Journal Entry 1 Music listening plays a huge role in both the Kaluli and American iPod listeners everyday lives To the Kaluli it provides a kind of spiritual connection and a way to remain connected to their ancestors from the past However to the average American iPod listener it is more of just an everyday casual thing to do because it provides a background noise For example many Americans listen to their iPod on their walks to class or while they are doing homework instead of just sitting in silence The Kaluli also have their own music surrounding them but it is less private because a lot of it comes from the birds and nature itself That way they can share their listening with each other while doing other tasks while Americans don t always do this Because of this the Kaluli get a much more personal connection to their own people that they are with and around while Americans get a more personal connection to themselves and their own feelings within their mind Journal 2 Recitation Friday 1 pm I chose to do my first listening at the bus stop over by CMU At first I found this area to be very distracting It was kind of hard to focus on just listening to the things around me Because there was so much going on and so many different sounds I found myself accidentally drowning out the noises and thinking of things a lot different than music and listening Once I realized that this was happening I told myself to focus more and it became a little easier However it was still very difficult because I would hear small bits of different voices and different conversations Usually when I hear a small part of a conversation I like to try to piece together what is happening but it was very hard because a new part of a conversation would immediately come in and make me forget about the last one Another thing that I noticed was that the cars and buses seemed to make music together It wasn t an actual distinct melody but the noises coming from those objects flowed together much better than the different tones of voice and parts of conversations It became fun to listen to the different noises that different sized cars would make compared to the buses I even saw a bicyclist crazy in this freezing cold weather and he made a very subtle sound of his wheels turning Every time a bus would open it would make a beeping noise and an announcer would announce the stop There were mostly mid 20 s aged students and adults probably going to work somewhere in the area since I went around 8 in the morning before my own work started There were hardly any kids in the area which was not surprising because there wasn t many grade schools around I got up enough courage to ask two student aged looking men who were also sitting at the bus stop with me what they thought of this area and if they could ever get anything productive done there They both agreed with me and said something about the different noises being drowned out and your own thoughts taking over The one found it hard to get past this and said he would never be able to do anything productive there He even said conversations were hard because of how loud it was so it made for a very unsocial place The other said he found it a little easier to get past this but that he would not enjoy being around such a busy area I asked them where they normally do their studying or their private listening and they said they both occur in their rooms by themselves I found this pretty typical from what we discussed in class The one also told me that he likes to listen to music the most at these types of places or on the way to class because it gives him something to think about and he likes to associate the type of music that randomly came on the ipod next with the scenes that he is looking at at that current time I liked doing this activity but I agree with the two men I talked to that the sounds can be overwhelming and that it would be way to hard to turn this specific place into a typical listening habitat The different noises together did create some cool noises but the people s voices were too annoying and hard to piece together that they almost took away from every other noise that was going on around Journal 3 Umm Kulthum Rai Umm Kulthum was an extremely important musician in Egypt during the 20th century She was so widely known and celebrated that it almost sort of brought the Arabic people together and unified their identity with each other The fact that she got so involved with her audience and could change the way that she sang based on their reactions showed the type of unity that the Arabic people felt between her and amongst themselves She embodied the soul of the Egyptian nation which is a huge nation to begin with With so many other artists there is always usually a typical group of people who specifically like that genre but with Umm Kulthum the entire nation loved her and there was very little debate about this Umm Kulthum typically sung about songs with an important message or meaning to its composers and listeners whereas the Rai sang about social issues that affect the people who are living in the area The Rai also was more directed towards specific young people who wanted to modernize traditional Islamic values and attitudes This differs from Umm Kulthum because she did not have a specific set of people who she sang to or who preferred her but everyone around her loved what she sang Another difference between the two is that Umm Kulthum usually played a heterophonic style of music with the same melody throughout whereas Rai is a type of music with a lot of blending of melodies and instruments Journal 6 Music in Japan has changed drastically and there is a new genre that is not even thought of as music to some This new emergence of genre is called Noise which is largely due to the technological advancements that have taken place over the past years Many of these aesthetics that come together to produce the genre of Noise are static distortion effects pedals feedback loops and very high volume This new genre is emerging because the new technologies make these aesthetics possible Up until recently it was much harder to put together these feedback loops or create static that is to some people a type of pleasurable music It is not traditional music that you would normally think of especially when you are associating it with Japan Similarly technology has changed the musical practices in India as well This is new for one of the obvious reasons being that the