Music & Culture – When Passions Collide

Music is certainly still the key to my heart.  My interest in music and culture was really sparked by my late band director Laura McBride who gave me private music theory lessons. She told me that all over the world, travelers realized that there were common motifs in music, common pitches that were used and rhythms; however, none of the civilizations that were encountered had any contact with one another. So, I was absolutely amazed to hear Gregorian music and West African music sound so similar! She even told me that the universe is made of music since all of the stars and planets vibrate – however, I’ll save my interest for astronomy, music, and culture for another post.  This post is about how my two loves, music and culture, have found a common ground in Uganda.

 As many may know, I didn’t start out on this human rights career path, I actually was heavily involved in music and aspired to be a music teacher. People have many passions in life, but just because I am not pursuing a career in music doesn’t mean that I’ve abandoned it. I’ve just felt more of a calling towards being an advocate for human rights than being a music teacher.  But my reason for enjoying music is still the same reason as in why I have such a strong interest in human rights - the culture.  Culture can be reflected in the music, and human rights are shaped by the culture as well – whether for the better or the worse.

This is a clip from the video, couldn't crop
it for some reason.

Since the purpose of me being here is to observe the culture, I can’t ignore the one thing that has such a cultural influence! No matter where I go in the world, I always want to hear the traditional music and modern music, and ask questions about the story behind the song. For the most part, there is a story about love and hope, but in some cases, the music is just meant to be felt rather than tell a story. The gentleman playing the instruments in the picture (I will hopefully upload the video soon) actually said that the story to this song was about a man who travelled the world looking for the woman of his dreams. He went everywhere, and when he returned home to his village, he realized that she was right there all along. I suppose the moral to that story was you don’t need to travel all over the world to find something that completes you, it’s most likely right in front of you.

One of my goals since I was younger was to collect instruments from all over the world that represent the culture. I started my collection with some wooden flutes from Native Americans in Nevada, then a didgeridoo from Australia that my dad brought back, now I’m excited to pick up a few instruments from Uganda and East Africa. But one thing that I am for certain about when it comes to culture, one must encompass all aspects of how the culture is represented, whether it’s the food, they style of dance, the clothes, and even the music, when observing culture, you have to look at the big picture. If you don’t, you’re not really paying attention.