Week 5 listening

This piece is an unnamed medley of gamelan tunes from Indonesia, specifically the islands of Java, Sunda and Bali. The performers are members of Amadinda Percussion Group, Triginta Percussion, Péter Szalai and László Tömösközi. The instruments being used predominantly are metallophones (bronze bells) and mebranophones. There is also an aerophone used briefly.

When creating and performing music there are many strategies that can be implemented. This piece reflects some of the examples in our text. As gamelan music, the pieces follow colotomic patterns. These patterns are partially created by the natural “speed” at which each instrument should play. The pitch range of the instrument corresponds to how active the instrument should be in the piece – high-pitched instruments play more often than low-pitched instruments. These performers must have spent many hours listening to the individual pieces being performed in this medley and studied the various musical inflections as well as timing. Because this is a medley, the arranger must have examined all three pieces and searched for possible points of transition. It is not always possible to have a direct segue and sometimes arrangers need to compose a transition so that two different pieces can be combined.

When learning this piece, the performers most likely did so by ear – through listening to recordings, or by taking instruction from the arranger. If possible, they may have also watched video recordings of other performers. It is also possible that the performers wrote out each of the colotomic patterns to help them remember what to play. Gamelan music also does not have a conductor so the performers must have rehearsed together for a considerable amount of time in order to learn all of the tempo changes as well as how their individual parts fit together.

Week 4 listening

The title of this piece is not listed, but it is a Brazilian Capoeira. The piece is performed by Grupo Engenho da Bahia. The instruments used are the agogo bells, atabaque, berimbau and voice.

Authenticity in music education has many facets, including instrumentation, teaching method, and the music itself. Is a particular method of teaching or performing authentic to the original cultural context, and if not, is it close enough to be of educational value or does it denigrate the original tradition. In the case of Capoeira, I think that coming as close to performing on original instruments and learning in the same manner as traditional Capoeirists is very important.

Capoeira is by its nature dependent upon both music and dance. Originally the genre started as a guise for martial arts training for slaves in Brazil. To attempt to make the music without the dance, or to dance without the music is a disservice to the art form in my opinion. The instrumentalists in Capoeira have learned the dance (martial arts) aspect of the art form, and use their knowledge of it to inform what and how they play. The dancers in turn listen to the music and move with it – often using it to perform unexpected maneuvers. It is certainly possible to learn and imitate the instrumental ensembles through transcription or rote learning, and even to use traditional western instruments to approximate the sound. In doing so, the communicative aspect of the music is lost – the instrumentalist and dancer are no longer communicating, just repeating the same phrase ad nauseum. Removing the dance from the music also defeats the purpose of the genre. Without paying tribute to martial arts function of Capoeira, you simply cannot have Capoeira.

Week 3

The title of this piece is Sekar Jupun, and it is performed by an unidentified Balinese gamelan ensemble. This music is from Indonesian (Bali), and is scored for kendang, gender, saron, bonang, gong ggeng, small cymbals, and an aerophone that resembles a wooden flute or whistle.

I think the most prominent link between context and musical structure is culturally based. Different traditions within each culture have associated music with specific structures. In western pop traditions, the structure is often verse-refrain, in Indonesian and West African traditions, the structure is colotomic. Each culture – and its sub cultures/traditions – has its own specific musical structures. Another context is the setting of musical usage. Is the music dance music, reflective music, ceremonial, or religious? The setting will affect tempo, style, chord progressions, and use of harmony. These are all parts of musical structure.

In the above example, musical structure is heavily influenced by culture. The piece is made up of colotomic patterns and many performers play the same part. The sequenced nature of the music as well as the equal importance of each music instrument in the soundscape reflect the cultural values of working together for the common good.

Week 2 Listening

The title of the pieces in this video are Raga Darbari Kannada, Raga Adana, and Raga Bhairavi. They are performed by Ali Akbar Khan and Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri and an unknown woman. This is North Indian Classical music and is scored for Sitar, Tabla, and Tanpura.

I think one take away that I got from this example, as well as our listening examples is that aesthetic values are not the same across all cultural lines. These examples are all different ragas, but personally, I find it difficult to distinguish them from an aesthetic viewpoint. I appreciate that they are different, and that others distinguish them with the ease that I distinguish pieces of Western European art music. Over the course of this maters degree program, it has been stated several times that not everyone shares the same musical and aesthetic preferences, and this is the case for me. The performance is masterful, but as the saying goes, it is not my cup of tea.

Classification systems are extremely useful, especially when describing unfamiliar sounds. If someone were trying to point out musical features in a recording of a raga, it would be difficult for me to just know what each instrument is and what it sounds like. Describing the sitar as a chordophone with a bright timbre would help me to distinguish its sound. Likewise, classification systems can help to compare pieces of music in terms of meter and rhythmic feel. Describing a piece with a time signature does not work well for all types of music, nor does it help anyone who does not have an understanding of the meaning of time signatures. Instead, describing meter using concepts such as cyclical patterns, colotomic, duple or triple meter makes this kind of description much more accessible to a broader audience.

Week 1 listening

The piece that I am sharing this week is called Kusi-Kusi and is performed by Rumi Tallan. This is traditional Andean music. The instruments used are the charango (similar to a guitar or ukelele), sikus (Andean pan pipes) and pan flute – most likely the Quena.

I was first exposed to Andean music through my undergraduate world music course. I really enjoyed the dance-like character of many of the pieces, and the wooden timbre (the pan pipes and flutes are made of wood). In terms of how ethnomusicology informs world music pedagogy, I think it helps establish authentic teaching. Our readings this week highlighted the connection between music and culture. It is not possible to do justice to the music of another culture without learning about the culture in which the music is created and consumed.

During my undergraduate course, we explored the culture of Andean tribal people. Because of that I know that these people live at very high altitudes where the air is thin and the weather is often quite cold. This helped me to gain a deeper appreciation for the performance of this music. The wind instruments require a lot of air and stamina at sea level, so the Andean musicians must be highly practiced in order to perform at altitudes where it is much more difficult to breathe. We also covered how music is used for social recreation, and the musicians will often form a sort of “conga line” and walk around the village while playing music. As Elliot (1990) would put it, this all falls under the guided tour approach to multicultural music (pg. 151). It is all information that helps us to know about. In order to truly understand and appreciate the music it is necessary to teach for cultural understanding - to encourage an active encounter with the culture (Elliott, 1990, pg 151). To this end, our class actually learned an Andean folk tune, practiced it on pan pipes (sikus), and we walked through the halls of the music building performing the song. This was a way to encounter Andean musical culture from our classroom in Chicago, IL (and as a side note, walking up several flights of stairs while playing pan pipes gave many of us a very real appreciation for what it must be like to play these instruments with a low oxygen supply).

The study of ethnomusicology arms teachers with the cultural information necessary to teach world music more authentically.

References

Elliott, D. J. (1990). Music as culture: Toward a multicultural concept of arts education. Journal of aesthetic education 24(1). 147-166