1a. After reading the case study on Salif Keita from the textbook along with listening to the two songs, I believe the aspects of Keita that defines his identity the most are his ethnic background, global musical exposure, and his unique individual voice. Early on in Keita’s career, it was his ethnic Mali background along with his European influence that played a major role in his musical identity. In his song “Africa”, he uses traditional African instruments including “the talking drum, kora (large harp-lute), and djembe (goblet-shaped hand drum)” (Lesson 6), but he also utilizes other instruments like “electric guitars, bass, synthesizer, and keyboards to produce African-flavored music with a techno beat” (Lesson 6). However, later on in
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The core of music revolves around people using sounds to express themselves create an audible form of art that helps create a sense of identity. In a heavily centralized nation or community, this can be considered oppositional if individual identities don’t reflect the common themes of the majority. This happened in China during the mid-twentieth century, when the Cultural Revolution campaigned against local nationalism, and sought to remove those who held “allegiance by minority groups to their ethnic identities rather than to the Chinese Communist State”. In the eyes of the Chinese Government, any aspect of culture from minority groups, were a threat to the communist agenda. This included music, as they knew that music had the power to express different opinions and messages that tell a story different from what the Chinese government would have liked the nation to think. Even with the end of the Cultural Revolution however, the traditional cultures found in minority groups continued to decrease with the emergence of modern technologies and globalization. With mainstream media being so available and marketed heavily, there has been a decrease in the amount of music that minority groups have been producing. One contributing factor is that modern techniques and technologies have changed the way these groups of people live their lives, thus obsolete practices such as milking sheep manually are not there for music contextualization. “With a shift to a consumer culture, people are more likely to consume culture than to produce it” (Lesson 9). This very phenomenon lead to the creation of The Plateau Music Project, which was founded by “Australian anthropologist, Gerald Roche, and his students at Qinghai Normal University” (Lesson 9) in an effort to collect traditional songs before they become extinct. The project was a commendable attempt to archive songs that reflect traditional values and cultures before they disappear for good from the globalization of culture.
The core of music revolves around people using sounds to express themselves create an audible form of art that helps create a sense of identity. In a heavily centralized nation or community, this can be considered oppositional if individual identities don’t reflect the common themes of the majority. This happened in China during the mid-twentieth century, when the Cultural Revolution campaigned against local nationalism, and sought to remove those who held “allegiance by minority groups to their ethnic identities rather than to the Chinese Communist State”. In the eyes of the Chinese Government, any aspect of culture from minority groups, were a threat to the communist agenda. This included music, as they knew that music had the power to express different opinions and messages that tell a story different from what the Chinese government would have liked the nation to think. Even with the end of the Cultural Revolution however, the traditional cultures found in minority groups continued to decrease with the emergence of modern technologies and globalization. With mainstream media being so available and marketed heavily, there has been a decrease in the amount of music that minority groups have been producing. One contributing factor is that modern techniques and technologies have changed the way these groups of people live their lives, thus obsolete practices such as milking sheep manually are not there for music contextualization. “With a shift to a consumer culture, people are more likely to consume culture than to produce it” (Lesson 9). This very phenomenon lead to the creation of The Plateau Music Project, which was founded by “Australian anthropologist, Gerald Roche, and his students at Qinghai Normal University” (Lesson 9) in an effort to collect traditional songs before they become extinct. The project was a commendable attempt to archive songs that reflect traditional values and cultures before they disappear for good from the globalization of culture.