"Music is the universal language of mankind." ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Outre-Mer
Hey everyone! I apologize for not blogging at all the past two weeks....senior year has started a lot tougher than I thought but thankfully, I am slowly adjusting, adapting, and overcoming!! :) How's school going for all of you? Hopefully, you guys are all doing great!!
Anyway, for today's topic, I thought I would talk a little about music in different cultures!!
As I'm sure I've mentioned a million times before, music is something very close to my heart. It is my way of expressing myself--sometimes thru lyrics and other times, thru melody. English music isn't all I listen to though. My parents are both originally from Bangladesh (and my maternal grandmother grew up in India for some time) so I got a taste of Bengali and Hindi music as well. Some countries, like India for example, have started to incorporate English into their lyrics and I've found a lot of songs in Hindi movies especially that have "westernized" their music.
Bengali music, in my opinion, has very soft melodies. From what I have heard from my parents' cds and tapes, most of the music is love--relationships, family, etc. A lot of it also seems a bit on the mellow side. You will probably not find anything near rock or metal in bengali music. All of the singers tend to have softer voices and the melodies are often soothing...almost like lullabies. I have found a couple of tunes that are extremely catchy and easy to just get up and dance to. Unfortunately, I can't remember some of the names of the songs I really like, but you can definitely find a lot of the songs on YouTube (www.youtube.com) or by googling "bengali songs."
Hindi music, on the other hand, I find to be extremely lively and catchy...and of course, very easy to dance to. While surfing YouTube one day, I saw that a lot of users used Hindi songs to make videos about American celebrities (and the video turned out great too!!). It was really cool to not only watch the video, but it was awesome to see both of my cultures meshed into one video. Hindi music is probably one of my favorites. Even though most songs last about 5-6 minutes, the tunes and melodies are super catchy and it's really easy to get a piece of a song stuck in your head. My sister and I have performed to a lot of the songs too...and it isn't that hard to choreograph too either.
Some of my favorites:
-Lakdi Ki Kathi from a movie called Masoom (One of my all-time favorites....it's been a favorite since I was 4-5 yrs old) Watching this video brought back so many memories of listening to it!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uafP78m_v9U
-Ghanan Ghanan (I love this song!! And I know this is a bit off topic, but I strongly suggest you watch the movie--Lagaan. A lot of my non-Indian friends have watched it, with subtitles, and loved it) Here's the actual clip of the song from the movie http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpTCnl36gZI
-Deewana Hai Dekho (Also a great song from a great movie! It's from Kabhi Khushie Kabhi Gham...really sad movie, but great songs and plotline :) This song actually has some English parts in it...and it was really interesting to hear it in there) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4RqHGxcpkM
Those three are just a couple of examples (I could go on and on :P) but if you are interested, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO LET ME KNOW!!! I would love to give you music or even movie suggestions if you're interested...so don't be shy. Hit me up on twitter (@Lalalabanya) or if you would like my e-mail, please leave me a comment down below.
Spanish music is also something I've listened to...well, not too much in depth, but I've heard a couple of songs on the radio here and there and last year in my AP Spanish 4 class. And although I can't really understand what they're saying, the songs are actually great!! :P I love listening to singers like Jennifer Lopez, Shakira, David Archuleta, etc, add in Spanish into their music. It's great to hear both languages in one song!!
Whoops, this blog is getting longer than I thought it would be...sorry about the length!! Enjoy the rest of your weekend and this upcoming week!!
Until next time,
Labanya
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