Week 6- Latcho Drom

I really enjoyed watching the video Latcho Drom which showed the evolution of music and the musical aspect of the culture of gypsy's as they traveled to different places and their children were influenced by the music and use of musical instruments in each of the places they were exposed to. The first scene that was shown depicted the instruments the gypsy/nomads originally used. During what I believe to be the wedding we saw all of the people seated and a variety of instruments from small finger cymbols, pots used by being blown into, a sitar, clap sticks, bangles, tambourine like instruments and the tabla were used. In the second scene that we saw was a dance scene where a woman danced on a table with a man people clapped and the woman wore a chime like belt around her hips that jingled as she shook her hips. She also used finger clappers, while drums were played with sticks and the rabab was used. People also used their body to add to the music and rhythm through clapping and stomping. Children also watched through the windows while another one played along in the tree. This showed us how children take on a new cultures methods on dancing in their cultures and make them apart of their own and pass them on. The last scene seemed to have a very European or Middle Eastern influence as the gypsy's seemed to be settled in not only from the way they dressed but from the scene where the ensemble sits and plays. It seems western influence has taken over as we saw a violin instead of a rebab along with a flute a guitar and tambourines. The way that the little girl was dancing though was obviously very similar to the dance showed in scene two and one would be able to link some aspects of her movement to scene one as well (where the little girl was dancing). It was very interesting to see just how one culture influences another and how children can take was they see and bring it throughout their lives with them obviously passing what they learned down to their own families.