Last week, I discussed the impact that music has on people’s
lives on a personal and individual level. Later in the post I focused on how
music impacts us in a cultural, emotional, and moral way. Although there are
many reasons as to have music impacts us, I found that those we the most common
ways. This week, I will discuss how music influences and impacts us on a larger
level, on a cultural level. Different cultures have different styles of music
that speak to them different. It’s important to recognize the music of
different cultures to understand where they come and how they were formed.
Understanding the roots of different types of music help us learn where certain
types of music come from and how it was created. The deeper understanding of
genres of music can help us to spread the various types and educate others
further.
Reggae is a style of
Jamaican popular music blending blues, calypso, and rock-'n'-roll,
characterized by a strong syncopated rhythm and lyrics of social protest as
explained by dictionary.com. This style of music can be traced back to the late
1960’s in Jamaica. It is argued that this style of music evolved from earlier
genres such as Ska and Rocksteady. Bob Marley is probably one of the easiest
names to recognize from reggae music.
The Blues according to dictionary.com is a song, originating
with American blacks, that is marked by the frequent occurrence of blue notes,
and that takes the basic form, customarily improvised upon in performance, of a
12-bar chorus consisting of a 3-line stanza with the second line repeating the
first. The blues may be one of my favorite genres of music. It mimics the
idea of a call and response style without common music features such as
harmonies. This genre of music comes with
sadness, melancholy, regret, etc. Ray Charles and Willie Dixon are artist that
can be tied with this genre.
A few times I’ve heard of calypso music but I never gave it
music attention. It is a musical style of West Indian origin, influenced by jazz,usually having topical, often improvised, lyrics (dictionary.com). This genre of music is tied back to Trinidad and Tobago. My aunt is from
there, so I’m pretty sure she’s the reason that this genre sparks memories in
my head. An easier place for us to identify this type of music would be in the
hit movies Pirates of the Caribbean as it ties with Calypso the sea goddess in
the movies.
Often times it is over looked that different genres of music
influence places all over the world. They originated in certain origins of the
world and the spread like a wildfire. It’s inevitable that music needs to stay
around and be taught. It helps with the overall satisfaction of life and gives
us some substance. Everyone has their own memories planted in each genre of
music or even each type. It’s important for us to recognized and acknowledge the
origins of different types of music so we know how they contribute and
compliment the next genre. In my next post, I plan on explain three or four
more different genres and how they come together to help create more types of
music.
Thanks for reading. :)
I think the most interesting part of different music genres is how they are influenced by where they come from and the culture of that area. This makes music very different region to region and keeps new, yet traditional, music always coming.
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