Diverse Cultures and Their Musics

1. Tell me about something you learned about another culture this term that really surprised or intrigued you. I really enjoyed learning about the communal drum in Native American culture. For Western musicians, instruments are viewed as such a personal and individualistic thing. If practice room 216 is taken I am not happy about it. I think this contrast in Native American culture is so interesting, especially since communal instruments have shown up in so few other cultures that we have studied. The only similar thing I can remember is the shared mallet instruments in gamelan music. Also, four hands piano. The concept of a shared instrument takes communing through music to a whole other level, and I just think it's so interesting how the Native American tendency to share instruments replicates their very communal society.   2. Tell me about something that you realized about your  own  culture through our discussions. The way that we as Western musi...

Kecak Dance History In class, I was really intrigued by the kecak dance that we watched a video of. I was curious about its history, so I decided to do some research on it. I assumed that it was an ancient tradition, but it actually didn't begin until the 1930s. A musician and painter named Walter Spies was traveling in Bali and became fascinated with the culture. He collaborated with Indonesian dancer Wayan Limbak to make what is today the kecak dance. Spies was inspired by a different, and much older, traditional Balinese dance involving young, female dancers who are believed to be in a trance-like state due to a spirit entering them. It is accompanied by male chorus. Though the kecak dance was developed for Western audiences, it still definitely holds depth and meaning. It is mesmerizing to watch the dance, and I imagine it must be such a powerful experience to be a part of. Below is a video of a kecak dance from a documentary as well as a video of a women's group. Women d...

The following interview is with my former band director, Jonas Nix. He was my director for seven years and we are very close. He directs the concert, marching, and jazz bands at North Central High School. When he began working at the North Central schools around 10 years ago, the band program was basically nonexistent. This year, the marching band, which has been in operation for five years, won 2nd at state. This interview mainly focuses on his relationship with band throughout his life. My questions are in bold and clarifications are provided in brackets. What is your first memory of music? So, three things stick out from when I was a really little kid. I don’t know how early they are or what order they came in, but the first one was how much I loved watching Disney movies – especially for the music. Whenever we were in the car with my parents they would play Disney movie music and my mom, who was a singer, would sing. I loved music from The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Be...

Koili Devi, Nepali Singer: Koili Devi was the first female Nepali singer and composer. She is known for her very sweet and melodic voice. Devi emerged via the radio in the 20th century as part of the first generation of professional Nepali singers. She was incredibly prolific, and received several prestigious Nepali awards during her career. In reading about her, it initially surprised me that a woman was able to emerge as a strong figure in a very new Nepali music industry, but then I remembered how revered musical women are in Indian culture. Since India is so close to Nepal, the same mindset is probably present. I remember learning in class how there is a strong tradition of respected female music teachers and performers in India. Koili Devi doesn't seem to be well known on an international level. I think this is probably because Nepal is still a developing country and doesn't currently hold a great deal of international influence. The video below is Devi singing Aja Ko D...

Music of the Inca Empire: In class, we learned a lot about the music of post-colonial South America and how the musical traditions of native peoples, Spaniards, and Africans blended. I was curious to know more about what music was like around modern-day Ecuador before the Spaniards arrived in the 16th century. The instruments used by those living in the Inca Empire were primarily percussion and wind instruments. Strings were introduced later by foreigners. My favorite instrument I have learned about is the pututo. It is a large seashell used for announcing arrival of people and commencement of events. This is very much like the brass horns that were being used in other parts of the world. Though these indigenous people did not yet have access to brass, they found a way to produce the same result with a very different medium. There must be a very special technique involved in getting a substantial sound out of a pututo. I definitely couldn't pick one up and make any sort of sound...

My earliest experience with making music was in a children’s choir throughout elementary school. In that setting, there were no ideas at all about the role of boys or girl because, as children, we all sang the same part. In fourth grade, I began to play the piano. I remember that my teacher had very few male students, but piano was never viewed as a “girl’s instrument.” My teacher was a man and everything I played was written by men. Additionally, though it was very common for girls to learn piano in the 20 th century, the pianists who were most present in the general public awareness of the time (Rubinstein, Horowitz, Rachmaninoff, etc) were all men. Still, I never felt that I shouldn’t play piano because I am a girl. In sixth grade, I began to play the clarinet in band. There were perhaps some lingering ideas about how it was a bit funny for a boy to play the flute or for a girl to play the tuba, but the idea was never present within the classroom that they shouldn’t be ...

Talking Drum/Luna Drum: I was really intrigued by the story Dr. Weeks told in his presentation about the musicians who recited tribal genealogy with their drums alone. I looked more into it, and it's done with the Luna drum that we learned about in class. It is also know as a talking drum, and the music is used for storytelling and other forms of communication. The drum "talks" by combining pitch and rhythm to match the tonal nature of many West African languages. In reading, I found out that the wood for the drum is only taken from trees that grow along roads. This is because these trees have grown up to the sounds of passerby conversation, and thus are better suited to be made into talking drums. Sometimes music is referred to as a "language," and I'd say this is the most overt instance I've seen of music really exhibiting language-like properties. The video below does a good job of showing how talking drum players use their instruments to convey wh...

Music was an ever-present part of my childhood in the Presbyterian church. Though I am no longer religious, the church provided a valuable community in which I learned so much about music. In church services, music was approached in a relatively traditional way. The choir would sing hymns with the congregation as well as prepare a work called an anthem which they sang alone. The majority of the time, the only instrumental accompaniment was the organ. We sang very little modern music; it was a very traditional service. In the service, the music served different purposes depending on where it fell in the predetermined program. There were hymns for collective worship of God as well as solo organ or piano music. This instrumental music always opened and closed the service. It was also used during the service to aid in “opening hearts and minds” for the worship of God. This is one of my favorite parts of the service. How often do we pause, listen, and introspect? I think that music as...

In 9 th and 10 th grade, I had a Spanish teacher who was from Spain. He was a wonderful teacher, and often we would learn by listening to music in Spanish. He would hand us the lyrics, we would listen to the song, and then try to translate it. One day, he played a song called “Ni tú ni nadie” by Alaska y Dinarama. It was a song massively popular in Spain after it was released in 1984. The whole class loved it, and we began to ask to listen to it every day. He began to regret ever showing us as he’d already heard it countless times in his life. Another song I remember listening to for the first time in that class was “Poco antes de que den las diez” by Joan Manuel Serrat. Having been provided a basis in class, I began to seek out other artists who made music in Spanish. It was rare for me to be engaged artistically in an academic class while in high school, and this proved to be a really effective way for me to learn. My best friend is really into French language and culture, and...