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Big Blog 2: Russian Folk Music

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  When I very first heard we could research a country or culture that we have not learned in class yet I immediately thought of Europe with France or Great Britain.   But with those countries I have already learned so much throughout my American and World History classes.   I then thought of Russia. But as you know Russia is a huge country, so I needed to dial it down to a smaller culture of music in the country of Russia.   I looked at the most popular type of music is in Russia and the main genre was folk music. I wanted to look into Russia because on my mom’s side of the family is from Russia and my brother and sister both played Russian soldiers in the Nutcracker, so obviously I have to learn more on the music and the dancers.   Russia is a beautiful country with such an incredible history, so I really do their music to be just as beautiful and incredible as their country. To start off, Russia’s folk music is music mixed with criminal songs, bard,and rom...
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Beyond the Classroom 2

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  I have always loved listening to Indian music and watching them dance.   My dad has a few friends who were born in India.   We went to one of their churches back home and we got to see them dance and sing.   It was really interesting to just see their culture. As learning through this part of the world in the course I really wanted to know more research on a few things especially when I had to miss two days of this part of the course.   The first thing I wanted to know more about was Raga.  Raga is a melodic framework for improvisation akin to a melodic mode in Indian classical music.  It’s a collection of pitches, like a scale.  Raga in English means colorful or passion.  There are seven ragas: Asaravi, Bhairav, Bhairavi, Bilawal, Kafi, Kalyan, Khamaj, Marva.  Asaravi is played in the morning hours and is a Hindustani classical raga. Bhairav is an Indian classical raga that is also played in the morning as well at the beginning o...
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Music and Family

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  When I was told to do an interview with someone in at least one or more generation above me or someone way older than me on their musical background and what it was like for them growing up and how things have changed since then.   I immediately thought about interviewing my mom or grandma, but I went into ore thinking about how every assignment I had to interview on someone I always chose one of those two.   So I decided to expand more and give myself a bit more of a challenge.   I decided to interview my very good friend Roberto’s grandmother, and let’s just say I was very glad I did so.   Not only did I learn about her music history I learned about her culture and background.   Now a little bit of key information you should know about this person is that she was born and raised in Colombia and a lot of her culture and her music preferences come from there.  My friend calls her wita. When I was interviewing her I wanted to focus on mainly her ...
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American Roots Music

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  As looking through the long list of American Roots Music and trying to decide which musical genre I would like to research on the most, I decided to choose the one that I have never heard of and that had an interesting name, Zydeco, a form of dance music.  I probably never heard of Zydeco because I am from the west in Reno, Nevada, and this music is from Louisiana.  Although Nevada and Reno was a very popular area for the blues and jazz back then. Zydeco is more specifically from the southwest of Louisiana.  It evolved by French Creole speakers with a mixture of blues, rhythm, and music indigenous to the Creoles and Native American people of Louisiana, and a blend off French accordion music and Afro-Caribbean beats. It is from the origin from the Cajun music of Louisiana.  Obviously it contains lots of different music, it comes from several other genres. The instruments it contains are an accordion, a frottoir, and a washboard.  If you add a guitar or...
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Beyond The Classroom: Indigenous American and Africa

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     After a few weeks of learning about the cultures, music, dancing, history and how their lives were then and now for both the people of Indigenous America and Africa, I still had a few questions.  Which is crazy because I learned so much more than I thought I needed to.       One of the biggest things I wanted to know was the types of dances performed in a Powwow, especially when Powwow can last a whole weekend. As I was researching I found out that there can be different dances performed depending on what area or region the Powwow is, also what tribes are performing.  Like in California you’ll see Bird Dancing but in Oklahoma you’ll see Gourd Dancing.  Also depending on your gender is what type of dance you would perform.  While researching I noticed that with most dances the costumes they would wear matched with their dance.  There are around 10 different types of dances: straight, cloth, fancy shawl, buckskin, Native American...
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Music & Gender

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  https://youtu.be/prmmCg5bKxA “Eenie Meenie” by Sean Kingston and Justin Bieber for now is my go to song, it is my first song I will play when I get in my car or just ever listen to music.  There’s nothing really special about it, it just gets me in a really good mood.  It’s a song I can easily dance and jump up and down to.  I think the lyrics are a little funny. Like “she’s indecisive, she can’t decide.” That’s what indecisive means lol.  It’s just a fun song that can change your mood in any second. I love listening to it before I compete to just put me in a pumped up mood.  https://youtu.be/UhTHgaCjTJs “Say I Won’t” by Mercy Me is a pop Christian song, so not many people would know it. I didn’t discover this song till last year, but it reminds me a lot about my history throughout my life.  I was a gymnast of 15 years before college.  Sadly gymnastics is the sport that has the most mental and sexual abuse cases from coaches than any other sport...
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Music and Genders

 As a woman, we notice the difference in how men and women are treated, we notice the inequality between us genders.  In music, there is a difference in what kind of music men or women should like, they should listen to, in what kind of musical instruments should play.  But there is also just statistics and what you see more of. When it comes to music and gender and what each different gender on what kind of music they like to listen to, there is a separation.  With girls the most popular singers they like to listen to are Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, One Direction, or Harry Styles, and more.  Which makes sense because most of them right these catchy love songs or songs about heartbreak that we can scream in our car when we are in a bad mood.  Now if a guy were to listen to these kinds of artists all the time and go to their concerts and have a whole bunch of their songs on their playlists, they would get made fun of, told they are not manly enough, or told...
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