drumming and singing
TRANSCRIPT
Why teach world music?
“Multicultural education” agenda?
Increase “musicianship” skills by drawing on a wider range of styles and principles?
Develop understanding of what “music” is as a phenomenon common to all humanity?
Understand “one’s own” music better by comparing it with others?
What is “world music” anyway?
All the world’s music? Then why not just say “music”? Because (in education) “music” normally
means Western classical music. Other kinds of music get compartmentalised
as “popular”, “traditional”, “world” etc. Different modes of study are applied to them,
e.g. sociological, anthropological, economic. But all music circulates in the same world!
One world of music?
Writers of “world music” textbooks still seem to accept the compartmentalisation (see handout)
There is no book about “all the world’s music”
…yet!
The Music Tree: an approach to teaching “all the world’s music” The world now has a shared musical
language which can be imagined as a tree. The roots are all over the world. The trunk is in North America. The branches spread out all over the world. Fruit or seeds fall from the branches. The seeds grow into new trees (from the
same soil that nourished the roots). This course starts by tracing the roots…
The music we already knowis “world music” Example: the basic “rock & roll” beat The Ramones, “Rock ’n’ Roll High School”,
1979 www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQFEo5pj-V8 Compare this use of drums and cymbals with:
John Philip Sousa, “The Liberty Bell”, 1893www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6Dd0EaEbqg
Rock & roll has a strong backbeat (stress on beats 2 & 4 within 4/4 time).
Where did the backbeat come from?
Backbeat before rock & roll
Rock & roll emerged in 1950s USA. What earlier forms of music had a backbeat? Jazz Blues Gospel - all forms pioneered by African Americans - continuing a musical heritage traceable to…
Africa
General characteristicsof Sub-Saharan African music (1) (Jonathan Stock, World Sound Matters, p. 61) 1. Continuous, varied repetition 2. Overlapping call & response 3. Successive entries of new instruments African American parallels: 1. ►Chris Kenner, “Land of 1000 Dances”, 1962
www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_BCUIFVkio 2. ►Aretha Franklin, “Respect”, 1967
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FOUqQt3Kg0 3. ►(Next slide)
Multi-layered texture of “riffs”:King Curtis, “Memphis Soul Stew”, 1967 www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Sm9n-6hy6M (bass riff, beginning with repeated note) (spoken:) Today’s special is Memphis soul stew.
We sell so much of this, people wonder what we put in it. We’re gonna tell you right now.
Give me about a half a teacup of bass. (new melodic bass riff) Now I need a pound of fatback drums. (add drums) Now give me four tablespoons of boiling Memphis guitar, this is
gonna taste all right. (add guitar riff) Now just a little pinch of organ. (add electric organ tremolo) Now give me a half a pint of horn. (sax riff, ‘across’ the beat) Place on the burner and bring to a boil. That’s it right there. Now beat well. (drums respond)
Sub-Saharan African music (2)(►with African American parallels) Simultaneous contrasting rhythms
►Meade “Lux” Lewis, “Honky Tonk Train Blues”, 1927 www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne_U25ryLjc
Continuous rhythmic marking by percussion►Any popular music with drum kit.
Rattling or buzzing timbres►Muddy Waters, “Hoochie Coochie Man”, 1954 www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgAcDLZr6Gs
Descending melodic contours►Blues and any style with blues influences.
African and European rhythm(Gunther Schuller’s theory) European metre is hierarchical:
different beats of the bar have stronger and weaker degrees of stress.
African rhythm is polyrhythmic: different beats are stressed in different layers of the texture so that overall, each beat has equal stress.
When asked to play in European metre, African musicians may have tended to make the beats more “equal” by stressing “weak” beats – hence the backbeat in rock & roll.
European/Euro-American contributionsto global popular music Hierarchical metre, especially 4/4 time. Melodies composed of balanced strains
with different pitch contours.►a random example: “For Auld Lang Syne”
Functional harmony, tonality & modulation.►from classical music via older pop styles
Songs in strophic and verse/refrain forms. Electr(on)ic technology for amplification,
recording, manipulation of sound. Instruments, e.g. keyboards, guitars; BUT…
Middle Eastern Originsof European instruments
Violin (rebec, Byzantine lūrā, Arab rabāb)
Oboe (Arab surnay and relatives)
Timpani (nakers, Arab naqqara paired drums)
Guitar (lute, lauda, Arabic al ‘ud = “wood”)
Piano (a struck zither, like Turkish kanun)
Dissemination of the hammered dulcimer (from New Grove)
Ancestry of the drum kit
Bass drum, snare drum, cymbal, “traps” Jazz drum set standardized 1940s “Trap” drummer in vaudeville, circus Pedal mechanisms develop c. 1890-1925 Instruments from military marching bands Trace back from America to Europe… …and from Europe to Turkey
“Turkish Music”by Western classical composers Mozart’s “Turkish Rondo” (Rondo alla turca)
Last movement of Piano Sonata in A Major, K. 331 www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKdVqD75dm4
Beethoven’s “Turkish March”from theatre music The Ruins of Athens, Op. 113 www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd0OjCO9x5Y
“Turkish” percussion = triangle (triangolo),cymbals (piatti), bass drum (tamburo grande).
Turkish music from Turkey
Ottoman Janissary [Military] Bandwww.youtube.com/watch?v=D0Fyf63qI_E
Famous percussion instrument makers:
Zildjian, now based in USA, started in Turkeyhttp://zildjian.com/About/History/Background
The Ottoman Empire(source: www.naqshbandi.org)
AksakTurkish asymmetrical metre 9 beats, grouped 2 + 2 + 2 + 3 Traditional Music from Turkey (on Naxos),
track 8 (free metre to 0:40) Ottoman Empire brought this to… Bulgarian bagpipe tunes Bosnian “Newly Composed Folk Song” Dave Brubeck, Blue Rondo Alla Turk
www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8E5A27PJHk
Another “root”: Latin America(source: http://go.grolier.com/atlas)
The Latin Beat
Compare the standard “rock & roll” beat…e.g. Chuck Berry, “Johnny B. Goode”, 1958www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFo8-JqzSCM (fastest notes go 8 to the bar)
…with the beat of much popular music since about 1970:
Disco (The Bee Gees) Funk (George Clinton, Stevie Wonder) Rap (Grandmaster Flash) - Slower tempo but fastest notes 16 to the bar
João Gilberto, “A Felicidade”from film Black Orpheus, 1959
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdgpPlT2-Vo
samba ‘refrain’march-like basic beat on loud bass drums;16-beat rhythm on large number of percussion instruments;call & response betweenchorus & trombone
bossa nova ‘verse’gentle basic beat on low-pitched drum;16-beat rhythm on shaker only;“thinned-out” rhythm onfewer instruments;jazz-like melody and harmony;smoother sound: solo voice, acoustic guitar;sustained notes on wind & string instruments
samba ‘refrain’ interrupts…
Latin American genres historically popular in Europe & North America Sarabande: possibly Native (South) American
origin, taken from colonies to Spain in 16th c. Habanera: 19th c. Cuban dance form, used in
Bizet’s Carmen and musical My Fair Lady. Tango: Argentinian dance, popular
internationally in 1910s. Son, Rumba, Cha Cha Cha, Salsa… 20th c.
Cuban dance forms widely disseminated. Bossa Nova: Brazilian “new beat” music
popular in North America from 1950s.
Rhythms used in “Livin’ La Vida Loca” – Ricky Martin, 1999 www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltRgb4SJ1uk
basic 16-beat rhythm: 1 x x x 2 x x x 3 x x x 4 x x x
standard clave rhythm: X - - X - - X - - - X - X - - -
reverse clave rhythm: - - X - X - - - X - - X - - X -
Verse (reverse clave rhythm:) - - She’s in - - to su- per- sti - -tions, - - Black cats and voo-doo dolls...
Refrain (standard clave rhythm:) X - - X - - X - - - X - X - - - Up - - side - in - - side - out, she’sliv-in la vi(2)da - lo(3) - ca (4)
Western musicians use “world” sounds“Love You To” – The Beatles, 1966 www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxr0Cofbmpk 0:00 sitar strokes sympathetic strings 0:10 unmetered alap-like improvisation 0:34 metered melody begins; tabla, drone 0:39 verse 1 (melisma on “me”); refrain 1:10 verse 2 (melisma on “me”); refrain 1:38 sitar solo (goes “across” the meter) 1:56 refrain; verse 3 (melisma); refrain 2:32 sitar solo to end; faster tempo
…and “world” musicians use Western sounds and technologies West African “praise singing” traditions, see:
“AFRICA Salieu Suso: Griot” on Naxos, and:www.kora-music.com/e/frame.htm
Adapted by musicians of “praise singer” background, e.g. Salif Keitawww.youtube.com/watch?v=GPfOgbxwC3c
Conclusion
Many world music textbooks refer to “musics” in the plural (e.g. May, Musics of Many Cultures; Titon et al., Worlds of Music)
In reality, all music exists in the same world
Thanks to research and the Internet, we now have the resources to study and teach this