Music Blog for January 8th-Kayla Colbert

Wow what a long day we had guys!! Two lectures in one day
and we survived!! It was a really long day but we still had
fun and learned a lot in the process. I enjoyed the first
lecture on Hawaiian Sovereignty, but I personally liked the
music lecture more. The woman who presented the first
lecture was a great speaker and she did a great job
explaining the material and relating the information to
events in the real world so we all would have a better
understanding of the history of the Hawaiian Islands and the
struggles that have been encountered throughout the years.
I enjoyed learning more about the history of Hawaii, but I
was excited for the music lecture that was still to come. I
love music, so being able to learn about any type of music
from any culture interests me. Before the lecture began, I
was expecting to only learn about music of the Hawaiian
culture, so when Professor Lau began speaking about Chinese
music, I was a little confused at first. By the end of the
lecture I was happy that he gave us a basic overview of the
Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Portuguese, Puerto
Rican, and Hawaiian music. I loved listening to the
different instruments that Professor Lau had prepared in his
PowerPoint presentation. I did not care for the Chinese
opera that he played for us, but I loved listening to the
Japanese Koto. This instrument makes beautiful music and I
feel as though it takes a lot of practice to perfect the
sounds that are created. To be able to play any instrument
that well definitely takes practice and Professor Lau
constantly expressed how important music is to each culture,
so perfecting each instrument is key. Each style of music
that we listened to today is definitely different from the
music we all listen to back home. It was great to have a
chance to be exposed to music that is unfamiliar to all of
us and have a chance to learn a little about the importance
of the music to the people within the culture. The Oli
chant is the music we should all be familiar with because we
learned it as we were preparing for our hula lesson on
Wednesday. It was great to be able to hear how the chant is
supposed to sound. When we were learning the chant we were
simply reciting the words, we were not singing it, so
hearing the chant with music playing in the background was
great. I loved all the songs that Professor Lau played for
us at the end of his lecture, especially "Somewhere Over the
Rainbow." I love this song; it has always been one of my
favorites and it took on a more special meaning for me after
my uncle passed away back in November. To me, the song is
about heaven. Somewhere over a rainbow, a person who is no
longer living can watch over everyone and can see the beauty
of the world from a different view. The song is obviously
open for interpretation, but I like to believe that my uncle
is watching over me and my family and whenever I hear this
song, I now think of him. I hope everyone enjoyed the music
lecture as much as I did. :)