Week 6

In class we watched the film "Latcho Drom" which depicts the journey of the nomadic people who traveled from the northern part of South Asia into the Middle East and Europe. As they traveled, they experienced different cultures and consequently different types of music, all of which the "gypsies" quickly picked up. In the celebration they had under the full moon, the women played small finger cymbals while they sang. These finger cymbals were also used in the dance that was performed in Egypt, however, they appeared to play a larger role in this dance than in the other one. The drum was also played in all three of the celebrations, though the way in which it was played was by no means identical. While the drum was played with sticks in Egypt, in their celebration under the moon and in the teahouse in Istanbul the drum was played rapidly with their fingertips. The instrument that stands out most in my mind resembles the Chinese erhu or two-stringed silk chordophone. Even though it differed greatly with the change of location, the Rebaba was prominent in the celebration under the moon as well as in Egypt. In Egypt, the head of this instrument was relatively small and both the older men and the small boy were continuously playing it. The takht ensemble that played in the teahouse in Istanbul, Turkey, featured many Western instruments as well as the 'Ud, Qanun, and Riqq. The director Tony Gatlif used the children to demonstrate how the "gypsies" absorbed the different music cultures they encountered into their music. The children were always watching and imitating what was going on around them and by doing so they learned about the different people's culture and integrated it into their own. I really enjoyed this video because it demonstrated how an individual's culture and identity is shaped by all of their experiences and is not specifically bound or determined.