一间公寓里去世。
然而，很少有典型的美国歌曲。
福斯特创作了许多表达19世纪美国生活的歌曲
从某种意义上说，福斯特为美国流行音乐奠定了基础。

Level 4-Day 67.Stephen Foster-American Songwriter

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Level 4-Day 67.Stephen Foster-American Songwriter