Role of Music in Culture - Essay Sample

Introduction

Individuals can enjoy music from different parts of the world. The music includes even those that do not belong to one's culture. Understanding of language and pattern of the music are the things that motivate people to listen to many different kinds of music. Bachata is one of the popular genres in the industry of the Dominican Republic. In this case, we can look at Marwa's song. Raag Marwa is an international artist in the DR Republic who composes Indian Classical, traditional ragas. In his song, Marimba instrument has been used. Use of guitars has also prevailed much in this as it has been used in the rising and falling of the tones. A sharp and lighter sound in Marwa's song is made easier by the use of guitars (Chordia, & Rae, 2007). Bansuri Flute is an aerophone wind instrument that can be used by families during song production and presentation. In Marwa's song, Flute instrument has been used. While it is being played, the artist can have time to breathe or drink some water. The sound produced by Flute creates the background of the song, and a mood is developed. The moods in Marwa song is Vairagya ras, which motivates the audience and the person listening to it. It takes the individual to a trance during listening or watching his song (Patel & Chauhan, 2017). Puriya and Sohini are the things used in the music where they are used to evoke the audience moods and behavior. Meringue is another music aspect that is not left aside in the Dominican Republic.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

Merengue is a national dance that each practice and use during song performance. The dance is not only used in the Dominican Republic but also in Haiti. These dances developed from salves that were chained together and forced to drag their feet while they move from one place to another cutting sugar to the beat of drums. The name of the dance is believed to have come from confection made of sugar and eggs whites and hence the rhythms. Meringue dance had taken itself by the middle of the nineteenth has prevailed throughout the world and is among the dance used in American and the Caribbean dances. It is a combination of African and French Minuet in the 1800's. Due to the movement of the European dances, the Africans could usually add a different step in their dances during festivals (Hernandez, 2017). By doing so, the whites say it as a hope and could practice it afterward. Many people in society take music to be a social activity. In full outlook, music can also be a very spiritual experience. Citizens in ancient India were highly impressed by the spiritual power of the music, and it was through this that Indian classical music was developed. Classical music requires individual to be single-minded and devoted to it. In music, people can take seriously or have it as a casual thing. It can be a rewarding activity no matter the way each person would take it or how they are involved in it. Therefore, there are three main elements of music such as melody, harmony, and rhythm.

In northern India where Hindustani classical music has mainly taken over through it is spiritual nature focuses mainly on melodic development. Rhythm in music has an important stand as it gives the song a good flow that can be followed easily. Rhythm also has sensitivity and texture to the melody in performance. In India music, harmony brings tempura which is a combination of tones and the fixed pattern playing background (Hernandez, 2017). Tabla in India songs is developed as a result of the semi-melodic quality giving harmony in the music. Raga in music is gotten from choosing specifically designed notes from within the octave. When listening to music individual can be moved as some moods are being developed and created in the body (Datta & Patranabis, 2017). The moods are created as to a result of how a person takes and feels about the information portrayed in the song. Music has different sets of moods and feelings that are created and inspired. Notes in music are developed differently with specific information. For instance, Raag Bilawal in music performance has all its notes natural. The tones in it have the strength. It does not rise or fall. In India, many ragas about five hundred and more are known where the artists use the historical ones to create their present music. Emotional experience is the main thing that the Hindustani music does in exploring the melody. Many different ragas are developed over time. Due to this, some of them end up dying, and new ones are born (Clayton & Leante, 2013). Students in the music academy learn many different ragas but spend years mastering those of their choice and leaving others aside. Presentation of Hindustani music is done through one raga or another and end up having a million hits. Ragas are taken as a color scheme in the music, and the picture based on it is for the understanding by the audience. Many classical ragas are derived from folk tones collected from different parts of the country where most of them fall on the light-classical forms (Rao & Murthy, 2014). A learner can distinguish between folk and classical music by considering the music tones. Like for the folk, the tones are very simple and colorful when are lively performed. They also range from an octave as since they portray limited pitch. The role portrayed in the music is taken as the main melody line with lyrics and background of the music playing. When performing semi-classical music, use of the minimal instrument and much improvisation is used.

They also feature lighter ragas when performing. Musical creativity in classical music is achieved through vigorous training and discipline. When performing and developing any music, an unassuming melodic instrument should be considered to fill in the gaps and at times when the main artist needs to drink water or stop for a breath. In India, there existed distinct traditions of classical music. They had a common origin but as time moved they have developed two distinct styles among artists in Northern (Hindustani) and the southern (Carnatic) traditions in India. My interest in Hindustani music is that they use a language that is very simple and less complex (Vinutha, 2013). Learning of this music is as the same as learning an oral language. In the music, you are introduced to ragas once you learn the basic notes, grammar, and vocabulary. Despite music being a social activity and having a spiritual experience, it has more importance in the community. Music plays a great and huge role in entertainment; it's through music hits, beats, and lyrics that the members of the community are entertained. Music is design in a way and pattern that seems to please the listeners; the beats are so organized using modern and traditional instruments that give a unique pattern of beats that are worth listening to (Hutchinson, 2015). Also during music performance those participating involve themselves in dancing are in music actions such as clapping, and in so doing they are entertained. Music has a sign promoting role in education; music that is well written and composed has some educational role. Religion music educates members of the community by trying to reveal about the creator and prophetic people in the past. Music such as love songs educates about love, and all that love entails, all in all, it's worth saying music educates the members of the community in respects to its culture socio, economic and cultural aspects.

Music on the hand educates members of the community on how to write, compose and perform music on their own by listening to music done by others. It's through music activities that it has created a wide range of career to millions of community members; it has done so by creating career opportunity to those who perform write and compose music, some are high profile musicians and make a living from music. Others work in production studios or own the studios, the other group work in assistance of musician they include pianist, drums and guitar people, all these people are members of the community who music is their career. Culture involves people's ways of life both in socio, economic and political organization of people (Varas-Diaz & Mendoza, 2015). Music has a chief role in preserving the culture of any given community; music is set and composed in a way that carries the culture of the community it carries the cultural value and acts as a library. When members of the community listen to this music they can recall and reflect on their culture, other cultural activities such as weddings, burial rituals, and people activities are untilled in music. Music as a cultural tool brings people of the community together; they come together during music events such as music festivals and music auditions, when people come together they can exchange ideas, culture and promote peaceful coexistence among members (Hutchinson, 2015). When people come together from different communities, they can exchange their cultural differences. Music also brings together members of different parts of the globe and creates a global music community. In the community they exist four generation; the young, old, and the one to come, all these generations are connected or rather linked by music, music that was done in the past can link the past generation with the living one, all the longtime music message is passed to the living one. Music is made in recent days will connect the current generation of the society to the coming one hence cultural identity and acceptance being an experience.

References

Datta, A. K., Solanki, S. S., Sengupta, R., Chakraborty, S., Mahto, K., & Patranabis, A. (2017). Raga Identification. In Signal Analysis of Hindustani Classical Music (pp. 101-124). Springer, Singapore.

Chordia, P., & Rae, A. (2007, August). Understanding emotion in raag: an empirical study of listener responses. In International Symposium on computer music modeling and retrieval (pp. 110-124). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Clayton, M., & Leante, L. (2013). An embodiment in music performance. Oxford University Press.

Hernandez, D. P. (2017). Race, ethnicity and the production of Latin/o popular music. In Global Repertoires (pp. 57-72). Routledge.

Hutchinson, S. (2015). Salsa world: A global dance in local contexts. Temple University Press.

Patel, E., & Chauhan, S. (2017). A Survey on musical instrument Raag detection. International Journal of Advanced Technology and Engineering Exploration, 4(29), 73.

Rao, P., Ross, J. C., Ganguli, K. K., Pandit, V., Ishwar, V., Bellur, A., & Murthy, H. A. (2014). Classification of melodic motifs in raga music with time-series matching. Journal of New Music Research, 43(1), 115-131.

Varas-Diaz, N., & Mendoza, S. (2015). Ethnicity, politics, and otherness in Caribbean heavy metal music: Experiences from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Cuba. Modern Heavy Metal: Market, Practices and Culture, Helsinki: Department of Management Studies, Aalto University, 291-99.

Vinutha, T. P. (2013). Music Structure Analysis of Hindustani Music for Transcription.