Music and Us: Our New Playlist
I thought that I would go ahead and start us off in Greenland which is a part of the North American continent. I had no interest in looking into the music of Greenland but I wanted to include as many different places as I could so I said why not! I am mainly going to focus on their modern day music, more specifically the pop/rock band named Nanook. They are widely considered the most popular band in Greenland, they blend pop-rock with soft, melodic indie sounds and lyrics with their native Greenlandic. Something really interesting that I learned about them while I was doing some research about them was that they refused an offer to work with Sony because they wanted them to sing in English and they refused saying that they wanted to maintain their cultural identity. They have released 5 main studio albums since 2009, all of which are gold-certified in Greenland. Just to show a little bit of their popularity, in 2012 they sold 5,000 albums. They have won the “Best Album” prize at the Greenlandic Music Awards twice since their start in releasing music. The founders of the group are brothers named Christian and Frederick and they come from southern Greenland but moved to Nuuk in 2001. And this is the last fun little fact about them but their name actually has a meaning as well. They named themselves in reference to the mythological Greenlandic bear which is known in Inuit religion as the “master of bears” meaning that he decided if hunters deserved success in finding and hunting bears and punished violations of taboos. I honestly thought that I wasn’t going to like listening to their music since their style includes indie but as I listened to their music I started to really like it. I honestly wouldn’t mind listening to a lot of their stuff while I read or relax. Even though I don’t understand a word of what they are singing about, their melodies and aesthetics are very calming and just an overall joy to listen to, especially when you can hear the acoustic guitar. That being said, that made it really hard to choose just one or two of their songs to share with you all. The first song is called “Nanook”. Something about it just brings me great joy when I listen to it. And the second song I included is called “Inuinnaagavit”. The use of the acoustic guitar and the beautiful vocals are just so calming and I feel like this would be something that I would listen to while I am reading or something that I can just jam to when I am winding down at night. I hope you enjoy it!
Boarding our flight we are heading north to the great and festive Brazil. I bet you all know what kind of music I will be talking about here lol. Brazil is a part of South America and I will be talking about their most festive time of year, CARNIVAL! The Carnival of Brazil is an annual festival held the Friday afternoon before Ash Wednesday at noon, which marks the beginning of Lent, the 40 day period before Easter. Carnival is the most popular holiday in Brazil and has become an event of huge proportions. The country unifies completely for almost a week and festivities are intense, day and night, and mainly in coastal cities. Just to get an idea of how big this is in 2018 the festivities held in Rio de Janeiro alone drew in 6 million people. The origins of Carnival is a synthesis of European, Native American, and Afro-Brazilian cultural influences, each group has played an important role in the development of the structure and aesthetic of the Brazilian carnival of today. I’ll briefly talk about how each of these cultures contribute to this large holiday/festival! The main rhymes used in the music are mostly developed by Afro-Brazilian cultures and they make use of European instruments. The costumes of Carnival borrow concepts of the clothing seen in Indigenous peoples of South America. It is also worth pointing out that Carnival looks different depending on what region you go to, so much diversity!!! Some of the more notable types of music used are samba, Frevo, and Axé just to name a few. I really wanted to learn more about this culture of music because I know I am not the only one who has seen Rio that came out in 2011 that mainly focused on this time period of Brazil. All of the colors and the music that they included in that movie was so infectious so when we had to think up places to look into and talk about I immediately knew that Brazil was going to be one of them. While I know that this doesn’t necessarily reflect Brazilian music as a whole I thought it was fun learning more about this musical culture that they have and celebrate. Instead of just choosing one song to include, I am going to put a playlist that I found on YouTube here that has a whole bunch of different kinds of songs on it. I think my favorite one that I listened to was no 4 “El Caraval- Salsaloco De Cuba”, it had a really fun rhythm and I could see why people would want to dance to something like this!
Seatbelts everyone! We are headinging to Japan! Japan is a part of the Asia continent and considered to be an archipelago consisting of 14,125 islands. While there are thousands of islands, the country is primarily formed into four main islands: Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu, and Shikoku. But enough about the geography and onto the music of this beautiful place. I chose to go the route of their traditional Japanese music which is called Hōgaku. Translated this means “Japanese music” but this is a blanket term that is used to sum up all of the subgenres of traditional Japanese music. I don’t know what it is but for some reason I have always been drawn to the traditional music of Japan. It is so calming and peaceful that sometimes I will put some on in the background while I am working. There are four main instruments used when it comes to the traditional japanese style and they are: the koto, the shamisen, the shakuhachi, and the taiko drums.
Kota
Shamisen
Shakuhachi
Taiko Drums
As I said before, there are many different kinds of traditional music in Japan. In my research I found that there are really 3 kinds of traditional music in japan and they are: theatrical, court music, and instrumental. There are many theatrical forms of drama that music plays a significant role in. Things like larger ensembles, highly stylized dancing and singing, and acting are all different ways that music plays a role in their theatrics. Court music is the oldest traditional music in Japan. It was used in the Imperial Court and shrines and temples. This music included songs, dances, and a mixture of other Asian music. There were usually two styles, instrumental and vocal. This music was also used by Buddhist monks in a few different ways. One of the ways that I read about was a kind of chanting that was inspired by the music of India. It is called Shōmyō and is usually sung a capella by one or more Buddhist monks. So as you can see there is a lot of different kinds of traditional music in Japan so for my musical example I am going to choose just one kind. I am going to stick with the instrumental side of their traditional music and it is also going to be a longer playlist. I am putting two different ones on there to give a little bit of contrast. I hope you enjoy listening to this music as much as I did. I would highly recommend going out there and listening to other kinds of traditional Japanese music because there is a lot out there and it is always just so beautiful.
Now we board our plane for the last time and land ourselves in Russia. Russia is a very large country, as I'm sure we all know, and thus it is part of both Europe and Asia. I am planning on focusing on the folk music of Russia so let's do a quick little dive into authentic folk music. Folk music is closely tied in with village life and traditions. It was not usually performed by professional musicians. Because of the Central Committee’s resolution of 1932 they prescribed that music literacy was important, this was because of the drive to industrialize the Soviet Union. In doing so there has been a decline in authentic folk performance practice. Festivals, competitions and the work of ethnomusicologists have made attempts at preserving what has survived. Not only the festivals but believe it or not YouTube has further amplified the revival allowing people from all over the world to easily access Russian folk music with groups like Yat-Kha and NARECHIE (I will provide an example from each of these artists). Folkloric music includes music by groups led by music professionals, past and present, who have taken authentic musical material, and then arranged and performed it in a manner formulated by Vasily Andreyev and subsequently refined under Stalin’s regime, yet it is widely accepted as “Authentic Russian” by western audiences. During Stalin’s rule, music in the Soviet Union was controlled by the government. Leaders believed music should support their political ideas and help shape the way people thought. They wanted music to be easy to understand, positive, and supportive of the country. Music that was too experimental or influenced by the West was seen as dangerous. Folk music was also affected. The government said it supported folk traditions, but only the parts that matched its message. Real, old folk songs were often changed. Regional styles and religious parts were removed, and songs were rewritten to make them sound more patriotic or simple. Folk groups performed these new versions at events and on radio, but they no longer sounded like the original music from villages. Many folk musicians continued to perform by adjusting to the new system and they started to add classical instruments, change lyrics, and worked with government-approved groups. In this time, folk music became something new–a mix of true cultural history and state-approved performance. While it lost some of its original character, it also showed how music could survive and adapt, even in hard times. I’m not really sure what made me want to take a closer look into the traditional folk music of Russia but I am so glad I did! I had a great time going through different playlists and songs and I feel like I learned so much. I hope you liked these selections as much as I did!
Hi Maggie! The elecction I liked the most is Greenland and the band Nanook. I liked it because you connected their music to cultural identity, especially the fact that they refused to work with Sony because they didn't want to sing in english. I also liked the fact that you went with low expectations and then being surprised by how enjoyable their music was.
ReplyDeleteHey Maggie!
ReplyDeleteSomething about Nanook was quite fun to listen to. To me this like punk rock, almost even slow rock, was a genre I enjoyed listening to growing up and the video for sure makes it better for the style, This blog was a fun read!
I loved the set up of the whole blog; it made it so much more interesting to read. The idea of the passport was genius. My favorite section was the carnival one. I was really intrigued by it as someone who has been to some Caribbean carnivals; the music was very different. I thought of Rio as soon as I heard it.
ReplyDeleteHi Maggie. I too enjoy listening to traditional Japanese music. I really like the examples you chose. I also thought the little bit of history you gave on Russian folk music and how it's changed. I was aware of how Soviet music regulations affected classical music, but was unaware it impacted their folk music as well.
ReplyDeleteHey Maggie, I really enjoyed the music from Greenland! the beginning of Nanook before the whole band came in kind sounded like something from Avatar The Last Airbender.
ReplyDelete