Check it out:
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Dancing to the (African) Beat - Jaime
Each tribe in Africa has its own song. If you go to Africa to visit a tribe, you better be ready to dance and (at least try) to sing along with their songs. The music is full of energy and is most often used as a greeting or welcome, or for tribal and ceremonial rituals. The countries and regions in Africa have many different languages using many different tones. These tones will reflect in the kinds of music you hear as you travel around Africa.
If anyone has ever heard African music being played, or participated in making the music, you know there is a lot of beat. Percussion instruments, along with voices, are the most widely used instruments in Africa. They use all kinds of drums, rattles, bells, horns, conch shells, friction sticks, and of course their voices. Their music is not written down, but there is much tradition and lots of singing all the time so it is easy to remember.
Where there is such great beats and music, there has to be dancing. African’s use their music much in the same way as they use dance, for celebration and unity. Dance styles also vary from region to region. Dances are preformed for both spiritual and social purposes, and it is hard to differentiate between the two, sometimes the purposes combine. There are often masquerade dances preformed to symbolize nature, the dead, or spirits. In this next video we find a traditional African dance done by some men.
There is some African music that may sound familiar to us. An example of African music I am sure we are all familiar with is in the beginning of “The Circle of Life” from “The Lion King:”
“Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba Sithi uhm ingonyama…” This is not a greeting they use, but they are taking about a lion coming. One of my favorite bands, Dispatch, wrote a song called "Elias." In this song there is an example of a typical greeting, "Coz e wah he" which in Zimbabwe means, "Are you strong?" The reply to this is, "I am strong if you are strong."
If anyone has ever heard African music being played, or participated in making the music, you know there is a lot of beat. Percussion instruments, along with voices, are the most widely used instruments in Africa. They use all kinds of drums, rattles, bells, horns, conch shells, friction sticks, and of course their voices. Their music is not written down, but there is much tradition and lots of singing all the time so it is easy to remember.
Where there is such great beats and music, there has to be dancing. African’s use their music much in the same way as they use dance, for celebration and unity. Dance styles also vary from region to region. Dances are preformed for both spiritual and social purposes, and it is hard to differentiate between the two, sometimes the purposes combine. There are often masquerade dances preformed to symbolize nature, the dead, or spirits. In this next video we find a traditional African dance done by some men.
There is some African music that may sound familiar to us. An example of African music I am sure we are all familiar with is in the beginning of “The Circle of Life” from “The Lion King:”
“Nants ingonyama bagithi Baba Sithi uhm ingonyama…” This is not a greeting they use, but they are taking about a lion coming. One of my favorite bands, Dispatch, wrote a song called "Elias." In this song there is an example of a typical greeting, "Coz e wah he" which in Zimbabwe means, "Are you strong?" The reply to this is, "I am strong if you are strong."
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Music is an Important Part of Life
Ben Headrick
I am at a point now that I can't ever even to start falling asleep until I listen to music for about an hour. My body cannot rest completely until the music has put my body to rest. I really liked what Summer had to say because music really does have the power to put us in a certain mood.
I wanted to talk a little bit about why music is so important in each one of our lives. First off music is a common language. While I lived out of the country in Brazil they would listen to all the popular American music even though they couldn't understand they could connect through the beat of the music. Very cool! Music is also used to inspire. Think of the Rocky soundtrack or similar songs like that. Those songs get you so pumped up and if you were thinking you couldn't do something you are able to do it now. I personally can't lift weights without loud music ringing in my ears to pump me up. Are you guys like this too? It also can inspire learning. If fact, so much that in the testing center has a specific room with classical music to help you get a better grade on your test!
Another aspect of music is how it affects our spiritual side. The church hymns have a huge impact on all of us. The beautiful words and melody can invite the spirit to be with us very quickly. This is a really neat thing if you think about it. I have heard people say that you should sing all verses of every song because it is like a prayer you are giving up to the Lord.
The bottom line of what I am trying to get across is that music is a magical thing in our lives. It influences us in every possible way it can. It allow us to express ourselves in anyway we want to which is one of the greatest things in the world. Without the power of music in our lives we would miss out on emotions. Lets be honest who hasn't listened to a song and either cried because of the words or made you smile and laugh. It makes me think of a powerful movie I saw about this which is August Rush. If you guys haven't seen it you should definitely check it out! Speaking of the power of music if anyone hasn't seen this clip you need to watch it. Click here
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
