KatFin Does Music

  In this blog, I will be exploring a less mainstream style of music from an eastern culture, namely Mongolia. Throat singing is a peculiar style of music discovered by various Mongolian tribes, or sects in the Mongolian culture as well as by other indigenous tribes around the world such as in Canada and South Africa, but Tuvan throat singing is the most well known. It is unknown when Mongolian throat singing was developed, but it has its roots in the ancient tradition of sound mimicry, commonly used among herders and hunters alike. It imitates the sound of the mountains, rivers, and nature in general. Until the last few decades, it was used exclusively by the men as a form of communication with animals and spirits, while in the other cultures mentioned above, it was used primarily by women and girls as a way to soothe children. There are several different styles of throat singing depending on what elements are brought out and how the music is physically produced. Part of what make...

  One time, many years ago, I looked up modern classical music in an attempt to find a fresh spin on the genre of classical music from the early 1800's. I didn't dig deep, but the question of if the classical genre was still being added to never left my mind. In my initial search, I came up with the renowned musician Ludovico Einaudi. His music is diverse to say the least, but some of it falls under what might be considered classical. As I revisited my search for this assignment, I came up with such a variety of musical innovation that somehow falls under the classical genre, or some form of it such as 'contemporary classical', 'neo-classical', etc. There are two main directions that classical music has gone in the last 100 years that I would like to discuss. One is the type of music Einaudi composes, it is very lyrical and, while it is minimalistic in technicality, the expression is all in the musicality of the player. The second appears to throw melody and mus...