So long, farewell...

One of the most intriguing parts of this class for me was discovering the significance of each culture's music. For example, I never knew just how important drumming is in the African cultures,  I only knew that it was highly complex. I enjoyed learning more about each culture and the traditions that they have and how music plays a part in them. I never realized just how much music means to other cultures, and was shocked that we as Americans are not as musical as we would like to think. (I guess that's what you get for being raised in a musical family...) We love music, and music is an important part of our culture, but certain aspects of our lives do not revolve around music, like the Navajo healing or purifying ceremonies or the Moroccan wedding. There are so many cultures in the world whose cultures revolve around music and I found that absolutely fascinating, and definitely want to learn more about what role music plays in other cultures. 

Something that surprised me was the vast variety of instruments in the world. Now, I'm not saying that I was shocked that there are so many awesome different instruments, it just hit me that there are thousands and thousands of instruments out there that I will probably never even get a chance to experience and I think that is pretty amazing. (A little sad, but still really amazing.) It also blows my mind to think about the cultural significance that each and every one of those instruments hold in their respective cultures. It is just so cool to think about for me! I really enjoyed learning about the instruments and I kind of want to try some in the future. 

During this class, I realized that I am very lucky to have had such diverse experiences with world music growing up, which is not to say I am better than anyone else, just that I had different opportunities. I have always been extremely, sometimes even dangerously, curious, and I am very blessed that my parents fostered that curiosity and introduced me to so many things from around the world, but especially music. I also realized just how cool it is to have family members who have had such rich musical experiences in other cultures, and I am planning on exploring those experiences in the future. 

This course has especially made me curious to explore my heritage further. I grew up with a lot of Japanese music, but not so much Irish music. (Although there are some songs that my grandparents and dad have shared with me.) I tried to get into Irish fiddling but I found it to be kind of overwhelming and I did not really stick with it. I am now very curious to interview my Irish grandmother about her experiences with music throughout her life. This class has also made me want to learn to play more instruments. Now that I know that there are so many instruments in the world, I want to learn to play as many as I can! (Within reason...) While I may not ever get the chance to actually learn to play the koto or master the blues, I can certainly branch out into other instruments closer to home. 

Cool Stuff #3

My first cool thing is Tibetan overtone singing. There are some Tibetan monks who can sing more than one tone at a time, and I have absolutely no idea how, but the result is haunting and very beautiful. This clip also includes singing bowls, which are very relaxing.

Okay, time for a round of True Confessions: I was kind of (read "super duper") bummed when Dr. Vaneman showed the Twelve Girls Band in class because I was planning on using them myself. BUT...she only showed "Glory" in class, leaving my favorite selection free to share with the class. I love this piece even more than their other work because it is a juxtaposition of my two main heritages: Asian and Irish. I love how the use of the traditional Chinese instruments enhances the music in a totally unexpected way.

So this isn't technically Bollywood, but it might as well be! "Mirror, Mirror" is an American film but it was directed by Indian American director Tarsem Singh, who apparently is not a fan of the Bollywood style, but wanted to end this film with a huge, lush musical number. Anyways, all I know is that "I Believe in Love" is a fabulous song, and the costumes and choreography of this final scene are incredible. 

And now an extra bonus, because I'm a super nerd!!!

Again, "Slumdog Millionaire" is not technically a Bollywood movie, but it is based in India and deals with Indian culture. (If you've never seen it, I cannot recommend it enough!) This is the song that is performed in the final credits, but I couldn't find the original, so enjoy these very talented kids from Chicago! This song, "Jai Ho," always gives me chills because jai ho means "be victorious" in Urdu, which considering the movie's plot, is a fitting and very moving conclusion to the movie.

Music and Family

I chose to interview my mom for this post. I was really surprised by some of her answers!

What kinds of music did you listen to? Did you have any favorite artists? 

I listened to classical music and pop music. Much to my kids' chagrin, my favorite artists were The Carpenters, ABBA, Earth, Wind, and Fire, and Carole King. I lived in Japan when I was in elementary and middle school and liked a singer called Agneschan!

When did you listen to music? What activities were you involved with as you listened to music? 

I listened to music in my room, not while I was doing homework though. Another place was in the car. I listened to classical music while I read.

Were any of your family members professional musicians? If so, who and what did they do?

No, but my uncle wrote the sleeve notes for classical music records.

What sort of concerts did you attend? 

I did not attend many concerts growing up. I remember going to Sonny and Cher when I was in elementary school. I also went to an Earth, Wind, and Fire concert. We went to concerts at church some.

What kind of music inspired you? 

I enjoyed classical music even as a child. I also enjoyed church hymns and then later, contemporary Christian music artists. It was still quite new in the eighties.

What do you think of contemporary popular music, like you might find on the radio? 

I don't really care for music that is on the radio these days. It isn't the music, but the lyrics that can be offensive or about inappropriate topics for the ages of the kids listening to the songs. 

How do you react to your children’s choice of music? 

My kids have an eclectic taste in music. They listen to classical music and contemporary Christian music. I am proud of what my kids' listen to and usually listen with them.

Were their any songs that had special meaning to you? 

I really like the song called Tapestry by Carole King. Also, "You've Got A Friend" was meaningful to me.

What was your earliest childhood memory that involved music? 

My Japanese grandmother would sing old fashioned Japanese songs around the house while my mom was at work.

Do you remember any particular dances that you danced? 

No.

What sort of music did you learn in school? 

I don't remember any specific music, except that we learned how to play the recorder. 

In church? 

Hymns and choruses. 

At camp? 

Never went. 

Anywhere else? 

Piano lessons.

How has your musical taste changed or evolved throughout your life? 

My music taste has not changed too much over the years. I have always like classical music and contemporary Christian music.

Have you been exposed to music outside your own culture? How did that affect your own musical tastes? 

Yes, I grew up in Japan when I was younger. I think it toned my tastes down since hard rock and grunge was not very popular in Japan when I was growing up.

Who inspired you to listen to music? 

My mom and uncle.

What did your parents listen to? 

Classical music and gospel music. My dad liked country music.

Did you ever play an instrument or sing? 

Yes. 

Did you want to do so? 

I was not super enthusiastic about piano, but I enjoyed it after I started. I didn't know I could sing until high school. I started voice lessons in college. 

What technology did you have to listen to or make music? 

Record player, cassette tape player, my dad had reel-to-reel tape player, and radio.

How longs did popular trends last when you were younger? 

At least a year or two. In regards to technology, not much changed except 8 track, but that didn't last long.

Cool Stuff #2

My first cool thing is Shakira. The coolest thing about Shakira is that she counts for both Latin America as well as the Middle East! She was born in Colombia to a Lebanese father and a Spanish-Italian mother, and was exposed to both Latin American and Middle Eastern music from a very early age. Her music, especially this song, "Ojos Así," reflects her heritage through its use of traditional Middle Eastern instruments, such as the doumbek, but also through the Spanish lyrics. This song's bridge happens to be in Arabic, which I think is super duper cool, especially since she can sing fluently in both Spanish and Arabic. :) 

(Random fun story before moving on: Shakira's father took her to a local Middle Eastern restaurant when she was four, and there happened to be live music that night. When the doumbek started playing, little four-year-old Shakira jumped up on top of the table and started belly dancing. By the time she finished elementary school, she was known as the Belly Dancer Girl.)

Yes, those are the Wiggles, but before you judge me, I would like to justify myself by explaining that the Wiggles originated in Australia, from a segment of the Australian Broadcasting Company, and were never expected to go anywhere or "make it" at all. But they did, and they are now considered THE preschool rock band that all the cool four year olds listen too. Which considering the Wiggles' fairly humble origins is pretty darn impressive if you ask me. 

Oh, you say, but the Wiggles don't count as something cool. 

THEY TOTALLY DO.

In 2008, the Wiggles were named Business Review Weekly's top earning entertainers for the fourth year in a row, beating out the likes of Joan Sutherland, Keith Urban, and Kylie Minogue. They've earned seventeen gold, twelve platinum, three double-platinum, and ten multi-platinum awards from their combined DVD and CD sales that total to about 21 million copies. So they don't play traditional Australian folk music, and they don't use digeridoos in their concerts, but they have made Australia the standard in early childhood popular music, which is kinda neat. 

Hate on the Wiggles all you'd like, but when you sell more albums and concert tickets than AC/DC (which also originated from Australia...the more you know...) for four years in a row, just let me know... 

My last cool thing has very deep personal meaning to me. "The Prince of Egypt" is the first movie I ever remember seeing in theaters, and if you know anything about my unhealthy obsession with movies deep love for the art of cinema then you can probably guess that this is kind of a big deal. But reminiscing over the good ol' days is not why I have gathered you all here today. Oh no. 

If you've ever seen "The Prince of Egypt" then you know that music plays a huge part in the storytelling. Hans Zimmer (of "Lion King" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" and pretty-much-any-film-score-that's-not-John Williams fame) and Stephen Schwartz (of "Pocahontas" and"Wicked" fame) were responsible for the music of the film, and they knocked it out of the park, mostly thanks to Israeli icon, Ofra Haza. If you don't know who Ofra Haza is, that is totally okay, but she really is an amazing person. (In fact our text book for this class has many, many wonderful things to say about her; you should totally check it out!) I don't really know that much about her work and career outside of "The Prince of Egypt" but this course has made me very curious, and I know that I will be listening to her work in the very near future. 

Besides the fact that she has a gorgeous voice and starred in one of my very favorite movies of all time, I think that Ofra Haza is the coolest of cools because she recorded her part in the film in at least ten different languages, including her native Hebrew, but she manages to portray her character flawlessly every single time. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to watch "The Prince of Egypt" and sing along while eating my feelings, after which I'll probably unashamedly try to dance along to some Shakira... 

Music and Gender

Growing up, I don’t really remember feeling that there was a gender divide within a musical context. There were an equal number of boys and girls that attended my Suzuki classes, and my church’s children’s choir was split about fifty-fifty as well. (Although I will say that most of the boys tended to drop out as they got older...) Both of my parents were also active in the church choir, as well as in handbells. As far as I knew, men and women both had equal roles in the music world, and I was content to just play my violin and sing in the occasional church play.

It wasn’t until much later that I started to realize that there was indeed a gender divide in the world of music. I remember listening to recordings of Perlman, Heifetz, and eventually Joshua Bell with my grandmother and parents, but I wasn’t ever struck by the fact that all of the great violinists were men until I was about eleven or twelve. This distressed me, but only because I wanted to find someone I could look up to as an aspiring violinist, someone like me, and it was apparently going to be harder than I expected.

My dad came to the rescue and showed me an article about Midori. I remember being in total awe of her because when all four of her strings broke at her debut concert, she took the concertmaster’s violin, broke two of his strings, and had to use the assistant concertmaster’s violin! Midori was awesome, and I thought she was the coolest thing ever, but my dad didn’t stop there. We went on to “discover” Sarah Chang, Hilary Hahn, Vanessa Mae, and Anne Sophie Mutter, all of whom I still strongly admire today.

Flash forward about a year: in middle school, I was coerced by my private violin teacher into taking strings instead of band, and while it bugged me so badly, I grudgingly agreed because I concluded that Hilary Hahn probably wouldn’t have whined about playing violin everyday during school. But before my schedule “went through” and was official, I spent a day in band.  In my grand total of fifty-odd minutes in band class, I noticed that all of the girls (except myself, what a surprise!) wanted to play a woodwind instrument, and all of the guys wanted to play brass or percussion. This was a little weird to me, because I’d never thought that instruments had gender assignments; instruments are instruments, and they all made music, regardless of who plays them. My strings class was more evenly mixed, but eventually most of the guys gravitated towards the cello and bass.

And that was the way things were throughout middle and high school, up until I came to Converse. I thought studying music at a women’s college was going to be a jarring experience, but as classes started up, and I began to form a routine, I realized that I didn’t really miss being in a mixed gender musical setting. In a way, coming to Converse and studying music here inspires me more than a co-ed school may have because I am surrounded by extremely talented female musicians, who are all passionate about what they do. I am essentially living my eleven year old self’s dreams because my friends inspire me to become a better musician, all the while showing everyone what it’s like to be a world class female musician.

Music and Religion

I grew up going to church, and music has always played a prominent role in my religious experience. What I find really interesting about religious music is that you can use it to worship God by listening to or by performing it. My church has a band and orchestra that help with worship, and I help out when I’m in town. Playing in church is always a cool experience because not only can I worship God through my talents, I can help others worship as well, which is the purpose of music at my church. Music is also used to teach children about religion, such as songs to help them learn the books of the Bible, or memorize verses. I also remember learning hymns for my Sunday school class so that I could earn a hymnal. (But looking back, I am glad that I chose to do that because I am familiar with most well known hymns, which has proven useful on multiple occasions, such as when I visit my grandparents’ extremely traditional Baptist church.)

My church embraces a mostly contemporary style when it comes to music and worship, but I have also been exposed to church settings where the worship is comprised of hymns accompanied by a church organist. I am made painfully aware of the differences in worship styles whenever my grandparents visit and attend our church and inevitably remark about how the preaching is great, but the music is too rowdy. I don’t really prefer one style over another, although I was raised with contemporary religious music, and wasn’t really told that there are rules and regulations concerning worship music. I think that this especially separates my generation from my grandparents’ generation in that I don’t expect a certain style of music, and they are used to always knowing what’s going on and what’s being sung, and there is certainly no place for drums or electric guitars.

I think that religion definitely has an impact on what music is found aesthetically pleasing, but music can also influence religion, or at least religious music. My church is nondenominational, so I don’t think it really identifies with a particular hymnal or style of worship, other than just generally contemporary. While religious music has followed the popular aesthetic, the same cannot be said for secular music. Although most Americans say that they identify with Christianity, this is not reflected in the popular music of our culture. I’m certainly not trying to say that this is a bad thing, but rather I find it interesting that in this period in our country’s history, religious music is influenced by secular music, and secular music remains largely unchanged by religious music.

I’ve noticed that religious music has changed over the years, just like secular music, and that the traditional “old fashioned” hymns have even been given more attention lately. This is one of my favorite aspects of worship at my church. Some weeks there is a large rock band and drums, and others there is only a guitar, piano, and maybe one or two singers, but there is always a good mix of the old and new. While my church may not choose to perform hymns in their original setting, and usually uses contemporary arrangements, the old hymns and their influence on Christian music are definitely respected.

My Music Autobiography

One of my very first experiences with music outside of the Western Art canon was in kindergarten. I remember going to presentations of American Indian music and dancing about once a week, and our school even hosted its own miniature “pow wow.” Another time, an American Indian author and musician visited to promote his book, but what I remember the best was listening to him play a few songs on a traditional flute and explaining the significance of each song. I remember being very interested in the music and feeling intrigued by how strange but wonderful it was. I didn’t really appreciate it as much as I do now, and I certainly didn’t know how to pursue my curiosity back then, but I did enjoy it for the year that I attended that school. 

 I was also exposed to Japanese folk music from a very early age. My maternal grandmother is Japanese and while she wasn’t comfortable singing to me herself she played many tapes and CDs of traditional Japanese songs, especially lullabies. Her favorite song was (and still is) “Sakura, Sakura”, the cherry blossom song. I don’t remember most of the words, but I remember enjoying hearing many different versions and arrangements of that songs and trying to sing along. I even went through a very short period where I was very interested in learning how to play the koto. (Needless to say, that phase didn’t last very long.) Looking back, I realize that since I grew up around this kind of music I never thought that it was weird or exotic. Sometimes when we went to Asian restaurants I still even recognize some songs here and there. I feel very lucky to have been exposed to such beautiful music for so many years. 

 I learned violin through the Suzuki method, which emphasizes the importance of group classes and playing with other violinists of all different ages and levels. For me, this included going to Suzuki retreats held at lots of different colleges and schools, and attending all sorts of classes on violin playing. One year, I took a class on Irish fiddling and that has stuck with me to this day. Suzuki is memory and listening based, and since traditional Irish fiddling is passed down by memory, it was the ideal activity for a Suzuki camp, but it was also a total blast! I learned about twelve or thirteen songs and it was challenging for me, but it was also fun because my dad’s side of the family is Irish and he knew a lot of the tunes I worked on and I felt like I was exploring part of my heritage. I still love Irish and Celtic music and I enjoy playing it, but it is hard for me to remember all of the songs. 

 I went to another camp in high school and although it was an orchestra camp, we had a workshop on old-time music. It was one of the coolest musical experiences I’ve ever had! We played three old-time songs from Appalachia, and one even had words, and we had to sing while we were playing, which I wasn’t thrilled with, but did anyway. (The sacrifices that must be made for art...) But being someone who has a bad habit of getting “stuck” in the music and reading music, it was a great way for me to go beyond my comfort zone and explore the traditional music of this country. (I would also just like to add that I am a huge – huge – fan of The Civil Wars and since their style is mostly inspired by old time music, I felt super cool to be playing music that emulated their sound. ☺)