Music Within The Stars

  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...

  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...