Caribbean Music

Caribbean music consists of a lot of musical styles such as reggae, rock, and calypso. Nowadays, musical instruments like Steel drums and Steelpan are getting famous more and more around the world. 

There are many musical styles in Caribbean music, today, I would like to introduce focus on one point about Calypso. Calypso, which is one of the famous musical styles in Caribbean music that originated in the Caribbean islands especially in Trinidad and Tobago during the early 20th century. 

The lyric of calypso was mostly related to the island such as politics, people and situation, therefore many people were attracted by this style. In the late 1930s, Calypso became very famous musical styles and many Calypso musicians, Attila the Hun, Roaring Lion and Lord Invader were known all over the world. 

Here is a video of Roaring Lion - Ugly Woman (1934)

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Latin American Music

The Latin American music has various types of the sound since its consists of a lot of musical styles such as African and European styles. In America, especially in New York, there are many Hispanic immigrants, so people generally says “New York is the birthplace of Latin American music”. 

Typical famous group is Ricky Martin, who is from Puerto Rico is very popular Latin musician. In 1999, he released the album “Ricky Martin Here I Am” and it sold more than 17 million pieces.

Above these musicians, today, I would like to introduce “Samba de Janeiro”,  is one of the most famous Latin American songs. This song was used as official sports competition songs like FIFA world cup in 2014 (soccer), it is also used in disco. 

Here is a video of Samba de Janeiro.

By the way, the title of this song “~de Janeiro” means January in Prorogue, so it means Samba of January in English. 

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African Music

Recently, most of popular music genres including rock, hip hop, jazz and especially reggae have roots in African music.  "Mbaqanga", one of the most famous traditional music styles in Africa, is discovered in the beginning of 19th century.

Before 1960, the Mbaqanga musicians were actually infamous since black people were discriminated by whites and others. White musicians performed at the TV or radio, but they couldn’t perform like white musicians. Mbaqanga musicians could only live on the street. Therefore, they couldn’t earn money a lot, and most of musicians such as Mahalathini who was one of the most famous Mbaqanga musicians in this era was died with being poor. 

After 1960, Mbaqanga had gradually developed in South Africa by started using Western European musical instruments. Then Mbaqanga style changed to African jazz. Many people were attracted by its sound and rhythm, also many Mbaqanga musicians such as Miriam Makeba, Dolly Rathebe and Letta Mbulu became popular. Eventually, they were able to perform on the TV show.

Even now, some Mbaqanga musicians such as Matehola Queens and Soul Brothers are still working. For example, in 2003, REAL WANDS, which is Norwegian musical group released the album “This is Camping”, was basically used Mbaqanga sound and instruments.

Here is a Youtube link of “THE SOUL BROTHERS”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCLrlRy2-fo

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North American Music

This week I will introduce North American music.

At first, I noticed that in Europe, music is treated as a culture. On the other hand, in the North America, it is treated as one of the most traditional ethnic activities. 

According to my research, the most famous ethical musical instruments in this area is flute. It is commonly believed that the vast majority of flutes are metallic. However, flutes, which were discovered in this area, such as Indian Flute (former inhabitant, America) and the Anasazi Flute (Arizona, America), these are both made by wood and lumber.

Anasazi Flute

Above these kind of flutes, I would like to explain about the current situation of Indian Flute in Japan. Now, in Japan, Indian flute is rarely used by the people. Many people tend to forget about the traditional things since technology has been improving, and better sounding flutes are being developed. Therefore, many Japanese people don’t know what the Indian flute is about. Even though, the quality of the sound is inferior to recent instruments, we have a duty to inherit our traditional musical instruments to the next generations as language is inherited from generation to generation.

In order to not to forget and inherit the Indian flute, “Japan Indian Flute Circle Association (JIFCA)” has been starting since May 2012. It was started by Odell Borg, who is from America and this project was reported many times on the news. We need to develop more such activity to inherit instruments, otherwise our traditional musical instruments are going to  disappear.

Here is a link of JIFCA’s official homepage.

(Sorry...I couldn’t find English ver.)

http://jifca.com/

Aloha!

This week, I will share you guys about European music!

A lot of famous musical instruments were born from Europe.

Typical examples are Nyckel Harpa, which was established by Swedish during the 16^th century, was one of the most traditional Swedish ethnic musical instruments.

Also, Flamenco Guitar, which was Spanish musical instrument and it makes higher pitched sounds than the other types of the guitar. These instruments were started to use a long time ago, but even today, its keep using all over the world.

Above these famous European musical instruments, today, I would like to introduce “Tin Whistle” in detail. In the 18^th century, Irish people created it, and it is one of the most popular flutes in Europe.

However, actually Tin Whistle was infamous until the movie Titanic was started in the beginning of the 21th century. Many people are known as the movie “Titanic” was created by James Cameron in 1997. At the ending of the film, there was a song, named “My Heart Will Go On (Titanic)”, which was sung by Celine Marie Claudette Dion and the main of this song, Tin Whistle was used.

Many people impressed by this song since it was the first music using the Tin Whistle, thus, it makes different sounds than usual songs, and eventually, the song sold over 20 million copies!

You can hear the Tin Whistle’s sound at the very beginning of the music.

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Aloha! My name's Ryo Sugimura.

I like listening to the music, and music helps my life a lot.

So, I will share you guys about the world music from today!

For this week, I'll  introduce the Hawaiian music. 

The Hawaiian music has an original musical style: an original rhythm, which is not included the other countries music, and it uses own musical instruments such as Ukulele and Steel Guitar.

As many people known as, the Hawaiian music is consists of a lot of musical genres such as Hula and Reggae. Above these genres, I would like to introduce about the Hawaiian wedding songs. 

Actually, there are approximately 200 Hawaiian wedding songs. 

Typical examples are “I will Weave a Lei of Stars for you”, which was written by Robert Cazimero, “White Sandy Beach” which was written by Willie Dann, and “To you Sweet Heart Aloha” which was written by Harry Owens, was the last song played at any Hawaii dance or night club.

Above these famous songs, I would like to introduce one of the most popular Hawaiian wedding songs, “Ke Kali Nei Au”, which was written by Charles E. King in 1926. 

Charles wrote the music with Hawaiian lyrics and titled it "Ke Kali Nei Au", which meant "Waiting Here for You". Afterward, in 1958, Al Hoffman and Dick Manning translated the Hawaiian lyrics into English christening the song. Not only the wedding in Hawaii, but also many European countries are using this song. 

Individually, I really like the tempo and rhythm of this music.

Hope I can use it someday…

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