Week 6

Title: unknown (African children clapping games)
Performer(s): African children in Liberia
Origin: Africa
Orchestration: hands, voice

Role play is important in children's lives. It is good for their mental health and in developing social skills as role playing is a social act. By role playing, children act out a role different from their own and develop verbal and non-verbal communication skills. Through role playing, children learn how to socialize and cooperate with their peers (Kiddy Charts). This is also true through children's musical games. As we can see in the video, the children are interacting and socializing with each other while doing these clapping games. These particular games can help in developing fine motor skills, such as hand-eye coordination. Furthermore, by performing these clapping games, children can develop vocabulary and language skills through the singing, as well as collaborative and listening skills (Kiddy Charts).

Reference:

n.a. (n.d.). The importance of pretend play/role play for young children. Retrieved from https://www.kiddycharts.com/behaviour/the-importance-of-pretend-play-role-play-for-young-children-2/

Week 5

Title: unknown (Scottish street music)
Performer(s): Clanadonia
Culture/Origin: Scotland
Orchestration: bagpipes, tribal drums

Chapter 6 of the Campbell (2004) text is about creating world music. Clanadonia is a Scottish group that creates new world music. The bagpipe is an instrument that many people associate with Scottish music, and it is very important to Scottish music. Clanadonia combines the traditional bagpipe of Scottish music with tribal drums to give an authentic sound of tribal Scottish music (Clanadonia). As Campbell (2004) says, "People make music meaningful and useful in their lives when they are at liberty to express themselves in original ways" (p. 191). Furthermore, Campbell says that "the creation of new music allows the dual aims of listening and the intellectual internalization of sonic structures to be achieved and demonstrated" (p. 191). As we can see in the video, this music is very meaningful to the performers and still maintains its authenticity as Scottish music. The musicians are performing from memory, so they are both listening and internalizing the music. From my experience, traditional Scottish music is always performed from memory, thus Clanadonia continues the "preservation of the musical practice" (p. 192).

References:
Campbell, P. S. (2004). Teaching music globally: Experiencing music, expressing culture. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Clanadonia. (n.d.). Clanadonia - Scotland's greatest drum & pipe band export. Retrieved from www.clanadonia.co.uk

Week 4

Title: unknown (Dubai Hindi Music)
Performer(s): Dubai Traditional Indian Music Group (Vento Entertainment)
Culture/Origin: India
Orchestration: sitar, tabla, flute

I recently attended an international festival hosted by one of West Virginia's largest universities, Marshall University, which is located about 45 minutes from the university (WVSU) that I assist at. I was there to observe the Japanese musical performances for my fieldwork project. In addition to a representation of Japanese culture, they also had representation of Indian culture there, among others. Furthermore, our state is home to Prabhupada's Palace of Gold, which is located in the northern part of the state. I make mention of the palace as I visited it last year and it got me more interested in Indian culture, and in particular, the music, which is why I decided to choose Indian music for this week's blog.

Looking at the models presented by Koops (2010), what we see in the video here would fall under "Authenticity as Continuum" as it represents absolute authenticity of Indian music. Not only are the performers (who are Indian themselves) playing on traditional Indian instruments, but they have also dressed and performed in a genuine traditional manner. However, as Koops mentions, authenticity is a challenging concept and absolute authenticity is not really possible in a classroom setting. As Koops' explains "teachers must evaluate how far on the continuum a musician can go without negating potential educational benefits of teaching in the music classroom or distorting the music in a disrespectful way" (Authenticity as Continuum, para. 1). When we teach world music, although we may not be able to have absolute authenticity, we need to ensure that the music is authentic enough that it does not disrespect the culture from which the music originated.

References:
Koops, L. H. (2010). Can't we just change the words? Music Educators Journal, 97(1), 23-28. doi:10.1177/0027432110376892.