Kerrigan's Musical Adventure

Let's talk about Korea! but first... a disclaimer: when I say "Korea," I mean North and South Korea, but most of the information I found was on South Korea. String Instruments Gayageum The Gayageum is the most well known Korean instrument in the West. It's a plucked chordophone traditionally made of paulownia wood, a hardwood tree native to Korea and Japan, and strings made of twisted silk. It usually has 12 strings, but it really varies depending on the Gayageum. They come in all shapes and sizes. What they all have in common is that each strings has a moveable bridge that you can adjust the pitch of the strings to tune them and to change the pitches to fit whatever scale the player is using. While they pluck a string, to do vibrato, they press the string on the other side of the bridge.  Sanjo ajaeng This video has a bit of an introduction, so skip o 00:30 if you want to skip straight to music. This instrument, as you can see, looks similar to the Gayageum, but ther...

       For this blog, I chose to interview my dad. For some background, my dad grew up in Los Angeles in California. His father is a guitarist and during my dad's childhood, he was exposed to a lot of music, musicians, and live shows. He also taught himself how to play the piano. This is my dad playing piano:     Before the interview, I texted him and told him that we were going to be talking about how music has effected his life. When I called him, I didn't even have to ask any questions, he just got straight into it. So without further a due, here's my dad's relationship with music: The Beginning: When I asked him what his first experience with music was, he told me about the first instrument he had: a wooden pump organ (with a King Kong sticker on it). He was seven when this instrument entered the house and he would play it casually. I asked him if the organ is what sparked his interest in music. Short answer- kind of.  He said "what really started ...

  Mashrou’ Leila How many Lebanese indie rock groups can you name? Well, if you know Mashrou’ Leila, you know one. Like I did in the African blog, I went down a rabbit hole on this one and found this band. Mashrou’ Leila is a 4 piece indie rock group that started in 2008. They're centered in Beirut, the capitol of Lbanon, but since they acquired some fame, they've toured all over the world and I can see why... they're really good. Even though they're based in Lebanon, their music sounds very music like American indie rock, but it's in Arabic. The song I included is a very poetic love song, but they also make music that speaks on the struggles of being a Lebanese person.  Tabla creativity  From what I've noticed so far, drums seem to be the most sharable instrument between cultures because they are sources of rhythm. Every culture has rhythm, so cultures can use each others drums. One of my favorite drums is the Tabla. What I like about it is the uniqueness of it...

It's time to get funky :) Background Funk comes in many shapes and sizes, but generally, it's a type of aggressive dance music with syncopated bass lines and drum beats. Funk isn't driven by harmony or chords, but rather the rhythmic interactions of the instruments. The instruments in its thick texture play off of each other to create an intense and complicated rhythmic texture. The term "funk" and "funky" came from jazz players in the 1950's. They would describe an improvisation as funky if it was a passionate expression of the Black experience in America. Black Americans using funk as an expression of their experience in America lead to some typical lyrical content: -relationships     -tragedy     -violence     -racial-strife     -failed aspirations Of course, the lyrics didn't always have to be about these things, but it wasn't uncommon for them to be. Funk provided a safe place for Black people in America to express themsel...

       I thought the different kinds of drums we talked about were interesting, so I went and found another one that we didn't talk about; the Batá drum. This drum originates in Yoruba, Nigeria and actually consists of 3 different drums. These drums can come in all different sizes, but a typical batá drum ensemble has two low toned drums and a higher toned drum. If they are small enough, they can be tied together and the three can be played by a single person. In this video, the man on the right, in blue, is playing all three at the same time. The rest of the ensemble plays larger versions of each of the drums.  As a string player, when I saw the Kora and all of its strings, my first thought was: " how do they tune all of those?" Well... lets find out. According to The Kora Cafe's website, Koras were traditionally tuned to best suit a singers voice. Based on the voice, the strings would usually be tuned into a heptatonic scale. The heptatonic scale does not fit ...

      I want to start out with an eye opening experience that I witnessed at a small psychedelic rock show in someone's garage. It was a small, intimate environment where, to some extent, everybody knew everybody. The band that was playing was a 5 piece band of all guys, except for the keyboardist, Hannah. I knew all of the band members, in fact, I went to high school with all of them. While they were playing, a guy came up to me, gestured to Hannah, and said "so which band member is she dating?" making the assumption that she was only in the band because of some relationship with a man. I immediately felt anger rush over my body, but I kept my composure and just asked, "why do you say that?" The guy just repeated himself and laughed while he said "I just want to know which one she's dating." I told him that she's not in the band because she's in a relationship with any of them, she's in the band because she's an extremely talented,...

 In class, I was really intrigued by the Blessingway Ceremony and after that, I became curious of other kinds of ceremonies in the Navajo tribe. I started by searching "Navajo ceremonies" on Google. I found that the Blessingway and Enemyway are both prominent ceremonies for the Navajo tribe. What they both have in common is restore balance. For the Enemyway ceremony, the focus is on returning men from combat, those who were captured, or wounded.  While we watched videos of Pow Wows in class, Jingle Dress dance was mentioned, but we didn't talk much about it. I became interested and I found more about it. The Jingle Dress Dance is performed most commonly in Pow Wow dance competitions. It started in the early 1900s in the Ojibwe Tribe in Canada. Its popularity began to spread around the Great Lakes and eventually the rest of the United States. The dresses would originally have 365 visible jingles that would be made out of rolled up snuff can lids. Now, they're usually m...

Hi! My name is Kerrigan. That girl to the left is me. Why'd I chose that picture of myself you may ask? Because it's the only picture of myself that I have (that isn't a selfie). That's why. Anyways... I'm 19, a freshman, and my major is Music Therapy. I play the viola and I'm learning the piano and guitar. Other things I do other than music is I skateboard and make visual art (usually collages made out of trash, books, or plants). Now, here's some music: My current go-to song is Emotional Machine by MARINA. I knew I was listening to this a lot when I played it on the speaker in my dorm and my roommate said "Oh, you played this twice yesterday." And those two times were the times she caught me listening to it, not the other times where I listened to it by myself. I think I like it because MARINA is an artist I've been listening to for a while and this song has EDM vibes (at most... it definitely isn't EDM), a genre I'm currently explori...