Kevin Bobo

In the short story “The Renegade” by Shirley Jackson, Mrs.Walpole is hard working, uncertain and depressed. First of all Mrs.Walpole is extremely hard working. She always puts others needs before her own. “She watched them climb into the school bus and then went briskly to work clearing their dishes from the table and setting a place for Mr.Walpole. She would have to have breakfast later, in the breathing-spell that came after nine o’clock.” (Jackson,70) She gets up early to get the children and her husband ready and where they are supposed to be by making breakfast, then cleaning and maintaining the household. Even though Mrs.Walpole is hard working she is very uncertain. When it comes to country life Mrs.Walpole does not have a bearing,

The Peruvian culture was selected for this cultural assignment after an encounter with a surprising Peruvian music performance during a routine work commute at a New York City train station. The band, Espiritu Andino, consisted of several male performers in ponchos and threaded caps. Although outshined by a pan flute, all the typical musical instruments worked together to produce soothing and melodic notes. The listeners could easily transcend to mystic mountain tops and river passages. The performance ignited not only intrigue but also admiration for the Peruvian culture.

For the Introduction to World music final project, my collaborative partner Mike Murphy and I chose to learn and attempt to play the Peruvian Panpipe. The reasoning behind choosing this instrument hits home for me, compared the other instruments on the list, this is because I have a small understanding of the Peruvian culture. One of my closest friends back home, she herself is half Peruvian. Often when I was over spending time at her home, I would be fortunate enough to talk with her dad about the Peruvian culture and what it was like growing up in Peru.

In this essay, I will be examining the musical genre of Afrobeat which was created by Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Afrobeat first came to be in the late 1960’s during the Civil Rights Movement in America. Fela Kuti a Nigerian, was able to create a genre that has change the way we view music today. Afrobeat is made up of two different words, “Afro” and “Beat”. “Afro” correlates with “African organized sound while beat is a rhythmic counting pattern in relation to such music” (Oikelome, 2013). Therefore, the meaning of Afrobeat is the unique African rhythmic patterns of such music. The coming of this genre is very interesting since the man behind it has quite a story.

Music is known to leave its mark on people helping them to overcome challenges in their lives or to give them courage to defy the odds. In one’s daily life, music is normally taken for granted or is seen as nothing special. As ordinary as it may seem, music can convey emotion in times when the body is numb or all hope is lost. Similarly, in The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway, the cello’s music gave people hope and determination to live their lives in spite of the rampant siege around them. Therefore, music very much impacts the lives of the principal characters Dragan, Kenan, and Arrow.

Though, in spite of waves of cultural differences causing ebbs and flows of the rising and falling of war and peace, the cohesive effects of music seems to ignore cultural differences by giving them reasons to celebrate their commonalities. And the almost infinite number of sounds that creates the musical kaleidoscope of jazz perhaps best embodies music’s cohesive elements.

1889 was the year where Claude Debussy became particularly interested in Javanese Gamelan. Northern European musicians constantly searched for new and exotic sound worlds, different to the Nineteenth Century German Romanticism from which they were trying to move away. It was when Debussy visited the 1889 Paris Universal Exposition that he became intrigued with the exhibit from Java, (an island in the Malay Archipelago). The Java exhibit was a model village which presented many aspects of the communal village life whereby Gamelan played one of the main roles in the religious and social areas. Javanese Gamelan, consisting of a collection of instruments, mostly metallic with gong or bell-like sounds caused enthusiasm and excitement among the European musicians, due to its ‘well -developed, powerful and beautiful style’ that had complete uniqueness and broke all rules of what music could and should be. Robert Godet (a friend of Debussy) remarked that “many fruitful hours were spent in the Javanese Kampong (Village)”. Debussy was said to be captivated with Gamelan, listening to the Percussive rhythmic complexities and its inexhaustible combinations of celestial, flashing timbres. Amidst Debussy’s works, ‘Pagodes’, ‘Pour Le Piano’ and ‘L’isle Joyeuse’, incorporate into their pieces numerous aspects of Javanese Gamelan, whether it be the interlocking patterns between the left and right hand, or using melodies influenced by the Slendro pentatonic scale. The Pastiche orientalism of

African influence is evident in African secular and religious practices, in instruments modeled after African instruments, and in the use of musical traits associated with Africa’s ethnic groups.

Focusing on the interesting and unique rhythm of this piece in relation to the Turkish Janissary style, we will know for a fact that the rhythm which is an important element of this piece indeed determines and differentiates it from the standard classical style of music. Taking into consideration a Turkish Janissary style, the percussion instruments often play this rhythm.

American Indian music has, throughout the history of the native people, been a major part in the life of a tribe’s cultural expression. The Southern Plains American Indians have learned, from their ancestors/elders, the delicate rhythmic communication as youth, and have carried the expression throughout their lives. The songs of the Southern Plains American Indians represent their artistic language as a diminishing minority group. Through song, American Indians communicate their beliefs and values as a distinct society. American Indians use equipment such as drums, vocals, and dance during the performance of their, often, monophonic language with a rare heterophony texture.

A simple drum conceived in the wild of Africa, shares its silent story of the hidden lives of the slaves of North America. It melody mixed three cultures that are now one, and the beating of modern drums in jazz and blues gives reminder of a culture that once in bondage but now enjoys the rhythm of

“An introduction to Samoan music is an introduction to the Samoan people as a whole (Moyle, p1).” Music had a strong, complimentary presence in traditional Samoan life, and is still a powerful presence today. Although, now, the traditional means for Samoan music has evolved along with it. Traditionally, music was the medium used to tell stories, depict lifestyles, emit warning signals, and to transmit many other things for tribes inhabiting the island. Without the need for a powerful method to transfer signals with the aid of technology; modern day Samoan music has modernized and changed to focus more on the storytelling during a performance. Traditional music in Samoa was a product derived from how they lived their everyday life while blending their voices into song,

In this course we have learned about all of the different cultures and their musical traditions. My favorite so far has had to be the west African music culture. They have a variety of different music, instruments, and dances to contribute to the reasons I liked this music culture so much. So, I have taken it upon myself to further my research on this particular musical group. I will compare and contrast a variety of different videos from the west African music culture and I will analyze how they connect to this culture.

Music from all over the world presents a range of musical theories. Some of these are documented in writing whilst others are transmitted orally. Discuss and give examples with reference to both Western and non-Western music.

In the late 2004, a series of papers (research project) on the topic of world music and globalisation became a hot topic in a conference and gradually took on a life turning onto a virtual laboratory for teaching and research on the relationship between music and globalisation under ethnography which was funded by the Canadian Social Sciences and humanities Research Council from 2003-2006. Since then this topic has got wide meaning and more complicated.