Good morning, afternoon, and night fellow reader. Lance and Colin here to give you all a status update on our little journey south (of the U.S. that is).
If you have been keeping up with our illustrious blog the past few weeks you may be aware that our botany class has come to a close. It was enjoyable while it lasted but that does not mean the joy has ended. This past week we commenced our anthropology of music class. For the first two days we had very little idea on what to expect, seeing as we had been asked to meet in a dance studio on Monday. I (Lance) was honestly expecting a pseudo dance class where we learned Mexican rhythm as well as got to shake our booty, but in reality it was much different. We spent the first day imitating one another in addition to a little bit of acting with both movement and sound. At first it was rather awkward and tough to come up with sounds for the motions, but after some time we eased into it, and found it to be very fun! We did much the same for our following class however this time around it involved some drums and a great quantity of clapping. Come Wednesday, we simply held a lecture which taught us a little snippet of the great variety of music found here in Oaxaca as well as some of their origins found throughout the world.
The second half of our week was spent in lecture learning more and more about the music we'll be seeing next week when we have the opportunity to take a trip around the Southern coast of Oaxaca to discover the great variety of music found there. Along with class time, we were also brought on a day-trip to the church of San Jerónimo Tlacochahuaya (picture on right), where we enjoyed the sights of the art all throughout the church and, upon climbing to the upper balcony, listened to a performance of an authentic restored Oaxacan organ (picture on left). These, we learned, are unique due to the fact that most continental Spanish organs have been replaced by the German church organs, meaning that this organ was one of the most faithful representations of the traditional Spanish organ that was brought to the New World with its conquest. This, along with the fact that many of these organs were destroyed for their lead during the Mexican Civil War, being able to hear a performance of such a rare and historically meaningful instrument was extremely exciting.
That was our update for this week, stay tuned for next week's blog when we will discuss our trip to the coast to learn about other interesting local varieties of music from the state of Oaxaca!
If you have been keeping up with our illustrious blog the past few weeks you may be aware that our botany class has come to a close. It was enjoyable while it lasted but that does not mean the joy has ended. This past week we commenced our anthropology of music class. For the first two days we had very little idea on what to expect, seeing as we had been asked to meet in a dance studio on Monday. I (Lance) was honestly expecting a pseudo dance class where we learned Mexican rhythm as well as got to shake our booty, but in reality it was much different. We spent the first day imitating one another in addition to a little bit of acting with both movement and sound. At first it was rather awkward and tough to come up with sounds for the motions, but after some time we eased into it, and found it to be very fun! We did much the same for our following class however this time around it involved some drums and a great quantity of clapping. Come Wednesday, we simply held a lecture which taught us a little snippet of the great variety of music found here in Oaxaca as well as some of their origins found throughout the world.
The second half of our week was spent in lecture learning more and more about the music we'll be seeing next week when we have the opportunity to take a trip around the Southern coast of Oaxaca to discover the great variety of music found there. Along with class time, we were also brought on a day-trip to the church of San Jerónimo Tlacochahuaya (picture on right), where we enjoyed the sights of the art all throughout the church and, upon climbing to the upper balcony, listened to a performance of an authentic restored Oaxacan organ (picture on left). These, we learned, are unique due to the fact that most continental Spanish organs have been replaced by the German church organs, meaning that this organ was one of the most faithful representations of the traditional Spanish organ that was brought to the New World with its conquest. This, along with the fact that many of these organs were destroyed for their lead during the Mexican Civil War, being able to hear a performance of such a rare and historically meaningful instrument was extremely exciting.That was our update for this week, stay tuned for next week's blog when we will discuss our trip to the coast to learn about other interesting local varieties of music from the state of Oaxaca!
No comments:
Post a Comment