The Music Culture as a World of Music Introduction to Listening and Concepts in the Study of World Music

The Soundscape The world around us is full of sounds. All of them are meaningful in some way soundscape refers to sound: the characteristic sounds of a particular place, both human and nonhuman; the acoustic environment where sounds, including music, occur; After listening to CD 1:1 describe how the soundscape of this African post office differs from the soundscape of a North American post office. The soundscape of the African post office sounds like music—a music with a driving rhythmic part that contrasts boldly with the whistled part. The typical North American post office soundscape is filled with: (for example) • random sounds of people walking in to pick up or send mail • several overlapping conversations as customers and postal workers carry on their business • punctuating sounds of packages being dropped into shipping boxes

The Music Culture “Although music is universal, its meaning is not. . . . Different cultures give music different meanings. . . . [C]ulture means the way of life of a people, learned and transmitted from one generation to the next.” The European music-culture would not call “music” the sounds of musicians tuning up in a symphony orchestra. The Asian visitor, however, interpreted these sounds differently and thought they were the best part of the performance. the authors stress the word learned to differentiate a people’s cultural inheritance from what is passed along biologically in their genes What do people understand as cultural inheritance: the meaning of situations they are in and how they might behave in those situations music-culture: “a group’s total involvement with music: ideas, actions, institutions, material objects—everything that has to do with music.”

Culture, process, change, contact We should not think of music cultures as isolated and untouched because of the interaction between the local and the global—due to the widespread distribution of music people in most music-cultures are likely to have heard some of the same music

Music or Non-music “Not all music-cultures have the same idea of music.” “[M]usic is different things to different peoples: they ‘make’ it in different ways. ethnomusicologists try to understand the music on its own terms, that is, “as the various music-cultures themselves do. Consider example CD1-2. What characteristics of music did you hear in the thrush’s song? How can the sound of birds singing be considered music? The bird song of the hermit thrushes has rhythm, melody, repetition, variation, and their song is based on phrases—groups of tones that end with a pause. Whether or not the bird song is music depends on one’s cultural viewpoint. Most Euro-Americans would not call bird song music, yet the Kaluli people of Papua New Guinea think bird songs have human meaning. The Kaluli people believe that bird songs are the voices of their deceased ancestors who have died and changed into birds.

All music has human meaning Ethnomusicologist John Blacking has written: • “[M]usic is sound that is humanly patterned or organized.” Music is humanly constructed like all other aspects of culture. Listen to CD 1:1 again and consider whether or not the example is music. The Euro-American music culture would classify the example as music. How could the example not be considered music? Where do you stand on the issue and why? According to the text, these men did not quite think of themselves as musicians who were performing music and putting on a musical show. Rather they thought of themselves as simply postal workers who were coordinating their work efforts. The postal workers are making “music”—interesting sounds—that coordinates their work efforts (hand-canceling stamps in a Ghanaian post office). work song: a kind of music whose function ranges from coordinating tasks to making work more interesting

Elements of Music and Ways to Listen

What do we respond to when we listen? Memory: personal experience, personal and emotional associations including how we use the music. Familiarity: recognizable sounds and how they are organized Cultural references: how that music relates to our identification with different cultures, subcultures, groups. Taste: how all of the above contribute to our notions of taste. What are the building blocks of a soundscape? How do we finish the sentence: "I like this music because..." and be able to describe the sonic components we respond to.

Useful components of music Rhythm: fast, slow, pulse, stresses Melody: hummable, complex Texture: how many sounds, elements are going on at the same time What is the text (if one is used) and how does it work with the other components of the music What language is being used Timbres: what are the Qualities of the sounds... In non-western musics (nasal, buzzy, complex) or western (power pedal on electric guitar.

Patterns in Music: Rhythm and Meter Rhythm in music is a succession of related (or connected) sound events in time. The sounds of a heartbeat or a person walking are examples of rhythm. Randomly occurring, unconnected sounds are not rhythmic. Sounds of people eating at a crowded public restaurant are not considered rhythmic.

Rhythm Meter is the pattern of pulses heard in a piece These patterns are repeated and often are heard according to stressed and unstressed beats Think of a march: marches can be organized in groups of 2 beats with a stress on the first beat: 1 2:1 2 or Left/right: Left/right. Or in 4 beats: Hup, 2,3,4; Hup 2,3,4. Waltzes are the typical example for pieces organized in groups of three (with the stresses on beat ONE two three, etc. Other pieces can often be organized in groups of four.

Rhythm and Meter Continued Music can also have a lack of metrical rhythm: CD 1:23, “Tsuru no sugomori,” a Japanese shakuhachi piece, lacks a steady, dancelike beat. The opening alapana section of CD 2:2, Sarasiruha, is another example of flexible, nonmetered rhythm Tempo refers to the speed of the beat or basic pulse that underlies most music.

Simultaneous occurrence of rhythms or meters polyrhythm (polyrhythmic); describes the simultaneous occurrence of several rhythms with a shifting beat? polymeter (polymetric); describes the simultaneous presence of two different metrical systems?

Melody Few notes Lots of notes coming at you very quickly Lots of skips: disjunct All of the notes are connected: conjunct Singable

Melody the “tune—the part of a piece of music that goes up and down, the part that most people hear and sing along with.” The high-low quality of a musical tone is called pitch and is created by an object vibrating constantly at a fixed number of cycles per second, or its frequency. The faster (more frequent) the vibrations, the higher or shriller the pitch sounds. Conversely, the slower (less frequent) the vibrations, the lower or deeper the pitch sounds. Give examples of a high pitch and a low pitch. (Answers will vary.) Volume (or dynamic level) refers to how music increases or decreases in loudness. Timbre or tone quality (instrumentation and performing medium are other terms for timbre.): distinctive sound quality of different instruments such as a trumpet or violin, which are recognized as different even though both instruments may be playing the same pitch?

Scale Scale refers to how different music-cultures organize the distances (musical intervals) between the scale tones within the octave, —or the distance on a piano between any white keys that are eight white keys apart. pentatonic scales (five-note scales similar to playing only the black keys on a piano), which are the basis of many European folk songs ragas—organized melodic matrices—used in classical music of South India (karnatic music)

Harmony Chords are made up of a group of notes played simultaneously; When played as a support for a melody, they contribute to the harmony of the piece (think musical grammar); Texture refers to how melody and harmony interact.

Texture One line of musical played or sung by one or more persons (monophony) Two or more lines generally doing the same thing but with a few elements unique to each part (a decoration or embellishment) (heterophonic) All voices moving together but singing different notes (homophonic) Two or more parts with independent lines (polyphonic).

Form In general, form in the arts means structural arrangement. In music form refers to patterns of organization in rhythm, melody, and harmony. CD 1:9, a hymn of the Native American Church, is exactly repeated four times. The melody descends in pitch at the beginning of each repetition. Note also that the solo male singer is accompanied by a rattle and drum, but there is no accompanying harmony (monophonic texture). Understanding structural arrangement and how music is organized also helps us understand “how various cultures and subcultures think about time and space in general . . . but there is more to music than the structure of sounds.” What else beyond the structural elements of rhythm, meter, melody, and harmony, do we need to study to gain a complete understanding of the music?

Tex and Langauge What is the relationship between text and music? Melismatic: many notes per syllable Syllabic: one note per syllable Language choice Use of vocables

Describing instruments Chordophones: sound is made by a vibrating string; guitar violins Idiophones: sound is made by one part of an instrument hitting another; triangle, maracas ... Membranophones: sound is made by a vibrating membrane; drums Aerophones: sound is made by air vibrating in a chamber; flute, trumpet... Electrophone: use of electricity to generate sound: synthesizer, electric guitar.

Understanding Music

Understanding Music to gain a complete understanding of the music we need to consider the social activities and ideas of the people who are making the music . . . “all of the aspects of the music, not just its sound.” This is where meaning and cultural practice come together to give music the power of association and then to define that association... such as protest and celebration.

A Music-Culture Performance Model I. Ideas about music II. Activities involving music III. Repertories of music IV. Material culture of music Figures 1.5 and 1.6 offer two diagrams that show how performance, musicians, audience, time and place are interrelated. The broad categories for understanding musical culture are listed as Four Components:

Ideas About Music Music and the Belief System: where music fits within a particular music-culture’s belief system. Is music good and useful, or harmful? Aesthetics of music—that which is beautiful in music. Why is a song considered beautiful? Contexts for music—the cultural and physical environments in which music is performed When and where should certain music be performed? History of music—that which happens to music over time and within space. What did music of the past sound like?

Music and Society People from different sub-groups or classes within any society approach the musical ideas and practices of their society differently. Some people perform often, others hardly at all. Some make music for fun as a hobby, others as a full-time occupation. “social organization of the music-culture” means the way people divide, arrange, or rank themselves in relation to music. musical behavior can reinforce (resemble) the social organization of its culture: for example, the exclusion of women from the Vienna Philharmonic until 1997 reinforcing the segregation of genders in Austria. Think about how music performance can relate to heightened or lowered social status. In many instances, a musician of lower class is considered important because of his musical performance; in others, individuals become suspect because of their musical performance (i.e., rock musicians in some countries can be considered amoral).

Repertoires of Music A repertory is a stock [or collection] of music that is ready to be performed, and a music-culture’s repertory is what most of us think of as the ‘music itself.’ Style: everything related to the organization of the musical sound itself—for example, time elements (rhythm, meter, tempo), pitch aspects, timbre, sound intensity, and form all being manipulated according to a music-culture’s aesthetics. Genres: types of music or standard units of repertory—for example, “song” subdividing into lullaby, Christmas carol, or folk song; instrumental music and dances subdividing into jig, reel, waltz, and so on. Texts: words to a song—for example, the text or lyrics of any song.

Repertoires of Music Composition: how music enters the repertory of a music-culture—for example, in Western culture, a group of musically trained people called composers creates music. Transmission: how music is transmitted (passed on) to the people in the culture, including future generations. For example, some music-cultures transmit music through a master-apprentice relationship that lasts a lifetime, or in the Western music-culture people learn about music through formal training, including the study of Western musical notation and music theory. Movement: the physical activity accompanying the music—for example, the movement of rock musicians as they perform, or the dance movements that accompany certain kinds of music.

Material Culture “Material culture refers to the material objects that people in a culture produce—objects that can be seen, held, felt and used.” Examples of the material culture of music include musical instruments (or historical pictures of them), sheet music, instruction books, and more recently, devices that electronically disseminate music (phonographs, television, DVD/CDs, MP4s, computers, and so on). Electronic media has become an important part of music’s material culture because it facilitates the relatively quick dissemination of virtually any recorded music throughout most of the world.

Cultural Value and Culture Contact it is unwise to consider one music-culture “better” or “less primitive” that another: Such a judgmental label is ethnocentric—the idea that one’s own group is superior--when it imposes criteria and standards on a group that does not recognize them. Change is a natural process in nature and in cultural practices. Technology has, however, changed the rate of change and the opportunities for cultural contact, here the exchange of music and the impact on local practices.