The Wrap up!!

One of the things that intrigued me about our diverse musical studies, are the various vocal timbres of singers in each area of the world. I love the vocal timbre of both Ireland's sean-nos singers and that of women in India and parts of the middle east. At first, I actually found it to be quite uncomfortable to my ears. However, after a few listenings, my ears adjusted. All of a sudden, I am finding myself downloading more sean-nos style and Indian vocal music than ever. Although it will most likely never happen, I would love to learn how to correctly sing a traditional Indian song (from India) or an Irish sean-nos inspired song. What attracts me to these styles of singing is their extreme level of difficulty and the intentional avoidance of pinpointing a certain set of pitches. The singer's ranges are also usually higher than that of an average western singer.

Looking at my own culture, I realize that it has no drawn line, seal, or even a single origin from which is derived but that it is and always will be a blend of influences that I will never be able to single out. It reminds me of a water color painting I saw as a child where I could not tell where one color began or ending. The painting was beautiful but was painted to be a bit of a brain tease. I stood on that street for 20 minutes with my uncle and would not let us leave until I tried to make sense of the painting. Obviously, my uncle grew impatient shortly and bent over to say, "NeNe, try to understand that the most beautiful things in life are often the most confusing and that beauty does not have to make sense to make and impact." I mentioned what he said because I still call him to discuss things that puzzle me and he still says the same thing. Therefore, learning about my culture has forced me to learn about the culture of others because somewhere down the line, elements of the two are linked. Not to sound like a drag but maybe my culture is turning out not to be as unique and one of a kind as I thought.

Of course, everything in life has its purpose and the purpose of this class was to help me to realize that one, I really need to follow my dreams and travel abroad, and two, I have chosen music as the path for my life and I need to drown in not just my western roots, but all of it in order to be the best musician I can be. Besides the eye opening cultural aspects, I really feel that this class has brought me back to a place where I once again realize why I chose music-I mean why music chose me. Even though I feel that I can conduct further research on some of the cultures we discussed on my own, I am taking away with me a new outlook of the world. For instance, I now know that at least some type of classical music is apparent in almost every musical culture, all have sacred ceremonies or rituals containing music, and that music is usually the basis of a culture's defining roots. However, I feel that the most important thing that I have learned from this class comes in the form of a very wise and remember able quote: "The world always works in circles, and everything tries to be round."-Black Elk