My Musical Autobiography

My life has been consumed by music recieved in a school setting. Therefore, my musical knowledge is rather confined to the classical realm. Most of my performane experience occurs with rigid western ideals of sitting in seats, complete silence, and no audience participation. I did experience three snippits of the eastern world.

My high school choir had the wonderful opportunity to perform with a professionial Middle Eastern singer. He was an uncle of one of the students going to my school. Unfortunately, I was never able to perform in the concert because I lost my voice. However, I did hear stories that the concert was extremely long as they do not have the same time constraints as we are used to. I was able to attend all the rehearsels and can still remember snippits of the song today. In fact, that is the only snippit of songs sung in my high school choir that I can still remember today such as (Pallirahma Chandra). I believe the catchy tune, unfamiliar style, and interesting experience allows me to remember. I can also remember quite clearly a fellow student listening to the recording of the professionals singing the music so that they could dictate the melody on the board because the songs were transmitted aurally. There were certain syllables or combinations like the western la which the musicians were extremely familiar with enough to produce them at extremely fast rates. The words would roll easily off their tongues while ours were rather sluggish. There were also improvisatory sections which would use combinations of these letters. These combinations were second nature and fascinating to listeners such as me who are not used to this type of music.

My second encounter was the visiting Middle Eastern performer that came here in the fall semester of 2007. Here everyone sat on the floor right in front of the performer who was just sitting on a mat. The music was extremely interesting and quite beautiful. the music seemed to flow together and although I know that he tuned the instrument numerous times, I could not tell it apart from the actual music. This correlates with the comment in class today of teh Easterner enjoying the tuning most. It really seems to influence their music.

The third experience were Chinese guest performers in Daniel. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the whole performance but really enjoyed the unique instruments and especially the wooden flute which was a foot away from where I sat in the very back of the room. This allowed me to view the music which was not written in Western muscial notation but rather unfamiliar symbols randomly across the page. This captivated my attention as well as the unique timbre of the wooden instrument.

Hopefully, more opportunities to reveal the musical world come along my way. I enjoy hearing other cultures even if I do not understand the music. However, I am still trying to comprehend certain western genres, such as rock. It was a unique experience for me to attend a rock concert where people stood, took pictures, and sang along with the artists. I was almost as enthralled by the audiences reactions as I was to the musicians on the stage. I believe this relationship is more relevant in other cultures especially within popular music.