More project Stuffs

I am not having any perceivable trouble obtaining any information about my projects music culture. The main problem is trying to pinpoint the types of people who are a part of this music culture. There are the musicians but the audience is very varied due to the fact that most of the people who listen to the music are mainly there for the beer/food. Conducting the interview will be pretty easy because I will be interviewing my roommate.

Musico-ethnogrogaphy

I will be doing a project on the type of music they play at bars specifically the live music. This is because the people who play live music at bars are often interesting characters. It takes a very specific skill set to play at a bar. You do not to necessarily as good as professional bands, but they need to have a skill set that allows them to satisfy drunk crowds. Drunk people like specific types of music. When people drink they like Journey and lot more than normally. Also drunk people are okay with listening to Nickelback covers. Bar bands are usually aware of this and play a variety of crowd pleasing drinking music so that people will keep drinking and the bar will make money. They are not only musicians they are also indirectly salesmen of sorts.

Noh

Noh is a traditional form of Japanese theater. It should not be confused with Kabuki that is similar but not the same. In the piece I viewed two characters appeared to be in some form of conflict. One appeared to be the spirit of island fire while the other appeared to be the spirit of Mountain snow. I'm guessing they are brothers or something because they look very much alike other than their hair which appears to be a different color for each of them. The music was not very melodic. It seemed to me to be mostly drums, the taiko if I am correct, with some instrument I am unfamiliar with being used for the drone. It seemed fairly interesting and I look forward to viewing some in the class and posjavascript:void(0)sibly knowing what is going on plotwise.

Indian Music

I viewed a video of a performance by Ustad Shahid Parvez. He was playing one of India's iconic instruments, the sitar, a chordophone that the user sits to play. I am unsure whether the name sitar originated in Hindi or if it is a portmanteau of sit and guitar. Either way Hindustani Classical music is very different than western music. The sitar has a distinct sound that really doesn't have an equivalent in western culture. The performance I watched was monophonic, mainly because it was a single performer doing the show. It had a couple of shifts in speed that I found intriguing.

Googoosh

Googoosh's music was quite different than what I am used to listening to. Her song Man O To seemed to have a certain Latin flavor to it. Googoosh used vibrato a lot. Lalaei was more of a downbeat song that haid a high pitched wailing going on in the background. It was either sad or romantic or maybe even neither, I am not familiar enough with the culture to gnome the difference. I can see why some people would enjoy her music, it just really isn't my thing. However one thing I do like about her music is that it reminds me of the type of music that would be playing whenever the characters from "The Shield" would go to an ethnic district of the city. It kind of makes me nostalgic since that show is over.

40th Anniversay Thing

I attended An Evening of Latin Music knowing it could be either one of two things, either Latin Chants possibly from Medieval times or Latin American music. It turned out that this particular presentation fell into the latter category. I enjoyed the piece Le Voyageur Sans Bagage. The particular piece used the violin, clarinet and piano. The piece was polyphonic and I enjoyed how there were many separate melodies going on at once. The melodies were distinct yet they coalesced in an interesting way. The performers were all very talented. They obviously all put a lot of effort into the performance and it showed. The audience seemed to be made up of students who had to go and people who came to support the arts. I would say it seemed to be about an even balance of each. As far as time goes it seemed to go by very quickly.

The Man(ilow)

One of the earliest experiences with music I can remember is hearing the song "Copa Cabana" by Mr. Barry Manilow. This is not the type of music I normally listen to but the music of Barry Manilow and other lounge type artists have a special place in my heart if only for nostalgia's sake. Barry Manilow's marshmallowy smooth voice and emotional lyrics always pick me up when I am down. Barry's voice brings me back to a time when a man was judged not by the size of his biceps but by the size of his heart. Barry Manilow is an under-appreciated treasure. Most people do not know who he is because his music doesn't get played on the MTV and he doesn't have a show on VH1 where women compete for his love. However for those who know of Barry Manilow his music provides countless hours of wonder and joy.