Wrap-up

1. What is something you learned about another culture this term that surprised or intrigued you?

I had never thought that the sound we perceive as "sad" or "happy" could be taken a different way by another culture.
Another one is microtonality! Now I've learned about it in music history, but after listening to it in class made me realize I had heard stuff like this all the time as a kid in Asia. I just couldn't put my finger on it and didn't know what to call it.
Oh! I never joined a choir until 8th grade, and singing nasally had always been shunned upon by my chorus teachers, but who knows it could be a singing style?

2. What is something that you realized about your own culture through our discussions?

I have been too concerned about what's popular and neglecting the little important things that make my culture authentic.

3. What is something that this course has inspired you to learn more about?
I really honestly wish I could learn how to play all of those instruments I heard about in this class like the sitar, pan pipe, Native American flute, erhu, ect. It's just one on of those wishful thinkings, though.

Cool Stuff no.3

I'm kind of excited about this week, because I get to post one of my favorite Taiwanese singers/actresses! I know we covered China this week, but Taiwan is pretty much considered as part of China anyways. Here is Rainie Yang!

I wanted to take martial art as a kid, because I watched too many choreographed fight scences, but all of my motivation mysteriously disappeared after I moved to America, haha :).





Chinese college students get bored too, and this is what they do in their free time! These guys are actually everywhere on Youtube. I used to watch them all the time, but I didn't know they did a video on Peking Opera. Anywho, here is a lipsynch video!

Music and Family

Q: What kind of music did you listen to as a child?
Mom: Vietnamese children songs; those kiddy songs about flowers and the alphabet.
　
Q: How did you listen to music, i.e. what technology did you use?
A: Music class was a requirement for every grade, so I listened to a lot of music that was taught in school. There were also cassettes, CD's, and the TV.

Q: Was there any dancing involved? Why or why not?
A: Not when I listened to music by myself. I only danced for my school's competitions. I even got on TV! Back then they had a channel for schools every where to enter talented students. I was entered 3 times

Q: What sort of environment did you listen to music in?
A: Since I was born to about 15 or 16, I had always lived in a military base kind of environment, because your grandfather was part of the army; he was the captain! Our whole family lived with other soldiers' families. All of the houses there were surrounded by gates, and police were standing outside guarding day and night. I even went to school there, so all of the music I learned was from family and school. Music time was every day at my school.

Q: How did your parents or teachers feel about your music of choice?
A: They didn't mind since all I knew was what they taught me. Your grandfather taught me tango music. I even sang in your grandfather's band lots of times, especially when they had parties. He played the drums for his band in the army.

Q: Did you play an instrument or sing yourself?
A: I only sang. I had a friend who played the guitar for me. As for performance, they arranged instrumentalists for me.

Q: Did you ever want to a become famous singer?
A: No, I didn't want to, but I was anyways (laughs hahaha..)

Q: Why did you listen to music? Were there any situations that caused you to turn to certain kinds of music?
A: What do you mean why? I simply liked and enjoyed it.
      No, I picked music regardless of whatever kind of day I'm having.
Annie: ..Any special occasions where music was your savior?
Mom: Well, I did run to music whenever I was stressed out by homework.

Q: Were you ever exposed to music outside of your own culture? How so, and what was it like?
A: Mostly Vietnamese and some American songs taught by your grandfather that were extremely easy to learn.

Cool Stuff no.2

These kids were found on the streets of Peru by members of a charity organization. CIMA offers them education and this is their music class! You can check out their website if you'd like, but you should know that it's entirely in Spanish...http://www.cimahope.org/mundo_cima.htm



As I was looking for a performance of Sanjuan, I tumbled upon the monastery of San Juan de la Peña or St. John of the Rock. This church has two floors and lies under a massive rock! Its architectural style also shows some influence from Europe.

Joropo! Just look at their legs! I would be pretty amazing at tripping and falling.

2).   You thought that was cool? (Hopefully..) Check this out! I spent a long time looking for a video with the imbabura harp..

Music and Gender

Frankly, this blog topic is pretty challenging for me. I haven’t really experienced many male vs. female situations in the music world. It’s admirable for guys in my country to be both athletic and musically inclined, but I guess it‘s pretty much the same here. As a matter of fact, most boys and girls who are born in well-off families know how to play at least one instrument, typically piano. Nonetheless, most of the drummers and guitarists I know are predominantly male. Throughout the 4 years at my high school, I don‘t remember seeing any females showing off their mad skills on the drums or guitars. Males, on the other hand, were countless. This also somewhat applies to modern music. One of the types of music I listen to is Metal, and it’s especially uncommon for a girl to do the lead vocals which is basically screaming. The Agonist is the only band I know that has a girl as their lead vocalist (there’s more I’m sure but rare is my point). There is also Flyleaf, but the vocalist mainly sings. It’s also the same for J-rock bands like the Gazette and Dir en Grey.

The Gazette

Is it just me or the way they look is far from what we perceive as manly? I kind of find that interestingly twisted..
　
Even before entering Converse, I had always believed in women’s ability to play the same instruments as men, but Converse is really where the action takes place. I met female percussionists, guitarists, and trumpeters, and they’re all pretty great players! It’s not that I haven’t seen them before, but the it’s more exciting when they’re all gathering in one place....Sometimes I feel like I’m part of a talent agency for women. Now that I’ve got my fair share of bias. Male can too excel at “women’s” instruments. I remember a classmate of mine in high school who was exceptionally talented at the piano, and, indeed, he was a dude! Honestly, I can proudly say that he was the one who inspired me to play the piano. My first choice of instrument was not the piano, but rather the guitar--ironic eh? Other instruments that are created for females are flute, violin, clarinet....Well, I beg to differ! Here are actually my favorite candidates from America’s Got Talent:

After seeing that, I got the urge to master the violin, and so I began to take lessons a few months ago. I have to say, it is not as easy as they make it out to be.

Cool Stuff no.1

Here's the usual repetition, vocables, and voice timbre, but this time, the Navajo are doing a hoop dance to the music! They are telling a story by shaping different animals with hoops. Like the man in the video said, they are "honoring the circle of life".



After hearing the Native American flute, I couldn't get its peaceful and natural sound out of my head! I was interested in how the flute is made, so I looked it up. The guy in the video made the Native American flute out of bamboos that he found along the beach of South Viet Nam. The fact that it took place in Viet Nam makes it all the more reason for me to put it up. This is one of those it's-not-easy-as-it-looks things.

Since the embed code is disabled:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PXRkUyeUvY

African celebrations like baby naming and wedding always seem to involve dancing and drumming, which I think is way more fun than having conversations at a formal dining table.

Music and Religion

I was brought up around Buddhism. My mom and I used to visit a temple every year in Viet Nam and helped the monks take care of their sanctuary for a few days. Although we did the same things every day, waking up early, eating meatless meals, cleaning, chanting and meditating, I'd never felt more connected to nature and away from the industrial smoke and busy traffics of a metropolis. I would scan feverishly from line to line trying to keep up with the monk's chant as she steadily knocked on the wooden frog with a wooden stick. It was truly amazing how she had it all memorized flawlessly. At that moment, peace was all I felt as the chanting and knocking noise echoing on throughout the whole temple. Even silence was listening, and to me, that was beauty. Listening to her also made me feel closer to Buddha. He is a wise man who spent his life learning about the world and those who inhabit it. He is someone who's reached Enlightenment and become one with the world, to the point that he has gained knowledge about everything past, present, and future. With that said, personally, I think chanting is a way to connect with Buddha, with Earth.

Christianity also has somewhat of an influence on me back in Viet Nam and even more in America. I've been to many churches and sung out of hymnals. The way they worship God with music is obviously different than Buddhists. They sing together and most of the time accompany themselves with instruments. Music here is used to express love for God by singing loudly and passionately in hope that it would reach Him. I've been to a Pentecostal church several times, and I have to say I did enjoy it. They would have a piano, drums, guitars, and what I found especially exciting, tambourines distributed everywhere on the benches. Sometimes they would burst in tears, because the lyrics suddenly struck them. Every emotion they expressed, I felt it all. Even as just a guest, I was considered part of the community. I have also been to Impact, a worship event for Baptists. They had a Christian band play a few songs after so many sermons. These songs were similar in style but also very strong in meaning. What I respected was that kids and adults would come up close to the stage and raise their hands or even lay their heads down to the ground. What I admire about this religion and its use of music is that it brings everyone together to a single purpose, and emotions are drawn out by music. Unity can be aesthetically pleasant sometimes.

Musical Autobiography

As you all have probably figured, I am not originally from here. I was born and raised in Viet Nam, so I developed a very non-Western taste in music as a child. I used to sing karaoke with my family all the time when I was 2 even though I had trouble with enunciation. One of the children songs I can still remember is "Bat Kim Thang". All the years I had spent singing it in class, for a performance, and with family and friends left the lyrics and melody engraved in my brain. To my surprise, they had this song in the children book of my choir in my middle school, which was in America. Of course, the teacher had me sing it in front of the class, though I didn't mind!

Besides the karaoke machine, my family owned an instrument called dan tranh or sixteen-stringed zither. If my memory serves me right, it belonged to my grandma, but I had never seen her play it. Sadly, the closest physical contact I had with it was poking it. A lot of Vietnamese folk music use this and the monochord including the lullabies that my mom sang to me as a kid. It was a mistake to not bring dan tranh with me, but my petty music appreciation then prevented me from considering it as anything other than a boring sound maker.

After I entered elementary school, I performed tons of Vietnamese pop songs for school and competitions within my neighborhood with at least one other person. I also had to dance, which I was and still am not good at. As a matter of fact, for my competitions, participants were required to choreograph their own songs. I am ashamed to say my group had never won first place (though we were close once...); nonetheless, we did have fun! Other than performing, I had to take a music class as well since it was mandatory. I can only vaguely recall this, but what we mainly did in there were learning songs and some music theory like scales. I actually learned the basic contour of a major scale in Viet Nam. We use solfege like here as well.

Other than Vietnamese pop and blues, I also had a love for Japanese, Korean, and Chinese pop. I later started listening to Japanese rock as well. Ironically, my love for Japanese pop grew even stronger after I came to America. When I was 13 or 14, I formed a singing group with my friends from other states on YouTube. We would cover pop songs of famous girl groups from Japan like Cute, Minimoni, and Viyuden. We were all either half or full-blooded Asian, but only a few of us were actually Japanese, so pronunciation was probably not perfect. On the bright side, we all seemed to have the same accent when part of the lyrics was English. We lasted for about a year before we disbanded.