Latin America and African-American Music Cool Stuff Blog 2

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 you really want to get fancy, here's one made out of bamboo below. 

 

My next topic for the blog is the different dances/music that are involved in South America. Growing up I loveddddd watching tango dance videos. I remember dancing in front of the television to “preform” for my family thinking I was a great tango dancer…. LOL

So, I instead of looking up the Tango, I wanted to look more into folklore. What I found is that there are a ton of folklore songs…..the Armadillo Song, Chupacabra Rampage, Guacho Gil, and more. Naturally, I wanted to know more about the Armadillo song! The lyrics describe the Armadillo wishing he could sing. The armadillo would listen to many other animals/insects sing. So, the armadillo found himself wandering to a wizard who ended up turning his shell into an instrument…. Which is neat since we saw this instrument in class! The Charango! Its neat that there is a folklore to tell how this instrument was brought about.

Also, here's the link to the Armadillo song! 

https://americanfolklore.net/folklore/2010/07/the_armadillos_song.html

My last topic is for African American music. I wanted to stick with my dancing theme, so I decided to look more into the Agbekor. This is also known as a “great oath.” This song was created for warriors before they would enter the battlefield. Now the dance is used for more social purposes and gatherings. Interestingly enough, this dance is mainly performed by the Fon and Ewe tribes in West Africa. Also, a lot of the times for this dance, the main male carrying the song will wear red across his chest. Sadly, I could not find much information on why this is, but thought it was a neat tradition to carry on.