Instead of explaining why I choose each song using 3 – 5 sentences each, I am going to explain my thought process behind how I narrowed down my 10 selected songs.
In addition to being a science high school teacher, I have a strong background in music. I used to teach piano and music theory as a side job. Part of music theory is music history, so I am familiar with how to categorize songs based on the composer, era, genre, etc ….
I found it quite difficult to curate 10 pieces of music that represented the entire world because I couldn’t simply just split the world into 10 different parts. What I did at the beginning was forming a chart that broke down each song into the composer, title, location of where it was composed, the genre and the year it was composed. After spending some time researching and listening to each song, I had the idea of having two main categories of songs. The first five songs were chosen based on the era or year of composition and the second five songs were chosen from five of the continents of the world.
When I studied music, the history courses were based on music eras. The main eras are medieval, renaissance, baroque, classical, romantic, and postmodern. I tried to choose at least one song that represented each era with the exception of the medieval and renaissance. I also tried to choose songs that were from different genres. These are the first five songs that I chose based on era:
Baroque: Bach, The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue in C, No.1. Glenn Gould, piano.
Classical: Beethoven, Fifth Symphony, First Movement, the Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer, conductor.
Romantic: Stravinsky, Rite of Spring, Sacrificial Dance, Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Igor Stravinsky, conductor. 4:35
Postmodern Jazz: “Melancholy Blues,” performed by Louis Armstrong and his Hot Seven. 3:05
Postmodern Rock and Roll: “Johnny B. Goode,” written and performed by Chuck Berry.
For the second five songs, I chose one song that represented each continent with the exception of Antarctica and Europe. I did not include Europe as most of the songs from the first category are from Europe and I did not include Antarctica as I don’t think there were any pieces from that region.
Africa: Senegal, percussion, recorded by Charles Duvelle.
Oceania: Australia, Aborigine songs, “Morning Star” and “Devil Bird,” recorded by Sandra LeBrun Holmes.
North America: Mexico, “El Cascabel,” performed by Lorenzo Barcelata and the Mariachi México.
South America: Peru, wedding song, recorded by John Cohen.
Asia: India, raga, “Jaat Kahan Ho,” sung by Surshri Kesar Bai Kerkar.
Hey Sarah,
I also split my selections up into mini-sections. I found these songs often worked well in groups to convey an idea or reflect a part of human life and culture. I love that you chose history and geography as markers for selections! Great connections and representations I would never have noticed 🙂
Thanks for sharing