Different Cultures and Their Sounds with Manuel

Hi! This semester, we’ve listened to music from many different cultures around the world, but there are still so many places on the map we didn’t have time to explore. For this final blog, the four selections stood out to me for its sound, instruments, and cultural significance.  First, I wanted to explore t raditional music from China , so I chose a piece featuring the guqin , one of the oldest Chinese instruments still in use. The guqin is a plucked string instrument that has been associated with scholars and philosophers for thousands of years. I chose this video because the music feels calm and thoughtful, and it’s very different from the fast-paced music I usually listen to. What I find most interesting is how much silence there is between notes. The pauses feel just as important as the sounds themselves.  Next, we travel to South America , specifically Brazil , for a modern musical example. This selection is “ Toda Menina Baiana ” by Gilberto Gil , one of Brazil’s most ...

Hi you all! Before getting into this post, I feel it's time for you to meet my family. This picture was taken 2 years ago, when we traveled to Germany. What makes this picture good is that there is a special guest, and that is KV! I', with my dad Carrlos, my mom Inma, my sister Lucía and my grandmother Conchi. I used my dad's help to get this post done(he likes to talk). Since there was a lot of information given by my dad, the way I am going to do this is classifying the questions into 4 series of questions that are related and grab all the answers and make them into one, that way you can follow easier. 1. How would you define music? As our beloved uncle José María says every time we see him and ask him questions about his prodigious memory (he is now 95 years old), music is the art of combining sounds and time, and I find that very clear and precise.  2. Have you been a musician? What instrument did you play? Do you still play it? What is a song you have dreamed of playin...

 Hi everybody! As you know if you read my last post, music had, has, and for sure will be always an important role in my life. I started studying music when I was 7 years old but of course I heard music earlier. I remember good memories with my dad in the car listening to the radio, I even remember some of the songs that the advertisements would use. I can even identify the cartoons I was watching ass a kid by their music. Only because of this that I talked about, for me music is such a powerful tool that can store information of your life. You know how computers have hard drives to store all the information in case you need it or you forget about something, music is the same, you can forget about things but when you hear a song that is relatedd to that thing, you remember immediately, so in a way a person can use music as his hard drive to store memories, and this is what my post is about. 1. To give context to my first choice, this was about 8 years ago. As some of you know, I pl...

 Hi you all!! I am Manuel Roncero Ros and I am taking this class, now you can't see me in class because I am in Spain with my family, next week I will be in class. A little bit of background about myself: I am from Spain, I am 20 and now you all can be wondering why I am here. Well, I always had a busy life, I was going to highschool, to the conservatory of music and I was playing tennis at my club. When I turned 16 I had to decide how I wanted my future to look like, that is why I decided to not close my doors, I came to the U.S. to follow the path I wanted to take and I am currently enrolled in a B.A. in music playing the Bassoon, a B.S. in Data Science concentrated in business, and a minor in math. I am also playing for the tennis team here at Converse, I encourage you all to come watch my matches, now is tennis season! Related to music, I grew up hearing a lot of music because I started relatively young, at the age of 7. My father played the guitar and my sister the clarinet, t...