Final blog

1) Something I have learned about that I thought was intriguing, was when Dr. Weeks came into class and talked about his trip to western part of Asia. I was the prayer wheel mostly. I have never seen that before, and the fact that there were so many.
2) One thing that I realized about my own culture is that it is connected to others from all over the world. Even though I have traveled in my life, I just never made that connection before.
3) This course has inspired me to learn more about the different Asian countries. Since I have lived in Japan, I have a vague understanding, but I want to know how all the Asian countries are connected, and how they differ.



Cool Stuff

I wanted to hear more Hawaiian music so thats why I picked this vidoe

YouTube - Israel Kamakawiwo'Ole 'IZ' 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow' HQ

I really liked the Australian music we heard yesterday, so I wanted to see if I could find any more.

YouTube - Australian Aboriginal Music: Song with Didgeridoo

Since I could not stay for the German group, I decided that I would look up some music from Germany

YouTube - Lili Marlene

Cool Stuff #3

I picked the frist two videos because I wanted to know about more of the pop side of Indian music and their dancing. so here you go:

YouTube - "dus bahane" Bollywood Hindi Music Video

YouTube - Aishwarya Rai Hindi Bollywood Dance (Nimbooda - Hum Dil De C

The next video is kind of bluey and jazzy, and since the jazz came from the blues I thought it was a good video. And besides the muppets are in it and who doesn't like the muppets?

YouTube - The Muppet Show - St. Louis Blues

And this last video has nothing to do with the other to subjects, but I thought everyone would love it. So, here is just a fun video for all to enjoy!

YouTube - The Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody

Music and Gender

When I first started band, everyone wanted to play the drums. Mostly the guys got to play them. When we were picking instruments, my teacher would tell the girls who wanted to play the drums, to think about playing other instruments like the sax and the clarinet. I know my teacher thought that girls could not play the drums. As I when on with my band classes, I saw that the clarinet and flute sections where all girls, the low brass and percussion (not including what is known as the pit section in marching band) where all guys. The rest of the sections were kind of mixed. The rest of the woodwinds where mostly girls with a few guys here and there. The high brass was also mixed, but more guys than girls. That is how it was during my high school years. When I started college, there was not much a difference. It was not till I came to converse that I really saw the “gender gap” in the musical world. During Wind Ensemble, there are no low brass members, and one percussionist. When the outside players came this year, I was so shocked. There in the clarinet section was not one but two male clarinetist. Not something I see every day.

In my family, the only other person who was even in music other than my sister and I, was my mom. My male members of the family, manly cousins was like “uga (cave man talk) me man uga me do sports uga music for uga little girls”. Now they are kicking themselves in the butt because they just found out you get way more scholarships if you can play an instrument. So the gender role in my musical life has been great now that I think about it, but it has not been for the greater good a.k.a. the teacher trying to get the female students to play, what she thought, the female instruments.

Cool Stuff #2

I thought this was pretty cool african drumming.

YouTube - African drumming


This video was a surprize to me. It's Japanese men doing African Drumming.

YouTube - Japanese African Drum Circle

I picked this last site because I wanted to know some more tribes from "Latin America"

South American Indians, Mayas, Toltec, Aztecs, Incas, cannibalism, skull hunters

Music and Religion

This one is very hard for me because there wasn’t much religion in my family. Now I’m not saying we don’t believe, we do, it’s just that, with my family moving around so much we never went to church. The most religious music I have had came from my classes. Most of my music is just secular music. The couple of times I have went to church the music has been completely different. The first church I went to, how should I put this, it was an old church with only “older” people. These people would sing these old church hymns. Most of these where in like Latin or something, but really got me was that no one could sing in key or any key at that. Then the next and last church I went to had all this upbeat music playing. Everyone was singing, some dancing in the rows, but the music was not very religious to me. It seemed to me that the music was just a way to get butts into the seats, to state it bluntly. Most of it was one of the local kids playing their version of “rock” you couldn’t really make out what they were saying, but every once and a while I would hear the word “God” and “Jesus”. After that I just quit going, I thought church was to praise the Lord, but with this music I had no idea if they were praising him or slandering him. There was that and when one the local kids, that I went to school with, telling me that I was going to hell because I didn’t go to church all my life. So I really haven’t had the music with religion in my life like most people do. I just do my own thing.

cool stuff #1

African Musical Instrument Whistle Thumb Piano Bow Harp Drum


YouTube - How to: Tune a South African Drum, Wooden djembe, Bongo


YouTube - Drum Cafe opening Live Earth in Johannesburg South Africa

Music and Family

My family uses music just about all the time. As soon as it’s Christmas, we pull out all of our Christmas CDs, which is like 40. Then there is the all mighty spring cleaning. When we are cleaning the house two things have to happen, 1, my dad has to leave the house and 2) we pull out the upbeat CDs, or as my mom says, “You know it has a good beat, I can dance to it. I can give it and 8. (Laugh) We put those in and we just clean. Another way that we use music is that when we go to bed we turn on radio. For me, the main reason is because, when my dad was in the Air Force, we lived on the end of the runway, so we would always hear the plains coming and going, so it started for us, because we needed the noise to get to sleep. Now that I think about it, that is probably the reason why I slept so well in Charleston last year. (Laugh again) But back to the music while we sleep, I know that my parents listen to country music, my sister I have no idea she changes way too much, from Heavy Death Metal, to Broadway musicals. I on the other hand listen to classical music when I go to bed. That is one of the many reasons why I fall asleep in recitals.
I do know that when someone dies in my family, the music that is used for the visitations is always the Christian Rock and Gospels. Well expect when my uncle died 4 years ago, he told everyone that he wanted nothing but Johnny Cash and Loretta Lynn playing. I do remember that some of my family was singing along at his visitation, but hey my family is just weird.
Some of my family is in, what he calls, (insert southern twang) Honky Tonk band, but it is a blue grass band, and he is pretty good! So to sum up everything I just say, my family uses music in many ways, be it to clean, sleep, a death, or to (insert southern twang) cut a rug.