Music Track: Week 1

Last week we began our course in music. The first class was quite an experience. As Sergio, our fearless leader, explained; music begins and ends with the body. Thus, we started our course with dance - interpretive dance to be exact. We did different activities during which we mirrored other people's movements and invented sounds to go along with our bodies. Not only was it a lot of fun to be up and moving during a class period, and to see Oliver's personal brand of self-expression, but we also became a little bit closer of a group as a result of the slightly embarrassing activities. The next class, after getting some background info on various instruments and their cultural context, we decided to make our own! We spent an afternoon painting PVC pipes, molding clay, and trying to follow the Spanish instructions. We ended the day with three very cool instruments that actually worked fairly well: a wooden stick that, when whirled around in a circle, makes a low frequency note, as well as a drum, and a clay whistle.

A couple classes later we took a short trip out to Tlacochahuaya where we met up with a very small woman named Soledad. We toured the town's church with her before making out way up a very claustrophobic staircase in order to see the famous organ. This old organ was beautifully painted with flowers and faces covering all of the whistles and pipes that rose above the keyboard. To the side were the large fans, one of which was mechanically operated, that gave air to the large instrument. Soledad, about a sixth of the size of the whole thing, sat down to show us how it works. She produced multiple songs; some more classical, some meant for dancing, and one tune that was commonly used for marches. She also used the various stops to create different volumes and sounds depending on the mood of the piece. Most of what we were learning last week was in preparation for our field trip, which began yesterday, to Juchitan; a lively city located on the Oaxacan Isthmus, one of the hottest and most humid places on earth. Unfortunately none of us have been taking many pictures of our musical adventures because our final project for the course is a documentary-esque video about our travels and what we have learned about music and culture and the interactions between the two. Stay tuned for next week when Bianca and Katie bring to life tales of our adventure through poetry.

Stay cool (literally, because I want to live vicariously through you right now it is so hot I can't even),
Donna