Music!

Music!

Music is present in every culture that I am aware of, be it used as a war cry or peace talks; to remove a bad mood or to create one. It is one of the oldest methods of cultural sharing. Song writing in the modern world has created it's own sub-culture within the base one, where Vocalists looks for writers, writers for instrumentalists and vice versa. Music of all kinds engages me regardless of whether or not I like it as it shows me an insight into how certain people think.

Music fits into this blog very well as it is the perfect combination of language and culture. It can come in two MAIN varieties, Vocal and Instrumental; both of which are good in their own rights. Personally I prefer music with words as I get a better understanding of what the artist is trying to say with their piece if they are actually saying it, but instrumental music can also be very enjoyable to me.

You can tell a lot about a song from parts of the song, for example; A song containing a didgeridoo is either Australian or is trying to capture the 'feel' of an Australian song. Moreover an Ocarina would indicate more of and east-Asian theme for a song. Another, more obvious, indicator of where a song is from is the language in which the song was written.

Music is also heavily influenced by it's era, obviously. Certain instruments and styles were the height of popularity. For example, Slow Classical was very popular pre-1900s, from what I know. Such pieces would include Violins or trumpets famously. Every decade or so has had it's defining style of music ever since. If you are told to say everything you know about the late 70s early 80s, people will often think of 'Disco' music. Early 2000s were dominated mainly by the pop/ pop-esque scene, which makes sense by definition, then in the later 2000s rap took hold, which I personally find very hard to call music, it I think it's better than the current generation. The Year is 2014, as of writing this, and whenever you turn the radio on, you hear the same four bars on a simple three line progression on loop for 5 minutes, but that's a rant for another day....

Thanks for reading!