Diverse Cultures and their Musics Fall 2022

This blog is going to be a lot like the previous one, but this time you'll be exploring the intersection of music and gender. We've already noticed several gender norms in the cultures we've studied--in Native American music, dances are generally segregated by gender, with men dancing the more flamboyant dances. In the music of the Andes, men generally play the harp, but often they'll be accompanying a woman who might be both singing and playing the part of the golpeador. And we've seen how gender norms can change over time--the Gambia has its first professional female kora player in Sona Jobarteh, and young women are starting to be seen at Native American drums.  I'm sure that, if you stop to think about it, you've noticed gender expectations in the music you've experienced. Have different genders listened to different types of music, or  been expected  to listen to different types of music? Within the style of music that you like to listen to, does the...

As we been work our way through the music of both Native American and Andean cultures, we are  observing music created for various rituals . Weddings, funerals, religious ceremonies, holidays, and various other gatherings almost always include specific kinds of musics. This, of course, is hardly surprising to most of us--we've been to weddings and funerals and other gatherings ourselves, and those rituals have almost always included specific music. For this blog, you're going to explore this relationship between ritual and music. You can talk about your own experiences or the ways that music is used in rituals in other cultures, or a combination. Here are your guidelines: Your blog should be at least 400 words long. Your blog should include a minimum of two media selections--videos, pictures, sound files, links, etc. More is better. Please don't just rehash the rituals and music that we've already talked about in class--introduce us to something new. (So, no, you may no...