Blog post 3:What role does Migration play in the establishment of “musical communities” can you please provide an example?

Migration is when someone or something moves from one place to another. But one question that was surfaced in class was how migration can play a role in musical communities? Migration plays a key role in developing different types of musical communities. People from all over the world migrate from one place to another bringing different types of music, food, and traditions with them. Culture plays a huge role in music because different regions and cultures have different instruments and beats integrated into their music. For example, German music composer, Kurt Weill fled from Germany to America during World War II to escape the tragedy and hardships Jews were facing. When Weill came to America he embraced the saying “proud to be an American” to a new level. Weill decided to continue composing music. However, Kurt not only wanted to incorporate his music identity to German roots but also with other immigrants he had befriended through his transition in America. He composed a piece that brought together different ethnic groups together by enjoying ice cream in a small community. The scene involved Italians, Germans, African Americans, Irish Americans while all enjoying ice cream on a hot day outside of their apartments on a strip full of minorities and immigrants. Ice cream was considered a very simple yet very American dessert. The scene was interesting when watching it because each immigrant was eating a different flavor of ice cream. The ice-cream flavors were based on each ethnicity. If an African American was eating chocolate ice cream, that means he identified with his African ethnicity based off of the flavor but as well with American because he was enjoying the ice cream which was considered a piece of America. As all the immigrants sat and indulged on the ice cream they started singing about what they love about America and how they were proud to be American. But what made this particular scene so amazing was that each person sang their part of the song in their language and their style of music that is from their homeland. The main female in the scene was an Italian woman. She sang her part of the song in Italian, opera style. Weill perfectly executed this scene by incorporating different aspects of the musical to represent different people and their family background. He showed how people could migrate from all over the world to the United States bringing with them different styles of music from their culture. The ice cream in this particular scene could also be seen as the common interest  in music and the different flavors represented the difference in cultures. But they all sang and enjoyed the ice-cream together, representing the community they have created through the love of music. So, to answer the question above, migration did create musical communities because all the immigrants and minorities living in a particular area connect through the common love in music. Combining the difference each person brings to the table creates something new and extraordinary.