Anabella Discovering the World of Music

For my last big blog entry, we're going to be learning about the music of Japan!  To start, a little bit of history about Japan and Japanese music. In around 300 b.c., in Japan there was the invention of the pottery wheel, and the use of rice cultivation, in what is now known as Tokyo. Also, the religion Shinto began developing (Shinto is Japan's oldest religion) (Japanese History) . Shinto is basically the belief in spirits called kami that can influence the quality of a person's life, so shrines are used to pay respects to those spirits in order to have a good quality of life. Shinto also believes that humans are inherently good. The word Shinto is derived from the Chinese words "Shen" and "Tao." Shen means spirit and tao means the way, and put together, Shinto means the way of the spirits (BBC, 2011). To the Japanese people, Shinto is also not technically a religion (there's also no scriptures associated with it either), it's more of a philoso...

 For my music and family blog, I decided to interview my grandpa about his experiences with music. I wanted to learn more about his experiences with music because I've noticed that we share similar music tastes (rock, folk, acoustic music). We both have different opinions on what country music is good country music, and he's not as excited about rap music as I am, but we both share a love for Dolly Parton. I remember we were watching some live country music on tv and that's when I became curious about what music means to him, and how he connects to music.   As a kid in the late 50s, early 60s, some of his first experiences with music were listening to what was on the radio. One of the things that we discussed was how much technology in music has changed throughout his lifetime. He remembers listening to music on a hand-held radio with a dial on the side that you'd have to move around to find the stations. H also said that the music never came in clearly, there was alway...