Musical encounters. Africa, the West and today’s new music
Teaching module for junior high school students 15-29 November 2022
All cultures are born and develop thanks to movement, encounters and fusions between different components. In the hands of artists, these bonds become opportunities to express new forms of thought, emotions and world views. Music works like this too. This module addresses one of the most widespread forms of musical hybridisation: that between African music and the cultures of the Western world. A blend of music and words that has produced many new forms and genres and which is the basis of the best music that is listened to today.
With Stefano Zenni
Sounds in motion. How migrations have shaped today's music
How migrations have shaped today's music
- Tuesday 15 November 2022 at 10:00 - 12:00
By nature, we are a migrant species: voluntary or forced movements of people are the basis of human cultures. And cultures are always the result of encounters, clashes and hybridisations. Even music blends and changes, for example as a result of African migrations: there are African dances at the basis of Renaissance and Baroque music through to Vivaldi; and African slavery in the Americas has produced jazz, blues, soul, hip hop, rap, Brazilian samba and Argentine tango.
The maps, videos and listening sessions will help us understand how music and history intertwine and how the music we love today is imbued with migrant cultures.
Jazz and classical music
L’incontro tra due mondi (lontani)?
- Tuesday 22 November 2022 at 10:00 - 12:00
We tend to think that musical genres are distant from each other. What does classical music have to do with rock? Or rap with jazz? In this session, we see what the differences can be between classical music and jazz, between a written piece of music with a long history behind it and a more modern, improvised one. Through listening sessions, videos and images, we will discover that there are different ideas of beauty and how different worlds can come together to create a new form of music.
The meeting of words and music
Black music tells our emotions
- Tuesday 29 November 2022 at 10:00 - 12:00
When we use words, we are able to express our thoughts precisely; with music, we use another type of communication, in which emotions come into play in a different way. By putting these two means of expression together, we are able to tell something deeper. In a lot of black music - blues, soul, hip hop - these thoughts are manifested in a perfect fusion between the sound of the voice and that of the instruments, between the meaning of the words and the vibration of the instruments. Stories of women and men, of loves, pains and joys that become new poetry.
So, let's read together the lyrics of certain songs, some blues or rap songs, and hear how they dance together with the music that accompanies them in an exciting narrative of life.
