10:45 am: Today in class I began to see that a lot of the students had a similar musical past to mine. A decent amount of popular classic rock and folk music. Then one student presented on their musical influences from Haiti. When she began playing the Christian music I noticed the Creole influence with a lot of brass instruments playing hymn-like melodies. Somehow brass makes them more cheerful to me- the bright sound of the metal just makes things sound happier. While I was younger a family friend instroduced me to some Haitian music, but it occurred to me that I really didn’t know the music that well at all. But I do know that one of the founding members of Arcade Fire was from Haiti and it is interesting to think that the brassy, orchestral sound the band has could be heavily influenced by Haitian/Creole church music. One of the songs played as an example in class reminded me a lot of “Crown of Love”. Makes me wonder, and makes me wish I had my headphones so I could listen to the group.
