dorismusicblog

  SAMBA  Photo from: https://www.journeylatinamerica.co.uk/destinations/brazil/holidays/rio-carnival-holiday/ Today we are traveling to Brazil! Samba is South American music played with mainly percussion instruments. Its origins are linked to African drumming music. Africans were enslaved and transported to Brazil to work in mines and on sugar plantations. The word Samba comes from the African Bantu word "Semba" meaning navel bump. It is also noted that “Kusamba” means to pray or invoke favor of the gods through rhythm, song and dance. It’s interesting that many songs originated from religious practices all over the world. Samba became popular in the 1920s. It, along with the Samba dance, was prohibited because it was perceived as obscene and considered a thing done by criminals and poor people. Samba can be traced back to the favelas, which is a slum or shantytown located within or on the outskirts of the country's large cities. Samba includes layering syncopat...

For this assignment I will be discussing Mamma Mia ; the song, the musical and the movie. When I began looking into this topic, I wondered what came first? Come to find out, it was the song, so I will begin with that. The song Mamma Mia was written and released in 1975 by the group ABBA; specifically by Benny Andersson, Björn Ulvaeus and Stig Anderson, with the lead vocals shared by Agnetha Fältskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad. The song is about the end of a relationship and being faced with the difficulty of having to let the person they can’t resist go. The phrase Mamma Mia is Italian for “ my mother ” and is mainly used as an interjection to express emotions. A few instruments used in the song surprised me! The catchy instrument heard in the beginning of the song is a marimba.  Photo retrieved from http://majesticpercussion.com/us/products/mallet-instruments/marimbas/ They also used an oboe. Momma Mia is played in the key of D Major at 136 beats per minute. You can dete...

  The Role of the Performer – Whitney Houston (Photo of Whitney Houston. Ebet Roberts/Getty Images) taken from https://www.crfashionbook.com/celebrity/g33461512/young-photos-whitney-houston-singer/ I was happy (and surprised) that Whitney Houston’s name came up when I entered musicians who didn’t write their own music in to Google. Her voice has been a steady presence in my life and her songs always bring up so many memories. Whitney Houston was surrounded by music since birth. Her mother, Sissy Houston , was a famous gospel, soul and pop music singer. Her cousin, Dionne Warwick , was also a famed soul singer. Houston grew up singing in her church and stated that she felt God had given her a voice that was infectious. If you’d like to see what she means by infectious, please click here and watch a video of her singing the Star-Spangled Banner . I always pay attention to voices that give me goosebumps and this performance did. The person behind that voice was discovered ...