Music and Us: Our New Playlist

Music is one of the most amazing ways to experience and understand different cultures. It tells stories, shares emotions, and reflects the values of people around the world. For this playlist, I’ve chosen music from four unique cultures across different continents, including both traditional and modern styles. Let's dive in!!!

First, I'm going to introduce Mongolian music. The traditional music here is called "throat singing," also known as "khoomei." It is a singing technique that practiced by people in Tuva and Mongolia. Mongolia has a vast gepgraphical location and lioves by grazing. In this case, it is necessary to find a suitable environment, so people there use the throat singing to make the sound travel a long distance and get close yto nature. (Traditional, Asia)

Next, we are going to Congo, one of the oldest indigenous people live in the Ituri rainforest in Democratic Republic of Congo, "Mbuti," is a group of people mainly lives there, but they can also be seen in other areas such as Cameroon or Zambia. In their culture, "Pygmy music" plays an important role, it's a casual performance take place during many of the day's events, and they use natural materials to make their own instruments, also there's no word in the music. People often sing songs for the celebrations and some other ceremonies like hunting. Though their music takes many forms but thy all gather together like a party outside their home, and sing along with a variety of instruments. (Traditional, Africa)

For the third one, we're flying to New Zealand, "Kapa Haka" is their most famous culture, "Kapa" means group, and "Haka" means dance. This can trace back to pre-European times where it developed from traditional forms of Māori performing art. Now there is a regular national kapa haka competition currently called "Te Matatini" that has been running since 1972. A kapa haka performance involves choral singing, dance and movements associated with the hand-to-hand combat practised by Māori in mainly precolonial times. Over time, they changed the format of their performances, maintain the previous culture and adding modern music to attract tourists. 

For the last one, I think there's a country which is the biggest and most important pop music market in the world, and that is South Korea. Korean pop music is also known as "K-pop"(Korean pop music), including dance music, modern rhythm, blues, pop electronic music music, hip-pop, etc. There are also many well-known singers who have debuted here, no matter boys or gilrs. In South Korea, the trainee system is commonly used by agencies to train a new generation of K-pop boy and girl groups, bands or independent artists. A trainee career generally lasts from two to five years, or even longer, and it usually cost their brokeage companies more than 400000 USD to develop a new group of artists. The music I'm sharing today was released in 2012, "Gangnam Style," a song co-written by Korean singers PSY and Ryu Geun-hyung, and it has 5.3 billion views on Youtube.

Music is everywhere around us, bringing people together no matter where they’re from. It tells stories, keeps traditions alive, and grows in new ways over time. Learning about music from different cultures helps us see the beauty in each one and teaches us to respect their differences. Music is a way to connect while celebrating what makes every culture special.