1. Tell me about something you learned about another culture this term that surprised or intrigued you.

AT the beginning of the semester we talked about basic terms that I didn’t know about such as: ametric, soundscape, and vocables. I came into this class not even knowing what a major or minor key was so it was interesting to me to learn some music terms. My favorite culture that we learned about was Native American Music. Like I have mentioned earlier, my mothers grandma was a full blooded Native American, so I liked to see what the music was like and the culture my mom experienced when she was younger. I was surprised to see that a lot of the songs used the same instruments like a shaker, drums, and vocables, but all the songs sounded different to me.

2. Tell me about something that you realized about your own culture through our discussions.

Knowing more about other cultures and their music, I noticed that American music is more about lyrics and the talent of the performer. Other cultures move there voices up and down a lot more which in my opinion takes more talent. American music also has boring instruments compared to other countries.

3. Tell me about something that this course has inspired you to learn more about.

I cant think of anything specific that inspires me. I have never been out of the country, so if I ever do I think I wouldn’t just want to know about the culture, but I also may want to look into their music before I go. I think it would be easiest to connect with other people in different countries if I knew about their music. Music brings people together and is an interesting conversation starter.

I began this blog post by just searching southeast Asia music. I was listening to one of the songs and it sounded kind of old. It started by just a flute sound. Once the singing began the only instrument I could hear was something that sounded like a xylophone.

After listening to a little of this video I wanted to know what instruments were used in southeast Asia. I learned about this cool instrument played in southeast Asia called the Khim. The Khim is a type of instrument called a dulcimer. A dulcimer is a type of instruments that have strings in a box that is usually trapezoid shaped. The strings get played by a handheld hammer. The Khim is from Thialand and Cambodia. The trapezoid shaped box is made of wood and the strings are brass. Their are 14 groups of strings in the Khim, and each group has 3 strings. The Khim has a total of 42 strings

I also found anther instruments called the Khene. This looks like a flute instrument. This is known to be one of the most interesting instruments played in southeast Asia. Its made out of silver or brass. This instrument is also known to be related to the western free reed instrument.

As I mentioned earlier in the first video, I noticed a sound that sounded like a xylophone. I found an instrument that is played in southeast Asia that is like a xylophone, and its a called a Gambang Kayu. Kayu is actually a type of wood that’s used to make a Gambang. A Gambang has wooden bars and is played just like a xylophone.

I did an interview with my mother to talked about her music style growing up and her music taste now.

Lucy: How did you listen to music? What was the technology like? How bad were 8-track tapes, really?

Mom: I had a stereo system that played 8- track tapes. My parents also had a track player in the car. I personally listened to music on my transistor radio. It was about the size of a dollar bill but bigger. I constantly had to put batteries in it. It had an antenna and eventually I got a boombox.

Lucy: What sort of music was listened to in your home?

Mom: The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Carpenters, James Taylor, and Elton John. Oh, and the Bee Gees!

Lucy: What did your parents think about the music you liked?

Mom: In high school, they HATED the music I listened to, because it had swear words. I listened to Guns and Roses, Arrow Smith, Montley Creu, and John Cougar. I mostly listened to guy bands.

Lucy: Have you been to live performances? What was that like?

Mom: OMG I been to a TON of concerts. It was great.

Lucy: Were you involved in music at your church? What was it like?

Mom: Yes, in high school I was in a youth group and we did musicals. We went to other churches and preformed. I wasn’t in the choir though, just musicals.

Lucy: Can you read music?

Mom: I know noted, because I took Music Theory, so I can read it but I cant play it.

Lucy: Did you want your kids to be involved in music? Did you make them take lessons?

Mom: I wanted them to enjoy music. We had a lot of musical interments in our home, but I never pressured them to take lessons.

To bring things to a conclusion, we love music in my house, but we aren’t necessarily musically gifted. We love to go to concerts and listen to music though. My oldest sister as William Syndrome, so she loves music and enjoys playing the drums. For those of you who don’t know what William Syndrome is, it’s a disability my sister was born with, and people with William Syndrome love music. They are touched by music and really dislike music played in minor chords. People with William Syndrome have a sense of rhythm, ability to remember lyrics and hearing sensitivity. Having music in our house was a must. My sister is constantly listen to music and will obsess over certain artist for a couple of years before she moves on to some other artist. Currently my sister, Lauren, is obsessing over Jon Bon Jovi. We cant go a full week with out listening to Livin on a Prayer. Got to love it. (:

In class when we first started talking about the Arab World, we mentioned religion. I was just looking up general Islamic places in India and I found that merchandises such as spices, gold and African goods were being traded from the Arab World to India. As boats sailed to the west coast of India, Arad’s started converting to Islam, and shared their religion to India. I thought it was interesting that religion was being spread just by trading goods from one area to another. I just didn’t think things like that would be as common now a days.

With Arab music I thought it would be easiest to talk about a specific instrument that is typically used in Arab songs. We went over a lot of them in class such as an Oud and a Takht. I found another instrument I don’t think we covered in class and its called a Daff. this is one of the percussion instruments. A Daff is a drum that comes in typically two different sizes, small (12 inch diameter) and large (24 inch diameter). The frame is made out of wood, and what you tap on is made out of goat or deer skin. The modern Daff is made out of plastic and is able to be tuned. I thought it was interesting that make modernized versions of this ancient drum. I doesn’t seem like it would be the same to me because I would think that animal skin would sound a lot different than a plastic skin.

As I move onto India I feel like I didn’t get a clear definition of bhakti yoga. I just thought it meant that you were improving your karma, but when I looked more into it I discovered more. I now see that this is the actually action of yoga, yoga of devotion. Bhakti comes from the root word bhaj which means to adore or worship God. Today, many westerners with do bhakti in white robes. They use bhakti yoga to connect more with their self and or spirit. Many people do this in a different way depending on their definition of worshipping. I find it interesting that westerners take so much time out of their day to do yoga. In America today, I feel like their isn’t too many people that would take more than an hour out of their day to do yoga. I never would of thought that yoga could be a way to worship, but in India bhakti yoga is known to be the path of devotion.

When I think about Black America and how brutal it was in the past I feel disturbed. These humans that lived in America legally didn’t get the same opportunities and freedoms as other white Americans. They were unable to get the simplest things like education. I dug deeper into this and found that
Lincoln University in Pennsylvania was the first university to provide a higher education for African Americans. It took years to allow something like this to happen. Now there are 104 historically Black colleges. I think America has grown a lot; it’s hard for me to even imagine how segregated America was in the past. If America wouldn’t have changed, people like Drake, Cardi B, and NBA Youngboy wouldn’t have had the opportunities they have today in terms of music. I believe the mot legendary music artist are African American. Michael Jackson as another example. Imagine never hearing Thriller. Crazy. I think it’s cool how much has changed and the opportunities African Americans have in America today.

I looked more into Black America and was curious to see the who was responsible for allowing African American opportunities in America. Everyone would assume that it was Martin Luther King Jr. which I think he played a huge part, but a lot of others took part in culturizing African Americans in America. I found a site with a video that I wish I could share, but it talked about how in 1961 Margaret and Charles Burroughs started a museum in their living room. African Americans would bring in items that represented their culture in Africa to the museum, so others could learn. The museum was called The DuSable Museum of African American History. This video is a little long, but if you skip through some of it you can learn about this incredible museum.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0r9cDQWIC0

A fun things I learned about Latin America is that the Amazon covers seven countries. The countries include Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Brazil, Venezuela and Guyana. I liked seeing this fact, because we talked about Ecuador in class and talked about how this country is in poverty and speaks Spanish.

Ecuador to me seems like a beautiful place, but it does seem like it wouldn’t have much to offer considering that it doesn’t have a lot of large cities.

When I first began reading the assignment I was I little thrown off. The only instrument I could think of at the time was a guitar. I thought it was more of a “masculine” instrument, but then I thought about Taylor Swift and Miley Cyrus who also play the guitar very well. As I kept reading, I saw the questions about choir and music and what different people listen to on the radio.

In middle school I was required to take some sort of music class, so I took choir. The majority of the girls were sopranos. This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone considering that a soprano has the job of singing in the highest pitch. Being in middle school only a select few boys could reach the low notes of a base. Most of the boys were in the alto section with some of the girls as well. I was an alto because I didn’t like to sing and wasn’t too good at it, so my stubborn middle school self talked the lyrics and sometimes would just move my mouth and act like I was singing.

Moving on to the other thing that was said about the radio and what different people listen to. When I thought about this I was thinking about different genres and what guys listen to over what girls listen to. The guys that I hang out with typically listen to Hip Hop and Rap. They listen to artist like NBA Youngboy, Trippe Red, and Lil Baby. Unfortunately, I don’t think a lot of girls listen to the same genre as guys do. Don’t get me wrong there are some girls out there that can hang with the guys and listen to their music, but majority of the girls I hang out with listen to country or pop. They tend to listen to artist like Noah Cyrus, Ariana Grade, and Ella Mai.

Overall I believe girls and guys music experiences are different. It maybe a stereotypical topic, but I think its just how society is. I’m not saying girls can’t play the drums and guys can’t play the piano, but I feel like guys would rather hit something rather that poke something.

when we were talking about the Native Americans and there culture, I wrote down a couple things. I wrote about the drums and how lots of people play them at the same time like a heartbeat, how people wore shakers, and how they mimicked animals through songs and dance. I found it interesting that they mimicked animals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0isMbnDjbo&t=14s

It wasn’t until I saw this video till I realized that they didn’t necessarily mimic animals through actions or their voices, but more by the way the music and dance made them feel. they had animal guides that they liked to represent. I did some video watching and it was talking about how the Native American belief isn’t understandable. They make their own prayers so everyone has a different way of expressing themselves.

I also wrote things down from class about Sub- Saharan African. I wrote things like: their music takes place outside of artistic event, rhythm is extremely complex, and that music is very socially participatory. I found a long tread of Sub- Saharan African music on YouTube and if you just watch each video for a little amount of time you will see children and hear the complex rhythms on the drums and such fourth.

I also wrote some things down about the instruments as well. I wrote about the most common instrument used, which is the drum. There’s the Djembe drum and the Agbekor drum that we talked about. The Djembe drum was the drum that was shown in the video, and its made of trees. We didn’t talk much about the other drum, we just know its either blue or green with a red stripe.

In this video, there are many people dancing and singing. toward the end of the video you can see the men playing the drums. Everyone seems to be having a great time.

All my life I being going to church. I originally started out attending a small Christian church that my grandpa preached at. Looking back now I see how different this church was. The majority of the time was spent worshiping and listening to music. This wasn’t an ordinary church. Everyone was up and dancing and as a child I loved running around dancing and waving the big flags they had. Unfortunately, the pastor of the church, my grandpa, was having an affair wit another women he met on a mission trip. There was a lot of family drama that occurred during this time of the divorce process. While that was happening we began to steer clear from the church. It was years before we started going back to church.

My family and I eventually found a different church to attend. This church was tons different and I wasn’t sure if I liked it. This church was so big and so many people were there that I didn’t know. They played songs I’ve never heard. It wasn’t until I started going to this new church that I realized how different my old church was. The music wasn’t as energetic and people didn’t dance like they did at my old church. It was a difficult adjustment, but the new church taught me a lot that I didn’t know.

I believe the music that was played at my old church was used for worshiping purposed where people could express their feelings for God more openly. The new church that I went too, the music was more used for informative purposes. People view the music purpose in church a different way I believe and some may like the traditional informative lyrics. I enjoy the learning aspect of the new church I attend, by I really enjoyed worship at my old church. I loved to see how the music spoke to different people. Some people would be in tears by the songs and would be laying at the edge of the stage listening to Gods word.

My aunt and uncle at my old church was apart of the worship team and sang songs from morning star. They traveled and would go see them and learn these songs. This one is my favorite. Even though I haven’t been to that church in a long time this song has always stuck with me.

Surprisingly, I haven’t experienced too much culture in the terms of music. My great grandpa was a full Native American and my mother would occasionally bring up some cultured traditions, but nothing in terms of music. Although I believe people mow a days aren’t educated with cultured music, I know in elementary school, middle school, or high school they probably had to experiment with a different language. In that process they may had been educated through songs.

In elementary school, I learned some basic Spanish. As a child the best way to learn, in my opinion, is through songs to help memorize such things. Little songs were made up by the teacher to help learn the alphabet or items of clothing. In high school, I took French. I got more in depth with the culture of France and would occasionally hear songs in class.

Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be too much help to someone who would want to talk about cultured music.