After reading the play “Songcatcher”, by Darby Fitzgerald, as well as looking at an interview done with Evie Mark, their stories revealed the same key concepts; the dilemmas they face while trying to revive Native American Music. Both of these men felt as if they needed to prove who they were to everyone around them. Making the journey to find the music from inside them a very personal one. The prime focuses in each are the struggles they face to revive the music passed down through their cultures history. They also show the persistence they have to “rekindle the fire” or the love music, within today’s younger Native generation. Both stories are inspirational to the identity crisis within these nations. In the play, “Songcatcher,” a character …show more content…
She is half white, and half Inuit. Evie, like Jack, is also trying to bring her culture’s music back to the generations of today’s Inuit people. In the Interview with Mark she is asked when she started singing. Her answer explains that she started learning from an elderly woman, with her friend, at the age of 11. Even though she started to learn the proper ways to sing, she did not get the technique down right away. She had many sore scratchy sore throats until one day, it just clicked for her. After that point, even when she had not sung for years it still would come back as delicate sounding as the day she first starting singing. Evie believes that young Inuit people are very interested in her music, because they face the same identity crisis that she did before music. She gathers that her work is teaching these children who they are, and they are enjoying every moment of it, embracing their heritage. By looking at these two Natives it is clear that music is very sacred to many Native cultures. The music in the play as well as throat singing represents, identity, entertainment, healing, as well as fun. These songs all fall back onto one thing, rhythm. Rhythm is one of the core elements to the Native music. These songs are all forms of art, or an unreplaceable form of storytelling for Native Nations, and it will always remain a big role in their lives. Jack and Evie both are
Rachel M. Harper’s The Myth of Music intentionally weaves together 1960s era jazz music and a poor African American family via metaphor and allusion to show a deep familiar bond between father and daughter.
The depiction of Native Americans to the current day youth in the United States is a colorful fantasy used to cover up an unwarranted past. Native people are dressed from head to toe in feathers and paint while dancing around fires. They attempt to make good relations with European settlers but were then taken advantage of their “hippie” ways. However, this dramatized view is particularly portrayed through media and mainstream culture. It is also the one perspective every person remembers because they grew up being taught these views. Yet, Colin Calloway the author of First Peoples: A Documentary Survey of American Indian History, wishes to bring forth contradicting ideas. He doesn’t wish to disprove history; he only wishes to rewrite it.
Going to the powwow I didn’t know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised. After our performance, a few of us decided to come back, and we were surprised by many of the sights and sounds. When we arrived, there was a group of men known as bird singers who were chanting and singing traditional songs. Some of the older women were doing simple dances
“Together the matrices of race and music occupied similar position and shared the same spaces in the works of some of the most lasting texts of Enlightenment thought..., by the end of the eighteenth century, music could embody differences and exhibit race…. Just as nature gave birth and form to race, so music exhibited remarkable affinities to nature” (Radano and Bohlman 2000: 14). Radano and Bohlman pointed out that nature is a source of differences that give rise to the different racial identities. As music embodies the physical differences of human, racial differences are not only confined to the differences in physical appearances, but also the differences in many musical features, including language, tonality and vocal expression. Nonetheless, music is the common ground of different racial identities. “In the racial imagination, music also occupies a position that bridges or overlaps with racial differences. Music fills in the spaces between racial distinctiveness….” (Radano and Bohlman 2000:8) Even though music serves as a medium through which different racial identities are voiced and celebrated individually, it establishes the common ground and glues the differences
Music nurtured the African American tradition and their struggle towards equality in the same century.... ... middle of paper ... ... Greensboro, N.C.: Morgan Reynolds Pub. Carter, D. (2009).
Latinoamericanitas, 1976. Print. Vélez, Germám. Phone Interview. February 10th, 2011. Waterman, Richard Alan. Folk music of Puerto Rico . Washington: Library of Congress,
Music is an art and a wonderful gift to human race. It soothes, stimulates and makes us feel happy. It affects our moods in many different ways from lullaby to war cry for changes in the society. Music is actually distinct to different people. Above all, it has a transformational importance that is captured in its art and nature. Music draws our emotions and it has an impact of bridging different cultures across the continents. Slave songs were very vital channels through which all kind of information was conveyed both positive and negative.
Ostlere, Hilary. “Taming The Musical.” Dance Magazine 73.12 (1999): 84. Expanded Academic ASAP. Westfield State College Library, MA. 15 April 2005.
Glasser, Ruth. My Music is My Flag: Puerto Rican Musicians and the New York Communities. (University of California Press, Berkaley 1995)
Today I will be discussing the Rebel Music video and how the it affects the individuals in the video. They are presenting an uprising of a new generation that is helping the Native American community turn in a positive direction by using music in different ways. Notable artists, such as Inez Jasper, Mike “Witko” Cliff, Frank Waln and Nataani Means are at the forefront of this new 7th generation movement of music.
Music’s role on society has changed drastically through the course of its history as it has become ever so increasingly expansive. Many of the previous musical movements were only for the wealthy as entertainment
Ragland, Cathy. Música Norteña: Mexican Migrants Creating a Nation between Nations. Philadelphia, PA: Temple UP, 2009. Print.
Tick, Judith, and Paul E. Beaudoin. Music in the USA: a Documentary Companion. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.
Music often carries information about community knowledge, aesthetics, or perspectives. Toni Morrison discusses the power of music and the way it functions in culture in discussions of her craft. Symbolic and structural elements of music appear throughout all of Toni Morrison’s fiction in one way or another. (Obadike) As mentioned above, the title itself, draws attention to the world-renowned music created by African Americans in the 1920s’ as well as to the book’s jazz-like narrative structure and themes.
Small, Christopher. Music of the Common Tongue: Survival and Celebration in African American Music. Hanover, NH: U of New England, 1998. Print