The End.

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

I think I was most surprised by the Native Americans. I never knew there was so much behind their music. I wasn't even aware of how important their music was to them. I was even more surprised when they explained that music was also a part of their religion. I always considered music and religion as two seperate things. Music could be used to express things about religion, but I felt like the Native Americans took this to a whole different level. I think it also helped me to try and figure out what I believe in. I'm glad that I was able to learn about the Native American's music.


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

I found out that I have an Irish great-grandfather. I had no idea. I don't know why my dad never thought to mention this to me. I already knew I have a bit of Cherokee too, so I payed close attention when we were going over the Native Americans. And I was very interested in Africa. I think it's cool how we can link so many things in music back to one place.


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

I'm very serious about learning more about my heritage now. Until now I've never really thought about it. I just kind of checked the box next to Black/African-American and I never gave it much thought. I really do want to learn more about where I come from. I also want to learn more about some of the cultures we talked about and their music. Most of them were very interesting. I really enjoyed learning about the different music in the world and I feel like I'm a little more knowledgeble about the world I live in.

Last of the Cool Stuff...

I don't remember how I discovered Zain Bhikha, but I fell in love with his voice and his music. I think it's amazing how much his religion means to him. I don't know what the words in the chorus mean, but I think that in some ways music is able to speak to everyone of all different languages.




The first thing I thought of when I saw the Bali play was Avatar. They both seemed very similar to me. I really liked it, though I don't know why. I think it's very interesting to watch. There just seems to be a strong sense of community when the Bali people do this.




I loved to watch The Prince of Egypt when I was a kid. It's one of my favorite movies. I also love the music. I have the English and Hebrew versions on my iPod, and I honestly like the Hebrew version a little better. The song was performed by Ofra Haza, but unfortunately she died of AIDS in 2000.




And last but certainly not least...Queen! If you don't know, Queen is my favorite band EVER. I don't even know what I'd do without their music. I picked this song because it has a Middle Eastern feel to it. Freddie was from Zanzibar, which is in East Africa somewhere, I think. The majority of religion there is Islamic, so I think he was around a lot of the prayers and stuff while he was growing up. I'm not sure what the song means, but I like it.

Music and Family

This is my interview with my dad!

Me: What kind of music did you listen to as a child?

Dad: I listened to R&B, Gospel, Country...and some rock.

Me: How did you listen to music?

Dad: We had 45 records and -

Me: What? Forty five records?

Dad: Yeah. Albums. That's what they were called.

Me: Oh, okay.

Dad: We listened to the radio too, and 8-tracks.

Me: Okay...Was there any dancing involved?

Dad: Yeah. Uh...the twist. We mainly danced at home around the house.

Me: What sort of enviornment did you listen to music in? Like was it at dances or something?

Dad: It was mostly around the living room. It was more of a family enviornment. I used to go in my room and use it to mellow out.

Me: Why did you listen to music?

Dad: I've always enjoyed music. The words, the meaning of the words. I was fascinated by the types of music.

Me: Hmm. How did your parents feel about your choice of music and what happened when you became the parent?

Dad: Well, they enjoyed the music too. We could only listen to it at certain times of the day. I don't mind the types of music listened to today.

Me: Were you exposed to any music outside of your culture?

Dad: Yes. Country, rock and roll...and big band. Do you want to know why?

Me: Why?

Dad: There were no black radio stations back then. All there was to listen to was country and stuff like that.

Me: Really?

Dad: Yeah. The first black station was The Big DM in 1974.

Me: Whoa. I didn't know that.

Dad: Yep. We could sometimes hear a couple of stations from other states, but it was hard to catch them. They were on a.m. stations, so we had to wait for the f.m. stations in 1974.

Me: Oh. Hey, we learned about the blues yesterday!

Dad: The blues?

Me: Yeah!

Dad: What kind of things did you learn?

Me: Oh, uh...we talked about Bessie something...it was a clip from a movie in the 1930's. We learned about the roots of it and stuff. We talked about Robert Johnson some.

Dad: Yeah, Robert Johnson. I have a few of his songs. He sold his soul to the devil.

Me: ....What?

Dad: Yeah, it was rumored that he actually couldn't play guitar, but he sould his soul and was amazing the next day.

Me:...Oh. Well he did talk about the devil a lot. You know what that sounds like? Supernatural! In the show they had these crossroads demons and you would go to a crossroad and bury something there, then the demon would show up and give you anything you want if you sold your soul. They'd give you like ten years to live with your wish and then they come for you and then you die!

Dad: He died young -

Me: Twenty seven.

Dad: Yeah.

Me: Okay, so...did you play any instruments or anything?

Dad: I had a bass drum and Aunt Cynn (short for Cynthia) had an organ. She played flute too.

Me: She did? Wait, what? She had an organ?

Dad: Yeah. They would sell them like keyboards. They were about the same size.

Me: Wow.

Dad: I could only play 'Lean on Me' on the organ. It was easy.

He then began to sing. I now see where my singing skills come from...or lack thereof.

Me: Well...I don't really have more questions...is there anything else you want to say?

Dad: It's amazing how much music has evolved. When I came up everyone was a band and everything was live. Now there's fake voices and fake instruments. You can never duplicate real instruments and live bands. Yeah, I love music. Music makes the world go round and it transcribes life. Coming up in highschool, they'd have dances in Batesburg and bring local bands like Green Ice and Brown Ice.

Me: Well...I do agree with you on the fakeness, haha. You don't really need a lot of talent now. As long as you look good.

Then we sort of just talked about random things. This was very interesting for me. My dad and I never really talk about music, so it was interesting hearing his point of view on it. It also made me appreciate aspects of how music was back then and now. It's much easier to come across now, but I feel like it was an entirely different experience all those years ago. I know how some young people say how they'd kill to go back and grow up in the sixties or something (I would probably sell my first-born to see Queen in concert), but now looking at what my dad said, I'm not sure if it would be that great. Think of the technology gap. No iPods, less radio stations...it was a much larger world in musical terms. Plus there was all the crap going on in the world. So I am very happy that I had this experiece with my dad.

More Cool Stuff!

Okay, so initially I was going to post "Colors of the Wind" from Pocohontas, but then I saw this and I had to do it! It's played by a pan flute. I found it very relaxing.



This is just something bizarre that I found. I wouldn't have thought about bagpipes and African drumming mixing but I sort of liked it. I wish I saw people playing random instruments on the street on a daily basis. I think it would make my life more exciting.



More pan flutes! Because I like them. This took place in Times Square. And I'm assuming the other smaller flute one of the guys is playing is a Quena.

Music and Gender

In my musical experiences, boys get to do all the cool stuff. They’re also able to play more types of instruments without getting any backlash. I remember going to a few guitar stores and I know they didn’t take me seriously because I’m a girl. I can’t stand that. I didn’t really see it as a problem in marching band. There were more brass players who were guys, but if you were a girl it didn’t really matter. Most girls were in the woodwind section or in color guard.
I really do think that guys have it easier with music a lot of the times, though. Most well-known bands are made up of guys. They can do things that would look terrible for female artists. I’m not saying that it’s all a bucket of sunshine for male artists; I just think that the world sometimes has a hard time breaking away from traditions in music. When I think about musicians breaking away from tradition I think of the female guitarist that played for Michael Jackson. I don’t know her name, but I remember her being the first girl I saw who played electric guitar on television. I thought she was epic. She blew my mind.
In terms of middle school…I don’t really remember what I listened to in middle school. I think it was a lot of Fallout Boy. Generally, I think more girls listened to whatever female artists were popular at the time and boys listened to...something else. Although I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the case a lot of the time. I think we listened to what caught our attention. At that period in life I think music was a way to find some kind of identity or how to figure how to act. Music definitely influenced behavior, and most kids at that age are trying to fit in. Maybe it would have been weird for a girl to listen to Metallica or something, I don’t really remember.
I do like to hear all different types of singing, and Converse is somewhat lacking in that area due to the fact that it’s pretty much made up of women. So I think I do experience music in a different way than if I went to a school with an equal amount of men and women. I do miss hearing the lower octaves in music. There is also a difference in the wind ensemble. We’d have more brass players at a mixed gender setting because a lot more guys play brass instruments. There is plenty of diversity in the music at Converse though, so I'm happy with that.
In general, I think that gender isn’t such a big deal as it used to be. There are tons of female artists that are pretty awesome at whatever they do and there are lots of guys that are too. I do find it a little strange though, how most young boys got picked on for being in chorus and then once they get past a certain age it’s considered a great talent. Life is funny like that.

Cool Stuff!

This is a Native American group called Xit. I thought this was really cool because I found out I liked the combination of traditional Native American music and the music I listen to today. This song does have traditional aspects that we learned about included in it, like the use of the shakers and the repetition in the verses. This group kind of reminded me of Grand Funk Railroad because they were trying to get a message out that they felt was important.




I thought this was cute. We didn't really see many children dancing in class, so I was surprised when they had their own dance just for the kids. This was a children's fancy dance and it took place at a Pow Wow in 2009. I wasn't really surprised with how energetic they are. I think it's great that they're getting a good start on learning their culture, especially since so many elders are concerned about the younger generation not learning enough of it.



I love this! I never knew about this type of music before taking this class. I think that mixing traditional and new music always leads to very interesting things. Some things may not work out, but I think it's good to mix the old and the new to create something different. I think Robert Mirabal is doing a great thing.

Music and Religion

My family has been going to the same church for a very long time. As a child I was baptized there and so was my brother. The only problem I had with going to church was the fact that I had to get up early. I despised it. But despite that, my brother and I stayed up late anyways and we ended up drifting off in the middle of the service a lot of the time. When I got older I figured it was disrespectful to fall asleep while my pastor was speaking, so I took it upon myself to hit my brother repeatedly so he'd stay awake. The only part of the service I really enjoyed was the singing. I love our choir. I always try and make my family sit on the far left side because it was directly behind the drummer. Whenever he'd play the bass you could feel it vibrate through your chest and I always imagined it as a second heartbeat. We always used a lot of instruments. We’ve had the same guitarist for a long time, along with a bass player, an organ, and some brass players. The drum is still my favorite though.

My parents made my brother and I participate in the children's choir, but we didn't like it very much. I'm not much of a singer and since I was in the choir, I had to get up even earlier. I thought my parents were trying to torture me. I didn't really understand what or why I was singing. I just did it because I was told to. I did love the songs though, and sometimes I'll just start humming them without realizing it. When I started high school I didn’t sing anymore, and religion just kind of went on the backburner. I wasn’t religious at all. To me, music and religion had nothing to do with each other, even though I still loved to hear my church choir. It was only until recently that I’ve sort of begun to realize that I don’t have to believe in God in the same way my parents do. I haven’t been to church in a while, but now I understand what I didn’t when I was younger. Music was a way to communicate with God. The choir loves God, and what better way is there to show love than with music? They’re passionate about what they’re singing and who they’re singing it for, and I think that’s what spoke to me, even as a kid. I think all of this ties in with the Native Americans and how they see music and religion. I was very surprised at how they closely they link the two. I had no idea they valued their voice so much, going so far as to call it sacred. It was a real eye opener for me and I’m glad I know that about their culture now.

I’m still trying to work through what I believe, but I do know that religion is a powerful thing and music can only strengthen it.