Music and Us

 For me to not have taken a music class in a while and to be the only non music major in this class, I enjoyed the class. I enjoyed the music and the videos and just learning about different cultures. As a class I enjoyed it as well just being around a different group of people who are talented in other ways. Not only learning the different cultures of music but learning about the music from my classmates as well.

I really enjoy our days on the blues and the few artist we came across. I really had like that T-Bone Walker "Call it a stormy Monday". If we talking about blues the I have to bring up Ray Charles. Ray was born in the South, putting together music that ranged from different traditions. From the music i would hear, he was a vocalist and pianist with extreme talent. He had  the ability to combine the blues, you had gospel, it was the sound of jazz, and soul all into one vibrant sound. The fact that he was blind made the talent shine even more. One thing i love about the old music I've heard of Ray, they are song are about love, and surviving hard times. I loved this song by Ray Charles ( Traditional, American)

I wanted to move across the world and visit China. I came across some Mandarin music. It has a sound of a mix from like western pop into R&B. One of the genres that caught my eye was Mandopop. I think it really just caught my eye by the name and just saying it out loud. Like the sound of the artist Jay Chou. His music in it some Netflix shows that i have watched so why not bring him up. He is called the " King of Mandopop" and was born in Taiwan. Jay was extremely talented with playing the Pipa and he used to reach different audiences. He combined different genres into his Chinese sound and became a cultural icon and the face of Mandopop. One song I like by Jay is Rice Field. I love the beat and the flow of the song. The message in the video is was even deeper. I feel like I picked this just by how the video started off and i knew i would like it. (Modern, China)

After a good visit to China i want to travel to Jamaica and learn more about Dub music. Dub music is like a way of remixing. For instance if you wanted a instrumental then you would turn to dub music. Your simply taking a one version of a song and making a double out of it. I like it because its kind of what people are doing in todays time. Artist now are taking old songs from the past and mixing them and putting their own voice on the songs. Where as Jamaican Dub music is the mixing of Jamaican reggae music. One artist I like was Lee "Scratch' Perry. Most of all his song were mixed they all came from the Jamaican culture. This song here is called "Chase the Devil'. You can hear the Jamaican sound and the mix that he added to it. Now a days you need permission from the previous artist to mix the song, hey or you can do it and just get sued. ( Modern Jamaican)

Finally I want to travel to Russia and find a artist and genre that I may like. We came across Russian Folk music. I feel like folk music is more focused on the vocals and the sound being put out. One famous instrument used in Russian folk music is the balalaika. It has a triangular shape body with three strings to pluck. I love the way some of these instruments are shaped but playing them I don't know if i could even get the hang of it. A well know artist in Russia known by the name of Nadezhda Babkina was a Pop singer in the 90's. I could tell she reach a large group of people by how much of a impact she made with her music. I loved her outfits because you can tell she always repped her culture when she performed. I loved the impact she had on her crowd in this performance.  Everything about her outfit from her hat to the feet was all a symbol and was the color red. Everyone on stage had some type of red on with her. (Tradional, Russin)

Throughout this entire blog, I learned a lot about even more music and different cultures around the world. It allowed me to open my ears and listen to music that i normally wouldn't listen to.  All people have their own background of music and where they learned it from. You can learn so much about a person from music so why not be open to learn more about other peoples taste in music.