My Seraphic Singles Review Acknowledged by The Author

I've been giggly for the past hour. I checked my Suite101 writer stats to see how my latest article is doing. It's a review of Dorothy Cummings McLean's delightful book called Seraphic Singles: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Single Life

She's witty, she's funny and boy, she gets what it's like to be a single Catholic, navigating through the dating scene in search for happiness and love.

Anyhow, I was surprised to see that Dorothy Cummings blogged about my review today. That soon progressed to feeling delighted, giggly and giddy.

[February 26, 2013 update: My review will be posted on my blog here!]

(c) 2011 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

World Music Exploration 2010/11 Week 20 - Traditional Japanese Music

It's definitely cold and flu season. This last bout of colds means that it's time to beef up on those vitamins and regularly clean off the piano keys!Our musical exploration resumes with Japan, a country I hope to visit someday. Some traditional Japanese musical instruments include the taiko drums, the koto (stringed instrument), the shakuhachi (flute) and the shamisen.

This week's clip features the shamisen, which is a long necked banjo-like instrument with three strings. The two musicians display their virtuosity and showmanship in this clip, which reminds me of fight scenes from the PS2 game "Samurai Warriors".

Here's a clip from "Samurai Warriors" that includes the shamisen:

(c) 2011 by Musespeak(TM), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

On Memorizing Music

Often, a piece of music becomes memorized after practicing it many times. However, for a piece to be truly memorized, musicians should incorporate more than one type of memorization. This is a great article on the different types of memory that music students can use, called "Music Memorization". Yes, it's similar to the VARK Learning Styles. Harmonic or analytical memory stems from read/write learning.

(c) 2011 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB. All rights reserved.

World Music Exploration 2010/11 Week 19 - Zahar and Moroccan Roll

This group performance a fusion of traditional Moroccan music with American rock'n'roll. The bass guitar has been replaced by a Moroccan santir. Very funky.

Check out some of Zahar's music below:

(c) Musespeak(TM), 2011, Calgary, AB. All rights reserved.

World Music Exploration 2010/11 Week 18 - Moroccan Berber Music

Last week, we took a break from our world music exploration for Group Class Week. My students explored various pop grooves and licks as they jammed.This month, we are exploring Morocco, starting with traditional Berber music. The Berber people have been around for over 4,000 years and have lived in northern Africa before the Arab people arrived.

Traditional Berber music can be played on bagpipes and oboe; and incorporates the pentatonic scale as well as African rhythms.Traditional Berber music is still performed today by travelling musicians who go from village to village.

Check out more Berber music by clicking the image below: