Music and Diverse Cultures Blog

Here are my answers to the four questions! I hope you all learned as much as I did, especially for someone who knows hardly anything about music! 1. I learned a ton of different things about different cultures this semester, but I must say the gum leaf in Australia was really the cherry on top! Also, I really enjoyed learning about the culture and religion in India from the presentation by Dr. Weeks! I really felt as if I was there experiencing the trips with him. The information he had was so informative about his travels because he was able to not only tell us about the music that was played but how the people lived, what they were experiencing, what kind of government was there, etc. I definitely learned a lot from his presentations. 2. I will be honest, I had not given much thought into the Western culture of our music. However, it was so neat to see and learn how much music has been influenced by hundreds of different cultures around us. When I've looked at a Guitar, I had...

To start off this last cool stuff blog post, I wanted to visit Japan. My step-brother actually just went to Japan a couple of months ago and posted several pictures along his journey, so I naturally wanted to find out what kind of music he probably encountered while visiting. The first instrument I came across is a traditional instrument known as the Shakuhachi, which is similar to what we would know as a flute. This flute like instrument is played a lot by Zen Buddhist. The Zen Buddhist use this for meditation. While using this particular instrument for meditation, it is called a  ‘suizen’ (吹禅). The neatest aspect about this instrument is that 1) it is traditionally made out of bamboo and 2) it was not traditionally done for public performance, only meditation/personal enlightenment! If you were to visit Japan now and visit a monastery, it would not be uncommon to see the monks preform a ‘suizen’ (吹禅). After hearing this video, I believe I have found my new meditation music. ...

 For this blog, I decided to interview my dad, he was born in the 70s. I’ve known a few of his music stories and what he liked because we enjoy a lot of the same music, and I think that’s how we really connect. Honestly, a lot of the questions he answered really surprised me, in a good way. He played the drums, seen Reba in concert, and a lot more. It’s also really neat to hear him talk about music and how its inspired him too because its also a therapy for me as well, especially when you find the right song for the right day. Music can have such a powerful impact on someone so it’s neat to see how it impacts him and his life as well. Especially since he is an army veteran, I’m sure he has some songs that really resonate with what he has been through. I think it is safe to say that I have a rockin’ dad. So, here’s the transcript. I was not at home, so this was done through a phone interview. The transcript is mostly his words, verbatim! And a few mind thoughts from me as I wa...

All About The People So, I took Dr. Vaneman's advice and decided to look into this Andy Prince of Persian Pop. And WOW. I found a lot. First off, his name is Andranik Madadian. He's from Iran and traveled to Los Angeles 40 years ago to preform rock music. Since then he has earned a star on the Hollywood walk of fame.....that is awesome. Living in Iran and trying to become a successful musician was really tough for his family at first. His dad had to take out a loan to pay for Andy's first guitar this being at the time that the family didn't even have running water. I think this puts into perspective how important music can play in a persons life and how much parents have faith in their children's talents. Also, at the time in Iran, the type of music that Andy wanted to play was not allowed. In this short documentary, he mentioned that they would sneak his recordings into Iran just so they could hear his music. People would also buy a ticket with the little money...

I am particularly excited about this Cool Stuff blog because I have some fun ties to both places. In a previous blog, I mentioned that my childhood best friend’s (Faith) sister (Hannah) played the drum. Well this same family loved to do mission work and travel to South America.   When Faith was really young, the whole family moved to Guatemala for over a year. They’ve also been to Peru, Colombia, and several other places for missions. I remember listening to all their stories when we were younger. Many of those stories consisted of music and instruments they used when they were traveling. One of my favorite instruments to play with was the rain shaker they had brought back with them. I remember thinking that was the neatest “toy” to play with. Believe it or not, this was used a lot in their music when they would preform with different villages. Here’s a short video if you’d like to learn to make and play a rain shaker, because I believe we all need one in our lives!! If y...

To be completely transparent, growing up no one in my family played any instruments around me, so from a family view, I do not have any interesting stories about music and gender. My grandmother did have a piano in her house, but she nor anyone else ever played it. The times that I heard music were in church, radio, or on the television.  However, I do remember a lot about how music and gender were viewed in the small Baptist church setting that I grew up in. At my previous church that I attended when I was much younger, there was always the same woman who played the piano. No one....seriously no one, was allowed to play it but her. She was always at church playing for Sunday service, funerals, Christmas programs, and everything else in between. Sometimes we would have a small choir of about 5-10 people, and usually they would also be all female. There was not a band or even a guitar. So, growing up music to me mainly came from women or some outside source. Later in life when m...

For my first cool stuff blog post, I wanted to research Native American music to see if there were any crosses with the traditional Irish Celtic music. I am very much from Irish descent in my family and just a very small bit of Native American on my grandfather’s side, so naturally I wanted to see what could possibly be out there to bring the two sides together! Surprisingly enough, I found a video of a Traditional Native American playing the violin to celebrate the “Tatanka,” known as the Great Bison. However, this video also incorporated Celtic music themes mainly just to fuse the two types of music together. Below is the video! The second concept I was interested in learning more about was how Native Americans make their various instruments.   In history, we have learned that when an animal was killed, nothing was wasted. So, It is neat to find out exactly what was used to make beautiful music!             ...

My music and religion background are mainly Christian. When I was younger, I attended Mount Lebanon Baptist church. This church was very small, a congregation of about 75 adults. When I attended this church, the music was all done from hymnals, no band or choir. The music just came from the pastor, pianist, and the congregation. Simple, but very beautiful when all the voices came together from the crowd. When my mother met my now stepfather, we moved churches and joined his church family: Praise Cathedral Church of God. This church is Pentecostal, so it was a huge change from my quiet little Baptist church. This church now has about 2,000+ persons in a service. However, this church believes heavily in the power of worship. For music, we have a large choir of 100+ including an orchestra. The worship is my favorite part. At Praise, the style of music changes throughout the sermon and varies Sunday to Sunday. Some days the choir will sing older hymnal songs, other days the men/women qua...

Throughout my life, I have had music and culture experiences through travel and close family friends. I have had the opportunity to travel to Chicago, California, and New York. The music I remember the most from the trips to each state were the musicians preforming on the streets. In California, there was a lot of jazz, in Chicago, the music was mostly singing and hip hop, and in New York, I experienced street performers in China town and Time Square. China Town was very interesting, especially when you could tell the music was done for something symbolic. Often there would be a dancing animal, like a dragon, to convey a meaning to the music being played. The music mostly consisted of aeropones being played in the street. Also, in Time Square, I attended Paramour: A Cirque Du Soleil Musical. The theme of the show was for a young man to choose between love and art. The music paired with the theater was one thing I will never forget. The music flowed with the characters and told the sto...