bahama mama

     I wasn't sure what I would write my BIG FINAL BLOG about. I mean, this is the last time I'll be writing to you guys... so I had to make this one special! I was about to do a random place that I knew nothing about, but I didn't want to do that, I wanted to do somewhere that I had real life experience at! So finally I've decided, the BAHAMAS!!! I've been to the Bahamas before, we only stayed one day, but the day I was there, I fell in love with that place! The whole time I was there I heard beautiful island music being played all around me, the most amazing island sounds being played by handmade musicians, it was great! I can't wait to educate you all about it! 

    Bahama music is mostly associated with Junkanoo, which was celebrated on Boxing Day, which is the day after Christmas (basically a second Christmas), and then again on New Years. Groups that included The Baha Men, Ronnie Butler, and Kirkland Bodie have gained tons of popularity in Japan and the Untied States. There are many different forms of song and dance that the Bahamian community participates in! In these next few paragraphs I will be explaining some of these different forms! 

    First we have the Calypso! This type of music is a style of Afro-Caribbean that originated in Trinidad and Tobago sometime in the 19th century and then spread to the rest of the Caribbean in the early 20th century. The earliest roots this type of music has is the arrival of French planters and their slaves. As we've seen in many other lessons, slaves were the origin of so many types of music. This type of music is typically characterized as highly rhythmic and harmonic vocals. Calypso in the Caribbean includes a variety of ranges and genres including: the henna in Antigua and Barbuda; Mento, a style of Jamaican folk music that greatly influenced ska and reggae; Ska, the precursor to rocksteady, and reggae; Spouge, a style of Barbadian popular music; Dominica Cadence-lypso, which iced calypso with the cadence of Hate; and soca mucis,a style of Kaiso/calypso, with influences from chutney, could, funk, Latin, and cadence-lypso. Okay, I know that was a ton, and you're kind of like "whatttt", well to tell the truth I'm kind of like "whatttt" myself. I found that on Wiki, but were just gonna go with it, because I'm sure music majors could decode all that. That was all said to basically say, Calypso has a ton of very important roots! It's so amazing when a ton of different things come together to create something so special!

    Next we have a Bahamian form of dance which is known as Soca! This dance originated from combining the melodic lifting sound of calypso with insistent percussion, which in todays time is most often electronic. This music has really evolved in the last 20 years, this change has really been brought on by all the different musicians in Bahamian culture. 

    Above in the Calypso section of my blog, I described a holiday that is celebrated the day after Christmas, know as Junkanoo. In this section I will be explaining the holiday and all that surrounds it! As I mentioned before, Junkanoo is celebrated the day after Christmas and on New Years. The Junkanoo was originally practiced in what is now North Carolina, and still exist in Belize, but it is most known in The Bahamas. The way I'm reading and taking in this information, it seems to me there is no reason to really celebrate this holiday. I was just always celebrated by slaves in the early days, they couldn't truly celebrate Christmas because of the work they had to do, so they pushed Junkanoo back to the day after to have time to celebrate. In today's era, this holiday is celebrated by throwing huge parties, parades, wearing bright colorful costumes, and dancing around. Families gather together and eat, and just celebrate together. This holiday and traditions have been passed down for centuries! Since the 1950's this holiday has been majorly influences by American traditions. Mostly by television, radios, and broadcasting their celebrations live! 

    I want to discuss the "rake and scrape" this was both an instrument, and a type of music! The rake and scrape originated in The Bahamas, and the earliest records historians have of it is 1886, so it's honestly a fairly new instrument, I mean not as old as some others. The way you play this music is by scraping a saw against an object, usually an old knife blade against the saws teeth. People say that the sound is similar to paper being ripped. 

I want to move into some instruments that are played during the Rake and Scrape in The Bahamas, and their origins. 

Membranophones: Goombay drum, also known as the goatskin drum. The skin of a goat was stretched out over a wooden barrel, like in many other cultures! It's decorated by geometric designs and bright colors! The drum is then heated over a fire to get the pitch and tone perfect. 

Idiophones: This one is very important, because it's what makes the rake and scrape so unique. The use of the Carpenters Saw is scraped with a nail or even a butterknife. The saw is also bent against the body of the player so different pitches, and vibrations are produced, therefore the way it sounds is always different! This instrument is my favorite just because the player can manipulate the instrument in so many different ways to get so many different sounds!

Aerophones: You may find this shocking but the accordion is actually used to add the round form which allows the dancers to dance the ring dance. In more modern bands, the accordion is replaced with the electric guitar or keyboard

Thanks for reading my final blog, I really hope I gave you tons of new information on the musical and dance culture in The Bahamas. It truly is such a beautiful place with such a rich musical history! 

One last time, 

Peace 

-Gracie C :) 

course: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_the_Bahamas