Noh Classical Theater

Noh is classical theater for Japan. Since it is theater it has similar elements to western theater. It includes the stage, performers, props, and costumes but some defining elements are the chants, instruments, movements, and masks. It is stylized and refined with traditional values. Surprisingly the noh plays are standardized so there isn't much variations. In the video example there is only the chanting and drums for the play, usually there are flutes in the ensemble.

Classical ...

Ustad Rashid Khan performs an Alaap in kirwani raga. Raga means musical modes and kirwani is a harmonic scale similar to minors in western music. Since the piece is done in minor tone it gives off a soothing tone at a slow melodic pace. The theme of the song focuses on Ustad's voice and there are some ornaments that I could identify at the cadence. The texture of the music is homophony and the music in the background sounds synthetic.

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The musical elements featured within Shak Mikonam, from 2008, gives off a rhythm that gives off the pop genre of music. When I listen to it, I have to take the rhythm and attempt to match it to something within the genre to get a grasp and I had to think wayyyyy back to when my friend let listen to something from Baby VOX which is Korean pop, and what appears to be similar is I get the music, and a little bit of rap in one song. Which is what Googoosh seems to be aiming for in this song so it gives off a positive mood when you hear the beats.

Some additional elements I can find in this song it has no tempo changes. I have a hard time identifying texture within music because I don't know how to organize the music past two instruments but I'm going to take a wild guess and say that it is homophony. My reasoning is because there are the vocals, the melody of the music, and supporting instruments to give off the beat.

Year of the Tiger

Next week is the year of the tiger, and with today coming to a close I got to enjoy a wonderful Chinese New Year performance by the students of UIBE. The performance featured dance, music, singing, swordplay, and martial arts.

It was hard for me to actually pay attention to the music because my main focus was actually watching the show. However, I did notice that the music plays a big role in how the performers act, like a cue of some sorts. While most performers (this is an ignorant uninformed opinion) looks to the audience whenever they're looking up during the Peacock dance, some of the performers actually don't bother to while looking up, their eyes stray away.

Peking opera slightly resembles Vietnamese opera, but I forget if it was the westerners that brought opera to China or if they had this going on all along.

Chinese Cultural Exchange

Our brief cultural exchange featured some surprising aspects. This was new, I did not know that within the students their were also minorities within their ethnicity. To me my belief was that everyone in China was Chinese and that was all there is, but the speaker identified himself was Turkish-Muslim and that there were around 54 other ethnic groups within China, and because of this the cultural aspect of China was a major blend of these minorities blended in together.

Our attempts at trading off information to demonstrate American music culture was, to me, some what lacking. Instead of collectively as a class conveying to the visitors that each of us have our own taste and demonstrating examples we left it up to 4-5 people of our class to talk from their own point of views instead of sharing over 20 or more point of views. For me I view American music culture as everyone else bringing their cultures into the United States because originally we were English colonies until the country itself turned into a mix of every bit of other nation's living in America leaving us with no definition of American music culture. We can define what American popular music and art music is pretty easily. Just take a look at radio, that would be today's latest.

Just a taste of what I listen to.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_exesnCA5Y

Latin American Music for UTD's Anniversary

The performance itself was weird and good at the same time. Since the music acts individually created these weird feelings, such as the second act involving the clarinet, drums, violin and piano. The mixture of instruments made an awkward unison of sound that threw me off, not to say I disliked it by any means it just wasn't as enjoyable as the first act.

The performers themselves liked to interact with the audience from the second act onward, sometimes looking directly at the audience or making some jokes before the start of the act. The audience's reaction to these pauses were positive with laughter.

Throughout many of the pieces there have been notable changes in tempo, from fast to slow, slow to fast, or just generally sticking to one tempo all the way through.

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It took a while to find something interesting to work with but I'd figure I would study Japanese Music Culture in lieu of Mochitsuki even that passed some time ago. Ever since the one class period where our professor sang the festival song it made me wonder how such a melody could be sad but actually be a happy song for the Japan's music culture. It threw me off, so I decided I would study the music culture especially since there is a Japan-America society within the DFW area.