Cool Stuff & Wrap up

PART I
This is a video I found on youtube of a man playing the sheng on the street in London. His playing is accompanied by a more modern recording of other instruments, which is something we have encountered more than once in this class.


This second vidoe is of two girls from the Kombai tribe in Papau New Guinia, which is not a culture we studied in class. However, I ran across this video and found it interesting. They are singing while they chop at a sago tree. It reminds me of a "whistle while you work."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FVIbUIbvPM

This last video is of a choir singing the Japanese folk song, Sakura. It's a traditional folk song about cherry blossoms. In class we heard an instrumental version of it. There are a lot of choral arrangements of this song that are very beautiful.


PART II
1. I thought it was very interesting how some cultures learn music by route. I found the Indian tabla players the most interesting. They were able to speak the syllables that coordinated with certain sounds on the drum just as fast as they could play them.
2. During my time in this class I realized that our culture is accustomed to a certain type of music. Since, we are used to hearing music a certain way, when we hear music of other cultures we might think it's ugly or unpleasant. However, the cultures to which the music belongs don't hear it that way and may think our music is unpleasant. It's interesting to think about the world from other points of veiw.
3. I have always wanted to learn more about the world's religions. This class definately sparked that interest again and I hope to persue learning more about different religions and how they may influence other cultures/people.

The first person to introduce me to Indian music was a professor at Stetson University and well known satur player, Nandu Muley. This is a video of him playing the satur along with some electronic music by Panaiotis at Stetson University in September 2009. I think it is a good example of two seperate musical cultures combining to create something beautiful. You can also see the tabla sitting to the side.


I found this second video while searching for information about tabla. It is the first in a series of video tabla lessons. Very cool!


I thought it was interesting that music is not allowed to be associated with religiona in the muslim world, but the recitations of the qur'an are so musical. When I searched in youtube for qur'an recitations, one popped up that said "World's best Quran Recitation." The video was taken at the International Quran Competitions in 2006. This man won first prize. I always find it ammusing when something or someone claims to be the world's best at something. So, let's hear what that sounds like! :)

Music & Gender

The connection between music and gender can be complicated. In the past in western classical operas, women were not allowed to play roles. Men would be castrated in order to be able to sing the roles of women. There are no longer castrato, but there are countertenors, which are men who sing in their falsetto and they may sing women's songs and roles. There are also pants roles, which is a role in which a woman sings a men's role, usually a young man's role. Since I am a mezzo-soprano I have sang many songs written for a male to sing. For example, the last aria I learned was Che faro senza Euridice from Gluck's famous opera, Orfeo ed Euridice. In the aria the male, Orfeo, mourns the death of his wife, Euridice. To me, the gender lines are very blurred in the world of western opera.

In my experience from middle and high school, there are certain associations made between certain instruments or voice parts and femininity or masculinity. Most girls wanted to play a melodic instrument like the flute, or clarinet. If a girl wanted to play something else like the tuba or percussion, her peers would think it was weird. If a boy wanted to play the flute, that would be considered weird by his peers. In the same way, higher voice parts were more desired by the girls in choir, and lower voice parts were more desired by the boys/young men in choir.

Also in this age group, certain songs were admittedly listened to by the girls, and certain songs by the boys. Girls most commonly listened to love songs and boy bands like Hanson and N'Sync. It was more common for boys to listen to hip hop and rap. I think this is because those certain types of music convey the characteristics that the media deems to be either feminine or masculine.

Cool Stuff II

This is a video of a group called "Los Caracuaros." They are a musical group that plays traditional Mexican music from th Michoacan region. It's from a performance in 2005 at the Culturas Populares Music of Coyoacan in Mexico City. There is a violin, string bass, and guitar.



This is a video of a lecture about the use of African rhythms in Latin American music, specifically Brazillian music. It's very interesting!



This is a short but awesome video of a man playing the pan flute and charango!

Music & Religion

In every culture that I know of there is a serious link between music and spirituality. Of course there are a few exceptions, including religions that completely reject music. Music is often used in religion as a way to worship or pay respect to the god(s). Many forms of traditional music are adapted to fit religious purposes or have descended from religious music. Music is also often times composed for the purpose of religion. For example, Johann Sebastian Bach wrote most of his music for the Lutheran church. The main themes found in religious music are praise, worship, penitence, and lament. Most religious music in our culture is vocal music, which involves singing from either a whole congregation or small group. A lot of religious music in our culture is accompanied by instruments. Some denominations, however, prefer unaccompanied singing. In churches that I have visited the most common accompaniment instruments are the piano and organ. I've also seen a "worship leader" playing a guitar while singing. In some churches there is an entire band with drums, guitars, bass, keyboard, etc. It all depends on the type of church and their musical preference. The most recent church I visited was the one my dad goes to in Franklin, TN. It's just south of Nashville, so there are a lot of musicians who live there, which may explain the music scene at this church. The worship portions of the service were led by a contemporary christian band, and they sang contemporary christian songs instead of traditional hymns. In my opinion, the religious music of our culture is more effected by the popular music of our culture than vice versa.

Cool Stuff :)

This is a song I found on the Library of Congress' website. It's an Omaha Indian love song. It's called the "Bice'waa" song. It's sang generally in the early morning when the lover is waiting for the girl to leave her tent and go to the spring.

http://memory.loc.gov/afc/afcomaha/audio/20313/2031302a.mp3

This website offers an internet radio station that plays native music 24/7, CDs of native and contemporary Native American music, information about drums, and music videos. It also has free video footage of the Gathering of Nations Powwows.

http://www.gatheringofnations.com/

This is a video of several girls singing traditional Ghana songs and dancing in the middle of a group of people. They look like they are having a lot of fun and the crowd seems to enjoy it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41F9jpWmS4U

Music and My Family

My family is not a very musical one, but like most people they at least listen to it. My maternal grandparents listen to country music. Some of their favorites are Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash. I remember from my early childhood my paternal grandparents listening to and singing along with Mexican music, but not since my grandfather died. Now I mostly hear my grandmother and her new husband listening to classic rock, which I contribute to the fact that her new husband was a drummer in a rock band in his younger years. My mother listens to anything on the radio that is popular at the time, even if she doesn't know what the lyrics mean. I'm not sure what she grew up listening to, but I know she played the trumpet in the high school band. My father also listens to a lot of classic rock, as well as contemporary christian music. He sang in his high school choir. My sister and I have never had the same taste in anything until now, especially music. I'm convinced that her previous taste in music was determined by whatever I didn't like. Now that we have both been away at college for a few years, whenever we come home we discover we like the same bands. I listen to a little bit of everything. I mostly listen to alternative and rock music, but also electronica, country, pop, and classical. I'm sure there is more than one genre I am forgetting to mention.

My Musical Autobiography

The beginning of my musical life, as told by my mother, occurred when I was a toddler and went around singing Billy Ray Cyrus's "Achy Breaky Heart" to anyone and everyone that would listen. Needless to say, I grew up listening to and loving country music. As a child when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always answered "a country singer" without hesitation. However, country music was not the extent of my musical exposure as a child. I am half Mexican, and my grandparents did their best to expose me to that part of my culture whenever I was with them. In addition to the delicious food and colorful sombreros hanging on the wall, they also exposed me to Mexican music. I can still hear my grandfather singing along to the music, "ai, ai, ai, ai...," and the off-tune singing of my grandmother as she sang along to the music while cooking.

In elementary school my best friend, Samantha, and I met after school almost everyday to sing the latest hit songs into her karaoke machine and eventually began writing simple songs together. In fifth grade, I was finally old enough to be in the elementary school choir, and Samantha moved away. Before she moved away we wrote a very simple song together called "It's a Memory" which expressed our friendship and feelings about her leaving. The school's music teacher, Mr. Miller, put the song on paper for us and taught it to the rest of the choir, and we sang the song in the choir concert at the end of the year without Samantha. Also in the concert, we wore tye-die shirts and sang a variety of songs from the 60's and 70's, which is where my love of the song, "Puff the Magic Dragon" was born. In the rest of my time in several different choirs over the past 10 years, I have sang a few African call and response songs, and several African American spirituals.

During my time at Stetson University I took a class called Music Culture. In this class, we explored the music of several different cultures. The part of the class that had the biggest impact on me was the section on Indian music. An Indian musician came to class and played the drums and sang for us. This is when I fell in love with Indian music, and why my ipod has more Indian music than the average 21 year old girl raised in Nashville, TN.

I love learning about other cultures, and am ashamed to say that this is the extent of my contact with music of other cultures. I look forward to learning about and experiencing the music of this class.