In class, we talked about the differences of the logic of mainstream industry and alternative circuits. We primarily focused on the Turkish Diasporas in Germany. One of the articles we looked at focused on the music production and consumption of second and third generation migrants from Turkey to Germany.  Listening to music from the homeland is part of the creation and recreation of cultural memory and identity over time and lifespan. Memory is indisputably one of the most important elements of our personal, internal existence, given that it becomes the core identity. Music serves as a connection to the past, evoking things to which people are emotionally attached to, frequently providing a private and comforting zone for the migrants. It also is a means to transmitting a group’s cultural memories to new generations and forming new memories in the process. The Turks in Germany produced music known as gurbetçi türküs. These songs were folk music with lyrics often time about immigration issues. These songs are very similar to blues songs in America because the blues genre were songs about the hardships African Americans faced with segregation. Similarly, the Turks did not have access to radios and ways to listen to other Turkish music, so they would just sit and sing with people. That is how they created their music. The African-Americans during the period of segregation in the US were the same way with exclusion from other forms of music. They were likely not allowed to be in certain venues because their skin was not white. African Americans were not technically immigrants because they had been in the US for generations but they still had a strong connection with their homeland because of the harshness and abuse they felt in the United States because they were not accepted. Music schools were also created. The schools were created to bring diversity in various places. In the United States, music schools were also created. Traditional music was learned in both. Bağlama is accepted as the traditional musical instrument of Turkey. I am not sure if there is a traditional instrument that is played predominantly for classical music in the US. But classical music is traditionally taught in music schools and most of the students specialize in a certain instrument. Instuments are chosen by the parents in both Turkish and American cultures. Turkish culture mainly because it’s the culture but in America it is whatever the parents can afford or are willing to allow their child to play.

Translocality can be defined as identifying with one or more places. This is how Latin-American’s identify with American music but also with music produced in their homeland if they still have that strong connection. That is how so many famous artists like Pitbull, for example, sings partly in Spanish and in English. He has that connection to his home roots by incorporating the Spanish and even the beat of the songs has some qualities of traditional Latin American music.

I personally do not have a connection with another homeland like some individuals do. My last name, Barbee, is German, however, my family does not practice any type of German culture. I do not know when and how this started but for as long as we can remember we have not celebrated any other national identity since our family came to America. It is also hard for families to practice nationality when looking back at my roots I have many different cultures running in my blood. Barbee is no longer mostly German but it is what I would consider a melting pot last name because all the men in the family married women from various states, cultures, and traditions of their own. Even though my family does not participate in any kind of tradition other than religious traditions like Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  It is hard for me to talk about the translocality on a daily basis just because I don’t regularly identify with two different nationalities. But when thinking about translocality in a bubble of just the United States, I think back to my southern roots. Since I have moved to Pittsburgh, I have realized that country music isn’t as popular as it is around home for me. So when I play or hear a popular country song being played around me, I quickly identify with the people around me listening to the music (my teammates), who are from up North where country music is not as popular as it is down South. So not only am I connected to the people around me at Pittsburgh but I also feel a connection to the people back home that listen to the same type of music. I know this isn’t the typical definition of translocality, but this is how I experience translocality in music on a daily basis.

Music is everywhere. If you listen closely you can hear crickets and birds singing beautiful hymns all day and night long if we just take the time to listen. This just proves that music is all around us and in everything we do. The popularity of music has really increased over the last few decades. Before music was only really heard live and there was no way of recording the music so not everyone had access to music. Now that music festivals and various types of live streaming music are the most popular among our society, people from all over can listen to different types of music. Even the sound of instruments are localized on the internet and can be combined with numerous other sounds to create a beat. Garage band is a popular app used to combine different types of instruments in any type of way to create a beat you like. It can be modified and mimicked and you can even voice record.

I have not come from a very musically influenced family. None of parents, cousins, grandparents, or friends even play instruments or are involved in a school music program or choir. So needless to say I have not been as involved in music like some people. This is actually my first ever music class that I have learned material about music instead of the music class I took in elementary school where I just played small instruments like drums and sang songs. I think a huge part that has helped contribute to broadening musical tastes have occurred from migration. Reggae music was not popular in Great Britain until Jamaicans were leaving Jamaica to find a better living. Even how reggae was started in Jamaica was a huge part to how music was started all over. In a sense it was music that hoped to spark a tremendous change in how they were treated. When people migrate they take their culture and their back ground with them. When they arrive in the new area they most likely listen to that music and probably the new music around them because they hear it. For example, I grew up listening to 80’s rock and country music. If I were to ever leave the United States, I would likely take that musical taste with me and my family would then live in our new home and listen to those same genres of music and my children would listen to my music and local music. But the cool part is my children would listen to new music and share my music with their friends as well creating this globalization of music because it would continue to spread with the more people it came into contact with. So for me I think economically as people travel and go to visit or live in new places the musical tastes will merge and create new music as well as spread music around the world. Hybridization would occur with in different musical genres as well as globalization because people are migrating to a new nation.

The universal definition for cosmopolitanism is that all human beings belong to a single community based on a shared morality. A diaspora is when people who have migrated from one country to another and they find a community with a shared identity of culture and ethnicity. Cosmopolitanism and diasporas go hand and hand, meaning they interwine. For this blog post I focused on the Gooley article mostly. In the section of the article that focuses on opera, it states, the topic of cosmopolitanism is not one that has seriously engaged those of us who study the cultivation of art music in nineteenth-century America. However this is a useful technique to understand the contradictory ways Americans engaged in European culture. During the final decades of the 19th century, the United States gradually became what is considered a full-blown modern, urban, industrial, world power that is multicultural. According to the article, 43 Americans of the time were increasingly interested in how their country fit in with the rest of the world—politically, intellectually, and culturally. This created a huge challenge for fellow Americans and people who are migrating to America. Some Americans started feeling the need to connect to their homeland but they might not have necessarily known what their actual homeland was since their parents were most likely also born in the US and potentially even their grandparents and the culture that was once celebrated was lost through the years. It’s reasons like this that St. Patricks day is celebrated so heavily in the US by every culture because the need for that connection to the homeland is still there and you may not be Irish but that Irish diasporic community helps you feel like you belong for that day. This need for a national identity intrigued musicians. These perceptions fascinated late-century Americans, as they grappled simultaneously with the repercussions of the Civil War and the implications of joining a world community. Music was used by Americans to engage with both of these viewpoints. For example, Opera was almost exclusively seen by the upper class in the US during the 19th century. Opera’s popularity increased tremendously in the 1870’s when the upper class increased dramatically in size. With the upper class increasing, it created a diasporic community between them and the love for Opera. Opera is considered a European style of music and it was very uncommon in the US until the demand for it increased along with the size of the upper class. Because of those 43 Americans that wanted to become multicultural in the 19th century, it allowed for some growth among the people that we still see today. I can’t imagine what this world would be like if we didn’t emerge cultures. Some of my favorite foods, artists, vacation sites, and friends would not exist. Diversity is extremely important to help make the world go round. I believe that is the main reason God created different people.

Cosmopolitanism is the ideology that all human beings belong to a single community with a shared morality. In cosmopolitan communities, individuals from different places form relationships of mutual respect despite differences in beliefs, economic status, culture, etc.  Immigration connects to the idea of cosmopolitanism because it is hard for immigrants, especially for people moving to the United States, to feel the mutual respect in a community. The United States is considered a melting pot of cultures but some of its people are not accepting at all to newness and change. A new television series on Netflix called “One Day at a Time”, follows the life of a Cuban- American family and the struggles they face daily with racism, culture, LGBT, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and being from a single parent family. In this particular tv series, the teenage son faces bullying issues at school do to him looking more “Cuban” than the rest of his family. First off how is that even fair to base judgement on looks. However, these characters are third generation Cuban Americans with parents that proudly served in the United States Army. So clearly the family is very American and proud to be in and serve our wonderful country. The community that both of these kids felt apart of (Cuban American) was not accepted by others (particularly whites) just because people do not understand and want to understand. This is clearly a huge issue people particularly minorities face every day in the United States just because they look different. For class we were asked to view the Netflix documentary called Residente. This film gave me a real life example of cosmopolitanism. This particular film enlightened me to better understand our government in terms of supremacy and how it affects people. Looking back in to history, the United States has always tried to dominate the world and push beliefs and culture down other people’s throats. This has been achieved in this particular way by force through weapons and war. People want everyone to be the exact same and think the same way but in reality that is not how the human race is created. Residente has proven that most people in the world believe there is a more civilized manner to this. Cosmopolitanism is about accepting other people’s differences regardless of nationality or beliefs. Immigrants coming into the US struggle feeling this connectedness to their homeland and their new home because so many other people don’t accept the differences. Advocates like Calle 13 are using their platform to spread the word on how to improve and get rid of the harshness against uniqueness. Being different is not a bad thing.

Since America is still working on accepting diversity specifically with music, how has this affected the music industry and the ability for musicians from different ethnic backgrounds to rise to stardom?

What aspects in “traditional” American music has preserved cultural artifacts?

Since English is such a wide spoken language and most other countries speak a little English, how has this affected cultural imperialism for the United States? 

Music of the African Diaspora is considered one of the most influential and unique styles of music in the whole world. It is considered to be so influential because it combines the racially exploitative experiences of people of African descent with the cultures of their enslavers who are usually white. In the southern parts of the United States, particularly in places like Alabama, slaves used music as a means of communication, prayer to God, and it provided some entertainment to help make the days of harsh labor in the field less grueling. When slavery was finally abolished and freedom rang, the “songs of the south” went from telling tales of hardship from bondage to songs of freedom, oppression and praise to the Good Lord. Jazz, blues, soul, and gospel music is considered stereotypical to African Americans, especially during the early 1920’s to 1970’s. Some of my personal favorite soul and blues artists are Otis Redding, Etta James, Louis Armstrong, and Billie Holiday. These particular genres and artists had such impacts on the world because they spoke about their strong connected with the African community and they felt strongly connected to the men and women who suffered in bondage during slavery and even the ones who were faced with segregation. It made it a diasporic community because the African Americans who listened to these artists and genres of music all felt that strong connection to the unfairness of slavery, bondage, and suffrage. Blues, Jazz, Soul, and Gospel has changed over the years because the generation born during that time period of people still in bondage has died and so has the children of the ones involved in slavery. The connection to the unfairness still runs through the African American community but the story told of bondage and suffrage has been brought down from generation to generation and the true pain of the suffrage has changed because the children in my generation feel a different type of inequality. They do not face the physical abuse of hard labor slaves did but they do face the hardships of being a different race. This change has affected globalization because Jazz, Soul, Gospel, and Blues are still popular music genres but they each have a hard time relating and attracting young audiences because of the shift in the generation and the message is tries to get across. This has made it hard for this type of music to still be worldly popular by all ages and race. The diasporic communities aren’t relating to the particular messages it gets across and it has made this type of music more of a stereotype to a certain age group of older African Americans and it has made it seem very out dated.

Jamaica is the birth place of reggae music. Reggae music not only provides entertainment but it helped unite the people of Jamaica during a time of crisis. Reggae is most commonly found among the ghettos of Jamaica.  It became a voice of the Jamaican peasantry. The reason behind it is because the ghettos were considered the poorest part of Jamaica and the people used reggae music to express the wrong doings the Jamaican government was casting on the poor people. Reggae is the bedrock of expression of freedom for the Jamaican people. Most of Jamaican music is a reflection of its environment and how it has helped keep everyone’s sanity in times of crisis. In Britain, reggae was considered a cultural lifeline to a generation of black people. The black people in Britain were still facing harshness due to the color of their skin and reggae helped provide a way for them to keep their sanity and voice/express their right to freedom and equality.  They felt a great connection to the people in Jamaica partly because both were facing such harshness and reggae was providing a scapegoat. Reggae created a diasporic community in Britain because the black people felt a strong connection to Jamaica. It may not have been their true homeland, but to them, it was. They practiced and established the Jamaican culture in their British roots through music. Reggae music has in a way hybridized though time into what we call reggae music now today. Scar music was the base of reggae. It is very similar to American R and B but the beat is what we call off key. This was popular in the 1960’s and it evolved again in the late 1960’s to rock steady. Rock steady is much slower pace of music still with the offbeat rhythm. This style of music changed once again to reggae when the 60’s finally closed. Reggae in a way has helped change the identity of Jamaica. Hybridization of music is about taking two styles of music and messing them together to create a new and improved type of music. In a way that has happened with Reggae. Before it was called Scar and rock steady but due to the harsh environment and constant political turmoil it transformed into reggae which has a rock steady component and a new aspect of music for expression. Jamaican music is truly inspiring to many different races, classes, and cultures around the world. It has provided a voice for many people when they could not speak because it was against the law and it has helped others see a light in dark times from the constant positivity that everything is going to be alright. Which is a famous key phrase by the great Bob Marley. It is hard to find people around the world that is not familiar with the term Reggae and Bob Marley. That just shows how impactful music can be on people.  Shaggy and Bob Marley are two of the most well-known Jamaican singers today and their music can still be herd on the radio.

Hybridization is defined as the process of the creation of new cultural forms as a result of mixing different cultural forms. Meaning music from one place can be combined with music from another place to create a different sound and style of music resulting in a hybridization between the two genres. Hybridization is very common in various music domains. Some well-known examples are jazz, reggae, salsa, and Afro-Celtic music. I think migration plays a huge key role in hybridization of music because migration is defined as someone from another nation moving to a new one. By people moving from one place to another, it brings in different cultures. When someone from one region uses music differently than another place, it allows for things to mesh together. So not only does migration help bring in new culture but it also allows for different styles of music to merge creating a hybridization.

In the early 1800’s so many other nationalities came over to the United States looking for work and a better way of life. The United States was thought to have offered so much and people would become rich and live the “American Dream”. The travel to get to the United States was not easy and was expensive. However, people still embarked on this journey. While migrating over on ships people used music to help kill time and make the travel entertaining. Music was also played because the people were excited to embark on the journey that laid ahead of them. So many other styles of music meshed with ours and that has helped create the styles and sound of music we listen to today. If you think back to the start of the blues movement in the 1940’s to 50’s from the South to the Northern part of the United States, artists like Muddy Waters and Elmore James initiated the movement from the Mississippi Delta region to Chicago at the time. The movement of Mexican Americans from the southwest, which was sparked by the blues movement, helped establish a number of important Mexican American styles, including conjunto, mariachi, and tejano, in the northern and eastern parts of the United States. BY having cultures mesh together and forming a hybridization, it has created some of the nation’s most popular artists like Pitbull and many different styles of music. A modern example of hybridization can be the song Despacito. The original version is in Spanish but when Justin Bieber joined the song it was hybridized because it combined English elements rather than just Spanish. For some people, hybridization has even changed their lives and created this mutual feeling that they belong to something so much greater.

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.