All Around the World Don’t Speak the Language

I’m going to begin this blog with an anecdote and do a slightly different format than usual. Usually, I just explain some principle or idea in music, but this is a little story of what inspired me to write today’s blog post, and it is kind of just a chronicle of a realization that I had.

I attend Harvest Global Mission Church in the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center on Sundays. It is sponsored by a Korean Church in State College, which I didn’t know when I first started attending. But they showed me such kindness and were so welcoming that I never left. Anyway, there was a Good Friday service this past week in the Boucke building. The only thing was, nobody bothered to tell me that this was going to be with the Korean church, so imagine my surprise when I waltz into this church service: the tall (extra tall because I was wearing heels!), blonde, super pale white girl walking into a church service that has only 3 white people in attendance total. But everyone made me feel welcome and they were so kind to me that I found that I settled in with ease and soon forgot the fact that I stuck out like a sore thumb. That is, until the second surprise of the evening. We were singing the hymns at the beginning of the service, and we got to one that I could instantly tell was a bit different than the rest. The words were stiffer and didn’t have the power behind them that some of the previous hymns had. It was like it was written by someone unfamiliar with the language, or like it had been translated from another language. At the time, I thought that it was strange, but I didn’t put 2 and 2 together yet. Then, suddenly, these strange characters appeared on the screen and I heard the kid behind me say, “What the heck???” My sentiments exactly! Suddenly, everyone was singing in a language that I didn’t understand; it most certainly wasn’t English! Yet, in that instant, the music suddenly blossomed into a beautiful, powerful hymn. The Korean words fit the music so much better than the English, and while I might not have been able to understand the words, the power and beauty of what was being said still resonated with me as I hummed along and swayed gently back and forth. I didn’t have to know what was being said to know that it meant something special; that it had deep significance. The rest of the service was about half in Korean and half in English, and I enjoyed this new and strange experience immensely, but nothing was quite as eye-opening as this hymn.

So often, especially as a music major, we end up just studying western music, since that is what we will be studying the rest of our lives, most likely. Even the average American probably doesn’t get exposed to music outside of Western culture. We tend to listen to what we are familiar with and what resonates with us, so even the music that isn’t distinctly American, or at least Western, doesn’t gain popularity and generally isn’t heard. Yet, there is a beauty and a power in music that makes it so we don’t need to understand the language of the lyrics or the traditions behind the music. Instead, it can simply be appreciated as the music of people; as an exotic beauty and a delicate creature. So, I have decided to explore some of the musical genres of the world in this blog post.

One musical style from around the world is Inuit throat singing, or Katajjaq (Source). It was developed by the Inuit,, who live throughout the northern United States and Canada, as well as Greenland, Russia, Tibet, and Mongolia. Traditionally, it is a duet sung between women that is used to sing babies to sleep beneath the frozen sky, or as a competitive game to see who can outlast the other (Source). Interestingly enough, the Inuit actually have no generic term for music, but because of the guterall, rhythmic sounds, it has come to be described as such by ethnomusicologists and others (Source). Traditionally, when played as a game, two women stand face to face, very close to one another, and sing; the game only stops when one runs out of breath or laughs (Source). In general, it consists of “basically constructed motifs (themes) and the succession of chosen morphemes… The motif is repeated an undetermined number of times. Most of the time, the second voice’s motif is identical to that of the first, but with an imitation-like time lag (of a half-beat) corresponding to the breathing-in, breathing-out alternation” (Source).

Below is a link to a video in which it is explained and performed by two Inuit women. Enjoy!

Next, we move to the Caribbean and what is known Calypso music, which originated predominantly in Trinidad and Tobago. It was here that African and European musical stylings blended, creating this unique musical style that is probably best known for its use of steel drums (Source), though it also features instruments such as the shak-shak (maraca), guitar, cuatro (a string instrument), and tamboo-bamboo (bamboo poles of varying lengths struck against the ground) (Source). While often regarded as light-hearted and carefree music, it actually has subversive elements to it. The steel pan itself came to be because, in 1881, Britain banned percussion in the Caribbean (Source). It is a guise in which island people-beginning with African slaves, who initially had no common language and had no other way to communicate but through music-were able to communicate on a number of topics, from emancipation to racism, the cost of living, and even the Cold War (Source). The music follows the form of a ballad, consisting of 4-line phrases followed by 8-line stanzas, with “a simple rhyme scheme… amply compensated for by the highly original use of language” (Source). Most often, it uses highly syncopated rhythms and exaggerates local speech patterns, working along with the instrumentation to create a very distinct sound (Source).  

Here is a video with a brief history on the steel drums, which includes some excellent examples of this exotic and iconic form of music.

Then, there’s the land down under, which has a traditional music style all its own! This is most often known as Aboriginal music, which originated in Australia. There are several instruments that are commonly heard in Aboriginal music, including sticks, boomerang clapsticks, body percussion, rasps, rattles, percussion tubes, skin drums, and my personal favorite, the Didjeridu (Source). The music holds great tribal and cultural significance to Aboriginals, encompassing thousands of years of tradition, culture, and history. It is largely vocal and percussive music, with men being the primary performers of it, though women also sometimes participate in certain ceremonies  (Source). Many of the songs are specific to certain tribes, and as such, the songs are ‘owned’ by these specific groups; as much, they are taboo to perform by groups other than the ‘owners’ of these songs, though certain ‘open’ songs can be performed by anyone when given as a gift or by permission of its owners (Source).

Here is a documentary on Aboriginal dance, in which one can see just how closely tied their music is in their culture.

Also, as a fun side note, there is actually a didgeridoo concerto in what is truly an incredible blend of thousands of years of history and modern sounds! I particularly recommend 8:00 to about 11:30!

These are just a few of the hundreds of musical styles and genres from around the world, and it is my hope that they have inspired you to branch out and find some new ones that you might not have listened to otherwise! It’s amazing that so many different styles and genres could come from people, though when one thinks about all the different things people have experienced, it makes sense. We’re all just trying to put our world into perspective. We’re all just trying to tell our story. Perhaps music is the only way that we really can express our deepest and purest forms, without the mask of words and language.