This song is unusual because when I first listened to the rhythm I thought it was going to be a happy song, but after I listened to the lyrics I realised that it was the complete opposite.
This song for me represents happy because the strumming of the guitar seems very calming, and the voice is really cheerful. The lyrics also makes me think of the bright side of life and to never give up.
The tone of her voice is the reason why I chose this song as calm because Priscilla’s voice is so soft and gentle that it almost made me go to sleep!
The lyrics of the song helps me get through rough times and it has also helped thousands of people and thats why I think this song represents caring in my playlist.
The guitar and both of their voice was the reason why I chose this for peaceful. and that the title says “Peace sign”. The guitar strumming pattern also makes the song peaceful.
I can see that most of the Chinese instruments are similar to Japanese ones. Maybe because some of the instruments from China was imported to Japan long time ago. The most similar ones were Koto(from Japan) and Zhen(from China) and Biwa(from Japan) and the Pipa(from China). I watched some video clips on the Zhen too see if it had similar sound to the Koto and they sounded exactly the same. Although, the chinese Zhen has 21 strings and the Koto has 13 strings. Thats quite a difference!
I also looked at western orchestra instruments and what I realised was that they both looked a bit like the string instruments like Violin, Cello, etc. The Japanese instrument Shinobue(bamboo flute) and the Shakuhachi was very much similar to the woodwind instruments such as flute, clarinet, etc. Although the japanese ones were made by wood.
There is not much different between the families and the looks, but how there are used makes them special and belong to their own country.
For the first part of the unit, we visited the Japanese music class which they teach koto, instead of western music like blues, rock, etc. Mr.Patterson played the whole grade wonderful Koto music using different techniques which were Ato-oshi(play the koto, and press), Shan-shan(play two strings two times), Kororin(onomatopoeia for the notes you play on the koto), and Shan(play two strings one time). Our task for the unit was to create a 16 measure japanese melody using one of the two pentatonic scale. One is called the “Hirajoshi” and another ones “Insen”. Out of those two scales, I used the “Insen Scale” because I really liked the sound of it. The techniques that I included in my melody were “Kororin” and “Shan”. The notes that are used in the scales are D-E♭-G-A-C.
Our unit question was “What makes music sound like it belongs to a particular part of the world?”. For Japanese music, I think the different composition elements makes listeners recognise the music more because you don’t really hear “Kororin” or “Ato-oshi” in western music, so you know that it’s Japanese music. And I also think that the scale that are used in Japanese music makes them special because it is different to other countries.
This is my melody that I have created during class. One thing that I realised after creating the piece was that the major changes towards the end because the note is supposed to end by C, but instead it ended by F. What I like about my melody is that they are connect well together and not all over the place. What I liked to improve on next time is to use more techniques and to challenge myself into more complex melody techniques.