My Musical Ancestors

I don’t know what’s going to become of me in my pursuit of jazz. Well, who knows what the future brings anyway? All I know is that I have faith in why I have been pursuing jazz especially jazz singing. Today I feel like going deeper into some analysis as to where all of this jazziness of mine is coming from. Wait, what have I done so far in terms of my jazz pursuit? Alright, it’s been more than 5 years already I guess since I first started gigging. So I have done gigs in hotels ,joined festivals, taken lessons, joined International Jazz Day a couple of times. I am planning on launching an album. And this jazz pursuit of mine is one of the three major things I juggle. I juggle work, studies and jazz. Do I have some sort of love life? No. Lol! Let’s talk about my love life issues separately. For now, let me talk about my human development, my development as a jazz singer. I believe I really got it from my paternal ancestors. My father was a great singer of any kind of melodic song. And growing up, I belonged in a home that played jazzy music most of the time. Jazz invaded my subconscious quite very early on. But it was my great grandfather whom I didn’t get to see that played percussion and he was either Spanish or Latin American to a great extent. He had that groove. Maybe I inherited it I don’t know. Some research study suggests that music might be genetically passed on. Such a research article suggests “the most likely scenario is that we will discover genes that support component brain structures and thereby, by extension, component musical behaviors. Genetic polymorphisms, such as the catechol-O-methyl transferase (COMT) gene, have been shown to modulate dopamine in the prefrontal cortex, and thereby working memory function (Posner et al., 2011, ) ” (Levitin) .

It’s very interesting to note that my great grandpa was a Hispanic human being. In terms of the origins of jazz, “Latin American” dance music is one of its essential roots among many others. (Bryant).

I think that genetically or biologically, I have been made for jazz. God must have created me to sing or play jazz.

And no matter the odds (which refers to my, number one, spending much money on my private jazz education), I have kept on keeping on. I have made lots of friends in the music business who somehow help me out every now and then musically and “politically” speaking. There’s politics to getting gigs. Which will be a separate topic of mine in the future. Anyway, before getting to establish such connections in the music industry, I had to get my pocket together. I had to spend on it all. Which I won’t eleborate on. My only point is that, I have worked my way through jazz. There was even a point when I took two jobs so that I’d have money for music. In fact my efforts can be explained in the following human developent concept:

“Another characteristic of modern psychological theories of development is that they are systemic rather than uni-factorial in their conceptions about relevant influences and causes of development (Lerner, 1998). Such approaches have outgrown old dichotomies of “nature versus nurture” or “individual versus society.” Instead, development is viewed as a product of phylogenetic heritage and universal biological change, genetic endowment, cultural, societal, and social network context, and the individual’s own actions and other regulatory efforts. These factors can be grouped into three broad classes of influences: biological, societal, and individual” (Heckhausen).

I need to emphasize my efforts too.

Yes, I may be biologically, culturally predisposed to jazz. But I have had to make ends meet my way too.

REFERENCES:

Bryant, Jennings.
Encyclopedia of Children, Adolescents, and the Media. Vol. 2. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Reference, 2007. p578-583.

Daniel J.Levitin¹. NeuroView. Volume 73, ISSUE 4, P633-637, February 23, 2012

What Does It Mean to Be Musical? https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2012.01.017PlumX Metrics

Meet Our Organizers. Pharaway Lacdao, Philippines (Interview). Retrieved from https://jazzday.com/interview/pharaway-lacdao-philippines/