Wrap it Up

1. What is something you learned about another culture this term that surprised or intrigued you?

2. What is something that you realized about your own culture through our discussions?

3. What is something that this course has inspired you to learn more about?

   First off, I want to say of the week and a half of class I attended I really enjoyed it. I wish that I had been able to participate in class more. With that being said, I spent most of my January in Argentina studying Astor Piazzolla, Alberto Ginastera, and the history of tango.

   Something I learned this term about another culture that surprised me is that there are so many forms of tango. My initial knowledge of tango was of the very sexy tango and then the ballroom, formal tango. Both of these tangos are the more exported tangos that you find in the United States. In Argentina, however, there are many different types of tango. There is the tango you find in the country, the tango of the city, the tango influenced by African percussion, etc., etc. This became blatantly obvious to me when we took two tango lessons on our trip. Our first tango lesson took place in Palermo and our second tango lesson took place in Mar del Plata. In these two cities of Buenos Aires, Argentina, the techniques the teachers used and the steps we learned were similar but quite different as well.

On my personal blog, I will be giving more information about our trip to Argentina if you are interested. http://chaiandjackieo.blogspot.com/

    What was the biggest realization for me of my own culture was how much of the quintessential "melting pot" took place in what we consider our music. So much of our music is pulled from different cultures, both intentionally and unintentionally. Like the class example of Paul Simon's album "Under African Skies," American pop music uses vocables, percussive patterns, and instruments that are traditionally used in African, Eastern Asian, and Latin cultures. I also realized how much music from other cultures I had actually been in contact with. When initially writing my musical autobiography, I had such a hard time trying to think of moments when I had heard music from other cultures. Disney movies, tv shows, restaurants, and many other places and activities that we do almost every day provide chances us for to become more culturally diverse, it's just whether we pay attention or not.

   I think what I am most excited about taking away from this class is to see how I can participate in these different cultures' music on the clarinet. The clarinet is my primary instrument and is most often thought of as either a Western classical instrument or occasional jazz instrument. Most of my study on the instrument has been with Western classical music and so I would love to find music and opportunities for me to play the clarinet in different styles. Also I am playing a tango piece with Dr. Flynn on my junior recital, so come listen! :)

Now I will leave you with a video of a rather attractive Argentine man, Agustin Luna, playing "Adios Nonino" by Piazzolla. (who we met--you are allowed to be jealous)

 

 



Cool Stuff No. 3

My first cool thing is Indian in nature but actually comes from an American made movie. I love the movie "Eat Pray Love" with Julia Roberts. If you haven't seen it or read the book by Elizabeth Gilbert, I recommend it. This video is off the soundtrack of the movie. Not to spoil anything (I mean if you read the back of the book or DVD case it will tell you this), Elizabeth Gilbert visits Italy, India, and Indonesia. The song I have picked is from when Elizabeth Gilbert was in India. The song is performed by Uppalapu Shrinivas, a famous Indian mandolin player. While the mandolin is a rather modern instrument, U. Shrinivas is a student of the Carnatic musical tradition of Southern India and so his music still has a very traditional sound. Though I am not a very good meditator I really enjoy this kind of music.

My second video of cool stuff today is a gamelan group playing jazz. The gamelan originating from Indonesian culture (Java and Bali). In this video a group from the University of MARA Institute of Technology is playing a jazz piece on gamelan. I thought this video was cool because it combines an instrument that has a very Eastern tone with jazz (which tonally is very Western). Also I thought it was cool that this art form is being preserved at the university level through student participation. As we have discussed with other cultures it is essential to have the younger generations on board in order for a culture or aspect to survive the test of time.

Since I am doing these blogs early I'm not really sure if this instrument is covered in class. This video is "Fisherman's Song at Dusk," played on the Chinese guzheng or zither. This instrument is an 18 plus stringed instrument with moveable bridges that is plucked. It is very cool to watch the performer in this video especially when she bends pitches, etc. The bending of pitches and slides that are found throughout this video is common of eastern cultures and their music. Hope you enjoy.

Music and Family

I was so excited to do this blog! The picture above is my mom, Donna Spitzer, and myself during winter break this year. My mom is one of my best friends. We have grown so close over the past four years after she was diagnosed with breast cancer, but the only thing music related I know about her is that she swears she has no musical talent. Unlike my dad who participated in marching band all the way through school (tuba) and took piano lessons as a teenager, my mom can carry a tune vocally but that's about it--at least to my prior knowledge. My dad has always been very open about his musical life and his musical taste is the one I have the most knowledge of, so I am glad that I now had the excuse to get my mom to open up about her own musical experiences.

 

 

 

My mom was born in Faulkner, Maryland. Faulkner is a small town in Charles County, considered to be Southern Maryland. Faulkner had a very small rural population of farmers and fishermen. You can kind of imagine it like the stereotypical good ole' southern town--the Bowlings (my mother's maiden name) are everywhere in southern Maryland and everybody knows them.

Interview

Chloe: Growing up, where did you hear music? This can be anywhere from your home, school, stores, etc.

Mom: Church and home...School.

 

Chloe: What was your experience with music in school?

Mom: Since I went to a Catholic school, it was basically all church or religious music. We had a church service every week as part of our schooling. And special occasions, they had you know things where you put on performances around Christmas time. I think it was mainly used and designed to reinforce what you got at church. I mean my school was taught by nuns, which you don't really see even at Catholic schools now-a-days.

 

Chloe: Did you play any instruments or sing?

Mom: No instruments. Of course, you were expected to sing as part of the stuff at school and church. But that was where everybody participated; I didn't participate in choral groups or anything.

 

Chloe: You said you experienced music at home. What kind of music and in what ways?

Mom: Stuff on tv had music like Don and Marie Osmond. The Osmond Family was like the Jackson Five, where they had a TV special and at some point the youngest (Donny and Marie) became more popular. These two eventually had their own variety show and she loved country music and he loved rock-n-roll. There were six of us (mom being the eldest) with ten years between me and the youngest so anything we watched had to be something everybody could watch. We only had one TV--well actually, I didn't know of anyone growing up who had more than one TV. MomMom (her mom) and my grandparents would listen to what I guess we would call "old country." You know like Johnny Cash, Loretta Lin, and Patsy Cline. 

 

Chloe: Did your family perform music together?

Mom (2nd from left) and her sisters

Mom: Other than participating in church services singing together, at Christmas time when the tree was first put up we would decorate it and sing Christmas carols together. My cousin convinced me to enter a 4H talent contest with her one year as a singing group. MomMom got her friend Mrs. Gee, a music teacher, to give us some lessons and we did the talent show. They picked the top however many acts and had another show from different counties. We made the first cut but we didn't make it to the final. I have no idea what we sang, but I was petrified on stage. I just looked straight up while we sang and made myself blind by looking into the spotlight. Our school never had a big stage or anything so it was really strange. We were gleeful, jumping around and hugging each other after but I think it was more from just being able to remember the words.

 

Chloe: What was the music that you listened to for personal pleasure?

Mom: I guess I just listened to rock-n-roll music. I don't really remember us having a lot of playing our own music. If MomMom had the radio on in the kitche, she would get control. Maybe I listened to light pop music--John Denver and The Carpenters.

 

Chloe: Was this the music that was considered mainstream for people your age?

Mom: I would say yes. Probably like a lot of young people--riding the bus to school and back--I would hear kids talking about groups that were whatever mainstream that I didn't know anything about. But I think they fell in the same genre.

 

Chloe: What was the first sort of music you owned? And what was the format?



Mom: It would have been a vinyl album and I think it was probably the Eagles.

Chloe: What was your first live musical experience?
Mom: Probably wasn't until I was an adult or older teenager. I went to some concerts with daddy (referring to my father). We saw Alabama, Boston, Elton John and Billy Joel. Daddy took me to my first play or musical. When I was growing up we didn't have money to afford concerts. I mean, daddy just had a different experience then I did. He grew up closer to DC, so as a kid he could travel to DC to see the symphony perform. There were only two children in his family and both parents. MomMom worked two jobs all the time just to pay the bills--so we didn't really have leisure money.

Chloe: Was there any type of music that was considered controversial: socially or just within your family?
Mom: I would have to say we didn't feel any impact if there was because we lived a sheltered life growing up. Some other people were exposed to things we weren't. If anything, but not really musical, as an early teenager the movie Staying Alive with John Travolta came out. The music became really popular, but the movie was not considered good by MomMom. If we had money for movies, MomMom would call Aunt Nancy (her sister) and would look it up in a Catholic newsletter to see if it was a good movie or not.

Cool Stuff No. 2

Free Music Archive: Middle East

My first cool thing this week is a website. The website is called Free Music Archive (FMA) and the link above will take you to their Middle Eastern page. On this website you can listen to free music from thousands of places and genres. On the Middle Eastern page the first band or group listed is called Sound the Encounter (pictured above). Sound the Encounter is a group from Iran and Syria playing their take on traditional Middle Eastern music. And the guy on the right is holding an Iranian bagpipe--which I didn't even know existed.

The video I chose for my second cool thing this blog is from a project called ETHNO JORDAN (Euro-Arab music lab). This project was organized by The National Music Conservatory/King Hussein Foundation and in Cooperation with Jeunesses Musicales International, Arab Academy of Music (Arab League) and Cultural Movement-Limassol-Epilogi. Their job is to promote and protect Arab music culture. *Ethno is a project where 40 young folk/traditional Arab and European musicians share, teach, and learn traditional folk music in order to discover the cultural identity of different nations through music and to ensure that these cultures are preserved and enjoyed generation after generation. It is an opportunity for musicians to discover and connect with their and other cultural heritages in a relevant way. Ethno promotes youth empowerment, equality and democracy, and cultural exchange. Ethno is an established "best practice" for fostering intercultural dialogue, social inclusion and cohesion through music.* This is a street performance of the group. I thought this was particularly cool because I represented Jordan this past November on the Converse Model Debate Team. Being able to relate back what we are doing in the classroom to other outside activities, I think is what makes learning easier.
*blurb from YouTube description

My third cool stuff for today is the band NOVA. NOVA is a bossa nova band and jazz quartet based in Los Angeles. Bossa nova is Brazilian style of music popularized in the 1950s and 60s. I think this is cool because this group is modern day. These are young artists combining what are two seemingly old styles to create a new sound. I really like the sound of this video and I think this is a group that it wouldn't be weird if they popped up on your iTunes after this class has ended. Hope you enjoy.
 

 

Music and Gender

Just a little bit of Taylor Swift humor before I start

 

I have been lucky enough to grow up in a family that is very girl power oriented and it probably helps that my grandmother raised six girls by herself. When it was time for me to pick an instrument for band class, my mom wanted me to play trumpet and my dad wanted me to play percussion. I took the stereotypical elementary school girl mindset that the flute was the quintessential girly instrument, so that was my number one choice. Obviously that did not work out and so I chose the clarinet and I did see as I got older that more and more girls played the upper woodwinds while it was primarily boys that played percussion and brass. However, there was nothing strange to me when I saw someone who did not fit the norm. My parents had never told me that "boys play ...and girls play...," the only knowledge I had of bands prior to fifth grade was through general music class. My elementary school music teacher Mrs. Cromley, to my knowledge never made a statement that created this divide in instrumentation and gender. Everybody in our elementary school learned keyboard and recorder. The same number of boys were asked to join the fifth grade honor choir as girls, etc.

 

At my high school there was more diversity in genders and instruments. I remember being a senior in our band was a big deal. You got to sit on the senior couch in the band room, there was a special senior dinner, and speeches were given in honor of the seniors at the last band concert. The years leading up to my senior year there were a lot more boys than girls in each graduating class in band. And I can not really say that those years were particularly heavy in graduating brass players. But my senior year was dominated by the girls. (I should have known then that I was going to pick Converse) The only seniors in marching band were girls and even in concert band we only had three or four senior boys.



I think a lot of music and gender has to do with what you are used to growing up. For example, if we are being stereotypical most girls listen to boy bands and pop music while boys listen to rock and rap. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Backstreet Boys and One Direction but I also quite frequently listen to Pink Floyd, Santana, and Boston. I believe the more we limit saying "boys do that" and "girls do that" then the less stereotyping we will have. So I'm excited to see what it will be like when I have kids and what the role of music with gender will be at that time.





Cool Stuff No. 1

 

This video is a group of guys who make all the musical sounds minus the doorbell ring using their bodies. Body percussion can be as simple as what we did in class today when we added the different layers of a song using claps and slaps or as advanced as the dance moves seen in the video. Body percussion done well is just cool!, but it also really resonated with the YouTube video we watched today in class about the African music/sound culture and how "there is no movement without rhythm." The rhythms used in this video also sound similar to drum beats heard in some of the African music we have listened to in class.

 

 

The second video combines Native American and Celtic music cultures through the Native American flute performance of "Great Blue Heron." The first few minutes of the video, Arvel Bird, the performer talks about the title of the piece and relates it back to nature. How he relates the heron to human nature is very much aligned with the Native American's beliefs and how music ties into it all. You can hear the Celtic inspiration in the accompaniment a lot but also occasionally in the flute's melodic line.

 

 





My final entry for Cool Stuff No. 1 is a video of women from the BaAka of Central Africa. Dr. Vaneman spoke about this tribe briefly in class today on how they had very little contact with the outside world. In this video the women are using the water as a drum. Tying into the idea that nomadic people would not want to have to carry around large instruments, the women of this tribe are using the natural resources to make music. Hope you like this cool stuff!

Music and Religion

 

 



Most of the Sunday mornings in my life have been spent at home. For my rather devout Catholic grandmother, the idea that we did not find a home church after we moved to South Carolina is awful. In fact, I've never been baptized and she swears that if I were ever to become deathly ill she would fly here with holy water to save my soul. So when it comes to music and religion, I only have very recent experience to base my knowledge off of. However, even with my limited knowledge base I do think that prevailing religions do impact what areas listen to which can in turn impact what is believed to be aesthetically pleasing. I'm not sure that the religions I have participated in necessarily influence what is aesthetically pleasing firsthand.

The church my best friend at home went to was an Evangelical church, where music was a big part of the service for teenagers. When I would accompany Danielle to Wednesday youth group in high school, the majority of the service would be music worship. First Assembly of God would have the teenagers and young people make up the praise band that would lead the Wednesday and Sunday services. For this church and its members, music was primarily used as a means of Thanksgiving to God for all He has done. Each Sunday the first thirty minutes was Christian praise music, that could have been found on the radio, followed by the sermon.

I had only vague memories of attending Catholic mass as a six year old and being a rather introverted person, it seemed very strange how much the worship time of service seemed like a rock concert. I guess the musical choices in this church are similar to the Native Americans in that the music was very energetic and danceable.

This kind of rock concert to praise God is very different from the way music is used at the Church of the Advent in Spartanburg, which I have been attending as often as I can to sing in the choir. The Church of the Advent, which Dr. Vaneman also attends, uses very traditional hymns and uses music throughout the service not just at the beginning or end. The music, to me personally, seems to have the purpose of dividing the service into specific parts not to have a connection with the members of the church and God.

My Musical Autobiography

As a young child, I recall listening to Roy Orbison, Aerosmith, Pink Floyd, Celine Dion, and Disney soundtracks. The Beatles were a huge phenomenon in my household too! My dad went to the first concert the Beatles performed in the United States. So at first glance most of my musical experience growing up was with Western popular music. 

One of the first moments I remember experiencing another culture's music was when my grandma bought me the movie Riverdance. At the age of three, I believed I was going to be a prima ballerina and was obsessed with watching anything that had dancers. Though my focus at the time was on the dancers in Riverdance, a huge part of the film and live production is the use of traditional Irish music.

In elementary school when I moved to Pawleys Island, South Carolina I became aware of a culture celebrated along the coast of South Carolina and Georgia rich in the arts: Gullah. In elementary school a presentation would be given to the students on the language and culture of Gullah. My sixth grade teacher, Mrs. Greene, even spoke Gullah fluently. (This sometimes made her English fall to the wayside--Chloe turned into "Floe")

Music was a huge part of the Gullah culture. Work songs like in Ghana, Africa, and spirituals to praise God and tell stories of freedom were primary functions of music.

Almost everybody in this class has probably performed a Gullah song at one time or another without knowing it. "Kumbaya My Lord," a popular spiritual song is Gullah meaning "Come By Here My Lord."

In middle school and high school while participating in an honors choir, I had the opportunity to sing multiple songs in Swahili and in different ensembles performed pieces on the clarinet from Japan and Scotland. Though a movie soundtrack, the music from Braveheart by James Horner stems from Scottish traditional music and is one of my favorite movie soundtracks.