Instructor’s Manual and Test Item File for
EXCURSIONS IN WORLD MUSIC Sixth Edition by
Bruno Nettl Charles Capwell Philip V. Bohlman Isabel K.F. Wong Thomas Turino Timothy Rommen
6th ed. Instructor’s Manual revised by Patricia Cox Long Island University, Brooklyn, NY 5th ed. Instructor’s Manual revised by Joseph S. Kaminski Long Island University, Brooklyn, NY 2nd, 3rd, and 4th ed. Instructor’s Manual created by Margaret Sarkissian Smith College, Northampton, MA
©2012 Pearson Education, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, 07458
© 2012 by PEARSON EDUCATION, INC. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458
All rights reserved 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN 0-20-5-012876 Printed in the United States of America
TABLE OF CONTENTS Note to the Instructor
4
Chapter 1
Introduction: Studying Musics of the World’s Cultures
5
Chapter 2
The Music of India
9
Chapter 3
Music of the Middle East
20
Chapter 4
The Music of China
32
Chapter 5
The Music of Japan
43
Chapter 6
The Music of Indonesia
53
Chapter 7
The Music of Sub-Saharan Africa
64
Chapter 8
The Musical Culture of Europe
73
Chapter 9
Music in Latin America
85
Chapter 10
Music in the Caribbean
95
Chapter 11
Native American Music
104
Chapter 12
Music of Ethnic North America
114
Appendix
127
Test Item File
130
NOTE TO THE INSTRUCTOR The textbook Excursions in World Music presents a comprehensive introduction to world musics that is appropriate for general audiences. The instructor’s manual summarizes the textbook by chapter, providing an outline with technical information, key concepts, listening skills, summaries of chapter sections, musical examples, discussion questions, and recommended DVDs and videos. It is organized to give the instructor easy access to the class curriculum for lesson planning. The order of the chapters may be rearranged to suit your or the class’s interests. The listening examples should be played and explained in class along with video examples. General video resources for class use are the thirty-volume JVC Video Anthology of World Music and Dance; Beats of the Heart (a series of fourteen documentaries); and the twelve-volume Exploring the World of Music. A major encyclopedic source is the ten-volume Garland Encyclopedia of World Music. Suggested assignments are outlined in Appendix 1, and sample test questions are given for each chapter in the Test Item File. Devise a listening section for the tests by making a CD or tape, then ask the students to identify regions, instruments, genres, techniques, etc. Mix familiar examples from the textbook CDs with less familiar examples from other recordings you place on library reserve. Final papers, as well as other types of writing assignments, should be used in grading. Such writing assignments may include listening journals, performance reports, or workgroup projects. Always keep a large world map and regional maps on display. On the first day of class, give each student a blank world map with their syllabus; then, ask them to fill in the countries and cities covered, as the class unfolds. Included map questions on tests.
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: STUDYING THE MUSICS OF THE WORLD’S CULTURES The music and musical life of any society is a very complex phenomenon that may be analyzed and comprehended from many perspectives. The authors of the textbook present a selection of specific examples of music from around the world based on their own practical experience. They extrapolate general principles that may be applied to many musics, yet each chapter illuminates musical difference. The textbook thus emphasizes musical diversity and covers a representative number of cultures, communities, events, instruments, and key concepts that form the foundation for the study of world music. Ethnomusicology – the study of music as an aspect of culture; also, the comparative study of the music of the world Cultures, concepts, and principles, covered by chapter Chapter 2 – India: the relationship of music and dance; instrumental and vocal improvisation; compositional structure; concept of meter; ancient roots; Hinduism; contrasting Northern and Southern styles; film music Chapter 3 –– The Middle East: differing conceptions of music; ways musicians learn to improvise; common but diverse musical systems; heterophonic ensemble textures; amateurs over professional musicians; Islam Chapter 4 –– China: cultural and musical interactions of 56 recognized ethnicities; heterophonic silk and bamboo ensembles; Peking Opera; Confucianism and proper music; 20th century popular music; Songs of the Masses; rock music Chapter 5 –– Japan: the survival of older musical traditions; elegant court music from China and Korea; Shinto and Buddhist music; the integration of music and drama in noh and kabuki theater; heterophony in chamber music; colotomic structure of court music Chapter 6 –– Indonesia: contrasting Javanese to Balinese orchestration; influences of Hinduism and Islam colotomic musical structures; Indonesian music in the Western world; the role of Western artists and tourists in Indonesian musical culture Chapter 7 –– Africa: interlocking instrumental and vocal music; overlapping sound textures; cyclical forms; rhythmic complexity; hereditary musician families; communal music-making; talking drums; urbanization of musical traditions Chapter 8 –– Europe: the complex combination of different musical styles and peoples; interrelationships among folk, art, and popular musics; music and instruments defining national culture; technology and culture; attempts to integrate European music Chapter 9 - Latin America: the relationships of social values to musical styles varieties of Hispanic cultures; European and Native syncretisms; string instruments and their variants; Afro-Latin American syncretisms Chapter 10 - The Caribbean: creolization and musical syncretism; colonial music forms as symbols of national identity; songs as voice of social protest; globalization and spread of regional cultures
Chapter 11 - Native America: the history and pre-history of musical cultures without written records; music as mediator between human and supernatural worlds; intertribal unity in powwows and music to build consciousness of ethnic identity Chapter 12 - Ethnic North America: interaction of rural folk music and urbanized multiethnic culture; preservation and maintenance of ethnic musics through families, communities, and religion; predominant African American influence in popular music; multiculturalism Understanding Music as a Cultural Phenomenon Music is diverse and we cannot expect to fit everything into a Western view. A relativistic stance sees that each society has a musical system that suits its culture in that each culture creates the kind of music it needs to reflect its values. We can make musical comparisons on the basis of structure and function, but we cannot make musical comparisons on the basis of qualitative judgments. The world of music consists of a group of musics, like languages, in that each music is a theoretical system unto itself. We cannot examine musical sound alone, but must also examine the society’’s ideas about music and the events in which music plays a part. Music is universal in that all societies have something that is musical, but music itself is not a universal language, in that understanding one means you understand another. There has not been a musical evolution, as there have been evolutions of life species: musics do not uniformly change from simple to complex (with Western music being the pinnacle, as many behold), but musics change to satisfy social needs. Oral traditions of music do not inevitably lead to musical change, nor does music notation automatically cause the music to be fixed. In societies where men and women have extremely different social roles, the genders have separate repertoires and different ways of using their voice In many political societies, what people may not say in words may be said be musicians in music. Musical talent is not hereditary. With enough effort, anyone can become proficient in any musical system. Universals of Music All societies have music. All people sing. Music is used in religious rituals to experience the supernatural. Musical genres occur in all societies (such as songs associated with the seasons; children’s songs; work songs). Songs or pieces are identified and distinguished from each others as a common musical unit. The Classification of Musical Instruments Aerophones (Wind instruments) - Flutes -vertical flutes (flutes with upper-end being mouth-hole) notched flutes duct flutes (whistles) transverse flutes or cross flutes (held horizontally) - Trumpets and horns (of any material) vibrating lips set air in motion end-blown or side-blown trumpets have a cylindrical bore
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animal horns and metal horns have a conical bore elephant tusks have a conical bore Reeds - single reed instruments (clarinets) double reed instruments (oboes and shawms) free reed instruments (mouth-organs) Outer-air instruments (acting directly on air) Australian bull-roarer
Chordophones (String instruments) - Bows - musical bows from hunting bows (with resonator) - Harps - arch with strings set between - Lyres - body with two arms and strings stretched to a crossbar - Lutes - plucked with fingers or plectra - Fiddles - bowed lutes - Zithers - stick zithers, tube zithers, trough zithers board zithers psalteries (plucked) dulcimers (struck with hammers) Idiophones (“Self”-sounds, struck solid objects) - Percussion - concussion idiophones (similar objects struck together) sticks, troughs, logs, gongs, bells, xylophones, metallophones stamped idiophones (hit on the ground, water, or body) shaken idiophones - rattles/shakers, jingles, sistra scraped idiophones (rasps, notched sticks) - Lamellaphones - (sound from the bend and release of flexible material) sansa (mbira) (plucked bamboo or iron tongues on resonator or piece of wood) juex harp (often erroneously spelled “Jew’s harp”- plucked held in the mouth) - Friction instruments (sound produced by rubbing) Membranophones - Drums - single headed or double headed; nailed, pegged, glued, buttoned, laced, braced tubular - cylindrical, barrel-shaped, conical, hourglass, goblet-shaped kettle drums frame drums (frame with no body) - Friction drums (stick or cord passing through membrane) - Mirlitons (membrane set in motion by blowing, as the kazoo) Electrophones (electronic instruments, synthesizers, computers) Musical Change, Transmission, and History All musics have a history and all of them change. A culture’s music is affected when brought in contact with another musical culture. In many societies, music is often transmitted aurally (by being heard). Western music has spread throughout the world in the 20th century and affected local musics. (1) Western colonization of much of the world; and after 1945, the political and economic dependency of former colonies (2) Advances in communication through mass media, airlines, and computer networks (3) The diffusion of Western and Islamic cultures throughout history
Discussion Questions 1. What is music? (Play contrasting examples from Western culture: classical music, country & western, rock; then play contrasting Non-western examples: Koranic or Tibetan chant, Thai or Korean court music, Native American or African drumming, a raga or a Beijing opera aria. Students should learn to dismiss their preconceived categories of music.) 2. How can culture affect music? 3. How can music affect culture? 4. How is music considered as a behavior? 5. What types of expectations do audiences have when hearing music from their own culture? 6. How does disdain for another culture’’s music reflect disdain for the culture? 7. How can we be more open-minded when listening to music of another culture? 8. How can we better understand different musics when we compare them to languages? 9. Since there are many similarities in musical instruments throughout the world, could there have been patterns of cultural diffusion and how might they have operated?
CHAPTER 2 THE MUSIC OF INDIA Indian music is a classical art music tradition with many similarities to Western classical music: 1) it appeals to and is patronized by a small, educated segment of the population; 2) it has a body of theory and a formal system of study; and 3) it is disseminated through public concerts in which there is an expected program order. There are also significant differences: 1) pieces are mixed pre-composed and improvised material; 2) there are different levels of improvisation that occur at specific points in a piece; and 3) a performer’s skill is measured by the ability to improvise in free rhythm. Two major musical systems exist in Indian music: Karnatak (also spelled Carnatic) in the south and Hindustani in the north. Karnatak is the older Hindu tradition, and Hindustani has been influenced by the later arriving Islamic culture. Hindustan is the region of North India. Karnatak (also spelled Carnatic) –– South Indian music style in the Hindu tradition Hindustani –– North Indian music style influenced by Islamic culture Sangita –– generally translated as “music,” means not just the melody and rhythm of an instrument or a voice, but also the embodiment of rhythm in dance, and the dramatic expression of story and mood through dance or song Outline Kathak Dance Kathak –– one of the six major dance forms of India; deriving from the word “katha,” meaning “story- telling.” The dance involves the flailing of the arms, flicking of the wrists, jerking of the head, and twitching of the eyebrows. Nritta –– an abstract Kathak dance Abhinaya –– a mimed Kathak dance Bol –– a system of vocalized rhythmic syllables memorized and recited by drummers to learn and retain patterns Definitions of Hindustani Terms Khyal –– a modern genre of Hindustani vocal music, deriving from the Arabic word for “imagination.” The repertoire is based on short songs (two to sixteen lines), which the singer uses as raw material for improvisation. It is accompanied by a harmonium and a set of tabla drums. Gat-tora –– the section of Hindustani instrumental music performance upon which the tabla begins. The gat is a short composed melody and is alternated with improvisational passages called tora. Harmonium –– a small organ, the bellows of which are pumped with one hand while the other hand fingers the keyboard Tabla –– a pair of drums used in Hindustani music Sitar –– primary plucked lute of Hindustani music Tambura –– a plucked lute (also used in Karnatak music) that provides the drone tones under solos, contributing an integral sonic texture in the structure of Indian music Pakhavaj –– a double-headed, barrel-shaped drum of Hindustani music Lay or laya –– tempo Alap or alapanam –– raga improvisation in free rhythm Rag, raga, or ragam –– a scale and its associated musical characteristics such as the number of pitches it contains, its manner of ascending and descending, its predominant pitch, the
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tuning of its pitches, its metaphysical context and so forth Jor –– the section of Hindustani instrumental performance that follows alap and introduces a pulse Jhala –– the concluding section of instrumental improvisation following the jor section (in Hindustani music), during which the performer makes lively and fast rhythmic patterns on the drone strings (jala) of an instrument Tal or tala –– meter Sawal-jawab –– “question-answer” rhythmic challenges between soloist and accompanist in Hindustani music
Roots of Indian Music The Vedas –– a corpus of texts originating in Ancient India; the oldest scriptural texts of Hinduism Vedic chant–– intoned verses of Vedas performed by Brahmin priests Varna –– the division of society in Indian culture, sometimes translated as “caste” Brahmin or Brahman - the highest varna, or caste, in Indian society Early Music Theory, Continuity, and Divergence Rig-veda –– a collection of verses that tell stories of the Hindu gods Sama-veda –– the rig-veda set as hymn texts and sung to a collection of special tunes called Samagana Natyasastra –– an early treatise on the performing arts, written sometime before the fifth century C.E. In the Natyasastra, twenty-two steps make-up an octave. Natya –– drama Rasa –– the mood created by a musical aesthetic of a raga Sruti –– a microtone in Indian music and an ornamental pitch North and South: The Hindustani and Karnatak Systems Sangitaratnakara –– a treatise written in the thirteenth century distinguishing Hindustani from Karnatak music style From the thirteenth century, the influence of the Persian and Turkish cultures of Islam became of singular importance for North India when the foreigners established political control over the area from the city of Delhi. Gharanas –– a school of professional musicians in North India who originally traced their heritage to a family tradition but which now includes non-biological descendants as well. An ustad is a master; a shagird is a student. The gharanas extend from the famous sixteenth-century musician Tansen, who was brought to the imperial court near Delhi by the Mughal Akbar. Tyagaraja –– a Karnatak musician and composer of the eighteenth century who refused an appointment to the southern court of Tanjore. He instead composed songs for the god Rama, and they were not kept as the inheritance of his family tradition. Guru –– in Karnatak music, teacher Shishya –– in Karnatak music, a student Devadasis –– translates as “servants of the gods.” In South India, they were female children dedicated to the service of the temple and received intensive training in the art of dance. Being “married” to the temple deity, they were not allowed to marry any man in the usual sense. Bharata Natyam –– traditional women’s dance repertory in South India, said to be the Cosmic Dance of the god Shiva. The person Bharata is said to be the author of the Natyasastra, but the term is derived from four words: bha from bhava (facial expression), ra from raga (musical characteristics), ta from tala (meter), and natyam (drama). Karnatak Recital and Types of Pieces
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Varnam –– a type of song with which Karnatak recitals generally begins, sometimes compared to the Western classical “etude” or “study” Kriti –– the major song type of Karnatak music, divided into three parts: pallavi, anupallavi, and caranam Ragam or alapanam –– an improvised composition, played before the kriti, that demonstrates the musicians' abilities to interpret the ragam (or mode) in which the kriti is written Talam –– the Karnatak version of tala (meter) Pallavi –– the opening section of a kriti, with a refrain at the beginning and end Niraval –– a type of improvisation derived from the kriti text Svarakalpana –– a type of improvisation in which the names of the pitches—sa, re, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni are sung instead of the text or, if played instrumentally, each pitch is played separately Samam –– the first beat of the talam
Instruments Chordophones –– sitar, tambura, vina (stick zither of Karnatak music), sarod (fretless lute of Hindustani music), violin, guitar (played slide-guitar style) Aerophones –– harmonium (free reed), shehnai (double reed), bansuri (flute) Membranophones –– tabla, Pakhavaj, mridangam (double-headed, barrel-shaped drum of Karnatak music) Idiophone –– jalatarang (porcelain bowels filled with different amounts of water) The Influence of Indian Music and Prospects Atan –– the national dance Filmigit –– popular film songs Lata Mangeshkar (b. 1929) –– the world’s foremost Indian female vocalists of filmigit. She sung in over twenty Indian languages and held the Guinness Book World Record for maximum songs in a repertory from 1974-91 with over 30,000. Ghazal –– a form of sung poetry associated with Persian-Arabic Muslim culture taken up by Urdu speakers in North India and Pakistan Bhangra –– pop music of the South India diaspora combining aspects of hip-hop (AfroAmerican pop) with traditional folk dance music from the state of Punjab The Beatles used Indian music on several of their recordings in the 1960s. Shakti –– a word that means “energy,” is the name of an Indo-jazz fusion band made up of violinist L. Shankar, American guitarist John McLaughlin, and tablaist Zakir Hussein Key Concepts for the Unit Layers of Musical Activity: Indian music performance, Karnatak and Hindustani, is triple-textured, for there are always three layers of musical activity: a melodic soloist (ex. the sitar or singer), an accompanying drummer (ex. the tabla or mridangam), and a drone instrument (tambura). If the ensemble is large, there may be secondary melodic and/or percussion instruments. Raga: Raga (ragam in South India) is a way of making melodic music. A raga has a scale, a typical order of tones, a character that musicians agree on, some non-musical ideas with which it is connected, and a typical time of day and season for performance. In North India there are some 200 ragas. In South India there are 72 main ragas and many secondary ones. Tala: Tala (talam in South India) is a way of organizing meter. It is a fixed, cyclically repeating
time span in which beats are arranged in an abstract hierarchy. In South India there are seven main talas and four secondary ones. In North India there are many more. Listening Skills Hearing the Layers of Musical Activity: Melody and drone –– Drone may be understood in terms of a steady repeated pattern serving as a foundation under the melody. When a tambura drones under a sitar, the two may sound like the same instrument. The drum layer is more easily recognizable due to its timbral character. Differentiating between North and South Indian Forms: The simplest way to do this is by comparing a South Indian kriti with a North Indian gat-tora, demonstrating the greater structured nature of the kriti and improvisational freedom of the gat- tora. Differentiating between Composed and Improvised Material: This can be clearly demonstrated in a South Indian kriti in which a vocalist is accompanied by a violinist. In improvised sections, the violinist doesn’’t know what the vocalist will do, so he lags slightly behind. In composed sections, the tune is known to both performers, so they play together. Counting Tala: Each North Indian tala has a theka, a repeated pattern of syllables (bols), used as a memory aid. Have students speak the theka of tintal (4 + 4 + 4 + 4) while adding its hand movements to the gat-tora section the CD1 track 1. + represents a clap, • a finger count, and O a wave): + 1 dha
2 dhin
3 dhin
4 dha
• 5 dha
6 dhin
7 dhin
8 dha
O 9 dha
10 tin
11 tin
12 ta
13 ta
14 dhin
15 dhin
16 dha
Singing Raga: Convey the scalar aspect of raga by having students sing vocal exercises using the Indian syllables sa ri ga ma pa dha ni sa. Try a raga that sounds “unusual” to western ears. Chapter Section Summaries Kathak dance Kathak is among the six major classical dances of India. The word is derived from “katha,” meaning “the art of storytelling.” Dancers entered their professions through inheritance to narrate history through entertainment. In dance, music and mime are utilized to tell Sanskrit epics such as the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Kathak eventually moved out of the temples and into the courts where a class of dancing girls and courtesans emerged. In the mid-19th century, Kathak had a renaissance as a classical art form. Gat-tora performance Medium and fast gats performed on sitar by Sudhir Phadke. Textbook CD1, track 1
Raga: Yaman (C d e F # g a b) Tala: Tintal (4 + 4 + 4 + 4) CD track 1 is an extremely short example of a North Indian gat-tora. It begins with a short alap/jor played by the sitar, accompanied only by the tambura. At 1’10”, the sitarist introduces the melody of the gat, and the tabla enters with tala tintal (16 beats). At 3’50”, the pace increases as the tabla switches from medium (madhya) to fast (drut) tempo. Notice that when the sitarist improvises, the tabla marks the tala clearly, but when the sitarist plays the familiar gat melody, the tabla has the opportunity to improvise. Historical roots The Vedas Recommended Listening The Four Vedas. Asch Records, Asch Mankind Series, Album No. AHM 4126 has different chants and singing styles as well as liner notes. Timeline of Indian Historical and Musical Events 2nd Millennium B.C.E.
Northwestern India and Pakistan site of Harappan civilization, contemporaneous with Mesopotamian civilization.
2nd-1st Millennium B.C.E.
Aryan nomads from further North and West begin to arrive in the region eventually displacing Harappan civilization. They establish the Vedic religion, predecessor of Hinduism. Its sacred texts, preserved in oral tradition, are the Vedas, whose musical chants and melodies influence development of Indian music.
5th Century C.E.
The Natyasastra is written, an early treatise on the performing arts
13th Century C.E.
Muslim invaders come to the North, eventually taking over Delhi, but the South remains largely Hindu and the classical music system bifurcates into Hindustani and Karnatak systems.
Early 16th Century
Northern musician Tansen becomes the official musician of the imperial court near Delhi; becomes model for the master art musician in the North.
Early-to-mid-18th Century
New instruments arrive: the violin from Europe and the sarod from Afghanistan.
Later 18th century
Tyagaraja becomes the most famous musician in Karnatak culture, writing many of the kritis that continue to be performed to today. He turns down a court appointment to his religious vocation.
Mid-19th Century
Christian missionaries bring portable pump organs (known as harmoniums) to India which rapidly become popular instruments for song accompaniments
Late 19th-Early 20th Century
Intellectuals begin a movement to remove the stigma from musical performance, making music and dance acceptable to the middle
classes. India wins its independence from Britain; increased nationalistic feelings lead to renewed interest in native music.
1947 1965
The Beatles’ George Harrison becomes interested in the sitar, studying with Ravi Shankar, the great Indian master. Shankar’s music is introduced to the West by Harrison most memorably in the 1969 Concert for Bangladesh.
North and South Indian traditions Two major musical traditions in India have developed: Karnatak (South Indian) and Hindustani (North Indian). Karnatak music is more intricately ornamented melodically and rhythmically and has an elaborate music theory. The modern style is traced back to an 18th-century singer-saint, Tyagaraja (1767- 1847). Hindustani music, which relies more heavily on improvisation, is traced back to a 16th-century court musician called Tansen (1500-89). Tyagaraja was a contemporary of Beethoven (1770-1827), while Tansen was a contemporary of Thomas Tallis (c.1505-85) and Palestrina (c.1525-94). From the 13th century on, North India came under the political, religious, and cultural influence of Persian and Turkish invaders. Fundamentally different Islamic (Northern) and Hindu (Southern) values, attitudes towards music and dance, status of musicians and dancers, and transmission of music and dance, are responsible for the divergence in musical cultures. Comparison of the careers, status, and historical significance of Tansen and Tyagaraja highlights these differences. Karnatak music The Karnatak tradition encompasses Dravidian-speaking Hindu areas of South India (including Tamil areas of Sri Lanka). Contemporary repertoire and style developed in Tanjore between the 17th and 19th centuries. The leading musician, Tyagaraja, was neither from a family of professional musicians nor employed by a court (as was usual at the time), but rather was a Brahmin singer-saint whose musical career was a by-product of his life as a devotee of the deity Rama. His compositions, and those of his contemporaries Syama Sastri and Muttuswami Dikshitar, still form a significant part of the repertoire of modern performers. Today, Karnatak music is patronized by the urban elite, particularly of Madras. Common Karnatak instruments Vocal music is the main type of Karnatak music. Instrumentalists play vocal melodies and try to maintain the articulation determined by the pronunciation of the words in the original text. The most common Karnatak instruments are the vina, violin, mridangam, nagasvaram (oboe) accompanied by tavil (drum), bansuri (bamboo flute), and tambura. Karnatak improvisation There are five different types of improvisation used in Karnatak music. The first two are in free rhythm, the others are accompanied by mridangam and/or secondary percussion which mark the metric cycle (tala). Alapana:
(Also called ragam) may precede the performance of a composition. Accompanied only by the drone of the tambura, it is a free-ranging exploration of the raga without regular pulse. Overall tempo is slow, ornamentation is dense, and there is a gradual
increase of range as the raga unfolds. Tanam:
Repeats the exploration, but with a pulsed (but still non-metric) rhythm.
Niraval:
Takes one line from a pre-composed kriti and improvises variations on it. The text and its rhythmic articulation (tala) are maintained. The pitch content is varied within the prescriptions of the raga.
Svarakalpana: Based loosely on material from the kriti, it is often performed in antiphonically with the accompanying instrument that answers each line. Syllables (sa, re, ga, ma, pa, dha, ni) are sung in place of words of the text (or separately articulated by an instrumentalist), over increasingly greater spans of time, with a proportionate increase in rhythmic density. Trikala:
Used in more extended improvisations. The composed fragment is altered in its relation to the metric cycle by augmentation (doubling, tripling, and quadrupling the note values) and diminution (the reverse process). The aim is to demonstrate virtuosic control over the time component of a performance.
Typical Karnatak recital Karnatak recitals include several items starting with simple, pre-composed pieces with little elaboration, moving to more complex improvisatory structures, then concluding with short fixed compositions. A typical performance might include one or more of the following: Varnam:
Etude-like pieces used mainly as warm-ups.
Kriti:
Performed with little/no improvisation. Simple kritis consist of three sections: pallavi, anupallavi, and caranam (pronounced charanam), all accompanied by percussion in a regularized meter (tala). The first portion of the pallavi serves as a refrain, recurring at the end of all three sections. Texts are usually devotional.
More complex kritis: Preceded by ragam and tanam, and elaborated with niraval and svarakalpana. Ragam-tanam-pallavi: A long, largely improvised piece that may be sung or played with augmentation/ diminution (trikala) of the pallavi theme (usually a line from a kriti). It demonstrates the musician’’s skill and requires exceptional training, confidence, and spontaneous creative ability. Short lyrical pieces: Either from the dance repertoire (e.g., padam, javali, or a fast tempo tillanam) or from Sanskrit devotional verses. Listening Example Kriti “Banturiti,” sung by Seetha Rajan, composed by Tyagaraja. Textbook CD1, track 2 . Raga: Hamsanadam (c-e-f#-g-b) Tala: Adi (4 + 2 + 2 beats)
Indian audiences keep track of the rhythmic cycle by “clapping tala.” It can be an excellent classroom activity to help students understand the rhythmic structure. Adi tala can be counted as follows: (e is for “eduppu,” or beginning, of the particular song): + • 1 2 r_-ma.
e
• 3 Ban-tu- ri-
• 4 ti
+ O 5 6 go- lu- vi-
+ 0 7 8 ya vay-ya
(The exact placement of the words varies from phrase to phrase.) Schematic diagram of “Banturiti”: The upper case letters indicate musical and textual sections; lower case letters indicate musical recurrence set to new text. Superscript numbers indicate slight variation at the end of melodic lines (sangatis). Letters enclosed between repeat marks ( : : ) indicate phrases that are repeated once. (e.g., at the end of the partial 1⁄2 B or 1⁄2 b sections). Pallavi: :A: :A1 : :A2 : Acad Anupallavi: 1⁄2B :B: :B1 : :B2-C: Caranam:
A1
Acad
:D: : a : 1⁄2b : b: : b1 : : b2-c: A1 Acad
An elaborate version of this kriti is sung by Seetha Rajan. Textbook CD1, track 2. This version begins with an extremely brief alapana. At the caranam, echoed by the violin, Rajan improvises variations on the text (niraval). After a short violin solo, she inserts phrases of melodic and rhythmic improvisation (svarakalpana) using Indian syllables. When the singer has finished her improvisation, she returns to the text and completes the remaining caranam lyrics. Kritis are usually much longer than this example. Hindustani music The Hindustani tradition encompasses Indo-Aryan-speaking areas of North India (including Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sinhalese areas of Sri Lanka). The musician Tansen was brought to the Mughal court of the Emperor Akbar in Delhi. The Mughals were Muslims, as were the Hindustani musicians, so musician families passed their profession through inheritance by tradition while maintaining a low social status. The dissolution of the Mughal court in the 18th century led to a dispersal of musicians to other centers of patronage. Common Hindustani instruments Sitar, sarod, tambura, tabla, harmonium, shehnai accompanied by khurdak (kettledrums) Hindustani improvisation Improvisation preceding a composition is similar to that of the Karnatak tradition. However, at the gat, more improvisation occurs. Alap:
Like the Karnatak alapana, the alap precedes a performance of a long raga. The soloist is
accompanied only by the tambura, for it is a free-ranging exploration of the raga without keeping a regular pulse. The tempo starts out broadly and increases in a series of plateaux, until the articulatory density precipitates the introduction of a pulse. Jor:
Called non-tom in vocal pieces, the jor is pulsed improvisation. The tempo and rhythmic density increase during the jor.
Jhala:
This is a second type of pulsed improvisation, with a sudden increase in the use of the drone strings (jhala strings).
Gat-tora:
The section of Hindustani instrumental music performance upon which the tabla begins. The gat is a short composed melody and is alternated with improvised passages called tora. In gat-tora, the soloist and tabla player exchange roles, one improvising for a rhythmic cycle or two, while the other plays a fixed melody or rhythmic pattern. Because either the soloist or the drummer is marking the tala cycle, the tala is easier to follow in North Indian performances than in South Indian. At the climax of the performance, both soloist and drummer engage in a duel (sawal-jawab), wherein intricate rhythmic patterns become decreasingly shorter to the end.
Typical Hindustani recital A concert might feature several singers, each of whom will give an extended performance of dhrupad or khyal and/or instrumentalists who perform gat-tora. These main genres may be followed by lighter pieces before the next artist takes the stage. For example, a dhrupad may be followed by a hori- damar, khyal by a thumri or a bhajan, and a gat-tora by a thumri or a dhun. Popular music Indian films are the greatest source of Indian popular music. A filmigit is a “film song.” Many kinds of music serve as sources for filmigit material, including folk songs and classically based melodies to rock and jazz. The filmmaking practice of dubbing musical numbers has been continued to the present, and actors lip-synch to the recordings of famous singers such as Lata Mangeshkar. Mangeshkar’s voice can bring success to a film. Western popular music and jazz with Indian music fusions are taking place in India and abroad. The Karnatak violinist L. Shankar and the tabla player Zakir Hussein formed the ensemble Shakti, playing Indianized jazz with artists like the American jazz-fusion guitarist John McLaughlin. Listening Example Ghazal, Bat Karane Mujhe Mushkil, by Zasar. Textbook CD1, track 3. Rag: Pahari, a scale similar to the major scale but with occasional accidentals Tala: Keharwa (8 beat) Vocal: Mala Ganguly; tabla: Samar Das; tambura and harmonium (unknown) Ghazal, performed in North India and Pakistan, is a blend of Indian and Western music with roots in Islamic culture and Urdu poetry. It consists of a chain of related couplets, culminating in a “punchline” couplet that brings exclamations from the audience. Traditional poetry-reading sessions are called mushaira, and the ghazals may be sung by classically trained singers. The ghazal was once a courtesan’s art. Popular ghazals are also found among filmigit.
This ghazal on the CD alternates two sections, as do many types of Indian melodies. The first section provides the refrain and first verses in a lower range; then, the second section is the second verse in a higher range. Summary Indian music developed over many centuries and was influenced by Indo-Aryan speaking settlers in the Northwest of the country around the 2nd millennium B.C.E. Later theorists traced the roots of Indian music to Vedas, a group of religious poems of the Indo- Aryans that were chanted and eventually set to music. A second wave of settlers, peaking in the 13th century C.E., brought a new religio— Islam and new attitudes toward music. At about this time, Indian musical culture began to split into two main parts: Northern (Hindustani) and Southern (Karnatak). Northern music tends to be smoother and less ornamented than Southern. Both base melodies on scalar modes called raga. Northern music is more improvised than Southern, which is based more upon fixed compositions like the kriti. In Southern music, instrumental performance reproduces vocal compositions. As new influences came to India over the past few centuries, new instruments (the violin, harmonium, clarinet, saxophone) were incorporated into the music. Today, Indian music has absorbed much Western influence and in turn has had influence on Western pop and jazz. Discussion Questions 1. How have American music styles diverged from contacts with other cultures, as in the case of Hindustani music diverging from Karnatak after Persian and Turkish contact in the North? 2. What does Indian music have in common with Western classical music? 3. What does Indian music have in common with jazz? 4. What are the similarities in the “roots” of Indian music and the “roots” of the Western classical tradition? 5. How would you compare Indian music to Indian food? 6. How is the relationship of composer to performer understood in Indian music? 7. Has any student heard Indian music in an American pop song? 8. Is Indian film music an escape from reality, or does it articulate life? 9. Is American film music an escape from reality, or does it articulate life? Recommended DVDs and Videos Music of India, by Educational Video Network (1969; VHS 2004) (22 min.). Karnatak and Hindustani music, instruments, ways Indian music differs from Western music, traditional Indian dance showing the importance of the art of gesture. Dances of India - Bharata Natyam Arangetram Dances, directed by David Morrison (2003) (60 min.). It shows Bharata Natyam dances performed during formal performances and during Arangetram (graduation recital). It includes songs, meanings, and descriptions. There’ll Always Be Stars in the Sky – The Indian Film Music Phenomenon, from The Beats of the Heart series. A documentary directed by Jeremy Marre, produced by Shanachie Records (1992) (60 min.). It takes you behind the scenes of India's Bollywood to meet actors such as Raj Kapoor), singers such as Lata Mangeshkar, and musical directors such as (Kalyanji Anandji).
Raga with Ravi Shankar, produced and directed by Howard Worth, Mystic Fire Video, Apple Film presentation (1991) (97 min.). Ravi Shankar returns to India after many years in the West to pay honor to Usted Allaudin Khan, the teacher who initiated him into the oral traditions of the Indian classical music. This film shows the sitarist and composer rehearsing, teaching and performing in concert. Ravi Shankar In Portrait, directed by Mark Kidel and Ferenc van Damme, Opus Arte and BBC (2002) (190 min.). 2 DVDs. The first DVD, called “Ravi Shankar -- Between Two Worlds,” is an account of India's celebrated musician and follows two years of his life against seven decades of collaboration with Western musicians. Archive footage shows concerts with Zakir Hussein and other key performances filmed from the 1930s to the present. The second DVD shows Ravi Shankar live in concert performing two ragas (Raga Anandi Kalyan and Raga Rangeela Piloo).
CHAPTER 3 MUSIC OF THE MIDDLE EAST The music of the Middle East encompasses the musical systems of Iran (Persia), the Arab diaspora, and Turkey, each maintaining a classical tradition with many similarities to Western classical music: 1) there are articulated bodies of theory (although different from Western); 2) music is performed in concerts with pieces performed in expected orders; 3) teacher-pupil lineages are valued; 4) composers are venerated; and 5) famous performers are highly regarded. Islamic cultural and musical values are orthodox and affect the understanding of what is and is not considered music: Khandan –– to sing, recite, or read, literally. It is the highest form of Middle Eastern music, used primarily in chanting the texts of the Koran. Musiqi –– Middle Eastern classical and folk music with less prestige than the Khandan Maqam –– the generic term for mode, or system of composing melody, in Arabic classical music. The term is used throughout the Middle East and appears with different names such as dastgah and gusheh in Persian, or mugam in Azerbaijan. Outline Concerts in Tehran Dastgah –– a mode (or scale) as the basis for the composition of a piece of Persian music Tar –– a long-necked lute Kamancheh –– a spiked fiddle played with a small round bow Santour –– a Persian hammer dulcimer Ney (also nai) –– an end-blown flute Dombak (also zarb) –– a bowl-shaped single-headed drum Setar –– a long necked lute Shur –– the first dastgah of the radif Chahar mezrab –– literally, “four picks” or “four hammers;” the term deriving from the fast sounds, as though four hands were playing an instrument Avaz –– an improvised, nonmetric section (vocal or instrumental) Majles –– a private concert Common Features and Diversity Many Arabic nations Iran and Turkey are non-Arabic. Israel –– a markedly unique culture surrounded by Arab nations Islam (established 622 AD) –– a monotheistic and egalitarian religion Numerous ethnic minorities, such as the Kurds The Middle Eastern Sound Monophony –– one melody line played simultaneously by all performers without harmonic accompaniment Parallel polyphony –– the same melodic line is played at different volumes or pitch levels by two or more performers Heterophony –– two or more performers playing the same melody, but with small differences in timing or ornamentation Ornamentation –– tones bent and embellished with trills, glissandos, or short secondary
-
notes Timbre (sound quality) –– vibrato-less; hard-edged, “raspy” quality Solo vocal music dominates Improvisation highly valued
Instruments Chordophones Plucked Lutes: oud (most common); bouzouq (Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, and Turkey) setar (Persian classical music); tar (Iran); dotar (Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Northern Iran) tambur (Turkey) Bowed lute: jouzeh and rebab (in Arabic cultures); kamancheh (throughout the Middle East); and qichak (Eastern sections) Zithers: plucked qanun (or kanun); struck (hammered) santour Membranophones Conical hand drums: darbucca (or tabl); frame drums including tambourines (daff and riqq); and goblet-shaped drums (dombak) Aerophones End-blown flutes: nai (or ney); oboe-like double-reed instruments (zornah, surna); and a folk instrument type that consists of a pair of oboe-like pipes (of equal or unequal length), including the Arabic arghul and zummarah and the Persian qoshmeh Three Unities There are three prominent features and beliefs that unite Middle Eastern musical culture: Vocal and compositional styles derived from the recitation of the Holy Koran - there are two styles of chant: muttaral is syllabic, unembellished, and subdued; mujawwad is emotional, ornamented, and melodically complex. Music creates a kind of ecstatic, emotional bond between performer and audience. The terms tarab in Arabic and hal in Persian denote this quality. The “suite,” or collection of individual pieces played together, is the major unifying compositional principle. The most common type of suite found throughout the region is known as the taqsim (taksin, in Turkey). It consists of two parts: an improvised, usually nonmetric solo instrumental number; and the beshrav or peshrev, a metric, composed piece usually performed by an ensemble. Other types of suites are the Egyptian wasla, the naubat found in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. The Persian dastgah (the same name is used for this extended suite as for Persian modes) is performed in five parts: pishdaramad (composed, for ensemble); chahar mezrab (composed or improvised, solo); avaz (solo, improvised, non-metric); tasnif (metric, composed song); and reng (a light, dance-derived instrumental piece). Iraq shares a similar form, known as the “Iraqi maqam,” which also centers on an extended avaz. Music in Culture Professional musicians are lowly regarded, while cultured amateurs are highly regarded. Halal –– a word that means “legitimate.” For music, it is chanted poetry; music for family celebrations such as weddings; occupational folksongs; military music. Haram –– a word that means “illegitimate,” in reference to classical musics as well as musics associated with unacceptable contexts such as nightclubs or for belly dancing Melodic Modes and Improvisation Maqam –– the generic term for mode (makam in Turkish) (mugam in Azerbaijan) (dastgah in Iran) Maqam tones are separated by pitch distances called intervals that comprise whole-tones, half-tones, three-quarter-tones (slightly larger the Western half-tone), and five-quartertones (slightly larger than the Western whole-tone).
History -
Every Arabic or Turkish maqam or Persian dastgah has a name. Some give the place of origin (like the Greek modes). Taqsim –– a nonmetric improvised instrumental piece based on a maqam, consisting of several short sections Iq'a (or wazn in Arabic; usul in Turkish) –– rhythmic modes, or meter Radif –– in Persian classical music, the body of music, consisting of 250––300 short pieces, memorized by students and then used as the basis or point of departure for improvised performance Gusheh –– in Persian classical music, a subdivision of a dastgah and smallest constituent of the radif Early musicians: The Arabic Yunus al-Katib (d. 765), and Ibrahim al-Mausili (d. 850) The Persian Barbod (who lived in the tenth century AD) Hundreds of treatises have been written by musicians, scientists, and philosophers, dealing with the value and acceptability of music and the tuning of the modal scales.
Vernacular and Popular Music and the Diasporas Tahkt –– literally “platform;” an ensemble of musicians, often including violin, santour, ney, and two drums, used to accompany singing and sometimes dancing, in Arabic popular music Umm Kulthum (1908-1975) –– an Egyptian singer who achieved international prominence, becoming a star of radio and film Rai –– a modern popular music developed in Algeria and Morocco that combines traditional singing styles and Arabic modes with Western-style synthesized accompaniments Arabesk –– in Turkish popular music, a traditional Middle Eastern sound symbolizing the Turkish people's association with Islam and to older cultural traditions of the area Alireza Mashayekhi –– the first Iranian composer of electronic music Dervishes –– individuals associated with Sufism who dance by whirling to
achieve transcendence Key Concepts for the Unit Ideas about the Definition of Music: Ideas about music are not universal. In the Middle East, music is generally considered an indulgence and therefore not good. Musicians also are not publicly valued. Yet, there are a lot of human sound phenomena that have musical content; although, they are not considered as music within the culture. The people of the Middle East in general, by conceiving humanly organized sound to exist on a continuum between “recitation” and “music,” from khandan to musiqi, they have rationalized different types of sound as more or less acceptable. This definition of musiqi is actually narrower than music in the West. Ideas about the Nature of Musicianship: In Western culture, professional musicians (some types more than others) are valued over amateurs. In the Middle East, however, amateur musicians play what they want when they want, and therefore maintain a higher status than professionals, who play to order. Ways Musicians Learn to Improvise: In Western culture, improvised music even has a tonal and structural framework. Arabic music has maqam. The Iranian radif is an example of an articulated set of motifs used by musicians as the basis for improvisation.
Listening Skills Hearing Heterophony: Ensembles comprise a small number of different musical instruments, and usually only one of each. The music they play is a special kind of monophony called heterophony. Harmonization is non-existent. In heterophony, each instrument plays the same tune, yet can be distinguished by its particular sound texture and instrument-specific ornamentation; for example, a hammered santour realizes a melody differently than a bowed kamancheh. Students should be able to pick out the instruments by timbres and characteristics. Understanding Improvisation: Use CD examples of the Iranian radif to show how melodic patterns are used as building blocks in improvisation. Differentiating between Composed and Improvised Material: Compare an avaz to a pishdaramad. In an avaz, a vocalist is accompanied sequentially by various instrumentalists who lag slightly behind. In a pishdaramad, the entire ensemble plays a single tune in heterophony. Characteristics Musical Texture: Almost always heterophonic. Singing Style: Tense with harsh, throaty tone; highly ornamented but without vibrato; men sing high in their range, and women low. Instrumental styles imitate vocal styles. Melodic Organization: Based on systems of modes called maqam (in Arabic countries) and dastgah (in Iran). Rhythmic Organization: Metric or non-metric, or somewhere in between. Improvisation: Within a strict framework, its overall form is predetermined but its details are determined by the improviser. Chapter Summary Cultural and musical values in the Middle East Islam is the most distinctive feature of the Middle East as a cultural area, both as a religion and as a way of life (although, of course, not all people who live in the region are Islamic and not all Islamic countries are in the Middle East). Islam places an emphasis on the equality of men before God, on urban life, on trade as an occupation, on extended family, and on the importance of language and respect for scholarly pursuits. Music is regarded with ambivalence. Though there is no direct proscription against music in the Koran, instrumental music in particular is discouraged as it is felt to encourage licentious behavior. Religious ambivalence has not prohibited musical activity. On the contrary, Middle Eastern societies have found ways to reconcile the two by developing a system of musical values quite
different from our own. Perhaps the most obvious difference is the definition of “music,” which is very narrow. In Iran, for example, there are two words for what Western civilization calls “music”: khandan, “to recite,” and musiqi, “music.” Khandan and musiqi are, in effect, two poles of a continuum: <-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------> KHANDAN sacred improvised non-metric vocal solo
MUSIQI secular composed metric instrumental ensemble
By implication, genres such as Koran reading at the khandan end of the scale are more acceptable than rhythmic instrumental genres such as belly dance at the musiqi end. Play examples and have students place the music along the continuum. Other genres described in the textbook, moving from Koran reading at the khandan end of the scale, include: zurkhaneh (traditional Persian ceremonial exercises performed to the accompaniment of a drummer who chants from the epic poem, “Shahnameh”), vocal avaz (non-metric improvisation), instrumental avaz (the same but instrumental), vocal tasnif (metric and composed but vocal), pishdaramad (metric, composed, and instrumental, but stately), chahar mezrab (virtuosic instrumental display), and finally belly dance music (pure rhythmic instrumental music) at the extreme musiqi end of the scale. Low status of musicians Professional musicians are mostly specialists who acquire their skill through heredity rather than by vocation. Many are members of non-Muslim minorities (who stand outside the social system and thus don’t count). Either way, they are not highly regarded. High(er) status of music as an intellectual pursuit While instrumental music may be lascivious, the scholarly study of music (which associates it with language) is admired. This attitude has produced a vast number of treatises by informed “amateur” scholars. Amateur musicians have a higher status than their professional counterparts because they have the freedom to improvise at will, not according to the demand of their employer. Listening Example Chanting of the Holy Koran, rec. Chicago, 1973. Textbook CD1, track 4. Note the many silences that break up the phrases as the performer chants the text. 0:00-0:07 0:07-0:13 0:14-0:17 0:18-0:31 0:32-0:33 034-0:47 0:47-0:49 0:50-1:06
Fade in First phrase, relatively unornamented Silence Second phrase; slightly more ornamented Brief silence Third line, moving slightly up and then dropping back in pitch Silence Higher pitched with much more
1:07 1:08-1:18 1:18-1:30
ornamentation and melisma (one syllable sung over several notes) as the pitch drops Breath Completion of previous phrase Leaps up and then descends again as the piece fades out
Iranian music Even to inexperienced listeners, Middle Eastern music has a fairly homogeneous sound. As noted above, it is mainly monophonic and––even when playing together––instrumentalists tend to reproduce the highly ornamented (vibrato-less), tense sound of singers. Although different terms are used throughout the region, there is broad similarity between Iranian traditions and those of Arabic and Turkish areas. Common Iranian instruments Setar (small long-necked lute with four strings), tar (heavy, long-necked lute with frets), kamancheh (spiked fiddle), santour (hammered dulcimer), violin (played in the Western fashion), ney (bamboo flute), and dombak or zarb (goblet-shaped drum). Iranian improvisation In Iran, learning classical music and learning to improvise are more or less synonymous. A beginning musician will, over the course of about four years, memorize a body of material called the radif. A radif (every teacher has an individual version) consists of around 300 pieces of music (called gushehs). Most are quite short and organized according to twelve modes (or dastgahs). The radif incorporates all the techniques and gestures necessary for improvisation: ways of transforming and manipulating motifs, ways of moving from non-metric to metric sections, ways of repeating and extending themes, etc. In fact, the radif is quite similar to an improvised piece, but once a musician has mastered it, the radif should never be performed in public (if it was to be played from end to end, however, it would take eight to ten hours). Good musicians use it as a point of departure for their own improvisation, yet do not stray too far from its structure and run the risk of being criticized for not knowing the radif. Scales and arpeggios of Western music are good comparisons to the radif: musicians learn and practice them assiduously, for they provide a technical basis for music performance, but they never play them in public. Radif - Basic repertoire used as foundation for composition and improvisation. Ideally learned in three stages: simple, intermediate, complete. Subdivided into twelve modes or dastgahs. Dastgah Each mode has a particular scale with a typical order of tones, an agreed musical/ non- musical character, a characteristic recurring melodic theme (daramad), and a repertoire of short named melodies/melody skeletons (gushehs). Exercise Draw a large rectangular box on the board representing the entire radif. Divide the box into twelve columns, to represent the dastgahs, and then add ladder-like steps to one or two of them to represent the gushehs contained within each dastgah. The first gusheh of each dastgah is the special characteristic tune called daramads. Although there is no codified system like the radif in Arabic and Turkish areas, their maqams
also embody motifs and musical gestures that form the basis for improvisation. Typical Iranian performance A full performance of one mode (or dastgah) ideally consists of five parts arranged in the following order. The central piece of the performance is the improvised avaz. Pishdaramad: Lit.: “before the introduction.” Stately, metric, composed, instrumental piece always based on the radif, but may go through several gushehs. Chahar mezrab: Lit.: “four plectrums.” Fast, virtuosic solo instrumental piece, composed or improvised, with rhythmic ostinato. May appear at this point or internally in an avaz. Usually based only loosely on the radif. Avaz: Improvised and non-metric, may be instrumental or vocal. Based specifically on the radif. Normally between three and eight gushehs are used. Tasnif: Metric, composed song with words, may be performed instrumentally. May be based on the radif, but only loosely. Reng: Fast, composed instrumental dance-like piece. Loosely based on the radif. Listening Examples Iran: Chahar Mezrab in Mahour, performed on santour. Textbook CD1, track 5. 0:00-0:12
Energetic introduction on bass strings establishing regular beat
0:12-0:13 0:14-0:15 0:16-0:17 0:18-0:20 0:20-0:21 0:21-0:24 0:24-0:26 0:26-0:31
Short melodic phrase Bass note figure Phrase repeated New phrase, slightly higher pitched Bass notes Descending phrase back to original starting note Bass notes Repeated, phrase, moving up in pitch, with second ending that drops in pitch, leading to the next phrase Descending phrase, left unresolved Repeats and “resolves” to original pitch Bass note pattern New rolling melody Repeats as music fades out
0:31-0:36 0:37-0:42 0:42-0:47 0:49-0:57 0:57-1:05
Iran: an Avaz in Shur. Textbook CD1, track 7. Iran: Radif of Nour-Ali Boroumand (excerpt) on Dastgah of Chahargah. Textbook CD1, track 8.
Iran: 6 excerpts based on Daramad of Chahargah. Textbook CD1, track 11. The last two tracks are based on the dastgah and daramad of Chahargah. The former starts with the “first daramad,” which has a distinctive opening theme and a characteristic upward leap at the end (the rest is basically filler material). Next is the “second daramad,” an expansion of the first, then a “third daramad,” also known as zangouleh (connected to the daramad material because it starts off with the daramad theme). Finally, there is a “fourth daramad,” which also extends the original daramad theme, this time with a short figure that rises six steps sequentially. The latter track presents short excerpts of the daramad of Chahargah. Although each version is individual, the essential characteristics of the daramad can be heard. The latter only includes the first and second daramads; the highly distinctive third and fourth daramads are omitted. Time 0:01-0:36
Instrument (Performer) Santour (Heydari)
Main motif appears 0:01
Special rhythmic devices Kereshmeh: EQ EQ EEQ Q where E= eight note Q= quarter note
0:38-1:15
Kamancheh (Bahari)
0:38, 1:00
Metric
1:16-2:00
Violin (Shirinabadi)
1:16, 1:53
nonmetric
2:04-2:58
Violin (Shirinabadi)
2:05 twice, 2:45
nonmetric
3:00-3:55
Setar (Ebadi)
3:22, 3:30
Metric, chahar, mezrab style
4:00-4:30
Setar (Ebadi)
4:00, 4:12
kereshmeh
General description Strong, uses kereshmeh rhythm—— appears 3 times in a row; deliberate tempo, note pause at 0:24 Begins slow, lyrical; at 0:58, begins metric rendition of main motif. Low-pitched, deliberate, very rubato, ornamented; note pizzicato plucked notes (1:25; 1:39); ascending melodic sequence (a few notes repeated at increasingly higher pitch levels) Slow, deliberate; low-pitched; very rubato; note double-stops (at approx. 2:15, 2:20) Changeable mood; begins metric, moves (3:22) to slow, lyrical, and (3:44) to rapid-fire delivery in style of Chahar mezrab. Strong, rhythmically emphatic. Uses kereshmeh rhythm: at 4:00, 4:12
Recommended Listening Iran: Musique persane. Ocora C559008. This comprises complete performances of the dastgahs of Mahour and Segah. In the latter, the chahar mezrab is played on tar (accompanied by dombak drum); the avaz is vocal. Iran: Persian Classical Music. Elektra Nonesuch Explorer Series, 9-72060-2. This recording also includes two tasnifs in Segah. The full ensemble plays a short introduction, an interlude, and a reng in addition to accompanying the singer. Intégrale de la musique savante persane (The integral repertory of Persian Art Music): Radif. al sur Média 7, ALCD 116 –– ALCD 120. Although this 1994 French five-CD set may be difficult to find, it is definitely worth the effort. It comprises a complete version of the radif as presented by the setar player Dariush Tala’’i. The discs are invaluable, because each gusheh is given its own track number, which makes finding and listening to a particular gusheh relatively easy. The publisher’’s address is listed as Média 7, 15 rue des Goulvents, 92000 Nanterre, France. Maqam A performance in any maqam may modulate to another maqam. In Arabic and Turkish music, each maqam has certain others to which a musician would typically move. Thus, if you perform in Nahawand, you are likely to move to Rast, Hijaz, and Ajam, but not typically to others. Listening Examples Arabic: Taqsim Nahawand. Performed by A. Jihad Racey on bouzouq. Textbook CD1, track 10. An excerpt from the beginning of a taqsim in the maqam of Nahawand. The entire performance consists of six sections. 0:01-0:25
The initial section of the taqsim. The performer begins in the low part of the range, in moderate tempo, and gradually moves higher, and finally moves down to a characteristic closing formula, then pauses.
0:26-0:30 and 0:31-0:34
Two very brief groups of transitional notes which the performer seems to be using to help him create the beginning of the next section.
0:35-1:00
The second main section. Some of the musical gestures of the first section reappear here, but as a whole it is pitched higher, moves a bit more rapidly, and moves between the higher and lower tones more rapidly.
1:00-1:04
Closing formula, very similar to that of 0:230:25.
Arabic: Illustrations of Major Maqams. Performed by A. Jihad Racy. Textbook CD1, track 6.
This track contains a number of the most important Arabic maqams: Nahawand, Rast, Bayati, Hijazkar, Sika, and Saba. Telling them apart is not easy for the uninitiated listener, but one may learn to identify a maqam by its special characteristics, such as the three-quarter tone that sounds slightly out of tune to the Western ear in Rast; the augmented second of Hijazkar, making it sound to Western ears, sad and exotic; the compressed diminished fourth in Saba; in Sika it is hard to decide which tone is the fundamental tone, or tonic; the rather conventional Western minor sound of Nahawand. Time 0-0:20 0:23-1:06
Maquam Nahawand (Example I, 10 is a longer sampling of Nahawand.) Rast (2 sections)
1:10-2:05
Bayati (3 sections)
2:10-3:16
Hijazkar (3 sections)
3:20-4:00
Sika (2 sections)
4:05-4:46
Saba (2 sections), played on the nei
Rhythmic Structure In metric and nonmetric music, the main stresses occur on the first beat and secondary beat halfway through; for example: 1 >
2
3 >
4
2
3
4 >
5
or 1 >
6
Music of the Dervishes Examples contained in CD1, tracks 12 and 13, illustrate Turkish composed, metric classical music used to accompany the ceremony of the dancing dervishes. They are excerpts of a work by the composer Mes’ut Cemil (1902-1963), and performed by a duet of kanun (a plucked zither with 75 strings grouped in courses of three tuned to the same pitch) and tanbur (a long-necked lute with a round body, four pairs of strings, and about 25 frets per octave). The first excerpt has a meter of ten beats in a moderate tempo; it can be identified by beating along with the music. You can see that the music usually moves along in groups of 3 + 3 + 4 beats. The second example has a much quicker tempo and uses seven beats per metric unit. Beating quickly will give you a grouping of 2 + 2 + 3, or you may feel it in three short units: short- short-long. Vernacular and Popular Music Typically, a female singer will be accompanied by a small ensemble of traditional and Western instruments that play in unison with her while also providing some very simple, rudimentary Western harmony. Some of these singers went far beyond the music halls. In the period since World War II, a small number of Middle Eastern singers –– more women than men –– gained great prominence, contradicting the Islamic ambivalence toward music and particularly toward public performance by women. Most famous by far among them was Umm Kulthum (1908-1975), an Egyptian woman who
achieved international prominence. Kulthum became a star of radio and film as well as of stage and the record industry. Her songs, composed for her by prominent composers, became widely known throughout the Islamic world, and thus qualify as "popular" music. But her singing was based on classical Arabic models and included improvisatory passages. At the same time, she was accompanied by orchestras consisting in large part of Western instruments playing in a European-derived style. Listening Example Arabic: Ya Zalimni (excerpt). Sung by Umm Kulthum, with orchestral accompaniment. CD1, track 9. 0:00-0:12 0:12-0:14 0:14-0:39 0:26-0:27 0:30-0:31 0:36-0:39 0:39-0:41
Fade in on first verse; voice paralleled by string section of orchestration with flute and Middle Eastern sounding percussion. At approx. 0:05, a member of the audience calls out in response to the music. Short instrumental tag New verse Last word of vocal line is repeated by audience Again, end of vocal line is repeated by audience Slightly more ornamentation in vocal line Same instrumental tag is performed as at 0:12 to fade out
Summary The Middle East encompasses a large, diverse geographical and cultural area, and is generally known as the heartland of Arab and Islamic cultures. Although very diverse, Middle Eastern music generally is highly improvised, with a single melody played by all instruments simultaneously in heterophony. Vocal and instrumental music is generally highly ornamented, featuring trills, glissandos, or short secondary notes. Vocal music predominates. The primary instrument is the oud, a type of lute. The most common musical form is the suite, a grouping of individual pieces. The best music is thought to inspire a trance-like, higher experience of life. Maqam (or a system of scales) are used as the basis of all melodic creation. There is a strict hierarchy observed between types of music and performers, with talented amateur musicians usually coming from a higher social class. Professional or popular musicians are typically looked down upon. Discussion Questions 1. On a sliding scale, as between khandan and musiqi, where can we place different types of American music, from church hymns to punk rock? 2. What are some similarities between Middle Eastern and Indian music improvisation? 3. What are the differences between Middle Eastern and Indian ensemble textures? 4. What are the similarities and differences between the Middle Eastern chordophones and chordophones found elsewhere throughout the word? 5. How can Middle Eastern music improvisation be compared to jazz or blues improvisation? What are the similarities between the tonal and rhythmic structures? 6. What is the commonality of beliefs in Christianity, Hinduism and Islam, concerning the origin of their vocal and instrument music? Recommended DVDs and Videos
Music of the Middle East, by Educational Video Network (DVD 2004) (21 min.). Re-release of an earlier 1960s film documentary about Middle Eastern instruments. Breaking the Silence: Music in Afghanistan, directed by Simon Broughton, Dunya (2002) (60 min.). Under the Taliban regime in Afghanistan musical instruments were destroyed and burned. The only music allowed was unaccompanied Taliban chants. Breaking the Silence was shot in Kabul just after the fall of the Taliban regime and portrays, among other things, the first concerts in the bombed-out city. Umm Kulthum: A Voice Like Egypt, directed by Michael Goldman, AFD (2007) (67 min.). Umm Kulthum was a powerful symbol of the aspirations of her country, Egypt, and then of the entire Arab World. Narrated by Omar Sherif, it is the first documentary to bring the celebrated diva of the Arab world to an American audience. The film puts her life in the context of the epic story of 20th century Egypt as it shook off colonialism and confronted modernity.
CHAPTER 4 THE MUSIC OF CHINA China has a long musical tradition documented in historical and notated sources. Traditional Chinese music depends more on memorization, repetition, idiomatic realization, and embellishment of standard instrumental pieces, rather than on improvisation. The music for Peking (or Beijing) Opera contains sound codes that emphasize the drama created by combinations of instruments. While Confucianism revered proper sounding music for inducing correct social behavior in ancient times, the Communist Chinese in the 20th century exercised a similar philosophy by filling songs with propaganda. Much Chinese music and many of its instruments derived from interactions of the numerous minorities over thousands of years, and their music further developed into standard repertories. Outline A Billion and a Quarter People, Includes 56 Recognized Minorities Han –– the world’s largest ethnic group that comprises more than 93% of China’s population Putuaghua –– the Han language, in the West known as Mandarin Zhuang, Mongolian, Manchu, Tibetan, Hui, Uyghur, Kazak, Tarter, Kirgiz, Tajik, Uzbek peoples Beijing -
Capital municipality of the People’s Republic of China Bei –– means, “north”; jing means, “capital” Yuan Dynasty (1206-1368), Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) based in Beijing Jingju –– literally “capitol theater”, Peking Opera –– the main type of Chinese popular musical theater that first emerged in the Chinese capital Beijing (Peking) in the late eighteenth century Liyuan –– literally “Pear Garden,” the metaphor for “theater” Qing chang –– singing without staging, costume, or make-up, practiced publicly by jingju fans Jinghu –– literally “capital fiddle”; a two-string spiked fiddle, the principal melodic instrument in jingju Nan ban zi –– an aria introduction played by a jinghu
The Qin and Its Music Qin (pronounced chin) –– a Chinese seven-stringed zither most revered and patronized by the educated class. Originally an instrument for court music (elegant music; yayue), it later came to be played in privacy by scholars for contemplation, self-purification, and selfregulation. It has no frets or bridges, but thirteen position-markers called hui. Jinzhi- literally “forbidden finger,” it is the pinky finger that cannot be used in qin technique Wenzipu –– prose tablature for qin, describing the techniques required for producing every sound Jianzipu –– qin abbreviated-character tablature, consisting of clusters of symbols Dapu –– literally “to obtain from the notation”; the process of reconstructing ancient pieces from qin tablature with the aid of oral tradition Sanqi –– introduction to a qin piece Rudiao –– the exposition of a qin piece Ruman –– the variations section, or development, of a qin piece
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Fuqi –– restatement of the theme Weisheng –– literally “tail sounds”; the short coda that concludes a qin piece, using the strings’ harmonics produced by lightly touching the strings
The Pipa and Its Music Pipa –– a four-stringed, fretted lute with a bent neck and pear-shaped body; an imported instrument to Han China, originally from the Kucha Kingdom (an ancient Uyghur kingdom). It developed an important repertory by the time of the Sui and Tang periods (581-618 and 618-905). It has 23 to 25 frets placed along the neck and the sound board. Its pieces have programmatic titles. Yan yue –– banquet entertainment music Wen –– lyrical, civil Wu –– martial Winds and Strings Ensembles in Shanghai Jiangnan sizhu—a type of Chinese chamber instrumental ensemble made up of strings and winds, popular in the areas around Shanghai Jiangnan –– literally means, “south of the river,” in reference to the Yangzi River Si –– literally means, “silk”; in reference to string instruments (strings were once made of silk, but now made of steel for louder volume) Zhu –– literally means, “bamboo”; in reference to wind instruments made of bamboo Jiangnan sizhu ensembles contain Strings o One pipa o One or two sanxian (three-stringed lute with long, fretless neck and oval sound box) o One qinqin (lute with a long, fretted neck) o One or two erhu (two-stringed fiddles with hollow wooden cylindrical sound boxes having one side covered with snake-skin) o One yangqin (a dulcimer struck with a pair of bamboo sticks) o o o
Winds One dizi (a transverse bamboo flute with six finger-holes, a mouth hole, and another hole covered by a thin membrane that vibrates to give the instrument a reedy sound) One xiao (an end-blown bamboo flute with five frontal finger-holes, one hole in the back, and a blowing hole at the top) One sheng (a free-reed mouth organ made of a series of bamboo pipes arranged in a circle, each with a reed in its lower end, and all inserted into a base made of copper, wood, or gourd, to which the mouthpiece is attached. Two or more tones may be produced simultaneously.)
Percussion gu (a small flat drum) and the ban (a pair of wooden clappers) both played by one person o muyu (wooden fish carved idiophone struck by a pair of wooden sticks) o pongzhong (a pair of small hand-bells) Fangman jiahua – literally, “making slow and adding flowers;” when tunes are expanded by slowing down the original melody and inserting long embellishments in the rhythmic space o
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Jingju Theater (Capital Theater, or Peking Opera in the West) includes arias, recitative-like short phrases, and heightened speech Heightened speech - a stylized stage speech with steeply rising and falling contours that exaggerate the natural intonation of spoken Chinese
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Sheng –– the male role Dan –– the female role Jing –– the painted face role Chou –– the male comic role Jingju instrumental music describes dramatic situation, spatial dimensions of the setting, moods, and psychological makeup of characters Wenchang –– literally “civic instrumentation”; melodic instruments in jingju played as introductions to and accompanying aria melodies: o Jinghu –– a two-string fiddle and principal melodic instrument in jingju; literally “capital fiddle” o Erhu –– two-stringed fiddle with a hollow wooden cylindrical sound boxes having one side covered with snake-skin o Yue qin –– four-stringed plucked lute with a round sound box o Sanxian –– three-stringed lute with long, fretless neck and oval sound box o Ruan –– large plucked lute with a round sound box o Dizi –– transverse flute o Sheng –– mouth organ o Suona –– conical double-reed oboe
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Wuchang –– literally “military instrumentation”; percussion instruments played to provide rhythmical punctuation for movements and singing, entrances of dramatic personages, fights and battles, and sound effects: o Danpigu –– a single-headed drum o Ban –– a paired wooden clapper (danpigu and ban are played by one person who functions as conductor) o Daluo –– a big gong that produces a falling pitch o Xiaoluo –– a small gong that produces a rising pitch o Naoba –– a small pair of cymbals o Datangu –– a big barrel drum o Xiaotangu –– a small barrel drum o Muyu –– wooden fish
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Ban –– literally “beat”; a melody-rhythmic type for jingju arias Xipi - a ban for jingju arias, employing both pentatonic and heptatonic scales, wherein the articulation of the first syllable in each phrase always coincides with beat 3 of a measure, while the first syllable coincides with beat 1 Erhuang –– a ban for jingju arias, employing a heptatonic scale with a raised fourth degree and a lowered seventh, in a moderate tempo usually in tragic or lyrical scenes. The first syllables of a phrase always start on the first beat of a measure.
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The Value and Functions of Music Musical gratification is equated with the taste for food, the need for sex, and aesthetic satisfaction. Music is integrated into rituals, banquets, weddings, funerals, harvest celebrations, and so forth. Kong Fuzi –– Master Kong, known as Confucius in the West (551-479 B.C.E.). He maintained that music has positive and negative powers to stimulate related behavior and desire. Shi yin –– proper sound, features harmoniousness, peacefulness, and appropriateness Chi yue –– extravagant music, having attributes of inappropriate loudness, wanton noisiness, stimulating excessive and licentious behavior Mao Zedong (1893-1976) –– Chairman of the Communist Party from 1949-1976, like Confucius, viewed music as an educational tool, applying it for the propaganda of state
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ideology The Communists discredited scholarly music for its affiliation with feudal society, but promoted folk music as the music of the workers. Before 1949, professional musicians had low social status while the educated amateur was revered. Under Communism, the opposite was regarded.
New Musical Directions in the 20th Century Kang Youwei (1858-1927) and Liang Qichao (1873-1929) –– music educators who established classroom music in China based on Western models Xiao Youmei (1884-1940) –– reformed Chinese music by incorporating Western elements, notably harmony Zhao Yuanren (1892-1982) –– the creator of the modern Chinese art song Songs of the Masses –– Chinese Communist political songs Jiang Qing (1913-1991) –– wife of Mao Zedong, who reformed jingju by incorporating elements of western orchestral and harmonic practice, ballet, scenic design, and replacing traditional stories with revolutionary plots The Rise of Popular Music Liuxing gequ –– Shanghai popular song of the 1920s, implementing jazz and western orchestration Canto Pop –– Cantonese popular song inspired by White rock of the 1950s Xibeifeng –– literally “northwestern wind”; popular music with a disco beat from the loess plateau of northwest China Tongsu yinyue –– light popular music Cui Jian –– the most famous Chinese rock musician whose music rejected the materialism that swept China in the 1980s, culminating in the Tiananmen Square uprising in 1989 Zhong jinshu –– Chinese heavy metal music Mongolian Music Topshuur –– a two-stringed plucked lute Morin huur –– a two-stringed spiked fiddle with horsed-head decoration on the top of the neck Tsuur –– end-blown flute Höömi –– singing style that produces a whistle like melody by changing the shape of the oral cavity in order to reinforce selected overtones of a sung drone Mei sheng –– Western bel canto singing style Key Concepts for the Unit Importance of Written Language and History: A non-alphabetic ideographic script meant that Chinese could be used by neighbors with totally different languages, and that classics written centuries earlier could be understood by contemporary readers. This led to a great regard for history, high status for scholar-officials, and an imperial state system based on bureaucracy. Each dynasty had its own historical records, much of which provided musical documentation. Highly Specific Musical Systems with Codification at Many Levels: This includes stock character types in theatrical genres, particular musical styles used in specific contexts, instruments used in standardized ensembles, solo instrumental traditions, each with its own special notation, repertoire, and idiomatic technique. Music and Politics: Music and politics have long been interconnected. Confucius (551-479 B.C.E.) believed that
proper music (i.e., ritual music played in unison with long, broad rhythms, slow tempo, and simple melodies) was capable of promoting proper behavior, while “extravagant music” (i.e., loud, fast music) could stimulate excessive, licentious behavior. Mao Zedong also believed in music as an important educational tool for the propagation of state ideology, rather than the expression of virtue. Listening Skills Heterophonic Ensemble Music: The Jiangnan sizhu ensemble, like Middle Eastern groups, comprises a small number of different musical instruments. The music is heterophonic, for there is no harmony, just different renditions of the same tune, each distinguished by its own sound texture and by ornamentation specific to the instrument. Students should pick out the tune by humming it, if possible, and explain the simultaneously played characteristic renditions in their writing, or verbally in a discussion. Solo Instrumental Traditions: Comparison of qin and pipa music shows that vastly different musical styles were cultivated by different classes for different purposes. Chapter Section Summaries Qin In historical documents, the qin has been the most important instrument, associated with the intellectual class. Its symbolic construction, decoration, playing technique, and lore are an extension of an ideological system combining Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. Accordingly, playing the qin should be an act of contemplation, self-purification, and self-regulation, and it should be played in privacy, either amidst nature or in one’s library. Playing techniques include various ways of plucking the strings with the right hand and stopping them with the left hand. Elaborate systems developed to notate qin music: wenzipu is prose tablature and jiangzipu is abbreviated-character tablature; however none of these notations instruct the duration of tones and thus, the rhythmic interpretation becomes left to the performer, interpreted through a process called dapu, which is the interpretation of the tablature through oral tradition. Qin compositions are made up of four to five sections: Sanqi –– “Introduction;” slowly in free rhythm; introduces the mode Rudiao –– “Entering the music;” exposition; establishes meter and introduces the motives; the motives are varied by extension, reduction, and changes in timbre, tempo, and register. It is the longest and most substantial section. Ruman –– “Becoming slower;” development. The motives undergo further rhythmic variation. Modulation to other keys may occur. Fuqi –– “Restatement;” recapitulation. It occurs only in large compositions; it restates and reinterprets motivic material from the rudiao. Weisheng –– “Tail sounds;” coda; utilizes harmonics and slackening of tempo; it reiterates important tones of the composition
Listening Example “Lui Shui” (“Flowing Water”), played by Prof. Wu Wenguang, on the qin. Textbook CD 1, track 14. “Liu Shui” (“Flowing Water”) is a famous composition for the qin. The performer is Professor Wu Wenguang of the China Conservatory of Music in Beijing, the foremost qin player in China today. Wu Wenguang studied the qin under his late father, the famous qin master Professor Wu Jingle, and this performance is based on his 1960 interpretation of the tablature notated in a handbook dated 1876, entitled Tian Wen Ge Qinpu (Tian Wen Ge Studio Qin Handbook). It is a rhapsodic piece of descriptive music portraying a waterfall cascading from a mountain top, falling through various levels of rock, and then becoming a rapids eventually running out to the sea. The composition of “Flowing Water” is attributed to Boya, a great qin master who lived during the Spring and Autumn period (770-476 BCE). Boya’’s friend Zhong Ziqi was an attentive and imaginative listener to Boya’’s music. As the story goes, when Boya played the piece “Flowing Water” and conjured up the scene of a high mountain in his mind, Zhong Ziqi right away got the idea and said: “Ah! I am thinking of Mount Tai (China’s tallest and most sacred mountain).” When Boya thought of flowing water as he played, Zhong Ziqi echoed his thought and said: “How excellent!—— broadly flowing rivers and streams.” When sometime later, Zhong Ziqi died, Boya felt that nobody could match his understanding of the music he played and so he broke his qin and never played again. Thus, the deeper meaning of this piece is as a symbol of deep friendship. From this story arose the phrase “zhi yin,” literally meaning “a good friend who understands my music,” and it is still popularly used today to signify profound friendship. 0:00-0:49
Sanqi: melody played with much use of portamento, some pitches reinforced by lower octave; in free rhythm
0:50-1:15
More regular rhythm with melody in harmonics
1:16-1:49
Rudiao: melody in normal pitches with faster tempo and wide, sweeping portamenti
1:50-2:17
Tempo picks up
2:18-3:30
Ruman: melody and portamenti are embedded in a strumming accompaniment produced by sweeping across all strings, culminating at 3’15” in a noisy strummed portamento that dissipates in a decrescendo and diminuendo to 3’30”
3:31-4:10
Passage of harmonics, proceeding to strumming style of preceding section and again concluding with a passage of noisy strumming
4:11-end
Weisheng: final coda of harmonics
Pipa The pipa and its music provide an interesting contrast to the intellectual aura of the qin. Like the qin, the pipa has a long history but is associated with professional entertainers rather than scholars. The pipa is a four-stringed, pear-shaped, plucked lute with a bent neck held upright on the player’s lap and played with the fingers. It is an instrument from the ancient Kucha Kingdom, one of the Uyghur kingdoms, where it was held horizontally and played with picks on five fingers. Starting in the Sui and
Tang dynasties (581-618 and 618-905), it became the most popular solo and ensemble instrument for refined entertainment. It also became an important accompanying instrument for music drama and narratives. Pipa Techniques: Harmonics Tremolo - produced by rapidly and continuously plucking a string with all five fingers consecutively - Portamento (sliding from note to note) - produced by deflection of a string before or after it has been plucked Percussive pizzicato - produced when a string is plucked violently enough to cause it to snap against the body of the instrument Percussive strumming of all four strings Solo pipa music is characterized by flexible tempos, frequent use of dynamic variation, and an almost improvised quality. The traditional repertoire is divided into two classes: “big pieces” (which may be through-composed, themes with variations, or even alternating song-like and percussive sections) and “small pieces” (usually sectional, comprising 60 to 100 beats). The repertoire is further subdivided into wen (lyrical) and wu (martial) styles; the former being slow to moderate and expressive, the latter being fast, loud, and percussive. Many pieces have programmatic titles; some of these contain descriptive musical elements directly related to their titles, others are more abstract and only bear a poetic relationship to their titles. Recommended Listening “Shi Mian Mai Fu” (“Ambush from Ten Sides”). From Floating Petals ... Wild Geese ... The Moon on High: Music of the Chinese Pipa. Nonesuch H-72085, A/1; also (on videotape) in the JVC Video Anthology of World Music and Dance (3/2). “Shi Mian Mai Fu” is a famous, particularly exciting, and frequently recorded wu-style piece, portraying a famous historical battle (from around 200 B.C.E.) between the Chu and the Han. In the JVC Video Anthology (3/2), close-up camera shots provide excellent illustrations not only of playing techniques, but also of the virtuosity of modern conservatory-trained performers. According to the Nonesuch liner notes, the first part of the piece depicts military movements of the Chu army, complete with special effects describing fifes, drums, and cannons. The second part depicts the ambush of the Chu by the Han and subsequent skirmishes, which eventually escalate into full battle. As a programmatic description, a wide range of percussive effects for pipa are used to represent the sounds of battle––from artillery fire to the wailing of the wounded. Jiangnan sizhu Jiangnan sizhu is performed during the afternoons at Shanghai teahouses. Jiangnan literally means “south of the river,” and sizhu (si-, “silk” and -zhu, “bamboo”) ensembles comprise string, wind, and percussion instruments. The “silk” (string) instruments include pipa, sanxian, qin qin, erhu, and yang qin, while the “bamboo” (wind) instruments comprise dizi, xiao, and sheng. The ensemble is completed with a few percussion instruments: gu and ban (played by one person), muyu, and pongzhong. Amateur club members (who rarely bring their own instruments) sit facing each other around a small table. The small repertoire––centered around the “Eight Great Famous Pieces” (Ba Da Qu)––is played from memory. There is no formal instruction: younger players learn by imitation, joining older musicians when they are thought to be ready. Each piece starts slowly and gradually accelerates to finish in a fast tempo. The musical texture is heterophonic; all instrumentalists play the same melody, but each instrument embellishes it according to its idiomatic conventions.
Listening Examples Excerpt from “Hua San Liu” (“Embellished Three-Six”). Textbook CD1, track 15. (Originally from Popular Jiangnan Music. Hong Kong Records, HK 6.30094, A/1.) In this selection, the beginning and conclusion of the first part of this piece is played. Notice the heterophonic texture: all melody instruments play the same tune, but each adds its own distinctive embellishments. There is a gradual increase in tempo through the course of the piece. Instruments include dizi (transverse flute), yangqin (hammer dulcimer), pipa (4-stringed, plucked lute), and erhu (two- stringed fiddle). 0:00-0:29
Introduction: In free rhythm, dizi stands out because of distinctive timbre and greater ornamentation.
0:30-1:30
Melody now in regular meter. Listen for slight differences in ornamentation and tuning among the different instruments; fades at 1:30-1:33.
1:39-2:05
Fades into end of first section in faster tempo.
2:05-2:45
Dizi jumps to upper register while other two instruments continue to play the melody in the usual range; concluding ritard just before ending.
Recommended Listening Compare “Hua San Liu” (“Embellished Three-Six”) to “San Liu” (“Three Six”). Both appear on the CD San Liu: Jiangnan Silk and Bamboo Music (China Record Co. SCD-041). The former is an elaborated version of the latter. “Lau Liu Ban,” “Man Liu Ban,” and “Zhonghua Liu Ban” complex. “Man Liu Ban” can be found on San Liu: Jiangnan Silk and Bamboo Music; “Zhonghua Liu Ban” is included in Sizhu Silk Bamboo: Chamber Music of South China. Pan Records PAN 2030 CD. The pieces are expanded: “Lau Liu Ban” (“Old Eight Beats”) is transformed into “Man Liu Ban” (“Slow Eight Beats”) and “Zhonghua Liu Ban” (“Moderately Ornamented Eight Beats”). “Xunfeng Qu” (“Warm Wind Melody”). Track 2 on Sizhu Silk Bamboo: Chamber Music of South China. Pan Records PAN 2030 CD, 1994. A cipher-note transcription can be found in Appendix D (p. 100) in Alan Thrasher’’s article, “Structural Continuity in Chinese Sizhu: The Baban Model,” in Asian Music 20/2 (1989): 67-106. In this particular recording, the piece can be heard in expanded and plain versions. With its catchy melody, the students could sing or follow the cipher notation to see how the process of expansion and contraction works. Jingju Theater A form of musical theater that emerged as a national style in the 19th century, jingju combines plots, stylized gestures, acrobatics, makeup, costumes, and simple props. There are about two hundred traditional plays in the repertoire, the plots of which are drawn mainly from popular legends, historical events, novels, and other narratives. Characters are drawn from a repertoire of stock types, each type
distinguished by costume, makeup, style of singing, and speech. The main role types are sheng (male), dan (female), jing (painted face), and chou (clown). Their respective subcategories, divided according to sex, age, and social status, are xiaosheng (young male), laosheng (old male), wusheng (male warrior), qingyi (mature woman), huadan (young lady), wudan (female warrior), laodan (old woman). The instrumental ensemble is divided into two groups, one melodic, the other percussive. The wenchang (civic) ensemble includes strings (jinghu, erhu, yue qin, and small sanxian), winds (dizi, sheng, and large and small suonas), and one percussion instrument, a gong, the yunluo. Wenchang provides introductions and interludes for arias, accompanies arias, and performs incidental music for dance and mimed movements. There is a high level of specificity: each individual piece is associated with a particular dramatic situation and mood, and each requires different playing techniques from the various string instruments. The arias are based on thirty preexistent skeletal tune-and-rhythm pattern types called ban. By setting a ban to a new melody, a new aria is produced. Arias are sung for narrative, lyrical, animated, dramatic, or interjective purposes. Of the two main types of ban, erhuang are generally used for lyrical or tragic scenes while xipi, rhythmically livelier and more varied, can be used in many other dramatic situations. The wuchang (military) percussion ensemble includes danpigu and ban (played by one person), daluo, xiaoluo, and naoba. For special effects datangu (large barrel drum), xiaotangu (small barrel drum), and muyu (wooden fish) are used. Over sixty conventional rhythmic patterns and special combinations of percussion instruments are used to indicate different dramatic situations, atmospheres, or moods. Listening Examples Three examples of Peking Opera arias. Textbook CD1, tracks 16, 17, & 18. 1. Qingyi role, narrative aria, xipi category –– The articulation of the first syllable in each phrase coincides with beat 3 of the measure, while the first syllable coincides with beat 1. 2. Jing role, dramatic aria, xipi category 3. Laosheng role, lyrical aria, erhuang category –– The first syllable of the phrases starts on the first beat of the measures. Songs for the Masses In the early part of the 20th century, simple, didactic, march-like songs with words reflecting patriotism, discipline, and good citizenship were introduced to Chinese school children. In the 1920s, the May 4th Movement, which was a protest group led by a new intellectual class centered at Beida (National Peking University), adopted this simple musical structure, replacing the words with messages about current politics. By the mid-1920s, as Marxism-Leninism impacted the intellectual circle, songs became used for propaganda. The war against Japan (1937-45) provided an opportunity for new protest songs to develop, and widely disseminated through films, they became popular on a mass scale. After the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949, the production of “Songs for the Masses” became an important function of state propaganda. Another accomplishment of the intellectuals at National Peking University was their collection of Chinese folk music, their promotion of vernacular Chinese as a medium of communication, their development of a new popular literature, and their new repertoire of vernacular poems set to music. Listening Example “We Workers Have Strength,” composed by Ma Ke. Textbook CD 1, track 20. (Originally from
Commune Members Are All Like Sunflowers. China Records, M-2265, A/2.) Words with a message, solo-chorus interchanges, symphonic orchestration, and Western harmony laced with Chinese pentatonic themes are typical of this style. 0:00-0:04 0:05-0:08 0:09-0:10 0:11-0:15 0:16-0:17 0:18-0:25 0:26-0:36 0:37-0:40 0:41-0:47 0:48-0:50
Western-style orchestral introduction Solo vocal line Choral response Solo vocal line Choral response Chorus sung by all Rapid back and forth between soloist and chorus All together More rapid interchanges between solo and chorus Final refrain all together (Track fades as two vocalists begin singing the next verse)
Popular music The popular songs (liuxing gequ) that were written in cosmopolitan Shanghai in the 1920s were hybrids of jazz, Hollywood film songs, Broadway numbers, modern Chinese school songs, and popular Chinese urban ballads. Although the words and melodies were composed by local Chinese, they were often set to lush orchestrations by immigrant White Russians who fled the Bolshevik Revolution. Censored after 1949, liuxing gequ were denounced by the Communist Party as “the dregs of imperialists and capitalists.” Popular music has undergone a massive revival since the early 1980s. Central government experiments with a limited market economy have stimulated the growth of a Chinese pop music industry, heavily influenced by westernized popular music from Taiwan and Canto Pop from Hong Kong. There is currently a proliferation of new genres (some with regional associations), espousing politically correct messages, produced by the government-sponsored music industry. At the same time, a small group of “underground” rock musicians (the most famous of whom is Cui Jian) use music as a vehicle for dissent. Summary Chinese civilization dates back many centuries and includes many different ethnic groups, cultures, and languages. Key instruments include the qin (zither) and pipa (lute). Traditional musical performances —such as tea house music — are found in public places, performed by amateurs and professionals alike; the audience comes and goes as it pleases, often talking during a performance; and the melodies are often highly improvised, with no announced program. Jingju (or Peking Opera) is one of China’s best known theatrical/musical styles, featuring elaborate sets and costumes, and a richly developed sung repertory. “Good music” maintains the proper social order and underlines the beliefs endorsed by the state; “bad music” leads to improper behavior or to criticism of the status quo. The rise of Communism and the successful 1949 revolution introduced a new, didactic type of music meant to instill the government’s core message to the citizenry, drawing on Soviet models. As Chinese society has opened up somewhat following the Cultural
Revolution of the ‘60s and early ‘70s, Western art music and popular songs have become more accepted, although there remains an “underground” of unacceptable musical styles, many of which question the validity of the state’s power. Discussion Questions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.
How could we say that minority music affected mainstream music in our country the way it did in China? To which Western musical instrument would you compare qin practice, and why? What are some comparisons in the Western music repertoire to programmatic pipa music? What could be a Western equivalent to Jiangnan sizhu? (jazz, jam sessions?) In what ways can we compare jingju to Western opera or a Broadway musical? What are some Western equivalents to ban in the construction of new songs and works? How is music used for propaganda in our country? Or, how is music used to instill values in our country? Why did Communists censure Confucian musical practices? Conversely, why did the Communists during the Cultural Revolution (1966-76) utilize Western musical practices such as orchestration, harmony, ballet, and scenic design, in spite of being anti- Western?
Recommended DVDs and Videos JVC Video Anthology of World Music and Dance, East Asia Regional Set. Produced by Ichikawa Katsumori, directed by Nakagawa Kunihiko, edited by Fujii Tomoaki, English language version in collaboration with Smithsonian/Folkways Recordings, distributed by Rounder Records (1990). Chinese Folk Music and Chinese Folk Songs. Guangzhou Beauty Culture Communication Co. Ltd. (2006) (59. min). This documentary introduces Chinese folk music and musical instruments, their development and genres. A number of Chinese nationalities are represented. Education of a Singer at the Beijing Opera. Produced by Films for the Humanities and Sciences, Princeton, NJ (1994).
CHAPTER 5 THE MUSIC OF JAPAN Traditional Japanese music genres have long histories but have changed little in hundreds of years. In a modern world, it could be perceived as stagnation, but it is in fact the reflection of the Japanese value of stability. Performances are uniform with great decorum. Music types include court music, musical drama, chamber music, and chant. Traditional Japanese music is performed today in recital halls inside great department stores in the Ginza area of Tokyo. The music is primarily pentatonic with auxiliary pitches. Outline Introduction Hogaku –– Japanese traditional music Gagaku –– Japanese court orchestral music, developed in the Heian period (794-1185) Noh –– Japanese classical drama, developed in the Muromachi period (1333-1615) Kabuki –– Japanese musical drama, developed in the Tokugawa or Edo period (1603-1867) Bunraku –– Japanese musical puppet plays Sokyoku –– koto music, developed in the Edo period Sankyoku –– trio of koto, shamisen, and shakuhachi Koto –– a thirteen-stringed zither with moveable bridges Shamisen –– a three-stringed, long-necked, fretless lute, plucked with a large plectrum Shakuhachi –– end-blown flute with four finger-holes, one thumb-hole, and a notch cut in the lip; originally and exclusively played by wandering masterless samurai Ryuteki –– transverse flute associated with gagaku Nokhan –– transverse flute associated with noh drama; seven finger-holes and a mouth hole Fue –– a transverse flute Hichiriki –– short double-reed oboe Sho –– a mouth organ with seventeen pipes like the Chinese sheng Kabuki (theater) Kabukiza –– built in 1887, the most famous Kabuki theater in Tokyo (za means “seat”). (Eight or nine productions a year, each of which lasts about 25 days. Usually two different programs are performed daily. Matinees run from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and evening performances run from 4:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.) Degatari –– the onstage musicians in kabuki Geza –– the offstage orchestra in kabuki who produce the sound effects Chobo –– the pair of onstage musicians, one who narrates and the second who accompanies him on the shamisen Debayashi –– literally “coming-out orchestra”; a music group in kabuki that comes out onstage to accompany a specific scene Nagauta –– a lyric genre of shamisen music, also sung in unison chorus in kabuki Kyogenkata –– the man who plays the woodblocks (hyoshigi) in accelerated beats to announce the rise of the curtain in kabuki O-daiko –– large drum of the geza orchestra Bunraku (puppet plays) Gidayubushi –– the narrative style used in bunraku, named after its developer Takemoto Gidayu (1651- 1714) Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1725) –– a famous bunraku playwright
Noh (theater) Noh was transformed into a serious Buddhist art by Kannami Kiyotsugu (1333-1384) by combining folk dances, theatrics, religious, and courtly entertainment Zeami Motokiyo (1363-1444) –– the son of Kannami Kiyotsugu. He transformed noh into a refined court form. Uta –– songs Hayashi –– an ensemble of nokhan (flute) and three drums used in noh Ko-tsuzumi and o-tsuzumi –– hourglass-shaped drums struck with the fingers, of hayashi Taiko –– shallow barrel drum struck with two thick sticks of hayashi Kakegoe –– calls shouted by the drummers in noh drumming Yokyoku –– the vocal part of noh sung by actors and onstage chorus. There are two basic styles. Kotobe –– literally “words”; the heightened speech style of yokyoku Fushi –– (melody); the aria style of yokyoku, sung in two basic ways Yowagin –– the soft style of fushi Tsuyogin –– the strong style of fushi Shinto Music Mikagura –– Shinto music, performed by a male chorus accompanied by instruments Kagura –– a generic form of Shinto music Wagon –– a six-stringed zither played in Mikagura and kagura Kagura-bue –– a transverse, six-holed, bamboo flute Shakubyoshi- wooden clappers Buddhist Music Shomyo –– Buddhist chant, including syllabic and melismatic, in free rhythm The Nara period (553-794) and the Heian period (794-1185), with capitals respectively at Nara and Kyoto, where periods when the ruling clans adopted Mahayana Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism - the theology that salvation from suffering and death was open to all Ryo and ritsu –– two Chinese-derived pentatonic scales, each with two auxiliary tones, used in shomyo Sokyoku (koto music) Kumiuta –– a koto-accompanied song cycle Danmono –– for solo koto in several sections (dan) Jiuta –– a hybrid of sokyoku combining kumiuta and danmono; sometimes called tegotomono Tegotomono –– usually contains three parts: maeuta (foresong), tegoto (instrumental interlude), and atouta (aftersong) Gagaku -
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In the ninth century, during the Heian period, a standard gagaku orchestra was created under the order of the emperor, and a repertory of two main categories became standardized: togaku (music of Chinese and Indian origin) and komagaku (music of Korean and Manchurian origin). Kangen –– instrumental court music Bugaku –– music for Japanese court dance Jo-ha-kyu –– aesthetic scheme of exposition in gagaku. Jo is the netori, the slow beginning. Ha is the regular rhythmic section. Kyu is the rushing to the end.
Gagaku Instruments Percussion (membranophones and idiophones)
o Da-daiko – a huge drum struck by two thick sticks. It is only used in bugaku dance. o Tsuri-daiko–a suspended two-headed drum, only one side of which is struck with two o Shoko – a small suspended gong played with two sticks. It is usually played on the first beat of every measure. o Kakko –– a small drum whose two heads are struck with thin sticks. The kakko is the leader of the togaku ensemble. Its three basic rhythmic patterns are two types of rolls (a slow roll done with both sticks and a faster roll done on the left skin) and a single tap with the right stick. These patterns are played to regulate the tempo of the piece, and they are found mostly in free rhythmic sections; they are also used to mark off beats or phrases. The kakko is only used in togaku. o San-no-tsuzumi anhourglass shaped drum with two heads,only one of which is struck. Korean in origin, it is played only in komagaku, by the leader of that ensemble. Strings (chordophones) o Wagon––asix-stringedzitherusedinkagura o Gaku-so –– a thirteen-stringed zither, a predecessor of the koto. The strings are plucked by the bare fingers or with finger picks. The music for the gaku-so is made up of two basic patterns that are played to mark off sections. o Biwa––a pear-shaped lute with four strings and four frets played with a small plectrum. It is also used to mark off sections in a piece. The music for the biwa consists primarily of arpeggios, which may end with short melodic fragments. The effect of biwa music in gagaku is primarily rhythmic. This instrument is similar to the old style of Chinese pipa. Winds (aerophones) o
Hichiriki–a short,double-reed bamboo oboe with nine holes,originating from China. Through use of the embouchure and fingering technique, tones smaller than a half-step can be produced. Its tone quality is penetrating and strong, and it is the center of the gagaku ensemble. o Kagura-bue––a six-holed bamboo flute that produces a basic pentatonic scale; other pitches may be produced by using special fingerings. The length of this flute varies, and thus also its actual pitch. It is used for Shinto ceremonies. o Ryuteki –– a seven-holed bamboo flute of Chinese origin used for togaku music. It is the largest of the gagaku flutes. o Koma-bue –– a six-holed flute of Korean origin used for komagaku music. It is the smallest of the gagaku flutes. o Sho –– a mouth organ with seventeen reed pipes (two of which are silent) in a cup-shaped wind chest with a single mouthpiece. Its predecessor was the Chinese sheng. Chords are produced by blowing into the mouthpiece and closing holes in the pipes. Its primary function is harmonic. Typically, each chord is begun softly and gradually gets louder, whereupon the next chord is produced with the same dynamic swelling; this process is repeated continuously by inhaling and exhaling air.
Key Concepts for the Unit Discussion of Different Cultural Values:
In Japan, maintaining tradition is important. In pedagogy and performance, the emphasis is on playing music traditionally, without innovation. Preservation has tended to take a vertical path in Japan. For example, genres are transmitted from teacher to student through special lineages, without there being any apparent horizontal influence from co-existing genres. The Connection between Musical/Theatrical Genres and Social Class: Musical/theatrical genres tell us about Japanese history and social values. Genres are linked to social class and historical epochs. For example, gagaku remains a symbol of the authority of the Imperial court while noh, the art of the samurai, emphasizes simplicity and personal enlightenment through self-understanding and self-reliance. Kabuki and bunraku illustrate the fondness of the townsfolk for theater. Gender Issues: The koto is believed to originally have been a court musical instrument played by men; the shamisen was originally an instrument played by banished samurai who became wandering Buddhist monks who utilized the shakuhachi as a weapon when needed. The shamisen was played by men in accompaniment to the various theater genres. However, women have come to play these instruments during the Edo period in sankyoku, an ensemble music that has been associated with the geisha. The term geisha literally means “arts person,” whereby most Westerners mistakenly think the term refers to prostitutes. Japanese women had been trained in the arts at one time to entertain gentlemen, yet today they are trained for arts recitals. In kabuki, women were banned as performers in 1629 due to the genre becoming associated with prostitution. In 1653, reforms were again made in kabuki, restricting young men as performers as well. The transitions between genders in these genres should be discussed. Listening Skills Layers of Activity in Ensemble Music: In ensemble music, certain instruments play the melody heterophonically, while others mark time in regular recurring ways (see gagaku, below). Sensitivity to Sound Quality: Although ensemble textures are largely monophonic and/or heterophonic, great emphasis is placed on subtle differentiations of timbre and ornamentation. Sensitivity to Tempo: Relatively slow tempos with constant, subtle fluctuations in basic pulse. Jo-ha-kyu aesthetic ideal is pervasive in both large and small forms: slow introductory exposition (jo); faster, more rhythmically regular middle section (ha); and still faster, more intense drive toward the end (kyu); often with a sudden slowing down at the end of a piece. Chapter Section Summaries Kabuki According to popular history, kabuki was first performed in 1596 by a female Shinto dancer, Okuni of Izumo, on the banks of the Kamo River in Kyoto. Female kabuki was soon banned and replaced by troupes of young males. Because of continued associations with prostitution, these troupes were also banned. Since 1652, all kabuki roles (male and female) have been performed by adult males. The Edo period (1603-1867), a time of peace and prosperity, saw a rise in the wealth of the bourgeoisie: their taste for lavish entertainment is reflected in kabuki and bunraku. Making use of elaborate stage equipment, scenery, costumes, and properties, kabuki also
relies on stock character types and gestures. Primarily dance theater, kabuki dance is essential movement towards a climactic static pose (mie). Musical accompaniment is provided by two groups of musicians. The degatari (on-stage musicians) are split into two subgroups, the smaller subgroup (chobo, borrowed from bunraku puppet theater) comprises a single shamisen player and a narrator, who together advance the plot and relate events to the audience; the larger subgroup (debayashi), consists of several shamisens and singers, and provides musical accompaniment (nagauta) according to the needs of the drama. The geza (off-stage musicians) sit in a room at stage left and provide sound effects to accompany dramatic action. Geza instruments include: o-daiko, shamisen, nohkan, gongs, and bells. Kabuki developed at the same time as the Florentine Camerata were making their first experiments with opera. From the start, kabuki was public entertainment. Opera, on the other hand, began life as an elite form; it was not until the mid-17th century that the first public opera houses were opened. Listening Kabuki Nagauta music from the play “Pojoji” Textbook CD1, track 24. Nagauta music is played by the on-stage debayashi ensemble (a corps of shamisens and voices plus a noh hayashi). The ensemble has three main subgroups: 1) voice accompanied by shamisens (playing in unison), which together provide the basic melodic unit; 2) one or more otsuzumi and ko- tsuzumi (large and small noh drums), which play a supporting rhythm; and 3) nohkan and taiko, which together play an independent line unrelated to the other subgroups. 0:00-0:23
Highly ornamented vocal, accompanied on shamisen and drum; at 20” drummers enter, beginning with vocal cry called “kakegoe” as a rhythmic enhancer and cue
0:23-1:04
High-pitched flute (nohkan) enters to take melodic lead, acc. by shamisen and drum, for extended instrumental interlude
1:05-1:23
Nohkan drops out momentarily; shamisen melody prominent (1:05-1:13); flute returns (1:14-19), then shamisen alone again (1:20-1:23)
1:24-1:40
Vocalist returns with fuller accompaniment, including small, bell-like gong
1:41-2:07
Instrumental with nohkan in the lead acc. by shamisen and drum
2:08-2:39 2:40-2:59
Again, shamisen and nohkan exchange short melodic lines (2:08-2:12, shamisen; 2:13-27 nohkan) Vocalist returns, with fuller acc. including bell
3:00-3:14
Shamisen leads (until 3:04) then nohkan rejoins for another instrumental interlude
3:15-fade
Vocal returns, without the nohkan or bell; track fades out
Bunraku Bunraku puppet theater developed in Osaka around the same time as kabuki and was also patronized by the artisan and merchant class. A golden period occurred during the mid-17th century with the collaboration between the singer Takemoto Gidayu (1651-1714) and the playwright
Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724). Together they founded a theater in Osaka in 1685 (the same year J.S. Bach and G.F. Handel were born). Each of the wooden puppets (two-thirds life size) is manipulated by three puppeteers, all shrouded in black with only the face of the senior puppeteer visible to the audience. Narration, both sung and spoken, is provided by a narrator/chanter (tayu), accompanied by a single shamisen (as borrowed by the kabuki chobo ensemble). The special narrative style, called gidayubushi after Takemoto Gidayu, includes chants, heightened speech, and lyrical songs. Noh theater Noh theater developed during the Muromachi period (1333-1615), a time of continuous military strife. Exclusively the art of the samurai class, noh combined folk dances, musical theatricals, and religious courtly entertainment of medieval times. Seminal figures in its development were Kannami Kiyotsugu, who transformed noh into a serious Buddhist art, and his son, Zeami Motokiyo, who further developed it as a refined court art, the major theme of which was the redemption of human suffering through love of Buddha. With its simplicity and restraint, so different from the later lavish entertainment of kabuki and bunraku, noh theater today is mainly supported by intellectuals. Plays can be classified according to type: god plays, warrior plays, female-wig plays, possession plays, and demon plays. In Zeami’s day, a noh performance would consist of one of each type interspersed with comic interludes called “kyogen.” Today a typical performance consists of only two or three noh plays with kyogen. Plays are in two acts: the first act comprises four subsections, or dan, the second comprises a single dan in which the main character (the shite) undergoes some kind of spiritual transformation. Music consists of two types of songs (uta)–– sageuta (short, slow, and low in register) and ageuta (longer and higher), both of which may be sung either by solo actors or by a male chorus–– recitative-like heightened speech for the actors, and instrumental music. The latter, performed by an ensemble generically called “hayashi,” comprises three nohkan and ko-tsuzumi, otsuzumi, and taiko. The noh hayashi provides introductory music and interludes, marks the entrances and exits of characters, and accompanies songs and dances in addition to setting the mood of a scene. The solemn, stately vocal music (called yokyoku), sung by both the actors and the on-stage chorus, may be in the form of heightened speech (kotobe) or melodic aria (fushi). The latter can be delivered in either soft (yowagin) or strong (tsuyogin) styles. Listening Example Excerpt from Noh play Hagoromo (“The Robe of Feathers”). Textbook CD1, track 25. This excerpt provides a brief example of the stately quality of the unison vocal music accompanied by the three noh drums. You may also care to use a selection from the recording, Japanese Noh Music (Lyrichord CD 7137). 0:00-0:25
0:26-0:42 0:43-1:13 1:14-end
Sings to accompaniment of drums, including dance drum taiko with its characteristic low, dull pitch; drummers intersperse rhythmic cries, kakegoe Entrance of chorus (ji) Singing alone; note increase in drum and regular rhythm towards the end Chorus returns picking up the regular rhythm established at the end of the solo; track fades at 1:58
Religious traditions Shinto, “The Way of the Gods,” is a loose indigenous agglomeration of local and regional cults of various kinds. Mikagura, a type of ancient Shinto music still heard today in court Shinto ceremonies, is performed by a male chorus accompanied by wagon, kagura-bue, hichiriki, and shakubyoshi. Of the fifteen songs preserved in the present-day repertoire, torimono songs pay homage to the gods while saibara songs entertain them. In addition to the court tradition, a body of folk Shinto music, or satokagura, has survived. In this tradition, music may be used in shamanistic rituals that pay homage to gods (in which case it is performed by wagon, a transverse flute, and a bell tree) or for festivals, when the music (matsuribayashi) is performed by an ensemble comprising o-daiko, two taikos, and a transverse flute. Buddhist chant, called shomyo, is performed by a male chorus in responsorial style. The texts of sutras, sung in different languages, emphasize the mixed cultural background; Sanskrit texts are called bonsan, those in Chinese are kansan, and the Japanese ones are wasan. The music consists of stereotyped patterns belonging to two Chinese-derived scales, ryo and ritsu. Chants often begin slowly and get faster. Concert music Popular koto music of the Edo period, known generically as sokyoku, may be either a kotoaccompanied song cycle (kumiuta), in which the verses of individual songs (called uta) are derived from pre-existent poems whose subjects are unrelated, or a solo koto genre (danmono), comprising several sections (dan). Jiuta (or tegotomono), a hybrid form combining techniques from kumiuta and danmono, usually contains three parts, a foresong (maeuta), an instrumental interlude (tegoto), and an aftersong (atouta). It is performed by a trio called sankyoku, which comprises koto, shamisen, and shakuhachi. The koto plays the main melody (and often sings at the same time); the other instruments play idiomatic elaborations. Solo koto pieces are just as commonly performed by koto duets, sankyoku trios, or even as geza music in the kabuki. Listening Example “Rokudan No Shirabe.” Textbook CD1, track 26 (performed as sankyoku). One of the most famous solo koto pieces, “Rokudan” or “Six Sections,” is typical of danmono instrumental pieces in that it consists of several “steps,” or sections, known as dan. (The term “shirabe,” which appears frequently in titles of Japanese instrumental compositions, means “investigation,” specifically with respect to the instrument’’s tuning.) A short introduction of four beats precedes the piece, then each dan follows without break. Each dan contains 104 beats and is repeated several times with increasing variation (making it extremely difficult to tell where one dan ends and a new one begins). The jo-ha-kyu structure, however, is somewhat clearer: the first two dan comprise the jo, or introductory section; the second two, the ha section where the tempo increases; and the final two, the fast kyu section. The tempo slows dramatically at the end. In this sankyoku version the instruments play in a rough unison (heterophony) with instrument-specific ornamentation. The koto part is said to be the “meat”; the shamisen part, the “bone”; and the shakuhachi part, the “skin.” 0:00-0:42 0:43-1:31 1:32-2:02
Slow intro prominently stated by koto and shamisen as lead instruments; the shakuhachi is heard primarily as an occasional drone instrument; listen at 0:36 for a brief passage of flickering vibrato played on the shamisen. Shakuhachi enters more prominently, mirroring the koto/shamisen melody. The strings improvise in the upper octaves, while the flute continues at a lower pitch. There is an audible pause at about 2:02.
2:03-3:03 3:04-end
Regular rhythm increases as the melody continues to move into the upper octave. Shamisen is heard prominently, stating an elaborate variation that is mirrored by the others, bringing the piece to a conclusion.
Chidori. Textbook CD 2, track 1 (performed as sankyoku with voice). One of the most famous sokyoku koto pieces is called “Chidori.” It is set in a four-part jiuta form (introduction-song-interlude-song) and can be heard as a solo piece, a koto duet, or a koto and shamisen ensemble; it is also used as geza music in the kabuki theater. 0:00-1:22 1:22-1:58 1:59-2:04 2:05-end
Lengthy heterophonic introduction in slow tempo for 2 kotos, and shakuhachi; melody rises as the introduction progresses Vocalist enters, singing a slow melody with only a few notes, but with considerable vibrato and ornamentation Brief instrumental interlude All rejoin and the recording fades out
Recommended Listening Japanese Koto Music with Shamisen and Shakuhachi (Lyrichord, LLST 7131, B/1). Gagaku Gagaku is Japanese court music and it literally means “elegant” or “refined music”. The Japanese Imperial court has maintained it for more than a thousand years. Gagaku is the Japanese version of ya- yue in China and aak in Korea. All three use the same Chinese pictographs. The earliest importation of the genre came from China via Korea during the Nara period (553-794). The Japanese Music Bureau was established in 701 C.E., and was staffed by Korean and T’ang Chinese musicians. This led to a wave of repertoire imported from T’’ang China. Between 833 and 850, a group of noblemen led by the retired Emperor Sogo codified the standard gagaku ensemble regarding instrumentation and repertoire. The latter was divided into two categories: 1) togaku (“music of the left”), pieces of T’ang Chinese and Indian origin and 2) komagaku (“music of the right”), pieces of Korean and Manchurian origin. The large ensemble consists of percussion (da-daiko, tsuri-daiko, shoko, kakko, and san-notsuzumi), strings (gaku-so and biwa), and winds (hichiriki, kagura-bue, ryuteki, koma-bue, and sho). When the music is purely instrumental, it is called kangen; if it is used to accompany dance, it is called bugaku. Changes in instrumentation mark different repertoires of gagaku. For example, togaku pieces use three sho, three hichiriki, three ryuteki, two biwa, two gaku-so, one kakko, one shoko, and one taiko, while komagaku pieces use three sho, three hichiriki, three koma-bue, one san-no-tsuzumi, one shoko, and one taiko (but no strings). In the case of bugaku, the color of the dancers’’ costumes also mark the different repertoires: for togaku pieces the dancers wear red robes, while for komagaku pieces they wear green robes. Gagaku is characterized by its smoothness, serenity, precise execution, and the absence of virtuosic display. Maximum effect is achieved from minimum material. There are several layers of activity: a main melody played by hichiriki and flutes; an abstraction of the melody played by gaku-so and biwa; chords played by the sho; and punctuation provided by biwa, tsuri-daiko, shoko, kakko, and san-no-tsuzumi. As in many other kinds of Japanese music, formal structure is tripartite. The first section, a slow introductory section (jo), is performed by hichiriki, flute, and kakko. In the expository second section (ha), the rhythm becomes regular and the main body of composition is performed by
the full ensemble. In the final denouement (kyu), an increase in tempo and a rushing to the conclusion is followed by a slackening of pace before the end as instruments gradually drop out, leaving only the biwa and gaku-so. Listening Example “Netori & Etenraku in Hyojo.” CD 2, track 2. Etenraku literally means, “music of divinity.” It is a togaku-style piece in the hyojo mode, starting with an introductory “tuning-up” section, called “netori,” in which the instruments of the ensemble enter in standard order: sho, hichiriki, ryuteki, kakko, biwa, and gaku-so. The main body of the piece comprises three sections (each of 32 slow beats). 0:00
Plays drone like chord to begin netori (jo section of jo-ha-kyu structure) prelude in hyojo mode
0:09
Hichiriki enters, following prescribed order of entries in netori
0:27
Kakko first heard
0:34
Ryuteki flute enters
1:01
Gaku-so(left channel) and biwa (right channel) enter
1:28
Netori ends
1:34
Ryuteki introduces “Etenraku” melody in slow tempo, beginning ha section of the composition.
1:41
Kakko and shoko heard; taiko stroke first heard at 1’45”–– listen for shoko part throughout, marking the beginning of a measure
2:04
Kakko plays longer roll
2:21
Sho and hichiriki enter
2:42-3:12
Biwa and gaku-so first heard; ensemble complete
3:12
Track fades out
Summary Hogaku, or traditional Japanese music, comprises many different styles, from religious and dramatic music to court and popular genres. The earliest known Japanese musical style is gagaku, the traditional music of the court. Also fairly ancient are the religious Shinto music and the chanting of Buddhist monks known as shomyo. The major Japanese theatrical styles are the kabuki drama; bunraku puppet theatre; and the earlier noh theater. Typical Japanese instruments include the shamisen (plucked lute), koto (plucked zither), shakuhachi (end-blown flute), sho (mouth organ), and various drums.
Discussion Questions 1. Generally, in comparison to Japan, how does our culture regard the performance and listening of music 1,000, or even 500-years-old? 2. How can the development of Western opera or musicals be compared to the development of Japanese genres such as noh and kabuki? 3. How may we account for the lack of musical puppet theater in the West, and what might be in its place? 4. How do the practices of sokyoku and sankyoku compare to their contemporary musical counterparts in Europe? 5. In what ways may we compare Gregorian chant with Buddhist chant, and thus contrast it with Shinto music? 6. May we find equivalents to court music in the West? Why or why not? 7. How have women been regarded in musical performance in the West in comparison or in contrast to Japanese women from Edo to the twentieth-century? Recommended DVDs and Videos Discovering the Music of Japan. Directed by Bernard Wilets, advisor, Sam Chianis, Encyclopaedia Britannica Educational Corporation (1967/1982) (22 min.). Explores traditional Japanese music covering the musical scale, origins of Japan's three major instruments: the koto, shakuhachi, and shamisen, and how the importance of nature is conveyed in ancient as well as contemporary music by Japanese composers. Works for the solo koto, solo shakuhachi, solo shamisen, and an ensemble piece with a singer are performed. The Art of Kabuki. (1988) (36 min.). An introduction to the 400-year-old tradition of kabuki, explaining its origins and purposes, its literary sources, and the meaning of its symbolism. The program shows the rehearsal, preparation of costume and wigs, the performance of the Kabuki play, and relates the make-up and music to the overall scheme, explaining the aesthetic of kabuki art. Portrait of an Onnagata. Directed by Tineke Hulsbergen, produced by Films for the Humanities and Sciences, Princeton, NJ (1992) (30 min.) The documentary examines the role of the Onnagata in kabuki theater, the male actor who plays a female role and who exemplifies ideal and ultimate womanhood. Because kabuki is played entirely by men, the role of the Onnagata is very important. Nagauta: The Heart of Kabuki Music. Narrated by William P. Malm and Sidney D. Brown, produced by the University of Oklahoma (1993). Music of Bunraku. Narrated by William P. Malm and Sidney D. Brown, produced by the University of Oklahoma (1991). Shinto Festival Music. Narrated by William P. Malm and Sidney D. Brown, produced by the University of Oklahoma (1993). Gagaku: The Court Music of Japan. Narrated by William P. Malm, produced by the University of Oklahoma (1988).
CHAPTER 6 THE MUSIC OF INDONESIA The predominant musical ensemble in Indonesia is gamelan, and its sound has influenced Western composers since Debussy. Due to its popularity in the West, a number of gamelan ensembles exist in American university ethnomusicology departments. Gamelan, originally a court ensemble, also accompanies puppet plays, dances, feasts, and ceremonies. Gamelans exist in both Java and Bali. Most of the gamelan instruments are bronze, tuned gongs suspended vertically or horizontally, as well as instruments with tuned bronze keys suspended over resonators. Other instruments include the twostringed fiddle, xylophone, flute, and drums. Gamelan –– instrumental ensemble of Java and Bali Javanese gamelan –– sedate and majestic sounding. Of the princely Islamic court, it has formal structures, conventional instrumentation, stable rhythms, and relatively unvaried dynamics, creating a sense of classical elegance and refinement. Balinese gamelan kebyar –– virtuosic, mercurial, flashy, and unpredictable. Adapted by Balinese villagers from old court instruments, it has sudden dynamic contrasts, jerky syncopations, and rapid figurations. Colotomic structure –– the marking of fixed beats within the metric structure of a musical piece by particular instruments; in gamelan music these include gong, kenong, kempul, and kethuk Kotekan –– the interlocking of two or more instruments in the ensemble, a principle in gamelan performance Outline Javanese Gamelan Gamelan –– literally means, “musical ensemble”; played at the princely courts of Java. They consist of metallophones, a chordophone (two-stringed fiddle, the rebab), a xylophone gambang), an aerophone (notched vertical flute, the suling), and membranophones (the kendang and drums). Gending –– a piece of Javanese music for gamelan Gender –– a metallophone with thin bronze slab keys, struck with mallets padded with disks. Each key has its own tuned tube resonator. A key is suspended above a tube. Saron –– a metallophone with thick bronze slab keys lying over a trough resonator. There are three different saron sets: peking (the highest, struck with a water-buffalo horn), barung (mid- range), and demung (the lower). The keys rest on pads of rattan or rubber. Sarons provide the “skeletal melody” (bulungan), the colotomic structure supported by the periodic punctuations of other instruments such as the gongs. Bulungan –– core or skeletal melody Bubaran –– gamelan pieces based on a 16-beat colotomic structure with specific subdivisions Slentem - similar in construction to the gender, it is struck with a single mallet and is similar in melodic function to the saron Bonang –– a multioctave bronze instrument responsible for elaboration in Javanese music. There are two: bonang barung (lower pitched) and bonang panerus (higher pitched). Both span two octaves. The keys resemble overturned bowls with knobs protruding from the tops, which are struck with mallets. Kenong –– like the bonang, has bowl-like gongs, but fewer and much larger than the
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bonang. Each supports itself on a web of string. The kenong has a colotomic function in the music. Trompong –– an instrument similar to the bonang - Ketuk –– a single bowl gong close in size to a bonang bowl, but flatter. It has a colotomic function. Gong –– a Malay (Indonesian) word; a round bronze instrument hanging suspended and struck with a mallet. All the names of the gongs are onomatopoetic and call to mind the sound of the instrument it names. Gong ageng –– the largest gong, nearly a meter in diameter Gong siyem –– a gong slightly smaller than gong ageng Kempul (kempli, plural)–– a gong smaller than gong ageng and gong siyem Gongan –– a phrase punctuated with a stroke of a big gong Instruments from Sunda (western Java) –– the jenglong (like the kenong); the gambang gangsa (like the gambang but with bronze keys instead of wood) Celempung –– a type of zither Gerongan –– a male chorus Pesindhen –– two female soloists
Tuning and Scales Laras –– Javanese tuning systems slendro (pentatonic) and pelog (heptatonic) A complete Javanese gamelan is two orchestras in one, for there are two types of scales (or modes) used: a pentatonic (slendro) and a heptatonic (pelog). Since the intervals between pitches in one mode are different from those of the other, it is not possible to play the same instruments for both tunings. Therefore, there is a separate collection of instruments for each tuning, and the musicians switch between the two to change modes. Javanese intervals are not to Western tuning, and cannot be compared to the diatonic scale. Furthermore, each gamelan has its own slendro and pelog tunings distinct from other gamelans. Cultural and Historical Significance of Javanese Gamelan Music The main courts of the Sultan of Yogyakarta and of the Susuhunan of Surakarta (Solo) were established in the mid-eighteenth century when the Dutch succeeded in supporting their trade interests by asserting political control over much of the Indonesian archipelago. Because political power was largely in the hands of the colonial overlords, the wealth and energy of the courts was expended on the development of cultural matters like music and dance as a means of both establishing and justifying their precedence and prestige. Mataram –– the last great native power in Java, a Muslim kingdom in a land where Islam had steadily been increasing its influence for several centuries Spiritual Aspects of Javanese Gamelan Music Instruments, especially gongs, are believed to be the abodes of spirits. Bedhaya dance –– tunes accompanying bedhaya are considered extremely powerful. Nine girls from noble families were selected for their beauty and grace to dance. The bedhaya dance is important because (1) it contributes to an understanding of Javanese culture by providing a guide to meditation; (2) it explains certain strategies of war; (3) it contributes to an understanding of music that portrays deep and noble emotions. Wayang Kulit (shadow-play) The stories are derived from the Indian epics the Mahabharata and Ramayana. Dhalang –– the puppeteer: he speaks with a host of voices, knows archaic languages and a full range of contemporary social dialects, also a repository of spiritual and cultural values, acquainted with social and political issues. He signals the gamelan for the pieces of music needed for scenes. Bali
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In the fifteenth century, Mataram, the Islamic kingdom of Java, displaced the Hindu kingdom of Majapahit. The Majapahit fled to Bali. After 1908, Dutch intervention in Bali was different from in Java. In Java the newly established courts were provided financial resources and given limited responsibilities of governance. The Javanese evolved an elegant way of life that fostered the development of the arts as the most effective means of retaining exalted status. In Bali, the courts were dissolved and the descendants of nobles, who were often employed as agents of Dutch rule, rarely had the financial resources to maintain the elaborate musical establishments associated with courtly life. Gamelan gumbah –– an archaic Majapahit opera with its accompanying orchestra Gamelan gong gede –– an older Balinese court music, used for temple rituals, similar in sound and style to the Javanese gamelan Gamelan semar pegunligan –– large Balinese court orchestra that plays instrumental versions of gamelan gambuh melodies Gender wayang –– four-piece ensemble of genders that typically accompanies the Balinese shadow play. The quartet consists of two pairs of gender distinguished from one another by being in different octaves. Within each pair, one instrument is distinguished from the other by being slightly “out of tune,” in order to create a sensation of acoustical beats that gives a shimmering quality to the pitch when the differently tuned keys are struck simultaneously. As the instruments of a pair are often played in unison, the result is a constant resonance. Gamelan gong kebyar - a modern type of Balinese music that is noted for its virtuosic and unpredictable playing style. Village gamelan clubs often bought older-style gamelan no longer maintained or needed by the courts and recast them into the new form, and the new music developed for it was a revolutionary departure from the sedate and majestic pieces of the repertory for the gamelan gambuh or gamelan gong gede. In the latter, predictably familiar formal structures, conventional instrumentation, stable rhythms, and relatively unvaried dynamics created a sense of classical elegance; but the music of kebyar was a revolutionary change: virtuosic, mercurial, flashy, and unpredictable. It came to accompany dance around the year 1925. Gamelan angklung –– Balinese gamelan featuring pitched bamboo rattles (angklung) as the lead melody instruments. Only found in the remotest locations in 1938, Canadian composer Colin McPhee revived its popularity. Kecak –– A type of dance drama accompanied by a large male chorus that chants rhythmically, usually performed for tourists. The rhythmic shouting of the men is traditionally associated with rituals of divination, in which young girls are entranced in order for questions to be put to the spirits (sanghyang) that take possession of them. While music and dance are frequently part of these rituals, dramatic stories from the Ramayana are not. Thinking that the kecak was an exciting and unusual kind of music, Walter Spies, a collaborator with Colin McPhee, suggested using it as the foundation for a concise presentation of the Ramayana that would give tourists, who were already discovering Bali before World War II, a professionally arranged and attractive means of experiencing it. Barong –– a trance dance ritual adopted for performances for tourists. It is accompanied by a gamelan gong or kebyar and represents the struggle between Good (in the being of the barong, an awesome but benevolent lion) and Evil (impersonated by a horrendous and malevolent witch). At the high point of the story, the supporters of the barong attack the witch with their krises (wavy daggers) and are forced by the witch’s magic to turn them instead upon their own bodies, but the magic of the barong protects them from injuring themselves. During performances at village temples, many participants may fall into trance during and after the battle.
Popular Music in Java Gambus –– a type of Islamic song having Arabic influence; the name of the plucked lute originally used to accompany this song Dangdut –– popular Indonesian musical style that combines Western rock and Indian film
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music Kroncong - a type of popular Indonesian music originating from Portuguese sources Jaipongan –– popular Indonesian music derived from native folk entertainment of Sunda (West Java)
Key Concepts for This Unit Form and Structure: Gamelan lends itself to an in-depth study of musical form and structure. Similarities between Gamelan Ensembles and Orchestras: The replication of instruments in various sizes combined with the different functions of “sections” within the gamelan ensemble can be compared to the Western symphony orchestra. Does this compatibility contribute to the popularity and effectiveness of gamelan as a teaching device in western music programs? Effects of Tourism on Traditional Musics: This is a good place to discuss the effects of tourism on local cultures, the phenomenon of the cultural attraction, and the growing standardization of traditions. In Bali, new genres, developed to entertain tourists, are accepted by Balinese themselves as part of “traditional” culture. Listening Skills Listening to Formal Structure: 1. Central Java: isolate layers of musical activity––basic melody, elaboration, and rhythmic punctuation (“colotomic structure”)––and cyclical forms 2. Bali: introduce the terms “kotekan,” “interlocking parts,” and “ostinato.” The term kotekan implies the interlocking of two or more instruments in the ensemble. Distinguishing between Loud- and Soft-Style Central Javanese Pieces: Point out, in particular, differences in instrumentation and density of elaborating parts. Distinguishing between Javanese and Balinese Gamelan Pieces: Javanese styles are much more predictable and orderly; Balinese styles are more “virtuosic” to our ears, having more fluctuations in dynamics and tempo. Chapter Section Summaries Tuning and scales There is no concept of standard pitch; each gamelan has its own, individual tuning (i.e., there is no standard A=440 and you cannot take an instrument from one gamelan and expect it to be “in tune” with the instruments of another ensemble). There are two different scale systems (laras), each of which has three modes (patet). Slendro is a five-tone scale (using pitches 1 2 3 5 6); its patets are called Nem, Sanga, Manyura. Pelog, a seven-tone scale (using pitches 1 2 3 4 5 6 7), also has three patets––Lima, Nem, and Barang––but each patet only draws upon a selection of five pitches. Instrument functions and formal principles The three levels of musical activity in gamelan music are coordinated by the drummer: Melody: (Balungan, “skeleton.”) Main melody or close variation played in three different octaves
by sarons and a single slentem. Elaboration: (Bunga, “flowering.”) Higher register instruments–bonang, gender and, in quiet pieces, rebab, gambang, celempung, suling, and pesindhen (solo female singer)– ornament the tune by subdividing the saron beat. Rhythmic punctuation: (“Colotomic structure.”) Conceived cyclically. The big gong marks the longest units, kenong and kempul subdivide the cycle, ketuk (and kempyang) provide tertiary punctuation. The number of beats and particular arrangement of punctuation in a cycle determine the form of a composition. Listening Examples Buburan “Udan Mas,” (Golden Rain) Laras Pelog, Patet Barang. Textbook CD 2, track 3. As the full title tells us, “Udan Mas” (“Golden Rain”) is a piece in buburan form (a 16-beat gong cycle with four kenong phrases––called kenongan––each of 4 beats), using the barang mode of the pelog scale. A buburan is a closing piece, played at the end of a function as the audience departs. “Udan Mas” is a simple loud-style piece with only two phrases, each repeated (AA BB AA BB). It begins with a short introduction (buka) played by the lower of the two bonangs. Pick out the balungan played by the sarons. Take that as a quarter note referent. Have the class try to pick out the colotomic punctuation. You can represent this as a circle on the blackboard, with beat 16 taking the place of 12 on a clock. The kempul and large gong are easiest to hear since the sound of hanging gongs carries better than the suspended kenong and ketuk kettles. Each large gong stroke (G in the diagram) marks the last beat of the buburan cycle. Anything playing faster than the quarter note saron is an elaborating instrument. For example, the saron panerus plays at a ratio of 2:1 to the main saron line. Bonangs play at ratios of 2:1, 4:1, or 8:1, depending on tempo. 0:00-0:07
Introduction (buka) on bonang joined by kendang and leading to first gong at 7 seconds
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First gongan, balungan melody on saron, one pitch per beat repeat
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Repeat
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Second gongan Repeat Return of first gongan with repeat
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Return of second gongan with repeat, accelerando begins toward end
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Repeat of both gongans with final decelerando beginning at end of first statement of second gongan (ca. 1:39)
Ketawang “Puspawarna,” Laras Slendro, Patet Manyura. Textbook CD 2, track 4. “Puspawarna” (“Kinds of Flowers”) is a piece in ketawang form (another 16-beat gong cycle, but this time with two kenongan, each of 8 beats), using the manyura mode of the slendro scale. This
more complex “soft style” piece is performed for the entrance of a prince. 0:00- 0:08
Introduction (buka) on rebab joined by kendang and leading to first gong at 8 seconds (just after ‘‘yes’’ spoken by ensemble leader)
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First gongan A with entrance of pesindhen (female vocalist); tempo starts briskly with one balungan pitch every other beat and starts to slow down
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Repeat of gongan A with continuing decelerando to reach settled tempo, accompanied by stylized male vocal cries at colotomic points
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Gongan B with gerongan (male chorus) joining
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Gongan C with gerongan and pesindhen melody continuing
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Gongan A with gerongan melody concluding
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Repeat of whole form from 0:08 through 2:09 but in same tempo until brief cadential accelerando starts in gongan C at about 3:55 followed by decelerando beginning at 4:03 and continuing until end.
Bali Balinese music provides a vivid contrast to Central Javanese court styles. The speed, excitement, and virtuosity of gamelan gong kebyar, in particular, is immediately appealing to students. There are many other types of gamelan ensemble (discussed in the text). Gamelan gambuh, for example, comprises several long vertical flutes, rebab, and percussion; gamelan gong gede (literally: “gamelan with the big gongs”), is akin to the large instrumental gamelan of Central Java; and gamelan Semar pegulingan, is a delicate-sounding ensemble used to play instrumental versions of the gambuh repertory. All have declined in popularity since the dissolution of Balinese courts by the Dutch in 1908. Other ensembles are still popular because of their association with folk theatrical genres: gamelan arja, a small ensemble of flutes and percussion used to accompany operatic performances with comic plots; and gender wayang, an ensemble of four genders, used to accompany the dalang in Balinese wayang kulit. Probably the best known Balinese ensemble, the gamelan gong kebyar, was developed in the 1920s and has continued to exert a strong influence on many styles of Balinese music. It employs sharp contrasts in dynamics, tempo, orchestration, and rhythm along with unpredictable formal structures. The word “kebyar” means a sudden flare (e.g., the striking of a match) and fits the dramatic kebyar dance in which a solo dancer interprets the sudden changes of mood expressed by the gamelan. Listening Examples Kebyar “Teruna.” Textbook CD 2, track 5. This is a typical example of the gong kebyar style. The frequent changes of tempo, dynamics, and mood allow the solo dancer to express a wide range of moods and emotions. Musically, the composition is a series of ostinato patterns of different lengths. The fantastic speed of the metallophones is possible because several performers play interlocking parts (kotekan). The Balinese rule of thumb is that if one player can play so fast, four players can play four times as fast. In the slow, quiet sections, “soft style” instruments, particularly the suling (bamboo flute), can be heard. In Central Javanese style, you would not expect both soft- and loud-style instruments to play in the same piece.
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Typical kebyar style intro, with varied dynamics and tempi, irregular rhythms and syncopations, nearly whole orchestra in unison
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Passage featuring reyong (long row of upsidedown metal pots suspended on a frame)
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Passage featuring gangsa
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Frantic tempo ostinato for gangsa featuring drum and cymbal rhythms
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Ostinato for lower pitched calung/jegogan (similar to gangsa but with fewer keys and padded strikers); rapid figuration (kotekan) in higher pitched gangsa; regular beats on dull sounding kempli
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Syncopated cadential pattern and repetition, emphasized with ringing reyong chords
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Sudden change to speedier tempo with faster kempli beats and further syncopated reyong chords
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Continuation of calung/jegogan ostinato with rapid gangsa figuration
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Tabuh Empat Pagawak. Performed by Gamelan Gong Gede “Sekar Sandat” of Bangli. Textbook CD 2, track 6. A typical old style piece for gamelan gong gede well illustrates the kind of music to which the new kebyar style presented such a startling contrast. The meandering trompong introduction is starkly different to the explosive beginning of "Teruna" of the previous example, and the stately progression of the melody when the whole ensemble enters is rigidly organized with a regular meter and equally regular ornamentation and orchestration. 0:00
Introduction in free rhythm played on trompong
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A few other instruments gradually join in
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Drums enter and establish regular beat
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Trompong continues introduction with other instruments regularly subdividing the beat for rhythmic propulsion until main melody (pokok) enters at 2:00 in gangsa with approximately one note every two seconds, and with subdivided beat emphasized by ceng-ceng cymbals.
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Fades out
Kebyar was given a new twist when it began to accompany dance. About 1925, a young dancer named Mario made a particular impression with his version of a dance to go with this exciting music. Like the fixed structures of the classical gending, the various dances done by trained court dancers or by people, making offerings at the temple were based on traditional movements and gestures, and the stock characters of dramas like gambuh were confined to expressing the limited range of moods suited to them. But Mario’’s kebyar mirrored the fleeting moods and unpredictable contrasts of the music. Performing in an unusual crouched position, the dancer was on the same level as the seated musicians with whom he sometimes interacted directly, seeming to tease and cajole. Alternately rising onto his knees and squatting, playing with a fan, flashing a bizarre series of glances that registered astonishment, pique, enticement, and fury in rapid succession, the dancer would interpret the music’’s every change. To top things off, he might conclude by joining his accompanists in a choreographically performed solo on the obsolete trompong, all the while continuing to bob up and down and back and forth on his knees, twirl his mallets like a drum major, and register a bewildering series of moods on his face. While originally danced by boys or young men, today kebyar is also danced by young women dressed as men. Western influence Twentieth-century Bali’s music and arts economy has been enhanced by the interest of Westerners, the impact of tourism, and commoditization of culture. Three genres were either devised or revived by Westerners: gamelan angklung, kecak, and barong. The last two in particular, now practically obligatory for tourists, have been accepted as “traditional” Balinese performing arts by locals as well as foreigners, in spite of their modern origins. Cultural troupes provide regular employment for musicians and dancers. Indonesian popular music Indonesian popular music is eclectic and cosmopolitan. Of the four genres discussed in the text, only jaipongan is indigenous. Gambus, dangdut, and kroncong are influenced by musics as diverse as Arabic music, Indian film song, and Western rock. Gambus Instruments, vocal timbre, musical style, and rhythms all mark this genre clearly as Middle Eastern in origin. The association is further emphasized by the use of Arabic dress and lyrics that often have Islamic subjects. Dangdut A mixture of Western rock, Indian film music, and Islamic themes, dangdut draws its audience from Muslim youth of the lower and middle class. Texts, in the national language, not only speak to this group, but also for them, expressing their resentment at the inequalities of modern life. One of the most distinctive instruments in the ensemble is a double drum that looks like bongo drums, but sounds like tabla; the onomatopoetic sound of the drum, “dang-dut,” perhaps suggests the origin of the genre’s name. Under the influence of Rhoma Irama, dangdut became the predominant pop music of the 1970s and 1980s. Listening Example Dangdut Quran Dan Koran (excerpt), composed by Rhoma Irama. Performed by Soneta Group, vocal:
Rhoma Irama. Textbook CD 2, track 8. This contemporary recording prominently features synthesizers in both the lead and supporting roles. The synthesized “voices” imitate traditional instrument sounds, while also setting them in a more modern context. 0:00-0:24 0:25-0:29 0:30-0:40 0:40-0:52 0:53-1:04 1:05-1:19 1:20-1:43 1:44-2:06 2:07-2:15 2:16-2:26 2:27-2:39 2:40-2:50 2:50-2:52 2:53-2:55 2:56-3:17 3:18-3:41 3:42-3:44 3:45-4:08 4:09-4:16
Introduction with synthesized instrumental melody and accompaniment Instrumental “bridge” announcing 1st verse First verse of first stanza with melody A Repeat of A for second verse Third verse with contrasting melody B Repeat of B for fourth verse, followed by instrumental Return of part A melody with new text, with repeat Instrumental break; synthesized guitar lead voice Lead taken by synthesized flutes and oboes New stanza with new melody C Repeat of C melody Melody D sung once Chorus break Instrumental bridge to verse Melody A and repeat with new text Melody B and repeat with new text Instrumental bridge to verse Melody A and repeat with new text Brief instrumental coda.
Kroncong Kroncong blends European and central Javanese traditions. Thought to derive from Portuguese songs and instruments brought to Indonesia during the 16th century, kroncong was associated with lower class Eurasians (called buaya kroncong, “kroncong crocodiles”) in Jakarta. In the 1920s, it was taken up by popular theater and the recording industry, becoming the principal commercial entertainment music of Jakarta as a whole. During the 1950s, sentimental, patriotic, and nationalistic texts played an important role in the struggle for independence. The first truly Indonesian popular music, kroncong is still popular with the older generation. The typical instruments accompanying kroncong are of European derivation: violin, cello, flute, and plucked strings of various types; one of the strings, similar to a ukulele, has given its name to the genre. These provided a simple, harmonically based accompaniment to vocal melodies sung with a mellifluous sweetness. When kroncong began to attract the interest of a more polite section of middle- class Javanese society in the twenties and thirties, it underwent a kind of acculturation to central Javanese style, and while the instruments were the same, they took on functional qualities similar to those of gamelan music. The flute and violin became like the suling and rebab, providing free, heterophonic elaboration of the melody; the cello, while continuing to provide a foundation for the harmony, was played pizzicato in rhythms resembling kendang-like drum patterns; and the kroncong, with its regular offbeat plucking, had a resemblance to the ketuk. Listening Example Kroncong “Morisko”. Performed by Orkes Kroncong Mutiara, vocal: Suhaery Mufti. Textbook CD 2, track 9.
0:00- 0:12 0:13- 0:37 0:381:20
Introduction in free rhythm on flute Plucked strings set up accompaniment patterns regularly subdividing beat in a manner reminiscent of gamelan practice over which flute continues its ornamental floating melody. Voice takes over melody of song and flute adds ornamental flourishes in manner of gamelan suling at ends of vocal phrases. Fades out
Jaipongan Another popular national style, jaipongan grew out of a type of professional folk entertainment from Sunda (West Java). A small ensemble of musicians playing a rebab, a gong, 3 ketuks, 2 sarons, and drums accompanied a female singer/dancer who was paid to dance with men from the audience. The rather virtuosic Sundanese drumming is a particular characteristic of this style. Like “dangdut,” the word jaipongan was made up from syllables representing drum sounds, and flashy Sundanese-style drumming is basic to this style. Listening Example “Daun Pulus Keser Bojong,” Performed by Gugum Gumbira and his Jugala Group, singer Idjah Hadidjah. Textbook CD 2, track 10. 0:00
1:14 1:45 2:12
3:00
Extended introductory passage highlighting the virtuosic and flashy drumming Sundanese drumming style in which the drums are struck with the hands hand even manipulated with the feet. Melody on rebab, and regular clacking of cymbal like kecrek. Periodic shouts from the performers add to the raucous and rowdy atmosphere typical of jaipongan performance. The performers yell the name of their group JU----GA-----LA alternating with the leader who sort of groans it in a gruff voice. Introduction concludes with entrance of sarons playing phrase with an answer by drums, both then repeated Singer briefly introduces song unaccompanied and is joined by other performers at 2:20; her highly elaborate melody is heterophonically accompanied by the rebab and progresses with occasional, startling comments from the drum. Fades out
Summary Gamelan—an Indonesian term for musical ensemble. In central Java, these are usually instruments of bronze—gongs and keys—with the addition of drums, a flute, a fiddle, a xylophone, and a zither. Indonesian music is generally based on repeated musical phrases of varying length. Javanese music uses two scales – a 5-tone (slendro) and a 7-tone (pelog); in Bali, pelog predominates, but the important gender wayang ensemble for accompanying the shadow play uses slendro. Gamelan music serves ritual/spiritual, governmental, dramatic, and social functions. The shadow puppet play—Wayang Kulit—is one of the major theatrical forms that uses gamelan accompaniment. Balinese gamelan sound is distinguished from its Javanese relative by the use of paired instruments that are tuned slightly differently, creating a shimmering or
pulsating effect. Many newer popular styles combine outside influences——ranging from Arabic pop, Western rock, and Indian film music——with traditional Javanese musical instruments and ideas. Discussion questions 1. How may Westerners conceptualize colotomic structures in Western music? 2. How had Western composers such as Claude Debussy and Colin McPhee utilized Indonesian music, particularly scales, in their compositions? 3. What caused the divergences of Javanese and Balinese music in the fifteenth-century, and then in the twentieth-century? 4. Why can Indonesia be labeled a “bronze culture”? 5. What other cultures can we list that are influenced by a material as bronze to Indonesia? 6. In what other world music cultures might we find interlocking? 7. Where might we find Western, African, Asian, Native America or folk European equivalents to Balinese musical instruments that contain spirits? 8. How may shadow play be compared to opera or ballet? 9. What acculturations had Balinese music made in the twentieth-century, and how/why was it beneficial? 10. What were the forces that created Arabic and then Portuguese influences on Indonesian popular music? Recommended DVDs and Videos JVC Video Anthology of World Music and Dance, Southeast Asia Regional Set. Produced by Ichikawa Katsumori, directed by Nakagawa Kunihiko, edited by Fujii Tomoaki, English language version in collaboration with Smithsonian/Folkways Recordings, distributed by Rounder Records (1990).
CHAPTER 7 THE MUSIC OF SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA Sub-Saharan Africa maintains enormous linguistic, cultural, and musical diversity, where oral traditions are the means of passing culture rather than literary traditions. Africa is approached from an anthropological perspective, from which we explore the relationship between music and the kinds of culture that produce it. Outline A Shona Mbira Performance in Zimbabwe Shona –– a Bantu-speaking people of Zimbabwe in southeast Africa Bira –– a Shona religious ceremony involving spirit possession Mbira –– a musical instrument, a lamellaphone, of the idiophone type, has 22 keys (tongues) Lamellaphone –– an instrument, the sound of which is produced by tuned metal or reed tongues set on a bridge mounted to a soundboard or box, plucked by the player’s alternating fingers The Pygmies -
Pygmies –– nomadic hunters and gathers of equatorial Africa BaMbuti –– a Pygmy people of the Ituri forest in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo Pygmies have few instruments due to their nomadic existence. They use vocal choirs, flute duets, trumpets made from tree bark or ivory, and the musical bow.
The Mande of West Africa Mande –– a subgroup of the Mandinka people of Senegal and Gambia Jali –– a hereditary professional musician in Mande society, who serves as an oral historian and singer/performer (plural: jalolu) Kora –– a twenty-one-string bridge-harp, with a large gourd sound chamber, played by Mande jalolu The Ewe of Ghana Anlo-Ewe –– a group of people in Ghana and Togo, socially distinct from other Ewe Club organizations maintain semiprofessional drum and dance troupes. The Buganda Kingdom Baganda –– a Bantu-speaking people of Buganda (Uganda) Insurrections after 1962 desecrated the kingdom and destroyed musical instruments. Popular Music in the Twentieth Century West African highlife brass bands Palm-wine –– an acoustic guitar music that served as a basis for juju Jùjú –– A form of Nigerian popular music associated with the Yoruba that combines electric instruments with indigenous drums and percussion Jit (also jiti) –– a traditional Shona village dance and song, now played by electric guitar bands in Zimbabwe Key Concepts for the Unit Despite the diversity, a few underlying principles characterize the music of the whole region.
General Principles of African Music: Interlocking is the practice of fitting pitches into spaces between other parts, alternating pitches or phrases of one part with those of another to create a whole part. An example is the whole melody created by a mbira player’’s two hands. Call and response is the alternation or interlocking of leader and chorus, or of a vocal and instrumental part. Hocket is the interlocking pitches between two or more sound sources to create a single melody or part. An example is Pygmy vocal music. Dense, overlapping textures and buzzy timbres manifested in a preference for overlapping drum and percussion rhythms. An example is Ewe drumming. Wind and string instruments incorporate percussive elements: strings are more often plucked than bowed and wind instruments are often played with a breathy sound quality. An example of a percussive string sound is the kora. Cyclical and open-ended forms involving one or more repeated melodies/rhythmic patterns (ostinatos) as the basic foundation of a performance. Ostinato is a repeated melodic or rhythmic pattern that forms the basic foundation of a piece or musical section (sometimes called “melorhythm” or “ensemble thematic cycle”). Community participation. The participation of non-specialists is facilitated by long performances with much repetition and by the close association of music with dance. Importance of rhythmic complexity. This can occur at many levels: juxtaposition of duple and triple patterns (hemiola), multiple layering of different rhythmic patterns, and interaction between core foundation and varied/improvised elaboration parts. Listening Skills Interlocking Parts and Hemiola: You can demonstrate both very simply by dividing the class into pairs. Have one partner clap eighth notes while the other claps triplets. If they watch each others’’ hands, they see visually how the parts interlock. Call-and-Response: Give the class a short fixed chorus to sing while you act as leader and vary your part. Hocket: Divide the class into a number of groups and give each group a pitch to sing. Clap a slow pulse and ask each group to sing their pitch in sequence, overlapping the end of their pitch with the start of the next group’s pitch. Gradually speed up the pulse until it sounds like a continuous melody. Rhythmic Complexity: Gather as many percussion instruments as possible. Use a double bell or something similar as a time marker and set out a basic ostinato (e.g., a 3-2 son clave pattern). One by one, add other ostinatos and get students to take over the pattern once it is established. It’’s easiest to think in 12- beat units, since you can fit all kinds of duple and triple patterns into that frame. This actually provides a perfect opportunity to invite a guest to class to give a workshop. Chapter Section Summaries
The Shona The Shona are a Bantu-speaking people of Zimbabwe in southeastern Africa. They have a variety of lamellaphones, each with their own distinct scale patterns and playing techniques. The mbira, a lamellaphone, is played at bira ceremonies for ancestral spirits. A bira is a family sponsored event wherein the ancestors interact with the living. The mbira music attracts a spirit, for spirits enjoyed this music during their lives. A spirit medium becomes possessed by the spirit, and the family consults the ancestor about personal problems. A musical performance involves one or more mbira in interlock, with singing involving a low syllabic bass style, a high melodic style using falsetto singing and yodeling, and ancient poetry recitation. Listening Example Mbira music: “Nhemamusasa.” Textbook CD 2, track 11. This same piece (for 22-key mbira dzavadzimu, hosho, and singer) appears on The Soul of Mbira (Nonesuch H-72054; reissued on compact disc). In the Nonesuch version recorded by the leading mbira scholar Paul Berliner, the singer employs three singing styles: mahonyera (a low, syllabic bass style), huro (a high melodic style that includes some yodeling), and kudeketera (Shona poetry). The basic ostinato of an mbira piece is made up of a small number of short interlocking segments or phrases that are repeated in sequence. The two hands interlock to create a single melody. As the piece progresses, small variations (including traditional formulas and improvised lines) are introduced. Usually each variation is repeated several times before a new one is introduced. Gradual, subtle change is preferred to dramatic contrast; the latter is the sign of an unskilled, impatient player. When two players are present, they play complementary parts that interlock to create a whole. One part is called kushaura (“to lead”); the other is called kutsinhira (“to follow”). The Pygmies Pygmies are nomadic, semi-autonomous hunter-gatherers of equatorial rainforest areas. Communalism is a way of life because survival depends on cooperation. The key values of their society–– egalitarianism, consensus, and unity––are reflected in their musical culture. Performance is a non- specialist activity, centered on vocal music (everyone can sing) and involving the whole community. In musical terms, there is an emphasis on ostinato, interlocking parts (using hocket technique in which singers alternate short melodic fragments to create a melody), and call-andresponse forms. Listening Example BaMbuti vocal music: “Alima Girls’’ Initiation Music.” Textbook CD 2, track 12. This recording is from the disc Pygmies of the Ituri Forest (Folkways FE 4457) and includes snatches of solo and chorus, but mainly demonstrates hocket, where each singer is responsible for one note and hoots it at the appropriate moment. Ringing rhythm sticks, softer split sticks, and handclaps provide a complex rhythmic accompaniment. There are many other recordings of Pygmy music. All of the tracks are short; it is easy to find examples that demonstrate solo-chorus, hocket, and/or hemiola rhythmic patterns. Mande West African Mande society is characterized by an elaborate social hierarchy in which occupational specialization is determined by heredity. The two main social categories are sula
(“ordinary people”: farmers, merchants, etc.) and nyamalo (professional craft specialists). One specialist is the jali, a “wordsmith”––a professional musician/verbal artist who is simultaneously an oral historian, musician, singer-bard, and praise singer. The social status of jalolu (plural) is ambiguous; while they are important and valued members of society because of their knowledge of history and power to manipulate words (either in praise or criticism), they are also looked down upon and treated as social outcasts. The jali often accompanies himself on the kora, a harp-lute with 21 strings (arranged in two parallel rows perpendicular to the skin face of the gourd sound box) and with a range of over three octaves. Kora music consists of four components: donkilo (basic vocal melody), sataro (improvised declamatory singing style), kumbengo (short instrumental ostinato), and birimintingo (improvised instrumental interludes). The piece itself is a series of stock resources that are uniquely arranged and improvised upon according to the needs of a given performer and occasion. Listening Example Kora music: “Ala l’’a ke.” (Originally from Kora Manding: Mandinka Music of the Gambia. Ethnodisc ER 12102, A/3. Recorded by Roderic Knight.) Textbook CD 2, track 13. According to Roderic Knight’’s liner notes, this is one of the best-known kora songs. The title literally means, “God has done it.” It commemorates the settlement of a quarrel between two brothers over the right to the chieftainship of Fuladu after their father died in the early days of colonial rule. The younger brother usurped the throne and had his brother punished when he thought his life was threatened. This brought attention to the usurper and the British governor installed the rightful heir. Instead of punishing his younger brother, the new chief only asked for an apology, saying that it was God’s deed. In the textbook, Turino reproduces part of the song text and shows how the different sections (kumbengo, donkilo, birimintingo, and sataro) are arranged. Many of the general characteristics of African music discussed above are illustrated in this example. Note especially the buzzing metal jangles attached to the instrument. Ewe The Ewe of Ghana have a complex political hierarchy with a paramount chief at the apex. Each district functions as an autonomous state with its own chief and systems of clans, lineages, and age sets. Among the Anlo-Ewe, voluntary dance-drumming clubs, the primary institutions for musical performance, have a hierarchy of their own: chairman, secretary, dance leaders, drum leaders, etc., all have specific roles and duties. These semi-professional ensembles fall midway between the highly specialized jali and the non-professional Pygmy. Anlo-Ewe dance-drumming ensembles typically comprise gankogui (a double bell that plays an ostinato within a twelve-pulse cycle and serves as a point of reference for the ensemble), axatse (gourd shaker), atsimevu and goba (large barrel-shaped drums that employ a repertoire of fixed and improvised patterns), sogo and kidi (middle-sized drums that serve the function of a chorus, playing a limited variety of patterns in call-and-response fashion with the goba and atsimevu), and kaganu (small drum that plays single repeated ostinato). The music displays the typical characteristics we have encountered elsewhere: call-and-response, ostinato, interlocking parts, improvised variation based on stock formulaic patterns, and a dense ensemble texture. Listening Example “Gadzo.” (Originally from Ewe Music of Ghana. Folkways AHM 4222.) Textbook CD 2, track 14.
Again, general African musical principles and aesthetic values are well demonstrated: calland- response, interlocking parts, ostinato, improvised variations, and a dense, multi-layered sound. The videotape, Kpegisu: A War Drum of the Ewe, sets out each part independently, shows how they fit together, and gives an example of a performance in context.1 Buganda Buganda was formerly a powerful independent kingdom in the Lake Victoria region of East Africa. The court of the king (or kabaka) was the major center of musical activity. The amakondere, a prestigious ensemble comprising several gourd trumpets, each of which played only one pitch, and a similar flute ensemble accompanied by four drums both played in strictly interlocking fashion. Another court instrument, the large 22-key akadinda (xylophone) used the same interlocking technique. The akadinda keys, set freely on two perpendicular supporting logs, were played by six musicians, three seated on either side of the instrument. The royal drums, part of the kabaka’’s regalia, were a powerful symbol of royal authority. The most important royal ensemble, the entenga, was made up of 12 drums (played by four musicians) carefully graded in size and tuned to the local pentatonic scale, accompanied by three untuned drums. Musical instruments A variety of percussion instruments of the membranophone and idiophone types are found throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, as are aerophones such as flutes, whistles, horns and trumpets, and a variety for chordophones. Talking drums Tuned drums are used by many African societies to “talk” over long distances. Such drum “languages” are possible when the spoken language is tonal (i.e., the meaning of a word depends on the relative pitches given to its syllables). Drums, and other instruments such as lamellaphones, can articulate verbal formulas by imitating tonal patterns. Longer messages can be played by drumming the tonal contour of well-known stereotypical verbal formulas. Listening Example Greetings and Praises Performed on the Yoruba Dùndún Drum. Textbook CD 2, track 15. This excerpt illustrates how the dùndún is used as a “talking drum.” The drummer first plays a pattern, and then another drummer recites the corresponding verbal phrase. Included are common greetings like “Good morning” as well as brief praises that would have been played in honor of a chief. The dùndún is an hour-glass shaped pressure drum; when the player squeezes and pulls the ropes that bind the heads on both ends of the drum, increased tension is created so that the pitch is raised; when the cords are relaxed, the tension lessens, and the pitch drops. The Musical Bow The oldest and one of the most widespread stringed instruments of Africa is the musical bow. Like the bows used to shoot arrows, it consists of a single string attached to each end of a curved stick. Depending on the tradition, either a gourd attached to the stick or the mouth cavity of the player serves David Locke with Godwin Agbeli, Kpegisu: A War Drum of the Ewe (Tempe: White Cliffs Media Company, 1992). Book and videotape. The book includes transcriptions.
as a resonator. The string is either plucked or, alternatively, struck with another stick; it is sometimes stopped with a hard implement to raise the pitch. The playing technique results in a percussive and yet beautiful and delicate sound. Listening Example Musical Bow Played by a BaMbuti Pygmy. Textbook CD 2, track 16. Here we continue the discussion of the BaMbuti pygmies. Colin Turnbull recorded this BaNdaka pygmy playing the musical bow, in this case made from a bent sapling, with a thin section of vine used for the string. The player holds one end with his toe against the ground, and the other against the edge of his mouth, which serves as a sound resonator. By flexing the bow, he shortens the string, and raises the pitch. So pleased was he with his performance that he shouts “Budah!” in the middle of it, an expression of joy. Urban popular musical traditions Urban popular music traditions have sprung up all over Africa. Local input mixed with Western elements (brass instruments, electric guitars, basic harmony, etc.) and Latin American rhythms give each style a unique sound. West Africa Highlife: A form of brass band music originating in Ghana that developed from the local Akan people performing local music on brass instruments with traditional percussion instruments. It further developed into dance band music with a Cuban rumba style. Key performer: E.T. Mensah. Palm wine music: Played on acoustic guitar accompanied by various percussion instruments, this urban working-class style served as a basis for juju music. Juju: Mixes electric guitars and amplified vocals with a large percussion section that includes sekere (rattle) and an hourglass-shaped talking drum. Pedal steel guitar and synthesizers are recent additions. Combines the traditional function of praise singing with social dancedrumming. Although Western harmonies are used, juju is organized around a series of interlocking ostinato parts (played by guitars and drums) and call-and-response singing. Key performers: Ebenezer Obey, King Sunny Ade. I.K. Dairo was a major juju star of the 1960s. At the height of popularity, his group, The Blue Spots, included nine members and instrumentation typical of bands at that time: guitar, talking drum, bongos, conga-like drums, claves, maracas, and agogo (double-bell); Dairo also atypically performed single-row button accordion sometimes instead of guitar. Listening Example I.K. Dairo and The Blue Spots, “Salome.” Recorded in Lagos, 1962. Textbook CD, track 17. After an accordion introduction, Dairo sings the text followed by a brief accordion solo (section A). The accordion then drops out for a new section (B). This section involves a percussion break in which the talking drum takes the lead playing verbal phrases that a unison vocal chorus
repeats. At approximately 1:39, the talking drummer plays a short vocal phrase that is immediately repeated by the chorus in call-and-response (X2), making the melodic (speech-song-like) quality of the talking drum particularly apparent. The B section ends with a bongo solo. Shortened accordion introduction and vocal material from the A section then comes back to conclude the piece creating an overall A B A’’ structure. In addition to the combination of Yoruba and Cuban instruments, the piece incorporates the “clave” rhythmic pattern of the Cuban son (played by the “rhythm sticks,” see Chapter 10) which has influenced cosmopolitan musics around the world. The text itself illustrates a combination of Yoruba and cosmopolitan elements: much of the text that Dairo sings falls squarely within the style of pop love songs; the texts drummed and sung in Section B, however, include Yoruba proverbs. Congo-Zaire Local likembe (mbira) dance music, accompanied by struck bottles and a drum, mixed with AfroCuban rumba is the basis of Congo-Zaire style. Acoustic and, later, electric guitars replaced the likembe. Organized around guitar ostinatos and improvised solos, a high, sweet singing style, and danceable rhythms, this style has widely influenced other African popular styles. Key performers: Franco and his band, O.K. Jazz, Docteur Nico, and Kanda Bongo Man. South Africa Syncretic choral styles (e.g., mbube, bombing, and isicathamiya) developed amid the dismal living conditions of rural African migrants who worked in cities and mines. These genres, which blended Western harmonies taught by missionaries with slow Zulu choral music characterized by multiple overlapping ostinatos, have been popularized on an international scale by groups such as Ladysmith Black Mambazo. In addition to vocal traditions, urban Black South African instrumental genres––such as “township jive” or mbaq’anga––blend electric guitars, bass, and trap set with accordions, violins, and penny whistles. Zimbabwe Zimbabwean guitar bands began to play local Shona music, including dance-drumming genres, mbira-based songs, and jit, in response to the social climate of the time. This original “neoindigenous” Zimbabwean guitar style continued to be refined throughout the 1980s. Thomas Mapfumo’s music is an example of the blending of indigenous African and cosmopolitan-popular musical elements. Mapfuno began his professional career in the 1960s playing cover versions of English and American rock and soul music, as well as some Shona village songs. Classical mbira pieces like “Nhemamusasa” are used as the basis for some of Mapfumo’’s pieces. Electric guitars might play the basic four-phrase kushaura ostinato as well as melodic lines that would be on the higher mbira keys; the electric bass plays the part of the lower mbira keys of the kushaura. In recent recordings, according to Mapfumo, the keyboard often plays the kutsinhira mbira part, and the mbiras divide these parts as they normally would. The drummer plays a rhythm on the high-hat that sounds like the hosho (gourd shakers) used to accompany the mbira, and Shona hand-clapping patterns and an actual hosho are also added. Mapfumo sings in Shona village style including the high, yodeling technique and low-pitched singing of vocables; he also sings traditional lyrics as well as texts of his own composition. Listening Example “Chitima Ndikature” (Excerpt), Performed by Thomas Mapfumo and The Blacks Unlimited. Textbook CD 2, track 18. This track is an example of Mapfumo’’s mature style, which features one electrified mbira
(bottle caps removed) along with electric guitar, keyboards, bass, drums, hosho, and congas along with two female vocalists. This piece is based in the classical mbira repertory using a 48-beat cycle (four 12-beat phrases) and is related to the “Nymaropa tune family.” Mapfumo uses indigenous Shona vocal techniques such as the singing of vocables with the lower lines of the mbira part. The allusive imagery of the sung poetry and its mosaic quality are also typical of indigenous Shona songs. Summary Sub-Saharan Africa is a huge area with many different societies, each with their own distinctive music; however, there are some common general musical characteristics and approaches that we can identify that pertain to many African societies African music favors ostinatos (repeated rhythmic and melodic cycles), polyphony (multiple melodic parts performing at once), and interlocking parts. Musical performance is often a communal participatory activity, and pieces often comprise a collection of melodic or rhythmic formulas that are subject to group variation and thus differ from one performance to another. Many musical performances accompany religious or civic rituals. Social structure and conditions influences music and performance; for example, the nomadic BaMbuti pygmies use fewer instruments and favor vocal performance. Those instruments that they do use tend to be smaller and lighter, fitting their traveling lifestyle. On the other hand, the Buganda kingdom, with a highly organized, centralized government, developed elaborate court music ensembles. Key instruments include lamellaphones (for example, the mbira), strings (the kora and kontingo), xylophones, trumpets, flutes, musical bows, and drums. During the 20th century, cosmopolitan musical influences from the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, and Asia have been incorporated into the African musical scene and have been combined with local styles and practices for the creation of new, vital African musical styles. Discussion Questions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.
Is there an equivalent to African interlocking in Western music, and how might it work? Is there an equivalent to African interlocking in an Asian music studied thus far, and how does it work? Why would Pygmy communal living bear an influence on vocal hocket? Why would Pygmy nomadic life prevent Pygmies from using many musical instruments? Why do the words of the jali have as much importance as writing? Are there equivalents to the jali in Western music, and what do they say? What semblance to the kora is there among Western string instruments, and is there a common well- spring? Does anything like African ostinato exist in Western musical performance, and how would it work? Does American popular music use drumming in the same manner as African drumming, or how is it different? What might befall an African court music tradition in the event of political insurrection, and how could it be guarded? How have traditional African musical instruments and styles survived in the rapidly changing world, and is this a good thing?
Recommended DVDs and Videos Discovering the Music of Africa, directed by Bernard Wilets; advisor, Sam Chianis. Video (22 min.).
Music and rhythms of Africa, especially Ghana, how they are used both as music and means of communication. Bells, rattles drums. Originally released on film in 1967. Atumpan: The Talking Drums of Ghana, filmed and directed by Mantle Hood (1964), (40 min.). Institute of Ethnomusicology, UCLA, in cooperation with African Studies Center, and School of Music and Drama. Institute of African Studies, University of Ghana. Documentary about Akan ceremonial drums and the different uses for each drum, who may use them, how they are made. African Drums: The Talking Drums of Techiman, directed by Christopher D. Roy; narrator, Kofi Sakyi, DVD-R (40 min.). Many African people speak tonal languages whose tonal patterns can be imitated by drums. Among the most famous of these people are the Akan-speaking peoples of Ghana, including the Asante, Fanti, and Bono people of the kingdom of Techiman. The DVD shows the drum ensemble of the Bono people of Techiman in the royal palace at the funeral of the late Omanhene, in February 2004. The drummers play a series of seven songs, which are repeated by both the senior, elder drummers, and by their young apprentices. Music of the Spirits: The Mbira Music of Stella Nekati-Chiweshe, filmed and directed by Ron and Ophera Hallis, (1989), (30 min.). Stella Nekati-Chiweshe, a woman of Zimbabwe, is a virtuoso of the mbira. Stella sings and plays, and speaks of her struggle to learn in a field dominated by men. She recounts political struggles and revolution. Ngoma Buntibe: Music of the Valley Tonga, Zimbabwe, filmed by Ron Hallis (2000), (7 min.). Ngoma Buntibe is the ceremonial music and dance of the Tonga people of northern Matabeleland, Zimbabwe. Ngoma Buntibe is performed on formal occasions and at funerals when the dancers follow the paths the deceased used to walk. The horn-whistles playing in hocket are from kudu and antelope, the drum membranes from elephant hide.
CHAPTER 8 THE MUSICAL CULTURE OF EUROPE Chapter 8, The Musical Culture of Europe, offers an ethnomusicological view of European music from its folk sources to their incorporation into nationalist styles. The first section illustrates the variety of music found in Vienna in any era, exhibited mainly by street musicians who were always a part of Viennese culture. Classical music enthusiasts regard Vienna as the capital of music, recognizing composers such as Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and Mahler, who, to the contrary, were not Viennese, but outsiders who came to Vienna for its musical diversity. Vienna was always musically diverse, providing musical opportunities for German, Hungarian, Slovak, Turkish, Italian, Spanish, and today, Andean folk musicians. Vienna’s diversity in representing folk music is why composers flocked there, to learn how to incorporate its music into compositions. Vienna’’s folk music made it the music capital. It offered many kinds of folk music. Outline Streets and Stages Staatsoper - The National, or “State,” Opera of Austria, serving the Habsburg court during the Austro-Hungarian Empire until World War I Gesellschaft für Musikfreunde - Society for the Friends of Music”: Institutional home to concert halls, archives, and artistic monuments that recognize the history of Austrian music While grand works were performed on the Viennese stage, folk musicians have always been performing in the streets and in bars. Work songs –– songs sung to accompany work, also sung by street vendors Heuriger –– an Austrian wine garden, which is often a site for traditional music Schrammelmusik –– urban folk music of Vienna, named after Johann and Josef Schrammel, two nineteenth-century musicians who made this style of “folklike” (volkstümlich) urban music famous and contributed to the compositions and performance practice of the tradition Volkstümlich –– “folklike” music of Central Europe, in which traditional folk and modern popular musics are often mixed Klezmer music –– Jewish instrumental musicians, active in social events and rites of passage in Eastern Europe prior to the Holocaust and revived in Europe and North America at the end of the twentieth century Ländler –– a slow Austrian rural dance in triple meter, often used for social rituals and courting Multicultural Europe Roma and Sinti –– the two largest groups of Gypsy communities in Europe. In spite of its popular usage, the term “Gypsy” is pejorative. Saami –– circumpolar peoples, living in northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, whose musical practices in Europe mix indigenous and modern sounds European Unity in Modern Europe Béla Bartók (1881-1945) –– Hungarian composer and folk music collector Parlando rubato –– a speech-like melody with much give-and-take in the rhythmic structure Pentatonicism –– melodic structure based on scales with five pitches, often revealing an historically early stage of folk-music style Speech islands –– “Sprachinseln”; the German-speaking cultural islands in Eastern Europe, given nationalist significance by Germany prior to World War II
Music in Peasant and Folk Societies Volkslied –– German for “folksong” of traditional European societies, included under this single term by the end of the eighteenth-century Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) –– a German folklorist who grew up in the Baltic area of Eastern Europe. He coined the term Volkslied, and the collection and study of folk music spread throughout Europe. The Individual and Society, Creativity and Community In the idealized folk society, all music theoretically belongs to the community. The total musical product depends on a group’s willingness to subsume individual identity into that of the ensemble. Tamburitza –– a string ensemble of southeastern Europe and the diasporas of ethnic and national groups from the Balkans String quartet - the ensemble of European chamber music that idealizes the social and musical equality of the modern era; it includes two violins, viola, violoncello German male choruses in the nineteenth century became a symbol for the power of nationalism embedded in and expressed by the Volk, the German people. Similarly, large choruses in socialist Eastern Europe during the second half of the twentieth century symbolized the achievement of the modern socialist state. Musical Instruments Musical instruments are symbols of the unity and distinctiveness of European musical life. Saz –– a lute-like instrument used widely in Turkish art music and spread throughout the region of southeastern Europe, into which the Ottoman Empire extended Hummel –– a dulcimer played widely throughout Sweden and associated historically with Swedish folk styles Gusle –– a bowed lap fiddle, played throughout southeastern Europe, especially to accompany narrative epic repertories Guslar –– a player of the bowed spike fiddle called the gusle, from Montenegro Minnesinger –– Medieval singer who often accompanied himself on the lute Musical Professionalism and Social Structure Periodic attempts to keep instruments out of Christian religious music are among the hallmarks of conservative religious movements. The Puritans, when they ascended to power in 1649, forming the English Commonwealth, inveighed against instruments in churches and ordered that organs be destroyed. Instrumentalists acquire the status of specialists and, very often, professionals. Broadside ballad –– a printed version of an English folksong, usually combining a wellknown melody with a topical text, printed on large sheets and sold inexpensively. The broadside composer is often anonymous. Eurovision Song Contest –– The largest popular-song contest in the world, established in 1956 by the European Broadcasting Union, and pitting national entries against each in an annual spectacle judged by telephone voting from the entering nations. Key Concepts for the Unit Music and History: Folk music has been seen as a means of revealing and articulating history in both musical and cultural ways. But the construction of history out of folk song styles has clear ideological and nationalistic implications. The historicization of national music, too, was a statement of identity serving political ends. Is the same strategy still used today? Folk music is periodically revitalized to highlight contemporary political issues.
Music in Peasant and Folk Societies: “Folk music” was an eighteenth-century concept, part of a larger intellectual movement that romanticized rural life. Music in Urban Society: Urbanization was on the increase during this period. “The folk” represented an earlier, more innocent era viewed through the fuzzy light of nostalgia by displaced city dwellers. In the city, there was an increasing tendency toward specialization of musicians: hereditary musical castes (Gypsies) and ascribed outsiders (Jewish musicians) were assigned the low status task of providing entertainment music to order. National Styles: More the result of politics than of a consistent and unified history, “national musics” may combine disparate styles and repertoires from different parts of a country, symbolizing a modern kind of unity. Concerts and the Virtuoso: Another legacy of the 19th century was the rise of virtuosity. The virtuoso became a celebrity for whom normal social mores were suspended. In many ways, the “Great Artist” was as much of a marginal person as the professional specialist, for whom normal mores were also relaxed: they were troublemakers, attractive lovers, and had the freedom to move around. Individual and Society: The idealized form of folk music is an aesthetic metaphor for community. In art music, the string quartet and chamber ensemble fill a similar role ––egalitarian–– in contrast to the symphony orchestra with its “urban” hierarchical structure and division of labor. Instruments: Compare the piano (the product of an industrial age which, during the colonial era in particular, became a symbol of the hegemony of European music), with the violin (now considered “indigenous” in many parts of the world, e.g., South India). The Eurovision Song Contest as a Metaphor for Modern Europe: The contest receives continent-wide coverage, although it includes some countries (such as Turkey, Egypt, Cyprus, and Israel) that are not European. Many different styles are offered, but the winner is always the blandest, most compromised sound, something felt to be generically “European.” Listening Skills Hearing the Folk in Classical and the Classical in Folk Music: Listening to classical music selections of any European classical or nationalist composer, including Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Sibelius, etc., students should be able to conceptualize the folk melodies in the art music context. On the other hand, listening to selections of European folk music, students should conceptualize how an art music composer would incorporate the melodies in the art music style. Timbre: Students should be able to hear the noticeable timbral differences between European folk instruments and their technologically developed counterparts for symphonic and chamber music works.
Chapter Section Summaries The many musics of Vienna History contains labels for musical styles that are distinctively Viennese such as “Viennese classicism,” “Viennese waltzes,” and even the “Second Viennese School” of avant-garde composers in the early twentieth century. But Viennese music also includes folk music. The historical view lies in the existence of a historical canon, a series of repertories created by composers who lived in Vienna because it provided ideal conditions for the creation and performance of music. Thus music symbolizes the unbroken and persistent history of the city. Another view of Viennese music concentrates not on the central core but rather on the periphery, on the tendency of Vienna to attract outsiders. Relatively few of the composers generally associated with Vienna were originally from the city or received their musical education there; Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Brahms, and Mahler were outsiders, and their biographies demonstrate vividly that being accepted as an insider was no easy task. Clearly, the modern street musicians are not so different from the pantheon of Viennese composers in their relation to the city: the outsider status of the Hungarian folk- singers or the Andean panpipe ensemble. A third view of Viennese music challenges the historical nature of the first two and poses what we might call postmodern arguments. According to this view, Vienna forms a sort of cultural backdrop that permits unexpected, even jarring, juxtapositions. There are, accordingly, certain conditions that foster Viennese musics at particular moments, but these are almost random. Such a view helps to explain why the old and the new, the classical and the avant-garde, opera and street music exist side by side. Vienna is no less important to the various juxtapositions because it provides a cultural template that encourages them. Listening Example Spanish Work Song: “La Trilla.” Textbook CD 2, track 19. This work song from the Andalusia region of Spain reveals many of the regions historical connections to the Muslim culture of North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Iberian Peninsula. The song itself would traditionally accompany grain threshing, and it therefore reflects periods of repetitive movement and repose. The bells that begin the example and keep a steady sense of rhythm and meter are here more stylized because of the nature of the recording in a studio, but originally they would have been attached to the animal assisting in the threshing. The alternation between speaking voice and singing voice determines the structure of the song itself. The speaking voice communicates more directly to animals assisting in the work, whereas the singing voice employs melisma, the extensive performance of melody that creates the feeling of arabesque in this example. We witness, then, a shift between speech and song, hence the threshold between the use of voice in music and communication that borders on music. Though used for a work song, the melody is very complex, showing a tendency to move between one mode, or collection of pitches, and another. 0:00 0:08 0:15 1:15 1:26 1:43 1:55
The song is ushered in by the bells accompanying the movement of work. Speaking initiates the song as communication between the worker and the animal. Melismatic singing begins, spinning out a long melody in discrete sections. Speech again returns, punctuating the sections of song and creating a sense of relief. Return to melismatic singing. Speech returns to punctuate. Return to melismatic singing.
2:25 2:33 2:45
Speech returns to punctuate. Return to melismatic singing, with evidence of approaching conclusion because of the brevity of the section. Communicative speech brings the song to its conclusion.
Listening Example Schrammelmusik “Das Wiener Fiakerlied” (“The Viennese Coachman’s Song”), composed by Gustav Pick, performed by Stewart Figa, baritone, and the New Budapest Orpheum Society, Philip Bohlman, Artistic Director. Textbook CD 2, track 20. “The Viennese Coachman’s Song” (1884) was the biggest hit from turn-of-the-century Vienna. The song tells a rags-to-riches tale of a simple coachman who was able to offer rides to the most prominent citizens of the day. The journeys in the song, therefore, follow the city streets, and they also map the cultural history of a changing world, one in which the coach would eventually become obsolete as Europe modernized. The song, too, crosses a border between folk styles –– it begins as a march from the country, and then the refrain is a waltz from the city. It uses urban dialects and the sounds of popular songs from the day, not unlike those that might have been flowing into and out of Strauss operettas and cabaret. Stewart Figa sings in a style with the German inflected by Yiddish, signifying the growing immigration of Jews from rural Eastern Europe into modern Vienna (the composer, Gustav Pick, was an example of such immigration). Figa’’s performance career ranges from his profession as a Jewish synagogue cantor to work on the Yiddish stage, and with the revival cabaret ensemble, the New Budapest Orpheum Society. 0:00 0:14 1:19 1:50 2:53 3:25 4:26
Introduction, cabaret-style band Verse one, in rural march style, evoking the horses that bear the coach The refrain begins, employing an urban waltz style Verse two begins Refrain of verse two Verse three begins, with the narrative bringing the coachman’’s life to a close Refrain of verse three
Multicultural Europe Individuals, most of the time, identify with the culture of the town, region, or nation in which they live, and with their regional musical style rather than with an abstract European unity. It has been characteristic of music in Europe that patterns of regional and cultural identity have remained especially pronounced, even as mass culture encroaches in the twenty-first century. The geographic area surrounding Lake Constance in Central Europe, for example, belongs to a single cultural area in which a single dialect of German is spoken, and its musical styles and repertories are related by a long history. This small area nevertheless includes parts of four nations (Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Liechtenstein). Even though the folk musics of Germany, Switzerland, and Austria are distinct at a national level, the Lake Constance region plays the decisive role in determining musical unity. The musical areas of Europe also result from groups of people who share a way of life and a distinctive music, even when these have little to do with national and political boundaries. Jewish, Saami, and Roma (Gypsy) music cultures in Europe, for example, are circumscribed primarily by boundaries that arise within these communities. Roma communities exist throughout Europe, having adapted to many different socioeconomic settings. Roma musicians have traditionally adapted to the
music in countries where they settled, often fulfilling specialized roles as performers in non-Roma society. This adaptability has not erased a distinctively Roma musical life. Bolstering that musical life have been the customs, languages, and social functions unique to the Roma community. It is not quite proper to speak of “Roma” culture as a homogeneous whole. Instead, we must always keep in mind the distinctive linguistic and cultural communities that make up the whole. If we were to generalize about the music of Roma and Sinti in Europe, we would need to take into consideration a process of negotiation between the community and the larger nation or cultural area of which it was a part. Listening Example “Khused” (Chassidic Dance), performed by Gheorghe Covaci, Sr., and Gheorghe Covaci, Jr., recorded by Rudolf Pietsch and Philip V. Bohlman, 23 February 1996, Vadu Izei, Romania. Textbook CD 2, track 21. The Roma musicians heard on this CD track borrow from Jewish styles and repertory previously performed by Jewish musicians in northern Romania. Two Roma musicians, a father and son renowned throughout the Transylvanian Carpathian Mountains near the Ukrainian border, perform a wedding dance from the Jewish repertory that had wide currency in Romania prior to the Holocaust. The dance itself is strophic, here with four verses, each increasing in tempo from its predecessor and revealing the generally ecstatic nature of the wedding celebrations of Chassidic Jews, observant communities following the spiritual traditions of the Baal Shem Tov, a rabbi from the eighteenth century. The Covacis play a violin and a guitar, mixing Roma styles (e.g., playing the guitar upright in the lap) with Romanian and Roma styles. These musicians reveal the ways in which earlier Jewish repertories have come to serve other ethnic communities in Eastern Europe, and they particularly illustrate the centuries-long exchange between Roma and Jewish neighbors. 0:00 0:36 1:05 1:36
Opening of verse 1 Verse 2 begins, already with tempo increase Verse 3, again with gradual increase Verse 4, increasingly ecstatic, with a sudden point of ending
European unity in modern Europe Hungarian and German folk-music scholars have created classification schemes that assert the historical presence and importance of folk musics. European folk music in general falls into repertories that have national, linguistic, or cultural designations, suggesting that those who describe these repertories feel that unity is fundamental to what folk music really is. Scholars in several countries have gone so far as to recognize patterns of unified history in their national folk musics. This is particularly evident in Hungarian and English folk music; but elsewhere, too, we encounter the belief that the music of the past is related to the music of the present. Folk music can reveal and articulate history in both musical and cultural (or, better, political and nationalistic) ways. The classification of Hungarian folk song is based on claims about whether musical style has been relatively unbroken since the time Hungarian people lived in Asia (old style) or whether it has absorbed influences from surrounding European peoples (new style; see chart below). Bela Bartók’’s collections of Hungarian folk song demonstrate the characteristics of the old style in every way. Comparison of Old and New Style Hungarian Folksong
Old style A five-note, or pentatonic, scale, in which no half- steps were found. Melodies or phrases that started high and ended lower. A melody in two halves, in which the second half repeated the first, only at the interval of the fifth lower. A steady rhythmic style Bartók called parlando (speechlike). Only Hungarian musical elements are heard. No influence of popular song or other “outside” genres.
New style Whereas pentatonic scales are occasionally found, more common are the so-called church modes or major mode. Melodies are repetitive, and they form arches rather than descending contours. Four-line verses like the following (A5 designates a phrase transposed a fifth higher); A A5 A5 A; A A5 B A; A B B A. Rhythm is not “speechlike” but rather “dancelike,” demonstrating what Bartók called tempo giusto. Non-Hungarian musical elements have been incorporated. The influence of popular song, particularly Hungarian popular genres from the nineteenth century, is evident.
Listening Example “The Owl Woman’s Ballad,” Kati Szvorák, singer, and Ferenc Kiss, Jew’’s Harp. Textbook CD 2, track 22. “The Owl Woman’s Ballad” is a clear example of the “Old Style” of Hungarian folk song. It has a four-line structure, ABAB, in which the contour of the B lines are similar to those of the A lines, only at an interval of the fifth lower. The slow tempo and elaborate style are characteristic of what Béla Bartók called parlando rubato, a speech-like melody with much give-and-take in the rhythmic structure. The words are clearly important, also because this is a ballad, in which a story is being told. 0:00 0:08 0:15 0:22 0:31 0:57
First verse begins, line A Line B, a transposition down a fifth, as in the “Old Style” Line A, as at the opening of the verse Line B concludes the verse Verse 2 begins, with the same form as verse 1 Verse 3 begins, but concludes after the A and B lines
One of the first things we notice when we compare the musical traits of the old and new styles is that there is much more flexibility in those traits recognized as “new.” To fulfill the requisites for old style is very difficult, but virtually any Hungarian song——folk, popular, or even religious—— fits into the new style. If the two are compared even further, we realize that, in certain ways, they are not so different. The transposition by fifths is as much old as it is new style, excluding the fact that a falling melody should somehow be older. Pentatonicism, too, is not excluded from the new style, and one might argue that the ornamentation in the old style has a tendency to fill in the gaps in its characteristic five-note scale. The Hungarian construction of history out of folk-song style has clear nationalistic implications, and these are important to understand as ideas about European music. Transposition by fifths was important to Bartók because it was quite rare in Western and Central European music, but more common in Central and East Asian traditions. A style of music that utilized transposition by fifths, therefore, proved that the integrity of the Hungarian people had been maintained to some measure, at least since they left Asia to settle in Europe. The close relation of the old style to speech (parlando) also reveals an attempt to link music to the uniqueness of Hungarian culture, because the
Hungarian language is not a member of the Indo-European family. Clearly, identifying songs in the old style provided a strong argument for Hungarian nationalism. Recognizing that songs in the new style had been influenced from the outside——that their rhythms were regularized and loosened from their connection to language——made an equally strong nationalistic appeal. Listening Example Béla Bartók: Two Duos from the 44 Violin Duos –– “Lullaby” and “Dance from Maramoros,” performed by Andrea F. Bohlman and Benjamin H. Bohlman. Recorded by Philip V. Bohlman. Textbook CD 2, track 23. These two violin duos illustrate the contrastive styles of Hungarian folk music, the parlando rubato style of “Lullaby” and the tempo giusto style of “Dance from Maramoros.” Parlando rubato is speech-like, and it follows the nuances of song and evokes in an instrumental piece the contours of language through embellishment. Clearly, a lullaby would be speech-like. A dance, in contrast, has a quick tempo that allows for rapid and coordinated movement on the dance floor. “Maramoros” is the Hungarian designation for Transylvania, which indicates that Bartók composed this dance to reflect characteristics of and Roma music. In the “Lullaby,” the two violins might represent a child and a parent at bedtime, one singing gently, the other declaiming forcefully that it might be time to go to sleep. In the “Dance from Maramoros,” the variety of string sounds in Hungarian folk music is clear, from the percussive sound of the second violin to the plucking of the same instrument toward the end of the brief dance. “Lullaby” 0:00 0:09 0:31 0:47 0:53
Solo voice, with gentle melody begins The other voice enters, showing firmness Dialogue, or conversation, begins between the two voices Gentleness increases in both voices The voices succumb to fatigue
“Dance from Maramoros” This dance is fast and through-composed, evoking the sound of an Hungarian string band. Music in peasant and folk societies European ideas about music have a great deal to do with shared historical experiences and the ways these experiences have formed modern European societies. Early in European history, social relations were relatively undifferentiated and rural, and yet a common culture——consisting of language, folklore, and belief system——provided cohesion. Music played a role in expressing the common culture of a people, because it was in a language shared by the people and was a part of their daily lives and rituals. Music was thought to be inseparable from the essence of a culture. As such, it could express the culture’’s past, share traits of a language, and articulate religious belief. In doing so, music differentiated one society from another on the basis of national, regional, and linguistic styles. This type of music is “folk music.” Folk music is a particularly European concept. Johann Gottfried Herder, a German, who grew up in the Baltic area of Eastern Europe, coined the term Volkslied in the late eighteenth century, and the collection and study of folk music spread throughout Europe by the end of the nineteenth century. The gap between a village folk song and a symphonic poem using it was great, but it is significant for our consideration of European music that folklorists, composers, and many other intellectuals found it vital to bridge that gap.
Listening Example “Black Is,” performed by Anish (Ned Folkerth, Aileen Dillane, Kevin Moran, Aidan O’’Toole, Brendan Bulger). Textbook CD 2, track 24. In this contemporary version of “Black Is the Color of My True Love’’s Hair,” folk music and popular music interact in complex ways. The text of the lyrical song is well known in Irish American traditions, and it has circulated through various folk and even country music versions. 0:00 0:35 2:21 2:57 4:16
Introduction, with instruments entering to add new layers and dimensions First verse of “Black Is the Color of My True Love’’s Hair” begins, followed by multiple verses Instrumental interlude, with traditional and more contemporary improvisation Return of “Black Is the Color of My True Love’’s Hair” Final vocal riffing on “Oh, I love the ground whereon she stands”
Music and religion Folk music that accompanies ritual or that embodies spiritual themes is overwhelmingly religious in many communities. A harvest or wedding song, for example, may articulate a community’’s most fundamental sacred beliefs. Not only are Norwegian folk songs predominantly religious in thematic content, but many are actually variants of hymns that have entered oral tradition. Religious pilgrimages have generated new songs and formed new communities that give these songs special meaning and function. During the Cold War, religious music became a primary voice for resistance, especially in Eastern Europe. In the political transition in Eastern Europe, the music of pilgrimage has mobilized villages and nations alike as they sought new identities in shared religious experience. Concerts Concerts have become a form of musical ritual particularly suited to modern Europe. Some concerts may preserve one type of musical ritual, while others become the moment for radical innovation. The European concert empowers musicians to re-contextualize music, to bring rural folk music to the streets of the city, or to relocate sacred music in a public auditorium. Though an idea shared by all Europeans, the concert has nevertheless remained one of the major sources of musical diversity in modern times. Concerts inevitably shift a certain degree of attention to the performer as a result of splitting musical participation into the two groups of music makers and audience. The performer acquires importance because of the skill he or she possesses and the role the audience wants the performer to play. Virtuosity often becomes one of the markers of this role, and outstanding musicians become extremely important in European ideas about music. Listening Example “Steirischer mit Gestanzln” (“Dance from Styria, with Stanzas”), performed by Die Tanzgeiger (“The Dance Fiddlers”). Textbook CD 3, track 1. Performed by Austria’’s premier folk-music ensemble, “The Dance Fiddlers,” this dance moves across the cultural landscape of Austria and its changing history. The dance starts in Styria, the mountainous area with Graz as its provincial capital, and it eventually ends up in modern Vienna, the cosmopolitan world of the capital on the Danube. A “Steirischer,” or “Styrian,” is in this case a Ländler, a slow rural dance in triple meter, often used for social rituals and courting. Once the waltz
begins about one third of the way through the dance, the style changes. A “Gstanzln” is a style of improvisatory verses, punctuated by instrumental interludes. There is much humor in the verses, actually a kind of jousting between the singers, each one trying to show that he is cleverer than his predecessor. 0:00 0:10 1:00 1:17 1:26 1:32 1:40 1:48 1:56 2:03 2:11 2:18 2:27 2:33 2:45
Introduction Ländler, slow dance in triple meter Waltz begins, a fast dance in triple meter The first vocal stanza enters Instrumental interlude Second vocal stanza enters, responding to the first Instrumental interlude Third vocal stanza Instrumental interlude Fourth vocal stanza Instrumental interlude Fifth vocal stanza, nonsense text of counting forward and backward Instrumental interlude Sixth vocal stanza, with joke about the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl Final instrumental part
Folk instruments Musical instruments have long served as some of the most commonly employed criteria for classifying music. Folk instruments were constructed within the society or community where the particular musical repertory was performed. In the idealized folk society of Europe, an instrument is somehow the extension of the individual musician yet a marker of the community’’s musical identity. It is a specific product that we should be able to trace to its maker and the particular roles it plays in a given community. Listening Example Epic Song from Montenegro: “Tzarina Milica und Duke Vladeta,” Boro Roganovic, gusle player, recorded by Philip V. Bohlman. Textbook CD 3, track 2. The Montenegrin guslar –– a player of the bowed spike fiddle, called the gusle –– performs a traditional Balkan epic song from the Kosovo Cycle. The songs in this cycle move between oral and written traditions, and they describe, in a series of different accounts about historical events, the struggle between the Ottoman Empire and Christians for southeastern Europe. The style of the song is typical of an epic song, with single lines of melody unfolding one after the other. The guslar performs this song more or less as he has his entire life, but he also introduces elements of improvisation, especially when accompanying himself. After a brief gusle solo, the singer begins at approximately 0:30, and then continues through a series of melodic variations until the song ends at approximately 6:28. This is relatively short for this type of epic song, which can extend as long as necessary to tell a story. When Instruments Tell Stories Europeans tend to anthropomorphize instruments and regard them as music makers with human qualities. We refer to the parts of an instrumental piece as its “voices,” and it is fairly common
to relate these directly to human vocal ranges. Europeans, like peoples throughout the world, ascribe human qualities to instruments (think of how many instruments have “necks,” that part of the human body in which the vocal cords are located) and decorate instruments with human or animal figurations. Instruments become the musician’’s partner in music making, and they often assist in telling a story, which is one of the functions that makes them humanlike. Musical Instruments in an Industrial Age No instrument symbolizes the impact of technology on European musical instruments as fully as the piano. Invented at the beginning of the eighteenth century in Italy, piano makers transformed the direct striking or plucking action of the clavichord and harpsichord into a more powerful action by employing a series of levers connected by joints. The piano’’s new design not only allowed for a broader palette of sound colors, but made it possible for the piano to dominate the other instruments with which it was played. As the piano grew larger, so did its sound; as its machinery grew more complicated, the factories that manufactured it became more sophisticated and efficient. The technology to create pianos kept pace with the demand for an instrument that had its own solo repertory and a role in many other repertories. The piano both appeared on the stage of the largest concert hall and stood in the parlor of the bourgeois home. History and Social Structure in European Musical Life Few modern scholars accept the notion that a folk song or any other form of popular music came into existence simply because of the will and collective action of the community. Instead, an individual, usually a musician with some specialized role in the musical life of the community, creates a piece of music, “composes” it, and establishes its position in a particular music history. English folk songs might begin their history in oral tradition by first being printed on a broadside and sold on the street, largely to earn profit for the composer, printer, and hawker. The broadside ballad, which often appeals because it captures the news of the moment, is only possible if it embodies certain aspects of the community’’s mentalité and relies on the community’’s knowledge of common melodies, yet it is the individual who composes these relations in the ballad. Summary European music is a complex combination of different musical styles, created by many different peoples. Music is used by various European countries as a mean of defining themselves and creating a unified culture. The story of Europe’s music is closely related to its history. European folk music is often associated with a specific cultural group or regional area. Urbanization, beginning in the Middle Ages, introduced a wider variety of musics and musical instruments to performers and audiences. The formal concert developed in Europe as the primary way of hearing musical performance, with set rules_for both_the performers and the audience. As industrializaôion spread through Eur/pe beginning iN0the 18th century, new instrumeNts were invented—notably the piano—that revolutionized how music was performed. The Eurovision Song CoNtest is an annual event that reflects both the tensions between local and international musical styles, and underscores the diversity in European music today. Discussion Questions
1. 2. 3.
How can we compare a multicultural urban musical environment such as New York, London, or Chicago to Vienna? What can we classify aS the folk music of our country, and hoW have nationalist cOmposers incorporated it into their compositions? What types of music migHt we find in ouR society which are COmmunal and egalitarian, as are folk music types of Europe?
Recomme.ded DVDS or Vide/s JVC Video Anthology Of World_Music and Dance, Europe ReGIonal SeT. Produced by IChikawa KatsumorI, EnglIsh languAge versIon in collaboration witH Smithsonian/Folkways Recordings, distributed by Rounder Records (1990).
CHAPTER 9 MUSIC IN LATIN AMERICA Music in Latin America is extremely diverse. Centuries of colonial interactions produced a range of hybrid cultures. European (predominantly Spanish,but in Brazil Portuguese) musical Traits aRe incorporated with Native technology and expresSion. Folk vErsions of the violin and guitar are widespread, and the musical sound is distinctly mestizo. (Mestizos are Latin American people oF mixed European and Native ancestry or culture.). Although in the past used as a racial category, it now more accurately denotes the variable incorporation of Iberian (Spanish and Portuguese) and indigenous cultural heritages. Outline An Andean Mestizo Festival in Paucartambo, Peru Cuzco –– the ancient capital of the Incas Chunchos –– music played on flutes and drums Kena –– an end-notched flute Wayno, or huayno –– the most widespread Andean mestizo song-dance genre in Peru, alsoperformed by some indigenous musicians. The song texts are strophic and the tunes comprise short sections in forms such as AABB. Waynos are in duple meter with a rhythmic feel varying between an eighth-and-two-sixteen-note figure and an eighth-note triplet. Orquesta tipica –– a mixed ensemble of European instruments and indigenous Andean flutes Sociocultural Heritages Pre-Columbian states of the Aztecs and Mayas of Mesoamerica, and the Incas of the Andes. Colonialism and Catholicism brought by Iberian culture (Spanish and Portuguese). Africans brought as slaves and escaped. Candomblé –– an Afro-Brazilian religion involving Christianity and West African religious beliefs and musical practices Mestizo Musical Values Marimba –– wooden keyed xylophone, originally from Africa, widely popular in Latin America, still played on the Pacific coast of Columbia and Ecuador Missionaries brought stringed instruments. Parallel thirds –– the interval from do to mi; or sixths, do to la Strophic form –– music that stays the same while lyrics change from stanza to stanza Copla –– a four octosyllabic-line stanza Latin America has more unique variants of the guitar than any other region on earth. In the twentieth century, the diatonic button accordions became played. Sesquialtera - the combination/juxtaposition of duple and triple rhythmic patterns, both simultaneously in different instrumental parts, or sequentially in the same part; also called hemiola. Sesquialtera is used in Peruvian marinera and yaraví, Venezuelan joropo, Mexican son, Chilean and Bolivian cueca, Argentine zamba, Bolivian and Argentina triste. Marinera –– mestizo song-dance genre of Peru in sesquialtera rhythm Yaraví –– a slow, sad, lyrical mestizo song genre from Peru Jarocho ensemble –– a musical group from the rural, southern coastal region of Veracruz state. It includes a large diatonic harp, a 4-string guitar (requinto), and one or more jaranas (a small guitar with 8 strings). Son –– Mexico’’s most important song-dance genre, a strophic song usually on romantic themes and in many regions characterized by sesquialtera rhythm.
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Huasteco ensemble –– A Mexican group hailing from Northern Veracruz and Tamaulipas state, featuring violin accompanied by two types of guitars. Huapanguera –– a guitar variant, larger than a guitar, and with eight strings Mariachi –– an ensemble type originally from Jalisco, Mexico consisting of two or more violins, vihuela, guitarrón, two trumpets, and various guitars. Vihuela - a small five-string guitar variant with a convex back, used for percussive strumming Guitarrón –– a large acoustic bass guitar with a convex back Conjunto norteños: a popular dance band type originally associated with northern Mexicoand southern Texas, featuring three-row button accordion, bajo sexto (12-string guitar), bass and drums Charango –– an Andean ten-string guitar variant smaller than the guitar
Native American Musical Values Aymara and Quechua –– languages of southern Peru Siku –– panpipes Kena –– end-notched flute Pinkillu and tarka –– cane vertical duct flutes with a recorder-like mouthpiece Pitu –– side-blown cane flute Wankara or bombos –– large double-headed drums Caja –– large indigenous Aymara snare drum Suyá –– a Native American people of the Brazilian Amazon with an egalitarian society Akia –– Suyá simultaneous song singing along with shouts, laughter, and other vocal sound Cacophony –– a Western word that means “bad sounding” African American musical values Marimba playing, single-headed and conical drums, interlocking parts, ostinato with improvised variation Berimbau –– a percussive mu_icaL bow diffusEd tO the AmeRicas from Africa Marímbula –– a large box lamellaphone Papai benta –– a lamellaphone of Surinam Orixas –– deities hailing from the Yoruba reliGIon of Nigeréa AGogó –– West African styled double-bell Atabaques –– a trio of dÉfferent-sized single-headed drums Surdo –– largå bass drum PandEiro –– tambourine TAmborím –– a small hand-held drum played with a Single Stick Reco-reÃo –– a metal spRing scraper Cuíca –– a friction drum CavaquinHO –– a small foUr-strinG guitar Key Concepts for the Chapter SocioCultural HeritaGe: Three major sociocultural heritages have combined to different degrees in Different areAs to creáte_the conTemporary situation: Indigenous AmerIndian traditions. Differentiated according to lowland Amazonian and highland Andean groups. Iberian TraditiOns of Spain ánd PortUgal. Transplanted during thE colonIal era And dIfferentIated according to social class: crIollos (New World-born Spanish or Portuguese) form an elite s_cial group, whIle mEstizos (those of mixed racE are lower claSS. African traditioNs. BRought by slaves during the colonial era and still
ConceNtrated in coastal areas. Relationship between Musical and Social Values: Relatively eGalitarian coMmunIties prefer music With equal participation among membeRs, opposed to hiErarchical communities that pref%r music with solo and lead parts. Use of Music to Construct and Express Social Identity: This is a universal phenomenon, but deeper listening reveals that the polyrhythms are not as complex as the African examples. Typical Latin American instruments Indigenous (Pre-Columbian): Teponaztli and tunkul (slit drums), huehuetl (single-headed drum), siku (panpipes), flutes, such as kena (end-notched), pinkly (side-blown), and tarka (duct); and wakrapuku (conch shell trumpet) European: Diatonic harp; violin; Spanish guitar and local subtypes such as charango (Peruvian/Bolivian, small body, five groups of strings, and a round or flat back), vihuela (Mexican, small body, five strings, and a convex back), huapanguera (Mexican, eight strings in five courses), jarana (Mexican, small body, five strings), guitarrón (Mexican, large four or five string bass guitar with a round back), cuatro (Venezuelan, small body, four strings), tiple (Colombian, four courses of three strings each) and viola (Brazilian, five strings in double courses); and accordion (piano and button) African: Marimba (southern Mexico and Central America) drums, percussion instruments, musical bow, and lamellaphone Chapter Section Summaries Mestizo musical values and musical styles: Paucartambo, Peru The term “mestizo” is a relative concept that includes a blending of European with local Native American (and in some cases, African) cultural heritages and worldviews. The fiesta in Paucartambo celebrates the Virgin Mary, a Catholic saint, but one whose significance is derived through syncretism with Pachamama, the Inca Earth Mother. Costumed dance groups tell the story, each group representing a particular class of characters. Chunchos, the “good guys,” are pitted against all possible types of outsiders––Qollas (uncivilized traders, the main enemy), Saqras (devils, the Spanish colonists), Doctores (lawyers/government officials), Negros (black slaves), Chilenos (Chileans), Chuk’’chus (malaria carriers from the jungle), Majeños (liquor traders from the city), and even hippie, camera-toting tourists. During the fiesta, the world is turned upside down and oppressors can be ridiculed. The reversible nature of the world is emphasized by the Maqtas, clowns, who serve as policemen during the fiesta. Each dance group at the fiesta is accompanied by its own band, which plays music from an established repertoire. There are three types of ensemble: European-style brass bands, indigenous preColumbian ensembles of side-blown flutes and drums, and orquestas típicas, which combine European and pre-Hispanic instruments, e.g., diatonic harps, violins, kenas, drums, and accordions. Together they underline the coexistence and mixing of European and indigenous traditions. The musical style, too, combines traditions: European triadic harmonies are mixed with Andean syncopated rhythms and styles of instrumental performance (including a dense, breathy tone quality on the flute).
Listening Examples Traditional Dance, Chunchos of Paucartambo. Textbook CD 3, track 3. Two wooden transverse flutes, snare/bass drums, recorded by Thomas Turino This dance tune is played by two flutes in a loose heterophonic texture. The melody consists of two parts, a short A part (lasting about 6 seconds), and a B part (lasting about four seconds) played twice. The drums repeat a simple rhythmic accompaniment throughout the performance. 0:00 0:07 0:15 0:21 0:29 0:35
A part B part 2X A part B part 2X A part B part 2X, etc.
Traditional dance and song: “Qollas Despedida.” Textbook CD 3, track 4. Qollas of Paucartambo: Two metal kenas (flutes), violin, mandolin, harp, accordion, drum, recorded by Thomas Turino. This syncopated five-note melody is carried by the violins, kenas, mandolin, and accordion to produce a densely blended timbral quality. After the upward leap in the opening phrase, it has a descending melody (moving from higher to lower pitches), common in both mestizo and indigenous Andean music. The song is strophic with six lines per stanza, and has three short melodic sections in AA BB B' B' form. The A and B sections each comprise two melodic phrases (A = a, b; B = c, d), each phrase with its own line of text. The B' section, consists of melodic phrase d and the text lines “Ay Señorallay” (d), “Ay Ñuest’’allay” (d), serving as a repeated melodic-text refrain at the end of each stanza. In this performance, the dancers sing as a unison chorus and their vocal renditions of the entire (AABBB’’B’’) form is alternated with an instrumental rendition of the melody. Songs sung to the Virgin by the Qollas and other dance groups are in Spanish, the indigenous Quechua language, or, as in this performance, both, and thus clearly illustrate the blending of European and indigenous cultures that defines Andean mestizo identity generally. 0:00 0:04 0:09 0:11 0:13 0:15 0:17 0:32 0:48 0:52 0:56 0:59 1:01
Instrumental Ensemble: A Instrumental Ensemble: A Instrumental Ensemble: B Instrumental Ensemble: B Instrumental Ensemble: B’’ Instrumental Ensemble: B’’ Vocal Chorus: AA BB B’’B’’, text in Quechua Instrumental Ensemble: AA BB B’’B’’ Vocal Chorus (stanza two): A: (a) Adiós Adiós (Goodbye, goodbye) (b) Compañeros míos (Companions of mine) A: (a) Adiós Adiós (Goodbye, goodbye) (b) Compañeros míos (Companions of mine) B: (c) Hasta el año (Until the year) (d) Del tres mil (Until the year 3000) B: (c) Hasta el año (Until the year) (d) Del tres mil (Until the year 3000) B’’ (d): Ah Señorallay (Oh my lady! referring to the Virgin )
1:03 1:05 1:21
B’’ (d): Ay Ñust’’allay (Oh my princess!) Vocal Chorus repeats stanza two and AA BB B’’B’’ form Instrumental Ensemble: AA BB B’’B’’
Popular Wayno (Huayno) Music from Peru La Pastorita Huaracina (Maria Alvarado), “Quisiera Olvidarte.” Textbook CD 3, track 5. This classic recording was a hit record in Peru and is representative of the commercial wayno music that gained tremendous popularity in the 1950s and 1960s. Ms. Alvarado, a long-time resident of Lima, is accompanied by a string band in the style of her native highland department of Ancash; the group is comprised of several guitars, mandolins, violins, and accordion. This is a strophic song in AA BB form, with an animated closing section known as fuga (labeled section C, melodic phrases e and f). As in the Qollas’’ song, each section is comprised of two short phrases: A = a, b; B= c, d, each phrase with its own text line. Note the quick high vocal ornaments (e.g., on the words “he podido” and “maldito” so characteristic of highland women singers. Note also the humorous insults hurled at her lover in the final lines of the fuga. Mestizo musical values and musical styles: Veracruz, Mexico In Mexico, mestizo son styles have strong regional identities. Many of these styles may be heard in cities like Veracruz, performed by ambulantes (strolling musicians) who frequent local outdoor cafés. The son is a song-dance genre that combines 3/4 and 6/8 meters (both simultaneously and sequentially) and is played in a relatively fast tempo. Texts are often strophic, using coplas (fourline stanzas), instrumental introductions, interludes, and conclusions. Son Jarocho: Associated with the rural southern coastal region of Veracruz. The main distinguishing features are the ensemble (voices, harp, and two guitar-type instruments called jarana and requinto), a recurring harmonic/rhythmic bass pattern (compas) that uses I, IV, and V chords, and solo-chorus vocals. Typically pieces begin with an instrumental introduction in which the harp starts alone, is joined by the plucked requinto, and finally by the strummed jarana. “La Bamba” is a wellknown example of the son Jarocho. Son Huasteco: A regional style from the northern Veracruz area. Distinguished by the strumming patterns of guitar-type instruments (jarana and huapanguera), use of violin, and falsetto singing. Also typical is the alternation of singers: often the first half of a verse is repeated by a second singer before the last half is completed by the first singer. Mariachi: Mariachi began as a string band style from the Jalisco region of western Mexico. Riding the wave of post-revolution Mexican nationalism (after 1910) and taken up by the mass media in the 1930s, mariachi was adopted as a Pan-Mexican style. The ensemble was enlarged, trumpets were added, and performers began to wear Mexican charro (cowboy) outfits with large sombreros. The distinguishing feature in the ensemble is its violins, trumpets, and guitar-type instruments of various sizes. Listening Example Son Huasteca: “El Gustito.” Textbook CD 3, track 6. Performed by Los Caporales de Pamco Instrumentation: violin, guitarra quinta (or huapanguera),
jarana huasteca (smaller guitar), and vocals. The violinist is at the center of the ensemble, playing richly with powerful, syncopated rhythmic bowing, slides and other ornaments, double stops (bowing two strings at once) and extremely quick finger work. The vocals are traded back and forth between the two lead singers, who frequently use falsetto singing to create an exciting effect that distinguishes this style from jarocho and other regional son styles. 0:00 0:21 0:30 0:40 0:50 1:08 1:18 1:28 1:38 1:56 2:05 2:15 2:24
Brief violin intro, and then (at 0:04) the guitars enter. Listen as the violin skitters over the accompaniment, playing short phrases that cut across the regular strummed rhythm. Listen also for the yodeled interjection at about 0:10. Singer 1, verse 1 Singer 2, repeats verse 1, with many ornamented yodels Singer 1, verse 2 Instrumental section in which the violin takes the lead Singer 1, verse 3 Singer 2, repeats verse 3 Singer 1 verse 4 Instrumental section Singer 1, verse 5 Singer 2 responds repeating verse 5 Singer 1, verse 6 Final instrumental; ends abruptly with final chords at 2:37
Native American musical values and musical styles: Aymara of Southern Peru The Aymara of Huancané Province have a collective orientation to social life. Central values such as communal solidarity and reciprocity, egalitarian relations, etc., order their world. Their ideas about music and performance are based on the same principles. Aymara music is played for public communal festivals by large community wind ensembles (ranging from 12 to 50 members), comprising either panpipes or vertical flutes, accompanied by drums. A fixed hierarchy within an ensemble is absent, and equal access to musical experience, as well as the maintenance of amicable community relations, is more important than individual musical ability or the overall quality of a performance. The ideal of “playing as one,” and not standing out from the dense texture, is important in a culture in which individuals do not want to be singled out in social situations. Listening Example Panpipe Music: Aymara panpipe ensemble: “Manuelita.” Performed by Sikuris Centro Social de Conima, 24 sikus (panpipes) of six different sizes; 2 bombos (drums); recorded by Thomas Turino in Lima, Peru, June 1986. Textbook CD 3, track 7. Even in construction, panpipes are reflective of cooperative values within Aymara society. It takes two people to play a melody because the scale is split between two panpipes (one partner has only odd numbered scale degrees, the other has even numbered scale degrees). The dislike of standing out from the crowd is reflected in the number of players in a group and in the way partners overlap their pitches, so that there is never a gap in the sound. Structurally, the music is comprised of three sections, which are repeated (AABBCC) ad infinitum. However, these melodies all have a formulaic quality; there are only minor variations between each section (basically only the opening of each section changes).
This sikuri piece is a slow piece in a genre simply referred to as “lento” (slow). The long-held chords at the beginning of the piece and at section endings are typical of all pieces in this genre. Note that this cadence formula is heard at the end of all sections except the second B and between the two C sections. The accented strokes of the drumming pattern are designed to fit with the melody. Note the overlapping and blending of instruments to create a dense texture. 0:01 0:03 0:14 0:24 0:35 0:44 0:52 1:01 1:12 1:23 1:33 1:43 1:51 2:00
Long-held chord, a standard introduction for the “lento” genre A section A section B section B section C section C section A section A section B section B section C section C section A section, etc.
Native American musical values and musical styles: Suyá of Brazil The Suyá, an Amazonian Indian group with a vocal music culture, maintain a collective style of musical performance at feasts. They have a repertoire of songs (ngre), which blends unison voices. However, they also maintain a repertoire of individually owned songs (akia), which are “shout songs” performed by a numerous of individuals simultaneously juxtaposed. While the resultant sound creates a mixed texture that may be called cacophony in the West, it reflects different conception of the relationship of an individual to the community, the environment, and the cosmos. Recommended Reading Anthony Seeger, Why Suyá Sing: A Musical Anthropology of an Amazonian People (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). African American musical values and musical styles: Ecuador and Colombia Many African musical principles are maintained in African American communities of Latin America: cyclical forms, call-and-response, interlocking melodic and percussion parts, and an appreciation of overlapping textures. Many African instruments are employed, featured in the currulao. The currulao is a popular communal dance of Ecuador and Colombia’’s Pacific coast, wherein men and women court. Listening Example Marimba dance: “Currulao Bambuco.” Two-person marimba, drums, shakers, male and female vocals; recorded by N. E. Whitten. Textbook CD 3, track 8. African influences can be heard on this recording. The marimbas instruments play interlocking duple and triple rhythms; vocal parts are organized in leader-chorus/call-and-response patterns; melodies and rhythms are based on short, repetitive phrases (ostinatos); and the vocal style features yodeling and other vocal sounds. The primary ostinato on which this piece is grounded is
supplied by the marimba which, with some variations, continues throughout the performance. As the performance progresses, a female singer takes over from the male. 0:00 0:04 0:16 0:21 0:32 0:44 0:57 1:03 1:14 1:29 1:45 2:15 2:37 2:52
Fade up; the marimba supplies the basic ostinato: two short six-beat phrases (in 6/8 meter) while the shakers emphasize a triple pattern. Male lead vocalist enters; female chorus responds. The male leader often uses a falsetto voice. Instrumental section Male lead singer, female chorus responds at 0:28 Instrumental Male lead singer, women respond at 0:48 Instrumental Male-call and female-response patterns become shorter. A new melodic motif is sung by the women in yodeling style. Female lead vocalist sings a phrase, with the female chorus quickly responding with the yodeled motif. Yodeled motif repeated by female vocalists with some subtle individual variations. Female lead singer re-enters and is answered by the female chorus with the yodeled motif in call-and-response. Female chorus yodeled motif repeated. Female singer adds a new variation over the rest of the female chorus, track fades out.
Recommended Listening Afro-Hispanic Music from Western Colombia and Ecuador. Folkways FE 4376. African American musical values and musical styles: Brazil West African-derived musical styles, concepts, and instruments are found in Brazilian candomblé, as in Caribbean (vodoun, santeria, etc.). In Gege-Nago (“Gege,” a term for Ewe in Brazil; “Nago” for Yoruba), the most “African” candomblé cult of Bahía, northeastern Brazil, music and dance is fundamental to the worship of traditional Yoruba deities (orixas). Hours of chanting and incessant drumming by a trio of atabaque (single-headed drums of varying size played with curved sticks) and agogo (double bell) are used to induce hypnotic trance states in initiates. While in trance, initiates (often women) are possessed by particular orixas. The bell plays an ostinato pattern as a time line, the two smaller drums play interlocking ostinatos, and the largest (or “mother” drum), adds improvised patterns to interact with the dancers. Yoruba texts are used but no longer understood. Candomblé activities are organized within “cult houses,” which have individual social and religious hierarchies. Other candomblé cults in the Bahía region demonstrate varying levels of acculturation. The most hybrid cult, called caboclo (“Indian”), includes indigenous and/or Iberian elements and Portuguese texts. Congo-Angola-style cults lie somewhere in the middle in terms being hybrid, maintaining many African elements, but playing drums with the hands. In hybrid cults, candomblé deities are often equated with Christian figures: e.g., Ogun (the god of war) is called St. Anthony; Oxossi (the god of the hunt), St. George; and Oxala (the chief deity), Jesus. Gege-Nago-style candomblé music. From In Praise of Oxala and Other Gods: Black Music of South America. Nonesuch, H-72036, A/6. The candomblé ensemble (agogo and three atabaques), with its repeated ostinato patterns and call-and-response figures (employing male soloist and female chorus), are typically African.
According to the liner notes, the women dance in a circle for many hours. One by one they go into trance, each one manifesting a trait of the orixa who has possessed her. Helpers assist entranced women from the room and provide them with clothing and insignia sacred to the deity––for Ogun, a sword; for Oxossi, a bow and arrow; for Oxala, a shepherd’’s staff with small bells. Thus attired, the initiates return to the ceremony and perform dances characteristic to the particular orixa. Hours later, as the ceremony draws to a close, the deities withdraw and the initiates return to their normal state. Caboclo-style candomblé music. “Ogun Beira-Mar.” From Amazonia: Cult Music of Northern Brazil. Lyrichord LLST 7300, B/3. From a hybrid candomblé cult called umbanda that is rapidly spreading through urban areas of Brazil, the song, addressed to Ogun, is sung in Portuguese to an Iberian melody. The JVC Video Anthology of World Music and Dance, 28/9 includes a six-minute clip of highlights from a somewhat hybrid candomblé tradition. Notice that drums are played with the hands and there are eclectic Christian icons on the walls of the candomblé house. The excerpt shows both parts of the performance: first, the invocation to the deities and the dancing of initiates leading to the possibility of possession; and later, the part where possessed members are taken into another room and dressed in the costumes of their deities. Urban popular music Rumba-guaguanco –– Cuban genre, performed by a lead singer accompanied by drums and rhythm sticks. There are two main sections, an initial verse and chorus section followed by a call-andresponse section. Son –– Cuban genre with similar two-part format. The ensemble, comprising tres (a small guitar), piano, bass, trumpets and other wind, and Cuban percussion had international impact in the 1940s and 1950s. Basis of modern salsa style. Samba –– Urban Brazilian African-derived genre connected with Carnival. The huge percussion section, which includes surdo (bass drum), agogo, tamborim (small hand-held drum), pandeiro (tambourine), reco-reco (metal spring scraper), and cuica (friction drum), plays interlocking parts. Sung in call-and-response style. Bossa nova –– Brazilian guitar-based style maintains syncopated accompaniment patterns of samba but includes more elaborate harmonic schemes. Understated vocal style and sophisticated texts appealed to a middle- and upper-class audience. Cumbia –– Afro-Colombian-derived genre traditionally played with either a side-blown reed instrument (pito) or vertical duct flute (gaita). By the 1960s, cumbia was performed by accordions or urban dance bands throughout Latin America and southern Texas. Characterized by interlocking rhythmic parts. Chicha –– Also known as cumbia andina. An example of the amalgamation of widely disparate musical resources within an urban popular style and of the use of music to construct and express social identity by children of Andean migrants to Lima. The ensemble includes electric guitars, bass, organ/synthesizer, and percussion (guiro and Cuban timbales). Chicha paints a musical portrait of these children, mixing Andean elements (wayno), urban popular music (cumbia), and Western rock (instrumentation). Summary
The Latin American continent encompasses many different types of societies, each with their own musical traditions. Mestizo cultures—the mixing of Spanish or Portuguese and Native Latin American lifeways—have become a common denominator influencing many forms of Latin American music. In each country or region, different combinations of European and Native influences occurred, with one or the other being more or less predominant. Mestizo music is characterized by European scales and harmonies; strophic song forms (the melody of each verse is the same, but the words change), and complex rhythms created by playing duple (2 or 4 beat) and triple (3 beat) rhythms sequentially and simultaneously. The guitar—in many variants—is the most common stringed instrument, along with violin, harp, and mandolin. Various types of indigenous flutes, panpipes and drums are still performed. Brass band instruments were introduced in the 19th century, accordions in the early 20th century, and electric guitars and keyboards in the second half of the 20th century. Native American musical performances tend to be group events, without focusing on individual musicians. Most musical performances are tied to specific rituals. Afro-Latin American music is a combination of African, European, and Native influences. In instrumentation, composition, and performance, Afro-Brazilian music and performance traditions like the currulao of the Pacific coast of Colombia exhibit strong influences from African heritage. Discussion Questions 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.
How might we compare hybrid musical cultures in our country to Latin American? Why would different types of flutes be prone for use in Peru? How might we catalogue the guitar variants that developed throughout Latin America from colonial times? What examples of sesquialtera might we find in classical music or the popular music of our culture? In what ways might marimba playing be compared the Shona mbira playing? Panpipes were prevalent in ancient Greek and Roman societies as they have been in Peru. What might be the connection, if there is any? Or, are the two traditions unrelated? If so, why can’’t they be related? Why and how did West African religion and music bind with Catholicism in Brazil in the form of candomblé?
Recommended DVDs and Videos JVC Video Anthology Of World Music & Dance Vol. 28 - Cuba, Mexico, Bolivia, Argentina (Americas 2). English language version in collaboration with Smithsonian/Folkways Recordings, distributed by Rounder Records (1990) (57 min.). Music of Latin America. Hollywood Select Video (1994) (21 min.). The documentary covers several aspects of Latin American music: various instruments, dances, pre-Columbian religious rituals, effect of Spanish colonization.
CHAPTER 10 MUSIC IN THE CARIBBEAN The peoples of the Caribbean Islands share a colonial history, the region born in slavery, indentured laborers, European laws, languages, religions, and economies. Descendants, over the course of several centuries, became Creoles and Caribbean nationals. Creole experiences are audible in the region’’s musical instruments and styles. Combined African and European musical practices, aesthetics, and instruments combine to become syncretic. Rhythmic concepts such as timelines, clave, call-and-response, syncopation, interlocking parts, 3+3+2 patterns, are African-derived. -
Garinagu –– also known as Garifuna, a diaspora of people of West African and Amerindian descent, who settled along the Caribbean coast of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua during the nineteenth century Punta –– a song genre that symbolically reenacts the cock-and-hen mating dance and is usually composed by women. It is performed at festivals, wakes, and ancestor venerations. It involves call and response singing. Creole - a person of mixed African and European ancestry, who speaks a Creolized language, based on French, Spanish, or English, and an African language Syncretism - the result of a fusion, or reconciliation, of differing cultures, mixing belief systems, religion, and music, the success of which is the result of the heterogeneity
Outline Rake-n-Scrape Music in the Bahamas Rake-n-scrape –– a traditional Bahamian music played on accordion, saw, and goat-skin drum Junkanoo –– an antiquated Bahamian festival banned in the nineteenth century; however, a source of national identity after independence Quadrille –– a 19th century French-derived dance for four or more couples, found in the Caribbean islands Calypso and Steelbands in Trinidad Calypso –– a traditional French-Creole humorous song that comments on life in the Caribbean Tamboo bamboo –– a percussion ensemble that accompanies calypso songs during Carnival, consisting of three different instruments, each cut from bamboo Political issues reflected in song Steelband –– an ensemble of steeldrums made from oil drums, tuned to Western pitches Rumba in Cuba and Other Drum Styles Rumba –– an Afro-Cuban music and dance, derived from African sacred traditions (several types) Bèlè –– a cross-rhythmic drumming style developed in rural Martinique Bomba –– a drum style that emerged in the 18th century in Puerto Rico from the slave barracks Punta of the Garinagu Garingua—also known as Garifuna, a diaspora of people of West African and Amerindian descent, who settled along the Carribean coast of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua during the nineteenth century Punta—a song genre that symbolically reenacts the cock-and-hen mating dance and is
usually composed by women. It is performed at festivals, wakes, and ancestor venerations. It involves call and response singing. Indo-Trinidadian Chutney-Soca Chutney –– a folk music of South Asian origin, usually sung by women for women at celebrations Soca –– a West Indian style of music, a blend of soul and calypso Chutney-soca –– a hybrid music in Trinidad, derived from South Asian chutney and soca Merengue in the Dominican Republic Merengue –– a Dominican dance music in 4/4 meter developed from danza and contradanza Travel and Tourism Globalization –– a double-edged process that brings outside influence (usually pertaining to Western) to local regions while bringing regional cultures to other regions of the world Travel –– Indigenous peoples travel to other parts of the world bringing the cultures and globalizing their host culture. Tourism –– Tourists travel to regions and take interest in local cultures, helping them economically through the purchasing and dissemination of their culture products (music, art). Religion and Syncretism Syncretism –– maintaining elements from two or more traditions combined into a new practice Orisha –– any of a number of West African spirits venerated in Caribbean syncretic religious rites Gospelypso –– a hybrid of gospel and calypso musics Key Concepts for the Unit Shared Colonial Experiences: filtered through local circumstances, negotiated in particular contexts, entered into at different historical moments, interpreted in diverse ways Creolization: the resultant process of mixing African and European peoples, cultures, and languages, via colonialism, creating the Creole cultures of the Caribbean Syncretism and Hybrid: the process of mixing cultural elements and creating a new, and resultant, product (the hybrid) Musical Reception: Under colonialism, local Caribbean musics was for the slave and underprivileged class, scorned by the ruling class. Today, the musics are received openly in a global market, especially reggae. Identity: Creole, hybrid forms that emerged under colonialism are today symbols of national identity Class and Cultural Politics: During the colonial era, the government and its elites feared and banned musical forms that roused the masses. In the 20th century, singers, especially calypso singers in Trinidad and reggae singers in Jamaica, use their vocal genres to criticize government policies and
politicians. Tourism and Travel: Caribbean music has become globalized. Caribbean immigrants bring their music where they go, 98 while tourists to the Caribbean purchase the cultural products and disseminate them. Listening Skills Musical Syncretism, Creole Music As an exercise, students should listen to various examples of Caribbean musics and write into two lists, African and European instruments and concepts. Students may notice that the syncretism has taken a whole new Creole sound, but the instruments and elements can be recognized as either African or European. Chapter Section Summaries Rake-n-Scrape Festival in the Bahamas Junkanoo, an annual Bahamian festival of music and dance, developed in the eighteenth century and took the form of a night-time festival during which slaves would get together to visit, celebrate, and socialize. After emancipation in 1838, junkanoo came to be associated with loud revelry and violence (more imagined than real) and was disparaged. Musically, junkanoo became associated with a particular rhythm, performed on goat-skin drums and accompanied by whistles, cowbells, and whatever instruments the people could get (trumpets, trombones, etc.). Junkanoo was limited throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but as tourists began to frequent the Bahamas following World War II, junkanoo made resurgence. In the years leading to independence in 1973, junkanoo became a measure of Bahamian identity. The Rake-n-Scrape festival descended from the antiquated junkanoo festival. Rake-n-scrape is a traditional Bahamian music, usually played on accordion, saw, and goat-skin drum. The accordion most commonly is a two-row button accordion such as the Hohner; the saw is literally a carpenter’’s saw; and the goat-skin drum is African derived. Rake-n-scrape ensembles traditionally accompanied quadrille dancing and are an example of Creole musical style. It is based on a combination of European and African instruments (accordion and goat-skin drum) and on a successful combination of European and African conceptions (quadrille dancing and the rhythms played on the drum). Listening Example “Times Table,” by Ophie and the Websites. Textbook CD 3, track 9. This rendition of “Times Table” illustrates the characteristics of rake-n-scrape. The accordion begins and is immediately accompanied by strong foot stomping that marks the quarter note throughout the piece. The saw and goat-skin drum enter in the third measure of the first phrase, with the rhythm played on the saw consists of a series of successive sixteenth notes with an accent placed on the third sixteenth note of each beat. This accent pattern thus emphasizes the “and” of each beat (one AND two AND, in 2/4 meter). The saw player bends and releases the saw in order to get different timbral effects, giving the impression of changing the pitch. Saw Pattern Alternate Saw Pattern
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Calypso Calypso is a traditional French Creole humorous song that comments on life in the Caribbean. The word cariso was used to describe a French Creole song in the 1780s, and in Trinidad, the (mostly female) chantwells performed cariso during the first half of the nineteenth century. The chantwells, assisted by drums and alternating in call-and-response, were a central component of the practice called kalenda (stick-fighting). Kalenda bands (organized by neighborhood) would square off with each other, first through song and then, more often than not, through stick-fighting. Kalenda was a central component of early carnival celebrations in Trinidad, even after emancipation in 1834. In 1883, drumming was banned in an attempt to clean it up. This injunction came after a disturbance in the 1881 carnival, known as the Canboulay Riots. Canboulays were processions during carnival that commemorated the harvesting of burnt cane fields during slavery. It was a labor intensive process, involving forced marches of slaves from neighboring plantations in order to more efficiently harvest the cane. The government’’s attempt to ban the processions in 1881 resulted in open riots between Afro-Creole revelers and police, a turn of events that, not surprisingly, caused deep resentment within Trinidadian society toward the government’’s use of power. The open resistance of Afro-Creole revelers, of course, redoubled concerns among government officials over this potential threat to public order and led to an alternative strategy——the banning of drumming——in 1883. Stick-fighting itself was banned in 1884. A substitute for the drums and sticks, called tamboo bamboo, was introduced in the 1890s. A tamboo bamboo band is a percussion band used to accompany calypso songs during Carnival time. Tamboo bamboo bands consist of three different instruments, each cut from bamboo: boom, foulé, and cutter. The boom serves as the bass instrument, is usually about five feet long, and is played by stamping it on the ground. The foulé, which is a higher-pitched instrument, consists of two pieces of bamboo, each about a foot long, and is played by striking these pieces end to end. The cutter, which is the highest- pitched instrument in the ensemble, is made from a thinner piece of bamboo (of varying length) and is struck with a stick. These three types of instruments combined to beat out rhythms that accompanied the chantwells and were a staple of carnival celebrations for many years (they were gradually rendered obsolete by the steelband). By the early twentieth century, calypsonians began to perform in tents, leaving the streets to the tamboo bamboo, and in the 1920s, they began charging admission to their shows. The 1930s saw contests between tents become a standard part of carnival and, in 1939, Growling Tiger was crowned the first calypso monarch of Trinidad (for his song, entitled “The Labor Situation in Trinidad”). Calypsonians came to be considered dangerous by the government because they could sway public opinion with their songs. By the end of WWII, calypso ensembles became reminiscent of jazz combos, and a typical calypso ensemble came to include a horn section, drums, percussion, bass, guitar, and keyboard. Listening Example “No, Doctor No,” by The Mighty Sparrow (Slinger Francisco). Textbook CD3, track 10. The ensemble includes a horn line, upright bass, guitar, and percussion and reflects the modern calypso sound. Sparrow’’s lyrics engage with a political issue current in 1957 revolving around the (recently elected) government’’s failure to come through on campaign promises. The verse-chorus structure, the call-and-response interplay during the chorus, the secondary importance of the music in relationship to the lyrics, and the aggressive tone of the lyrical content are all characteristic of calypso. Steeldrums were first made from the oil drums left by the U.S. military after WWII. The steeldrum, or pan, gradually replaced the tamboo bamboo ensemble. By the 1950s, steelbands gained
popularity in England and the United States. The steeldrums are “tuned” to play a range of pitches. The lower the pitch, the more area is needed on the surface of the drum, meaning that bass instruments have fewer notes on a given instrument than do melody instruments. Today, several different sizes of instruments are used and they have names like tenor, double second, cello, and bass (generally, the bigger the instrument [the more metal], the lower its register). These instruments fill roles not unlike those found in a Western orchestra. The tenor pans generally play the melodies (like violins), the seconds handle harmonies and countermelodies (like violas), the cellos fill in harmonic materials (like cellos), and the bass pans, of which there are several different types, play the bass lines (like the double bass). Arrangers fulfill multiple roles, adapting a given calypso or song to the steelband, assisting in the process of teaching the parts to the steelband, and, once the arrangement has been learned, helping the steelband to polish the overall presentation for performance. Cuba Rumba Rumba developed during the second half of the nineteenth century as a secular alternative to sacred African-derived drumming traditions in Cuba. The ensemble generally consists of a lead vocalist, a chorus, and at least three types of percussion instruments (clave, palitos [short sticks], and three congas). Several types of rumba developed, with three becoming widely popular: the guaguancó, the yambú, and the columbia. The most paradigmatic style for Cuban dance band music was the guaguancó, and the characteristic rhythms of this style consist of the interlocking patterns created by the two-three clave, the palitos, the basic patterns of the congas, and the improvised play of the quinto conga. palitos clave conga
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Rumba consists of two main sections: canto (narrative text) and montuno (call and response with the chorus/percussion). Once the montuno starts, a male and female dance a ritualized enactment of male conquest. The male dancer uses surprise, stealth, and grace to get close enough to the female dancer to thrust his pelvis at her in a move called a vacunao. She in turn evades his moves, improvising her own dance moves in the process. Rumba was banned or severely limited on several occasions throughout the late nineteenth century. Bèlè Bèlè drumming (also called belair) developed in rural Martinique and is played on a drum of the same name. The drum is played by two performers: one straddles the drum, playing on the drumhead with both hands and a foot (which is used to dampen and un-dampen the drum-head in order to produce different pitches); the other performer uses a pair of sticks (called tibwa) to beat out characteristic and intricate cross-rhythms on the side of the drum. Bèlè is accompanied by call-andresponse singing and by dancing. Cinquillo also provided serious inspiration first for biguine and then for zouk (two Antillean popular musics). Cinquillo came to be a central and defining feature of the light-classical Cuban salon music called danzón, is prevalent in popular genres like Haitian meringue, and even makes its way into other popular musics like calypso. Cinquillo/tibwa/hihat Rim shots on snare drum (3+3+2) Kick drum
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Bomba Bomba is a Puerto Rican tradition that emerged out of the slave barracks, probably during the middle decades of the eighteenth century. The bomba was traditionally danced on special days: to mark the end of harvesting, for birthdays, christenings, and weddings. Bomba is a generic name that, like bélé, encompasses a wide range of rhythms and sub-types. The bomba ensemble generally includes dancers, a first drummer (requinto), a second drummer (sonador), sometimes a third drum (called bomba), cuá (sticks), maracas, singer, and chorus (coro). The dance is essentially a challenge pitting the virtuosity of the dancers against the skill and speed of the lead drummer. Two levels of call-and-response happen in bomba dancing: between the lead singer and the coro, and between the lead drummer and the dancers. The 20th Century Rumba The habanera rhythm (from the contradanza) and the cinquillo were very popular both within Cuba and abroad. By 1920, a tango craze hit Europe. People turned to l’arte negre for a variety of reasons, both aesthetic and philosophical, and the stage was set for a new dance craze to hit the streets. A few Cuban entertainers who had been performing rumba in “cleaned up,” staged form in Havana, found their way to Paris, where, in 1927, they performed with great success. By the 1930s, this cleaned-up, commercial rumba was being danced all over Europe and in the United States. A new genre called son gradually became the international face of Cuba. The clave and the two-part formal structure of canto (called largo in sones) and montuno, to name but two aspects of traditional rumba, came to be central to the sound of son and sones. The Garinagu People Punta and Punta Rock Garinagu is the name of the people of West African and Amerindian descent who settled along the Caribbean coast of Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua during the nineteenth century. Garifuna is another, more common name for this people. The beginnings of the Garifuna trace to the island of St. Vincent, one of the few places in the Caribbean where Amerindians were able to successfully resist the colonial encounter well into the seventeenth century. On St. Vincent, the Amerindians met and intermarried with two shiploads of Africans who had swum to shore after their slave ships wrecked in a storm on the way to Barbados around 1635. The Garifuna, known in St. Vincent as the Black Caribs, eventually found themselves at war with and technologically outmatched by the British, who had become increasingly interested in St. Vincent during the course of the eighteenth century. The Garifuna, led by a chief named Chatuye, were eventually defeated in 1796— —a defeat that prompted a massive (and forced) Garifuna migration with eventual resting points in places like Guatemala and Nicaragua. This migration began with the exile in 1797 of some 2,000 Garifuna to Roatan Island off the coast of Honduras. The dispersal of the Garifuna from St. Vincent has led many to refer to the Garifuna Nation throughout the diaspora. In 1802, Garifuna from Honduras began settling in Belize (then British Honduras), and on November 19, 1832 many of the exiles from Roatan Island joined the Garifuna who had already settled there, a day that, since 1977, has been recognized as Garifuna Settlement Day. Punta is a song genre that symbolically reenacts the cock-and-hen mating dance and is usually composed by women. Punta is performed during festivals, at wakes, and at celebrations that follow dugu ceremonies (religious ceremonies during which a family appeals to the ancestors for help in solving a given problem). Punta usually involves call and response singing, drums, rattles, and sometimes conch shell trumpets. The drums used in punta are called the primero and the segunda. Punta Rock is a popular music style developed by the Garifuna peoples from punta. Listening Example Rumba Guaguanco’: “Consuelate Como Yo”
Formal and rhythmic structure Two sections Narrative (canto) Montuno (call and response section with chorus/percussion) Interlocking foundation Clave, palitos, conga Improvisation over the texture Quinto (lead) conga Listening Example “Punta,” performed by Henry, Bobsy, and Lena Núñez. Textbook CD 3, track 11. This song is performed by two children, ages 6 and 8, who are singing and playing the two drums, the primero and the segunda. Indo-Trinidadian Forms Chutney and Chutney-Soca Chutney and tan-singing are understood as “authentically” Indo-Trinidadian forms of expression. Chutney is a folk music of South Asian origin, usually sung by women for women at celebrations such as weddings. Chutney-soca blends aspects of both soca and chutney in order to produce a hybrid, drawing on both Afro-Creole and East Indian musical styles. Tan-singing is a lightclassical tradition and features several different genres, the most important of which is Thumri. Thumri is, for many East Indians, a tangible link to South Asian musical practices. Thumri is a vocal genre accompanied by dholak (drum), dhantal (metal clapper), and harmonium. The Dominican Republic Merengue is a popular dance music of the Dominican Republic. During the mid-nineteenth century, merengue developed out of the salon-type music popular throughout the region at the time (danza and contradanza). The rural merengue was denounced as primitive by those the elite. The early merengue ensemble usually included guira, guitar/quatro, marimba (like the marímbula), and tambora (a double headed drum), and, by 1870, the button accordion took the place of the string instruments. By the 1920s merengue típico of Cibao Valley had become somewhat standardized and could even include a saxophone playing melodies and counter-melodies alongside the accordion. Merengue is in 4/4 meter, and the “one, two, three, four” of each measure is pounded out by the kick drum and by the bass guitar (in contemporary ensembles). The structure of these songs is similar to Cuban rumba/son in that there is a narrative section (called merengue) followed by a call-and-response section (called jaleo). Listening Example Merengue Tipico: “Consangracion De Carina Accordian, saxophone, bass, guira, tambora, congas La India Canela
Textbook CD 3, Track 13
Travel and Tourism Globalization Globalization is a double-edged process that globalizes the local while localizing the global. Caribbean musics have had a global effect, independent of Caribbean communities living abroad. Travel and tourism led to new trends of music making, such as salsa in New York, and new cultural practices (various carnivals) in places outside of the Caribbean where Caribbean nationals make their
homes, such as Brooklyn, New York. Reggae is popular worldwide, and Rumba spread in SubSaharan Africa during the 1950s and ‘‘60s, directly related to the dissemination of commercial rumba and son during the 1930s and ‘‘40s in Europe and North America. The recent rise to popularity of reggaeton is interesting because it is a contemporary re-working of the habanera rhythm. Religion Religious syncretism is the result of traveling religious practices. Elements from two or more religious traditions are combined into new practices, usually stemming from Baptists, Anglicans, or Catholics. African-derived drumming is a major component of the ceremonial music central to syncretic religious systems such as Cuban santería, Trinidadian shango, and Haitian vodoun, all of which have found ways of combining African deities and cosmologies with Catholic saints and doctrines. In santería, the drums are called batá, and there are three main instruments in a batá ensemble: the iyá (largest drum), itótele (mid-sized drum), and okónkolo (smallest drum). The drums are considered sacred, and important rules and rituals circumscribe their construction, care, and use. Only initiated drummers may touch these drums, and the drums are imbued with a spiritual force, usually called Añá, upon their initiation. The drums are played without the improvisational elements present in genres such as rumba, bélé, and bomba. Instead, each drum plays more-or-less set rhythms that are associated with individual orisha and that also correspond to patterns and inflections particular to Yoruba language. These rhythms provide the foundation that the lead singer builds on in invoking the particular orishas toward which the batá drums are directed. Obeah is associated in the Bahamas with folk magic and at times with black magic. The juxtaposition of Christianity with obeah, in the case by singing gospel music in obeah country, is a religious and musical syncretism. Rastafarianism, which developed in the 1930s is particularly interesting in that it managed to link its theological and social message to the soundtrack of reggae, particularly Bob Marley. The message and the sound have been split from one another in recent years (especially with the rise of dancehall in the mid-late 1980s). Niyabinghi drumming, however, continues to be an important component of Rastafarian religious life. The Niyabinghi ensemble consists of three drums——bass, funde, and askete (which improvises over the solid rhythms performed on the other two drums)——an ensemble of instruments and an associated set of rhythmic ideas adapted from Jamaican Kumina rituals and from Burru drumming. Styles like gospelypso (calypso) and gospel dancehall are recent. These musical traditions often illustrate the complex ways in which church communities are utilizing regional and transnational styles both for their local purposes and in order to participate in globalized forms of Christianity Tassa drumming accompanies the Hosay festival in Trinidad. Hosay is a Shia Muslim festival commemorating and celebrating the martyrdom of Muharram (The Prophet Muhammad’’s grandson). Ensembles include two primary kinds of drums——lead and second drums——and hand cymbals, but the number of players can vary greatly. Significantly, the Hosay festival has, in Trinidad, become a site of potential inter-ethnic and inter-religious participation. Hindu East Indians also contribute to the range of sacred musics circulating in the Caribbean. Summary The Caribbean Islands share a colonial history, each negotiated and interpreted according to their individual circumstances. All shared the creolization process, creating unique cultures. Creolization was the process of mixing African and European peoples, cultures, and languages, via colonialism, creating Creole cultures of the Caribbean. Syncretism is the result of the fusion of differing cultures, mixing belief systems, the success of which is the result of the heterogeneity. Musical syncretisms studied
in this unit are Bahamian rake- n-scrape, Trinidadian calypso, Cuban rumba, Garifuna punta, Indo-Trinidadian chutney-soca, and Dominican merengue. Each Creole music today has become a measure and symbol of Caribbean national identity. Caribbean music has become globalized. Caribbean immigrants bring their music where they go, while tourists to the Caribbean purchase the cultural products and disseminate them. Christianity and African religions syncretized in the Caribbean and brought about new forms of music and reinterpretations of traditional musics Discussion Questions 1. 2. 3.
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With which globalized forms of Caribbean music are the students most familiar, and how have they had access to them? Can we think of any other music and cultural syncretisms than those found in the Caribbean? Where are they? What were their influencing cultures? Students should learn to understand rock music and jazz as hybrids of African and European cultures, as well as understand China’s songs for the Masses as hybrids and Confucian music in Japan as well. Ethnomusicological analysis may be applied to any music, opening a broader base for understanding the music. Do we regard any form of music as a symbol of our national identity as Caribbean nationals do? What is your music (addressing the class)? What forms of political protest music exist in cultures outside of the Caribbean, especially in The United States, China, Africa, or Latin America?
Recommended DVDs and Videos Routes of Rhythm, directed by Howard Dratch and Gene Rosow, narrated by Harry Belafonte (1984) (3 hours). A three-part survey of African and European roots of Afro-Cuban music and salsa. Calypso Music History: One Hand Don't Clap, directed by Kavery Dutta, (1991) (1hr. 32 min.). A documentary tracing the history and present state of calypso and soca. Roots Rock Reggae - Inside the Jamaican Music Scene, directed by Jeremy Mare, starring Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff (1977) (60 minutes). A street-level look at reggae culture, featuring vintage performances by some of the genre's leading artists and personal interviews and studio scenes. The filmmakers travel from Jamaica's Trenchtown ghetto to the serene hills of Kingston, where followers of Rastafari drum and sing hymns. Rasta forms the base of reggae music, which developed from elements of American rock and blues and Creole musical styles. Rara, filmed and directed by Verna Gillis (1978) (15 minutes). Rara is a form of festival music in Haiti, used for street processions. The music uses a set of bamboo trumpets called vaksin (which may also be made of metal pipes), but also features drums, maracas, scraper, and metal bells, as well as metal trumpets that are made from recycled coffee cans. The vaksins perform in hocket and strike their instruments rhythmically with a stick while blowing into them. Rara is an Afro-Catholic syncretism, and the songs celebrate Haïti's African ancestry and vodou. Performances begin on Ash Wednesday and culminate Easter Weekend. Rara performances are often performed while marching and are accompanied by twirlers employing metal batons.
CHAPTER 11 NATIVE AMERICAN MUSIC Compared to many parts of the world, Native American music is fairly homogeneous. Closely tied to religion, it is mainly monophonic, vocal, and often has vocables instead of text. Vocal styles generally sound tense and use pulsations on long notes. There are few instruments; those that exist are largely percussion––drums and rattles in particular. Flutes, the only important melodic instruments, are often associated with courting rituals. Song forms usually belong to one of three main types: strophic songs, short songs with a pair of lines repeated many times, or two alternating contrastive sections of music, one higher than the other. Outline Modern Ceremony Blackfoot Native American Reservations in Browning, Montana and neighboring Alberta, Canada Drum names indicate location or family name. Drums sing songs. Vocables –– sung meaningless syllables, the sound of which serves like a melodic instrument Intertribal –– songs or dances based on the Plains styles with which traditions of various other cultures combined, developed for performances at modern powwows Powwow - Tribal or intertribal gathering in twentieth-century Native American culture, a principal venue for performance of traditional and modernized music and dance. Gambling song - a traditional gambling game, played by two teams facing each other and hiding a bullet or stick. The team hiding the object sings constantly, songs with a small melodic range consisting of the alternation of only two brief musical phrases, all the while beating rhythmically and rapidly on a plank. Older Ceremonial Traditions The concept of “song” in most Native American cultures is a relatively short unit, rather like a nursery rhyme or hymn. Songs are ordinarily presented, however, in large groups and sequences as parts of elaborate ceremonies and rituals. In many ceremonies, the songs to be performed and their order are specifically prescribed. In others they are not; in the Peyote ceremonies of Plains tribes, each singer must sing four songs at a time, but they may be any songs from the Peyote repertory, and only at four points in the ceremony must particular songs be sung. The “Night Chant” (Yeibechai) of the Navajo, a curing ceremony, requires nine days and nights, and includes hundreds of songs and their poetic texts. The Hako, a Pawnee ceremony of general religious significance, required several days and included about one hundred songs. The medicine-bundle ceremonies of the Northern Plains peoples might consist of several parts: narration of the myth explaining the origin of the bundle; opening the bundle and performing with each of the objects in it; a required activity (dancing, smoking, eating, praying); and the singing of one or several songs (usually by the celebrant, sometimes by him and others present) for each object. The Blackfoot Sun Dance, the largest and most central of the older tribal ceremonies of this culture, required four preparatory days followed by four days of dancing. The Peyote ceremony, which became a major religious ritual in many tribes of the United States in the course of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, consists of a night of singing. Each participant— there may be from ten to thirty sitting in a circle—sings four
songs at a time, playing the rattle while his neighbor accompanies him on a special drum. Native American Vultures and Music Each tribe had its own musical culture, repertory, musical style, uses of, and ideas about music. - There were between one and two thousand tribal groups in North America, almost all speaking distinct languages. The average population of a tribe was around a thousand, but some were much larger and others had only one hundred to two hundred persons. Each tribe, however, had a large number of songs and used them in many ceremonies, for curing, to accompany dances, and to draw boundaries between subdivisions of society such as age groups, clans, and genders. Unity and Diversity in Native American Music Native American music is almost always monophonic, and with few exceptions it is vocal. While there are a number of distinct singing styles, they have in common a tense sound and the use of pulsations on longer notes. Two or three types of forms predominate. There are strophic songs, rather like folk songs or hymns in that a stanza of several lines is repeated several or many times; there are very short songs that consist of one or a pair of lines repeated many times; and there are forms in which two contrasting sections of music, one usually higher than the other, alternate. Almost all of the singing is accompanied by percussion, usually drums or rattles. Thus, the many Native American musical cultures have a good deal in common. Music area –– a group of Native American tribes who share similar musical styles, roughly corresponding to the cultural areas (but not by language) Ideas about Music Oral tradition places limitations on the complexity of materials to be remembered. More complexity at a microscopic level than the listener may at first perceive The idea of technical complexity has never been a criterion of musical quality to Native American peoples. Rather, music is measured by such things as: its ability to integrate society and to represent it to the outside, its ability to integrate ceremonial and social events, and its supernatural power. Composition and Creativity A man has visions in which powerful guardian spirits appear to him, and these are validated by the songs they sing to him. Many songs have no words, so not simply the texts but the act of singing——producing a kind of sound that has no other function in life—— embodies spiritual power. Specialists in making up songs are usually also experts in religious matters, and their technical competence or aesthetic creativity seems not to be an issue. Musical Instruments Native American music is prevailingly vocal. Almost all instruments are percussive, and their function is to provide rhythmic accompaniment to singing. Solo drumming is actually rare. Varieties of drum and rattle types Double-headed drums Small hand drums with single skin Water drum –– kettle-drum filled with water for tuning Pieces of rawhide suspended from stakes Container rattles made of gourd, sewn hide, or turtle shell Strings of deer hooves Native America flute –– vertical flute made of cedar, walnut, birch, and other woods, played solo for courting. Flutes play songs, but in the southwestern United States there is a
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separate flute repertory not markedly different from the songs. Apache fiddle –– Bowed instrument with one string, probably made in imitation of the Western violin, used by Navajo and Apache peoples
Aspects of History There is little direct or written information about the history of American Native American music, and archaeological evidence is absent north of Mexico. Native Americans have been in the Americas for at least fifty thousand years, but they originally came, probably in waves, from Asia. Music is a reflection of cultural categories. Music is a way of communicating within and with the supernatural world. Since the coming of White people, Native American history is better documented and aspects of it widely studied. Key Concepts for the Unit Musical Areas: Localized Native American (American Indian) music is classified by stylistic features characterizing geographical areas. The culture area concept, developed and used by American anthropologists in the early 20th century, was first and most successfully applied to the mapping of Native American cultures. Anthropologists found that although there were 1,000 to 2,000 tribal groups, each with its own culture and language, they could be grouped into six to eight major culture areas distinguished by types of housing, religion, political structure, etc. Scholars of Native American music found that musical style areas coincided generally with these culture areas. Music and the Supernatural: Music has supernatural powers in many Native American traditions. Among the Blackfeet, supernatural powers reside in songs and are activated when songs are sung. Songs are not “composed” but given to humans by guardian spirits in dreams or visions. They are thought to exist in the cosmos. Once they come into worldly existence, songs are associated with particular activities: for example, each object in a medicine bundle has its appropriate song. A person who owns many songs is spiritually powerful. Music as a Reflection of Culture: Music is measured by its ability to integrate society, ceremonies, and social events. Technical complexity is not a valid criterion. For the Blackfeet, “the right way to do something is to sing the right song with it.” Every activity has its appropriate song. Using Music to Construct Pre-History: There is virtually no written information about the history of Native American music (at least until about a century ago) and little archaeological information. Songs (e.g., gambling songs) consisting of short tunes with few pitches repeated or varied many times may be a remnant of a highly archaic stratum of human music. Intertribal Styles: Older intertribal styles include the Ghost Dance and Peyote cult. In recent years, the highly distinctive (and stereotypically “Indian”) Plains musical style has been adopted by tribes all over the country. This applies to costume, too. New ceremonies (e.g., North American Indian Days), based on traditional midsummer religious ceremonies, are becoming more important as symbols of Pan-Indian identity. Listening Skills
Sensitivity to Vocal Styles: Does a vocal style sound tense/relaxed? Raspy/smooth? Nasal/round? Is the range wide/narrow? Is the contour of the melody descending? Undulating? Rising? Does it sound as though there is a text or just vocables (meaningless syllables)? Recognizing One or Two Musical Forms: Plains-style “incomplete repetition” form is probably the easiest to spot. Also try the California- Yuman-style “rise.” Distinguishing One or Two Music Areas: Use the Plains style as a familiar base, explore contrasting styles such as California-Yuman, Eastern Woodlands, or Athabascan. Chapter Section Summaries Typical Native American instruments Native American music is largely vocal. Instruments, when they occur, are mostly percussive and serve to accompany the singing. There is a great variety of drums (large double-headed drums, small frame drums, water-filled kettledrums, etc.) and rattles (gourd rattles, hide rattles, deer hooves, turtle shells, etc.). The most common melody-producing instrument is the flute; in some tribes, flute music is associated with courting. The musical bow (similar or identical to the hunting bow) found in some southwestern areas seems to have been replaced by the “Apache fiddle” or “Navajo violin,” a bowed instrument with one horsehair string and a cylindrical body, perhaps created as a combination of the musical bow and the Western violin. Musical areas Bruno Nettl identifies eight different musical areas: Plains: Now the basis of the intertribal powwow style. Singing style emphasizes high pitch, rhythmic pulsations on long tones, and a tense vocal style. The song form is “incomplete repetition,” which typically follows a descending melodic contour (AA BCD BCD, where D is often an octave lower than A). Example: Blackfoot “War or Grass Dance Song” Eastern: Employs a more relaxed vocal style, with some call-and-response patterns (and occasional polyphony). Typical forms consist of several short phrases. Example: “Creek Stomp Dance Song” California-Yuman: Characterized by a very relaxed vocal style and a song form in which one section, a phrase or short group of phrases, is repeated several times but interrupted irregularly by another, slightly higher contrasting section, called the “rise.” Example: Walapai “Funeral Song” Athabascan: Includes Navajo and Apache peoples. Typical traits include a wide vocal range, a rather nasal vocal style, and even rhythms that can be transcribed using quarter or eighth notes. Example: Navajo “Pole Dance Song” Pueblo: Shares features with Athabascan and Plains styles, but has a low, harsh, pulsating
vocal style and long, complex forms Papago: Related to Plains and Pueblo styles Example: Papago “First Chelkona Dance”. Great Basin: Found in Nevada, Utah, and northern California and characterized by a small range and a typical form in which phrases are repeated in pairs (e.g., AA BB CC, etc.) Example: Pawnee “Ghost Dance Song”. Northwest Coast: Also includes some Inuit peoples. Distinguished by complex rhythms, a large number of wind instruments, and a polyphonic choral tradition. Listening Examples Plains style: Blackfoot “War or Grass Dance song,” performed at North American Indian Days, Browning, Montana, 1966, sung by Heart Butte Singers (7 men), recorded by Bruno Nettl Textbook CD 3, track 12. An example of “incomplete repetition” form. The singers set up a steady rhythm by beating on the edge of their bass drum. Then, the drum’’s leader sings a phrase in a falsetto voice, very tense, harsh, loud, and ornamented; the phrase is repeated by a second singer, and the whole group enters, singing a stately melody moving down the scale until it flattens out an octave below the beginning, then rising again, coming to the end of the song, and going on to repeat the whole form several times. Note that the first two stanzas are sung and drummed softly, and then tempo, intensity, and loudness increase rapidly. The song has no words, only vocables or meaningless syllables, but all of the singers sing these in unison. The overall form of the song could be represented as A A B B, with B longer than A. B ends with a variation of A, an octave lower. 0:00 0:15 0:22 0:38 0:45 1:07 1:24 1:33 1:38 1:53 2:08 2:12 2:19 2:32 2:49
Fades into the first stanza of the song, with singers drumming on the side of the drum First stanza ends A1 (lead singer) A2 (lead singer joined by second singer) B (the entire group sings) B repeated (note “hard beats” or “honor beats” at 1:12) A new stanza begins, with A1 (lead singer) A2. Singer begin drumming on skin at 1:35 B B repeated (note speeding up of tempo) Another stanza begins: A1 A2 B B repeated A new stanza begins, fadeout
Eastern style: “Creek Stomp Dance Song”, song leader, John Mulley, Textbook CD 3, track 13. “Stomp Dance Song” is really a series of songs to accompany a line dance, sung by the dancers. The dance leader is the song leader, and the form is responsorial, that is, the leader sings a short call or phrase, and the group responds by simply repeating what the leader has sung (A), or something to complete his phrase (B). This “call and response” is repeated a number of times, until a high-pitched call ends the song and a new one begins. Ordinarily the first song consists of call on one
tone, the second expands the range, and others provide a slightly more complex melody. The singers accompany themselves with rattles. In form, melody, and rhythm the songs tend to become increasingly complex. The singers draw on a stock of traditional musical motifs whose content, variations, and order they improvise.
TIME/SECTION 0:07 call
RHYTHM
Beginning
0:13 Song no. 1
Duple meter
0:30 0:38
FORM
MELODY
Solo
Group
A (with variations) B C
A B C
0:47 Song no. 2
Triple meter (beats: solo 1, 2; group, 3)
D
E (with many variations)
1:07 Song no. 3
Five-beat meter (Beats: solo, 1, 2, 3; group, 4, 5)
F
G
1:32 Song no. 4
Complex and varying meter Sometimes solo has 8 beats, and group, 5.
H
I (much variation)
Mostly on one tone Higher Triadic tune (like C-E-G) Higher Note triadic melody throughout. Note the arc-shaped melodic contour, as the pitch gradually rises in the middle of the song and then descends. Both F and G have more elaborate melodies than Song no. 2. Note the pentatonic bits of melody. Melodic material more elaborate; scales pentatonic, range over an octave
1:46 Rattle begins to be audible 2:10 End of excerpt Lummi (Washington State) Stick Game Song, sung by Joe Washington and family. Textbook CD 3, track 14. The following example shows a group of Blackfoot men singing while playing a stick game,
hiding a stick for the other team to find. 0:00 0:10 0:13 0:18 0:22 0:28 0:30 0:35 0:40 0:46 0:48 0:54
A theme sung in parallel 4ths; regular drum beat Voices drop in volume to sing drone like tone; drum to fore A repeated, one step lower Voices drop to drone-like note; drum to fore A Dropped vocal, drum A (step lower) Dropped vocal, drum A Dropped vocal, drum A (step lower) Dropped vocal, drum; track fades out
Intertribal styles In recent times, several intertribal styles have developed. Some, such as the Peyote style, mix elements from a several different areas to create a new, distinctive genre. Others, such as the intertribal powwow style, have adopted one particular style (Plains) for use in a new context. Ghost Dance songs: The Ghost Dance was a messianic cult that began in the Great Basin and was adopted by Plains tribes. The song style, derived from the Great Basin style used in Utah and Nevada, is characterized by a small range and a typical paired-phrase form (AA BB CC, etc.). Peyote songs: Used in many tribes to accompany Peyote cult ceremonies. Ordinarily sung solo, the vocal style is relaxed (Navajo), the rhythmic structure uses two note values (Apache), and the typical form is “incomplete repetition,” with descending contours (Plains). There is a special set of vocables combined in “words” such as heyowanene, heyowitsinayo, kayatinayo. All songs end with four long notes and the syllables he ne yo we (possibly southern Plains). A water drum and a special rattle (possibly southeastern) provide accompaniment. Powwow: Based on Plains style, the modern successor of midsummer religious ceremonies symbolizes broad Indian identity to both Indian and White audiences. Listening Example The modern music history of Native Americans may be said to begin after the great tragedy of the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890, which resulted in part because Sioux and Arapaho people had taken up the practice of the Ghost Dance religion. This messianic cult began in the Great Basin area (Utah and Nevada) and was taken up by the Plains tribes, who hoped that it would help them in combating and defeating the white people, bringing back the dead, and restoring the buffalo. As these Plains people learned the Ghost Dance ceremony, they learned its songs, which were composed in a simple style that also made them think of a simpler, better time. But these songs and their style also enriched Plains music. A Ghost Dance song in the style of Great Basin music sung by a Plains Pawnee singer, this following example’s form is typical of Ghost Dance songs and consists of a few short phrases, each of them repeated once: AABBCC. This style of music, taken up by many tribes—thus, an intertribal style—was superimposed on the older song traditions.
Pawnee Ghost Dance Song: “The Yellow Star,” sung by Wicita Blain, c. 1919, recorded by Frances Densmore. Textbook CD 3, track 15. Frances Densmore was among the first to record Native American performers on an early machine that used wax cylinders. For this reason, the sound quality on this selection is muffled. Regardless, it is a chance to hear a Native American performer before the influence of 20th century mass media had as great an impact as it would over the coming decades. Note that each melodic phrase is quite short; for example, 2 repetitions of the “A” phrase take only about 6 seconds to perform. 0:00 0:06 0:13 0:18 0:23 0:31 0:39 0:46 0:50 0:55 1:02
A, 2x B, 2x C, 2x A, 2x B, 2x A, 2x B, 2x C, 2x A, 2x B, 2x C, 2x
Peyote music Peyote songs are based on the hallucinogenic buttons of a cactus native to Mexico, the Peyote religion spread through much of the North Native American world between 1700 and 1940. Peyote religionists developed a distinct song repertory; you can easily recognize a Peyote song regardless of the singer’s tribal identity. Their singing style is probably derived from that of the Navajo, the rhythmic structure uses elements of Apache rhythm, the “incomplete repetition” type of form and the descending melodic contour come from the musical practices of the Plains, and the percussion accompaniment is a water drum. You can identify a Peyote song by its words—or rather, “meaningless” vocables or syllables sequences. Christian texts in English are occasionally used. Listening Example Kiowa Peyote Song: Opening Prayer Song and Sunrise Song, performed by David Apekam. Textbook CD 3, tracks 16 & 17. Two examples illustrate the intertribal Peyote style, but both are sung by a Kiowa singer. The first, using the syllables he-ne-ne-ne-ha-yo-wi-tsi-na-yo, has a structure in which a line is repeated, then replaced by another, and finally a last one followed by the closing formula he-ne-yo-we. The second track uses a different and more common composition technique; a line of syllables (and an associated rhythmic pattern) is repeated, but each time with a slightly different set of pitches, moving down the scale: he-yo-wa-ne-ne, ka-ya-ti-ni-ka-ya-ti-na-yo. It presents two stanzas of the song; in the first, the initial phrase is sung only once, while the second gives it twice as is normal. Possibly that was a result of the singer’’s not having the song totally in mind when he began. It’’s worth mentioning that singers of songs with stanzas or which are repeated in oral traditions throughout the world sometimes begin with a deviation from the norm into which they finally settle. The syllables are a guide to the rhythm; shorter notes/syllables are combined with hyphens.
0:00 0:03 0:09 0:12 0:16 0:20 0:22 0:25 0:28 0:30 0:33 0:36 0:52 1:03 1:17 1:28 1:42 1:50
Drum begins Introductory vocal: he ne he ne he ne ne ne A1 (Vocables: he ne ne ne ha-yo-wi-tsi na yo) A1 (Vocables: he ne ne ne ha-yo-wi-tsi na yo) B (na ha-yo-wi-tsi na hi-yo no ha wa) C (ha hi-yo wa ne) X (standard closing formula: ha-yo-wi-tsi na he ne yo we) A2 (second main section begins: ha he ne ne ha-yo-wi-tsi na yo) D (hi-ya-ha-yo-wi-tsi na yo) C (ha hi-yo-wa-ne) X (ha-yo-wi-tsi na he ne you we) Second stanza begins A2 (Second main section) Third stanza begins A2 (Second main section) Fourth stanza begins A2 (Second main section) Drum speeds up for closing
Powwow Culture The powwow is an intertribal event that builds culture consciousness and sense of ethnic identity. It developed in the later half of the twentieth century and is based on Plains music. A part of the powwow repertory is the body of so-called 49er-songs, which may contain romantically hilarious words in English. Listening Example Two Modern Powwow Love Songs, recorded by Willard Rhodes. Textbook CD 3, track 18. Both of these songs alternate nonsense syllable verses with English language words. They are composed in a simple strophic format, AABC (first excerpt) or AABB1 (second excerpt), typical European song forms as well. First song 0:00 0:18 0:23 0:28 Repeat verse 1 and 2 Second song 1:12 1:34 1:38 1:43 Repeat verses 1 and 2 Popular music
First song, first verse: Nonsense Syllables 2nd verse When the Dance is over, sweetheart I will take you home in my one-eyed Ford B/C: Nonsense syllables First Verse: Nonsense Syllables: AABB1 Second verse My sweetheart, hey-a-hey-a she got mad at me because I said hello to my oldtimer but it’s just OK with me, oh-wey-a-hey . . . hey-a
Indian rock music: Combines the use of traditional tunes, the percussive sound of Native American songs, and texts derived from or referring to Native American culture. Key performers: Jim Pepper (1960s and 1970s), Buffy Saint-Marie, Peter La Farge (1980s). Native American flute music: Although the flute has played a minimal role in Native American culture, the music of Navajo flutist R. Carlos Nakai has become extremely popular on the mass market (especially the New Age mass market). Summary Native American songs tend to be very short, but sung in large groups for specific rituals. The voice is the primary instrument, with drums, rattles, scrappers, and flutes the most widespread instruments. The singing style usually features a tense, pulsating voice. There are seven music areas that have common musical cultures. In traditional Native American culture, music serves as a mediator between man and the supernatural world. Individual skill is not valued as highly as group participation in performance. Since the coming of White people, new forms——such as the Ghost Dance and Peyote Song——have developed. Today, Western pop influences——including rock and rap——have led to a new type of intertribal popular music. Discussion Questions 1. Since a musical system is a reflection of the rest of the culture, how is it so in Native American cultures? 2. Since a musical system is a reflection of the rest of the culture, how is it so in African cultures? 3. Since a musical system is a reflection of the rest of the culture, how is it so in Asian cultures? 4. Since a musical system is a reflection of the rest of the culture, how is it so in American popular culture? 5. How are powwows perceived as the lasting of Native of American cultures on one hand, while perceived as a reflection of vanished cultures on the other? 6. Will powwows ever be enough to totally bring back older Native American cultures, and how is this an adaptation to the outside social environment? Recommended DVDs and Videos Powwow Trail, DVD collection produced by Jeremy Torrie, Arbor Records, Ltd. (2004-2006) (60 min. each). Episode 1, The Drum Episode 2, The Songs Episode 3, The Dances Episode 4, The Grand Entry Episode 5, Grass Dance and Men’s Traditional Episode 6, Fancy Dance - Men and Women's Fancy Shawl Episode 7, Powwow Rock Episode 8, The Women
Chapter 12 Music of Ethnic North America The writer of Chapter 12, Byron Dueck, described an assignment that he gave to his university students. He asked them to make a list of songs that they know. When the results were tallied, two groups emerged. There were a small number of class members who were singers, music students, or future teachers who were involved with music and singing who could think of a number of familiar songs. The rest of the class had little or no recollection of specific songs that they could sing. Then, Dr. Dueck asked the larger group if they knew “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” or the National Anthem. Many responded, “yes.” His point is that in North America, we conceptualize of music in a number of ways, but often overlook the day-to-day use of music. You may want to introduce this chapter with a similar experience. Ask students to help you make a list of the incidences within the last 24 hours when they have encountered musical information. Have they been to church? Did they hear music while they were preparing to come to class? Have they heard children singing or chanting on the playground? What about seasonal or holiday music? How does this list relate to the title of the chapter? Outline Music, Ethnicity, and Politics in Public Performance Diversity in Canada Queen’s 2002 visit Audiences at public concerts Mosaic of ethnic groups Languages, official and indigenous Dancers Singers Musics of ethnic groups Protesters at second concert Led by Manitoba drum group Northern plains style songs Welcomed Queen Official concert Handel: Fireworks Music Royal Winnipeg Ballet Unity, Diversity, and Difference in North American Music Music’s importance Symbolic representation Political Social Mostly immigrants and descendants Indigenous population, minority Continual arrivals from the world Music/dance – often originated in other lands Creative fusion, exchange North America’s longstanding encounters between Indigenous people Established immigrant populations
New arrivals Festivals include music (diverse) Musical ethnic performances Expression of political ideas Confirmation of unity Revelation of political divisions and tensions Advance alternative social and political visions Demonstration of government’s limited representation of population Themes in North American Music Helps organize and enrich social life Makes differences audible and visible Shapes experiences How groups maintain distinct traditions while borrowing from others African-American music How conceptualized? Three questions: 1. Groups distinct, yet sharing similarities, how? 2. How professional and non-specializing musicians interact daily and for special events? 3. What do musical acts accomplish? Actualization of “symbolic” concepts Integration of participants Collective activity Production of actual differences in real time Soundly Organized Time Holiday season Distinctive music Ubiquitous Much composed in 1930s & 40s Tin Pan Alley style Singable AABB (32 bar) form Examples: carols/hymns Reference to Jesus’ birth Church services Handel’s Messiah, Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Christian music, ubiquitous, also diverse Christian calendars differ e.g. many do not observe Christmas Music shapes experience of passing time. Culturally specific Rhythmic/metrical practices North American structures of temporal organizations Ethnic identity associated Liturgical cycles Most evident cycles, annual Chant Heightened speech Sacred time, weekly organization Sunday-Christian Saturday-Jewish
Friday-Moslim Sacred texts Office – sets of daily worship services Chants at fixed times Matins-morning Vespers-evening Islamic call to prayer-5 times a day Church bells in steeples Shapes organization of the year Advent – 4 Sundays preceding Christmas Nativity Epiphany Ordinary time Lent Easter Pentecost All associated with music Jewish and Islamic groups Years’ passing marked by ritual Jewish High Holy Days Rosh Hashanah-New Years Yom Kippur-Day of Atonement Islam Month of Ramadan Rituals Assemblies Text recitation Calendar marked with music Weekdays-morning and evening music Accompanying commentary (radio programs, e.g.) Weekdays-marked with dance music Sounds function to shape social division of time. Temporal cycles and religious structures Coordinated with music North America-great variety Larger trends, e.g. Christmas carols, Christian significance Music and Age Categories Life cycle organized by music Genres of music and social categories Age, gender, e.g. children’s music “Miss Sue from Alabama” CD III, 22, recorded by Edna Smith Edet in New York City Contains fragmentsof children’s lives in NY, 1970s Hints of sibling antagonism Quotations from pop culture Playful, musical physicality Children’s musical games highlighted Diverse versions of same song exist Reflects locality Young people (perhaps young men) and popular genre
Marketed to young girls Paired adults-couple dancing in late life, ballroom style Young singles Likely dance apart Genres: rock & roll, ecectronic dance music Music and Rites of Passage Music’s connection to stages of life To rituals marking rites of passage Birth rites Circumcision and baptism New persons join community Funerary rites Wakes, funerals, viewings, memorial services Mark departure From childhood to adolescence to adulthood Educational levels Wedding ceremonies, 1980s-1990s Mennonites-protestant, Christian Practices: Adult baptism Nonresistance Reject worldliness Musical implications Instruments may be disallowed More liberal groups may use instruments Example: Piano opening, pleasant, not showy or Harmonically unusual Processional, e.g. Pachelbel’s Canon in D Timing managed at rehearsal, but could change at wedding Bride’s entrance, special music of her choice Congregational singing, perhaps Solo song by friend or relative Recessional-grand, joyous Music function at wedding Demonstrated taste of bridal couple and families Reinforced grandness and consequentiality of event Music, not main focus, except for song/hymn during ceremony Ceremony, often followed by reception Drinking and dancing, disapproved by Mennonites Other groups, drinking/dancing could be approved May have a DJ or full band By exclusion, Mennonites distinguished themselves from surrounding communities and North American mainstream. Music at wedding example, not generalizable to all of North America. Rooted in time and space 1980s & 1990s-weddings only between man and a woman Now, same sex couple marriages possible
Ritual and musical practice, open Music for procession/recession could differ e.g. “San Francisco” used at ceremony between two men North American ethnicity experienced in musical practices Coincide with life stages Christian-English-speaking mainstream Ethnicity sen at solemnity and festivity Also, everyday punctuating stretches Musical Particularity and Historical Continuity Social groups value distinguishing practices Those coming from “homeland” Changed in North American context Simultaneous adaptability and particularity Complexities of connection and ownership of musics explored Anglo-American Ballads Clarence Ahley’s recording of “The House of the Carpenter? Textbook CD 3, Track 23 Appalachian Ballad Strophic Banjo accompaniment Song dates back to 17th Century, “The Distressed Ship Carpenter” Ballad brought to North America from England by immigrants (Northern Ireland and Great Britain) Versions emerged Newfoundland New England Appalachia Midwest West More popular in North America than place of origin Ashley’s recording indicates a transformation and perpetuation e.g. “ships carpenter” became “house carpenter” Banjo accompaniment African origin Adopted by whites Caribbean blacks, late 17th Century African Americans, mid 18th Century Whites, first locally, later in context of minstrelsy American fiddle tunes may suggest influence of African American musical Traditions. Tecnobanda, quebradita, and duranguense: other migrating musical styles 1990s & 2000s-Spanish radio stations related quebradita and pasita duranguense dance craze Singers Close harmony Melodic bass fills by Brass, reed, electronic keyboards, kit drums, tamboron Dance rhythms
Pitch varies (sharp or flat) Stands out, compared to “intune” singing Thus, the Mexican-American musical ethnicity Traced to rural Mexican musical traditions Village bands, North West Mexico Melodies, wind and brass Tuba-bass line Tamboron and snare drum Newer genre added electric guitar and keyboards Banda descendents’ history Border crossings, South Texas and Northern Mexico Musical borrowings Strong German influence: polka, waltz, accordians Two dances emerged Quelradita Pasito curanguense from Chicago, led by Grupo Montez de Durango Addressed transitional audiences, both sides of border Immigrants borrow from each other Instruments Stylistic elements Adapt musical practices New circumstances Affects “back home” Some old practices continue Similar circumstances Strict boundaries Frequently reflects new context Hatterites, e.g. Protestant Communal living Strict guidelines Dress, comportment, language Conservative musical tradition Monophonic Unaccompanied Avoid secular subjects Yet, borrow sacred songs from other Communities Particular and General Musical Practices North America, diverse, mosaic of cultures “Melting Pot” Blends emerge Musically “melting” and sustained Communities differentiate themselves via music Appalachian music, e.g. Hybrid British songs African American instrument North American fiddle traditions Cape Breton, Canada Fiddles accompanied by pianists Unique syncopated style
Strathspey-dance tune of Scotland Duple meter Melodic embellishments Borrowed from bagpipe tunes Quebec Rhythmic “clogging” patterns (feet) as they play Upper South (U.S.) Syncopated bowing Generalized musical structures in fiddle tunes AABB dance form Harmony patterns Tonic, dominant, subdominant Evident in “Rocky Road to Jordan” Lamb, fiddler and accordionist Part Danish decent Repertory shaped by family connections Also, the mass media Diverse array of fiddle/dance tunes Danish German Scottish American Canadian Form and harmony (AABB, I, IV, V, I) “Rocky Road to Jordon” Textbook CD 3, Track 24 Two sections, alternate A – lower range B – higher register A & B repeated Synchronized with underlying pulse 16 beats per section Duple meter 32 bar AABB form Forms, freely treated Guitar-harmony, listen for chord changes Harmony, complex study in North America Key points Fundamental opposition Tonic and dominant Interrupted I, IV, V, I Sense of musical closure (I, V, I) Formal harmonic structures Enables memory of musicians Following well known structures makes group playing possible Without printed music Others also use it Gospel Country Blues/jazz Duranguense Musica nortena Wider harmonic palettes Broader ranges of chords
Modal patterns Musicians, apt to transform or elaborate common practices The African American Contribution to North American Music Characteristic component, especially the U.S. African Americans’ significant contribution Slaves Marginalized in society Minority Unprecedented influence on rest of world Ragtime Blues Jazz Rhythm and Blues Rock & Roll Funk Disco Hip-hop Electronic dance music Other American musics show influence Country Bluegrass Broadway American Art Music Responsible factors Music-Central force in African American groups African American music, long-time central element in American musical life. Object of fascination Expressing Collective Experience and Resistance Africans brought to America via slave trade Brought music traditions Louder instruments, wind and percussion Slave owners regarded with suspicion Quieter fiddle and banjo emerged as more important Musical structure- key to African retentions Sub-Saharan music elements in African American music Cyclical forms Interlocking parts Dense timbres Musical divisions, core and elaboration Also include European structures, but… from African-American aesthetic Collective expressions of slave life Work songs Sacred music For socializing and dancing Musics expressed Sorrow Protest of slavery Hopes for better life Means of resistence
Drumming Singing Afro-American music-complex relationship of exchange Black fiddlers accompanied both black and white dances Anglo-Celtic tunes Evidence of whites borrowing African American music and dance White Americans’ fascination Object of ambivalent fascination Loved the music Refused respect for the people Minstrelsy-mid 19th Century Whites-blackened their faces Played and sang in African American style Grotesque caricatures Successful as popular culture Suggested that black music was becoming central to white expressive culture. African American Music: From Emancipation to Today From 1965, continued to offer Collective expression Fascination for non-blacks Technology enabled spread to new audiences Example: Sacred, “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” Background Small church, met in cabin room Singing, accompanied by bas drum, tambourine, guitar Lyrics project absolute despondency, plea for divine help. Blacks adopted Christianity in 19th Century Adapted it to suite Afro American sociability and aesthetics Worship, e.g. Rhythmic movement Spontaneous speech, song Affirming shared heritage, slavery, Christianity African Americans moved from rural South to urban North, early 20th Century 1930s-Dynamic Gospel form emerged Thomas A. Dorsey-key figure Composed listening example in 1932, following wife’s death Sacred songs focus Life’s difficulties Poverty Crime Illness Uncertain love Legalized racism Collective reflection on shared circumstances Expression of solidarity Gospel music preserved valued African Americans’ elements Musical and religious Dorsey’s song, written for improvisation and free elaboration
Melody in listening guide differs from published version. Building of black American musical public Dissemination of musical publication Week to week use, locally Dorsey’s song-widely known Recorded by Mahalia Jackson and Elvis Presley Secular music “Matchbox Blues” by Blind Lemon Jackson Rural blues style Emerged in Southern U.S., early 20th Century Blues drew from Field hollers Black ballads Spread from traveling “songsters” Brief introduction Repeated lyrics and harmonic pattern Verses-2 rhyming lines Same harmonic patterns Basic pattern used in other blues songs, but Not strictly followed Words transcribed from listening Differences possible Lyrics-similar and in contrast to sacred music Reflect on unhappiness Blues open to discuss Earthly love Sexuality Money Some musicians active in blues and sacred genres Both important iin black musical public Genres also captivated non-blacks Non-black musicians subjects of concern to many North Americans Social changes Emancipation Reconstruction Civil Rights Movement White North Americans-pointed toward more productive Engagement with African American musical expressions Social status o black musicians Bebop, 1940, e.g. Intricate improvisation Fast tempo Musicianship required facility and flexibility Influenced development of indeterminacy and Improvisation in non-black forms Black musicians denied same rights as white musicians Powerful argument for equality Bebop audiences included non-blacks Often used to train young jazz players Important part of musical language Evoked migration of musical works between groups Jazz- incorporates African retentions
Collective improvisation Older Africans’ traditions Blues Contributions from Non-blacks Non-Americans Evident in Swing rhythms Classic country Post-war avant-garde Typical of emerging styles in new context North American Musical Concepts Dueck’s assignment List songs students know 2 groups emerge Singers, music students Students who claim to know few or none Addressing specific song titles, different results “Do you know, ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’?” Larger numbers know specific songs How is music conceptualized in North America? Something done by professionals, artists Something encountered-concerts, public sphere Music learned from Schoolmates Teachers Parents Church members Comes to mind better than more formalized examples Printed music MP3 files Concerts “Music for music’s sake.” Chapter’s purpose-to dispel idea Discuss functional nature of music and use. Why this concept? Professionalization extends to musical world. Purview of artists Product-oriented North American society Work of musicians seen as a commodity Commodification and specialization of music Financial success is esteemed Artistic excellence measured Producers’ goal-make music with wide appeal Artists’ goal-make music that evidences talent, pursues excellence Art and commerce Tense relationship Courting mainstream audience Compromising artistry and authenticity Concert halls Sell tickets Challenge audiences with new music
Fiddlers Local style repertoire National style appeal Win contests Commercial success Artistically compromised? Music pushed on audiences? Companies’ lack of artistic interest Other side argues Art music, too subtle Of no value to audience Fails to communicate North American values Refine performance skills Composing new music Entering contests Interpreting challenging compositions All efforts may yield little financial reward Music’s extension beyond arguments Democratic, participatory, everyday phenomenon Compare musics to foods Fast food chains Zagat-rated restaurants People cook at home Grow gardens Fish and hunt Music functions…. Homes Playgrounds Community Marks passing time Rites of passage North American diversity Art and commerce concepts Complex and contradictory relationships Ethnics and local ways of assessing value Summary North Americans comprise one of the most diverse societies in the world. Immigrants brought their own musical traditions, including instruments with them to their new countries. Although a lot of borrowing occurred among ethnic groups, producing a synthesis, distinct musical traditions were also preserved in the form of music. This process continues. Africans were brought to North America and sold in the slave trade. Their citizenship was marginalized even after emancipation, but their music survived. There was much borrowing and synthesizing that produced new forms in the context of a different location. The impact that African Americans’ music has had on the world is significant. Because the societies of North America are product-oriented, commercialization of the arts is sometimes in conflict with the concept of “arts for art’s sake.” All genres of music and the performers are subject to the values of the society, meaning that financial success is considered desirable. Fiddlers, e.g., may want to
enjoy local success, but also incorporate national trends into their performances so that they will be able to compete for prizes. Composers may be inspired to write music that is too challenging for concert audiences. Producers encourage composers to write music that will have a broad appeal. Music is functional in that it serves an ancillary purpose for many social occasions: rites of passages, school events, community celebrations, and home use. The cultural context in which the event occurs helps to define the type of music that is chosen. Discussion Questions 1. What conflicting interests were symbolized and realized in the form of music during the public concerts in Winnipeg, Canada when Queen Elizabeth II visited in 2002? 2. How is it possible for ethnic musics to both delineate social groups and also help synthesize their expression in new locations? 3. Discuss incidences where immigrating groups coming to North America have “borrowed” musical traditions from each other. 4. What conflicting ideas surrounded the development of Bebop? Key Concepts for the Unit: 1. North American population is extremely diverse. 2. Factors that relate to music diversity include location, background, values, annual religious calendars, school music, concert rituals, and age. 3. Immigrants shared musical ideas, borrowed from each other for a synthesis that both preserved old traditions and created new concepts. 4. Unique music is an aspect of “culture” that can create a real-time boundry. Recommended DVDs: American Patchwork-Appalachian Journey, Alan Lomax, 2006, DVD, Media Generation.com. Beyond Our Differences, Bill Moyer’s Journal, 2009, DVD, PBS Lomax the Songhunter, 2008, DVD, Rounder Europe Studio. We Are the World, 2005, DVD, Stage Entertainment Studio.
APPENDIX: ASSIGNMENTS Assign activities during the semester to increase the students’’ stake in the course. Such tasks depend upon the instructor developing a collection of recorded material for the library. World music can be downloaded at http://www.smithsonianglobalsound.org Listening Assignments: Supplementary required listening assignments, taking the form of 70 or 80minute CDRs (with prepared “liner notes”), give students the opportunity to hear more music. Listening Journals: Ask students to spend an hour a week listening to music of their own choice (but appropriate to the current area) and to keep an individual listening journal in which they record their reactions to the music, describe and analyze it, and use terms and concepts they learned in class. Paper Assignments: Students should be required to write one or two papers during the semester. Many topics exist for the students to choose from, but they should be integrated with an ethnomusicological analysis. Students may take ideas they learned in class and apply them in new and personally meaningful ways. For example: One of the tenets of this class is that we should consider music as a phenomenon with three aspects: sound, conception, and behavior. Write a four or five-page essay in which you use this model as the basis for a description of some type of music you directly participate in as a performer, consumer, listener, or critic. You do not need to like the type of music you choose. Fieldtrips Assign a fieldwork-based project. This could be the study of local musicians or groups. The students must write a report indicating the music, the performer, the location, the meaning of the songs, the method of learning the songs, and the performers’ migrations. Listening Workgroups: Divide the class into three-person workgroups for the semester. The groups must meet on a regular basis, and the position of coordinator should be alternated. The coordinator makes sure that the meeting takes place, selects music for discussion, takes notes on the discussion, and types up a short report.
World Music - Listening Worksheet, 1 World Area: ______________________
Report due date: _______________________
Coordinator: ______________________
Listening dates:________________________
Sample tracks listened to: Title
Album
General notes during sampling time:
Titles of 4-5 tracks to discuss as a group:
Final piece for detailed analysis:
Side/track
Library call number
World Music - Listening Worksheet, 2
Title: ____________________________ Country:___________________________ Album:___________________________ Artist/Ethnologist: ___________________ Kind of music: __________
Library call #: ________
Region/state: _________________
Musical Genre:____________________
Why was this piece chosen?
Instruments used:
Vocal styles: Technical terms that describe:
Similar to or different from other music of region? How?
What is most intriguing? Difficult to follow?
What would we like to understand better?
Track/side #: _________
