The Whole Music Experience

Since I haven't been able to travel long-distance due to finances and health reasons, I learned about the world by exploring musical traditions from other cultures.  But I didn't stop there, I also watch anthropology videos and read books on the topic.  Since I was a child, I have pursued my interests in other cultures with my earliest efforts involving pen pals in German, France and Japan.  Once the internet came available I jumped on board ditto for world music via compact discs and concerts.  However, one of my favorite books in my collection is Mickey Hart's Song Catchers published with National Geographic. This book delves into the works of famous ethnomusicologists (anthropologist who study music-related culture).   But I've already reviewed the book for this blog and I would rather pursue the topic of exploring music via headphones (or not) and YouTube.  So what kind of videos can we find on YouTube and how do we know what to search for? Since...

Rhythm: Gotta Have It For many years I felt self-conscious about keeping rhythm with other musicians. I thought I lacked a sense of rhythm because a male musician had spread ugly innuendos about me in regard to rhythm, which I won’t describe here. Then I met a woman at a new age shop who wondered why I mentioned that I had no sense of rhythm. Impossible, she said. Then she asked, do you breathe, does your heart beat? We all have a sense of rhythm. Every creatures on this earth from the dog wagging his tail to the rhythms of Bob Marley’s reggae to the squirrel running in staccato up and down the tree. The fish swimming slowly in the murky pond has rhythm, and as we know, George Gershwin got rhythm too, so did Fred Astaire. If you breathe, if you have a heartbeat, brainwaves, and if you walk, talk, sing, dance, run, crawl, or eat, you do so with rhythm. Back in the mid-1990s I came across Gabrielle Roth’s five rhythms, which included among them, “flowing” and “staccato,” to na...

Song Catchers In Search of the World’s Music By Mickey Hart with K.M. Kostyal National Geographic (2003) I found this gem at Village Books in Bellingham, Washington. I wasn’t planning on buying any books, but then I made the mistake of checking out the arts section in the store. Tucked in with the music theory and Rough Guide to Classical Music , I found Song Catchers (In Search of the World’s Music). I made the mistake of picking up the book and turning each lovingly crafted page portraying both the history of ethnomusicology and recording devices as seen through the passionate eyes of Mickey Hart. Grateful Dead drummer/ethnomusicologist, Hart caught the anthropological bug early in life when he found a recording of African pygmies at his family home. He delved into this secret world without knowing where it would lead him later in life. And similar to the other famous song catchers he mentions through the book, (Frances Densmore, John and Alan Lomax, Moses Asch…), he ...

Tibetan Chants for World Peace The Gyuto Monks Tantric Choir White Swan Records The first time I heard, more or less, experienced a Tibetan monk choir was back in the 90s when I attended an event at the University of Washington's Kane Hall. Tibetan consciousness had surfaced among the Buddhists and New Agers. At the time, I did not equate the choir with a musical experience, but a religious experience and a cultural exchange. My friends and I attended the concert out of curiosity, but did not know what to expect. And even though some of us had been exposed to Tuvan throat-singing, the guttural vocals of the monks came off as startling. Fast forward to several years of having been exposed to the music of Yungchen Lhamo, Nawang Khechog, various types of throat singing and various types of spiritual chants, I still find the Gyuto Monks Tantric Choir startling. Here I am at a loss to describe the sound and the experience. Even the producer of Tibetan Chants for World Peace , fo...