Our New Playlist

 I love listening to music from other countries because I find it very interesting and  I love hearing and learning about other languages and the cultures and ways of life of other people around the world. 

For the past couple of years Japanese music has been one of my favorite styles of music to listen to and is one of my favorite languages! I find it very interesting and fun. At one point over the years, I was learning Japanese and I would use Japanese music as a form of immersion to get a general understanding of the language. Any who, Japan is an island off the coast of Asia. I haven’t listened to much traditional Japanese music but I do enjoy the more modern music. One of my favorite Japanese songs is “Racing into the Night” by Yoasobi. I listened to this song so often during my last year in high school, so much to the point where I can sing it in Japanese haha. And just for fun I've included a song from a Japanese artist my dad shared with me via CD. I used to fall asleep to this album during senior year whenever I had a rough day. "Silk Road" by Kitaro is an album that blends traditional Japanese music with electronic and western influences.

Haiti is a country located in the lower regions of North America. The church I attended back in Maryland before I moved here used to send a small group of adults on a missions trip to Haiti every year with the hopes of spreading the gospel to people who haven’t heard the word of God before. I wanted to go with them but at the time I wasn’t old enough. I’ve been curious what kind of music Haitian people listened to so I found some and I wanted to share! I found some traditional/native music by the Taino’s, the native people of Haiti. I also found some modern music because I was curious how their music had changed throughout the years!

Let’s jump back to Asia for a minute and talk about Russia! One of the reasons I looked into Russian music is because one of  my sister’s gymnastics coaches is from Russia. At one point over the last year we were learning Russian together and it was fun but then we got too busy, and I moved away for college. The other main reason I looked into Russian music is because I hadn’t heard any Russian music before. The example I have below is of a more modern Russian song but traditional Russian musicians played instruments like the Balalaika, Domra. Gusli. The Balalaika is shown below under the modern song.

The last place we’re going to go to is Africa to visit Morocco. I’ll admit, I don’t know much about Morocco but I’d like to go visit! My aunt lived in Morocco for two years, back when I was a baby, so I asked her what her favorite part about living there was. To which she said “I loved the hospitality of Morocco- like I literally would visit a village or a home, knowing no one and they would feed me and let me spend the night with them. They were always prepared to welcome and serve guests- always had tea and cookies ready to go.” She said that the majority of the music they had was drums. She then sent me two songs that she said was similar to what she was thinking of, one of which I imported down below. Aita is a traditional folk musical style from the Moroccan countryside and is sung in both Moroccan Arabic and Tamazight.

All in all, I love learning about other cultures and their music. I hope you enjoyed reading through my blog as much as I enjoyed writing it! Thank you for reading!