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Music Around the World

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 I'm very excited to share some of the things that I learned and love about music from around the world. I decided to pick 2 different countries and compare their traditional and modern music. It was a lot of fun to explore the music of other countries. For my two countries, I chose Vietnam and Argentina. First up we have Vietnam. It is in Asia and has a population of about 100 million in 2023. Surprisingly enough about 86% of Vietnam has no religious views. The national language is Vietnamese. Vietnam was conquered by China and under its rule for quite some time. They were also under Japanese influence for a good bit. Then Vietnam was split into two, starting in 1954 and being brought together in 1975. Vietnam has been through a lot of economic struggles, war, and power struggles. Through all of this there are 54 ethnic groups. This information is to help provide a background of what you will hear in traditional Vietnamese music. My favorite type of Traditional Vietnamese song is ...
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Music and Family

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 For this entry, I decided I wanted to learn more about my mom and her journey with music. I already knew a few things like she was in choir growing up and she LOVES Disney music, but other than that I never really asked her a lot about music. She and I are very close mostly because we are closer in age than most moms and their kids and we share a lot of things with each other which is why I was able to ask questions like "What music would you want at your funeral?".  This is how our little interview/conversation went: Jan (J): All right. What's up? What is your earliest musical memory? Mom(M): Probably when I was little at the old house, Pearman Dairy Rd. J: With Gigi (my great-grandmother on my grandfather's side) M: Grandmother was there J: Cause that was her house M: Yeah that was her house at that point in time and she had a keyboard, cause I went over to her house after school every day and she had a keyboard that I had to practice every flippin' day on. J: ...
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Music and Traditions

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 As I look upon different traditions that I have witnessed and been a part of through my life, the main thing that links them together is losing people. Most of the "typical" traditions I have experienced are funerals, but I will only put one or two of the experiences of going to funerals because I don't want to bring the mood down a lot. I also do have some traditions like prom, graduation, a wedding that I have been to and do mean a lot to me. Then there's Christmas, Veteran's Day, Easter, and other holidays. I will say that because I have had a lot of loss in my life, I don't share this music a lot because it means a lot to me and my family. The first funeral  I remember going to was my great-grandmother's funeral. She was 81 when she passed away from a stroke after getting ready to come and visit us. She died on July 26, 2013, and her funeral was had a day before my brother's birthday that year on July 29, 2013. Needless to say, he didn't have ...
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Music & Me

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Hi there everyone! My name is Jan, and I am a music therapy major at Converse. I am currently in my junior year. I have always wanted to help people, but until four years ago I didn't know you could use music to help people. In hindsight it makes sense, but hindsight is 2020. I started my musical journey playing viola and then I moved to upright bass after about 6 months. When I came to Converse I started to learn how to sing, play guitar, play ukulele, play piano, and play a bunch of percussion instruments. I listen to music when I am doing anything from driving to homework to reading. I am so ready to tell you all about my music journey and life. Without further ado let's start!! My Current Go-To Music: My current go-to song is The Devil Went Down to Georgia by The Charlie Daniels Band. This song was released in 1979, but I found it a couple months ago and have been unable to put it down since. I found it. while looking up songs for nursing home residents for my practicum cla...
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