Heather's Adventures in Music from Different Cultures

Here we go again      Now then we've had a lot of topics at this point. From the Americas to Africa and even some European aspects in these places. Where have we not gone? Asia baby! So buckle your seatbelts and let's get into some Asian music, instruments, and whatever else I can find from my lovely friend Google. Ghazal     I wanted to find some traditional music to start, but when I saw "romance" it peaked my interest. If you remember my blog about Native American music you'll know I took a look at romance then. I enjoyed learning about it and listening to the songs, so this seemed like a fun route to explore. I found that ghazal is the name given to songs with a romantic subject , which are typically sung from poems. Before diving into the music itself it is important to know the poems that the songs are based on. Ghazals are poems with origins in 7th century Arabia , that coney melancholy, longing, and/or love. While the poems started out Arabic they were l...

  Let us set the stage...       Now I’m going to go out on a limb and assume everyone knows about alternative music. I’ll also go ahead and say most of you don’t really know what makes a song alternative. Well I sure didn't and may I just say it was hard to find an exact box to fit the music into. I guess when your goal is the break out of the box you really don't want to be put back in. Music that isn’t considered “mainstream” by most. That’s not saying that these songs can’t make it mainstream. Songs like Smells Like Teen Spirit , which helped push the genre into a mainstream setting, are well known and extremely popular. Anyways I think that is plenty to get us started with so let’s dive into the amazing world of alternative music. What exactly is alternative?      So you may be wondering, how did this start? Alternative music as a whole is created by artists who feel that the mainstream pop music does not fit them. They strive to create something ...

For starters      Before jumping into my interview and the collection of stories and commentary I got from it, I'd like to introduce my mom. She grew up in a small town in Georgia and her favorite time period is the 1980s (this will be evident). She was not happy to be recorded, but I've heard all these stories before because she loves talking about her concert experiences, mainly Rick Springfield. I'll also include a little bit of commentary from my dad, who came in at the end of the interview. He was very jealous he wasn't the one interviewed, but he is a self proclaimed "audiophile." This basically translates to asking him about music= a whole novel. So to backup his comments and additions a little about him is, he spent most of this time growing up in Seattle and went to college at Georgia Tech. Now that that's out of the way let's get into the meat of the blog. The Interview Me: So tell me about music and your childhood.      Mom: *laughing* what ...

 To begin     Another place another blog! Here we go again on an explorative journey to learn more about other cultures. Now this was a tough one for me. And you're probably thinking "literally how you have a whole continent to work with" and you're right. The only thing is I don't know where to start. So of course in my struggle to think after a long, stressful week I just started googling and found some pretty cool stuff that I think you'll enjoy. Mbira      Now I had zero clue this was a thing and the reason I picked it was because I saw the word "xylophone" in the description on a website called Culture Trip while I was looking for some kind of instrument to look into. My reason being I had no clue there were xylophone like instruments. I mean was I just supposed to assume that lots of people strapped metal to wood and decided to hit it? How to heck did we get to the xylophone? But I digress, let's get into just what the mbira is and how it ...

To begin...      There are a few aspects of Native American culture that I learned throughout elementary and middle school. I got a few of the more graphic descriptions in APUSH, but the common theme all through my experience with learning about native culture in school is that it's mainly about the European findings. I had never seen the dances or really heard any of their songs. So when I figured out there were a lot of things I had no idea about I decided to take a deeper look into the music culture of native Americans. Native American Indigenous Flute ( šiyótȟaŋka)      Now we briefly discussed that there was a flute used in native music, but never really went further than that. After assuming there were just drums and shakers this really caught my interest. A simple Google search pulled up a variety of articles from Wikipedia and people trying to sell flutes, which wasn't what I was looking for. So when I found a cultural magazine talking abo...

     I'd like to start out by saying I struggle a lot with anxiety and depression and a lot of my music choices will definitely reflect that. They might seem just plain weird or stupid, but for whatever reason they help me calm myself down, and even help me be a little happier sometimes. I've had some weird influences for my music choices, but here's my musical culture at this moment in time :) Leela (Leelee Bean) Leels enjoying a snack Leels and Me on a "venture" Smokey (Smokalicious) Now let's begin:      Right now in my life is full of all kinds of changes. I've had my fair share of comfort songs, movies, and shows, but now on top of trying to soothe my anxiety I also have to focus. As a result, I like listening to more calming music. This typically winds up being a slow song from a movie, indie music, or music from a video game (specifically Zelda). Since I have a very busy homework schedule in addition to workouts, cleaning, and trying to talk to my l...