Music and Movement & Cool Stuff no. 1

As we’ve observed in our first culture, that of the Native American tribes, music does not always exist in a vacuum (actually, a good question to ponder would be “Does music ever exist in a vacuum?”) It is often connected with movement of some kind—dance, theater, hand motions, or other kinds of movement. In the Native American culture we’ve noticed how music seems to be intrinsically linked to dance, how that music/dance experience is different for men and women, how the act of dancing will sometimes actually create the music, how the joining of music and dance reflects the prevailing spiritual beliefs of the culture, etc.

For this Thursday’s blog assignment, I want you to think of the ways that music is accompanied by movement in your own life. Is your music linked to movement, or are they more or less separate entities? Are the music and the movements fundamentally linked in some way? Does one take precedence over or rely on the other? How would the music or the movements change if they were divorced from the other? How does one affect the other? And any other questions that you think are relevant to the topic.

Friday’s topic is “Cool Stuff!” As we’ve discussed in class, your assignment is to roam the web (or make use of a good scanner) and find interesting items that pertain to the two cultures that we’re studying this week—Native America and Africa. You’ll need to find at least three separate items to post, and they need to be posted in such a way that others can experience them as fully as you have (i.e. any links must actually link, any downloaded pictures must actually load, any musical selections must actually play, and so forth.) Feel free to get help from anyone you can if you consider yourself technologically challenged. Enjoy!