If we think to regulate printing, thereby to rectify manners, we must regulate all recreations and pastimes, all that is delightful to man.
(John Milton, Areopagitica)

Should rudimentary notation be a compulsory part of the music GCSE course?

I say yes – it’s been fundamental to European “Art” music until recently and even for many types of non-classical music it can be a useful tool, even if it doesn’t convey exactly what is being played in jazz, for example. I took music (and gave it up) at school so long ago I can’t remember but I don’t think the level of music reading was very advanced even then.

And this shouldn’t be an argument about the relative merits of the “classical tradition” of music.

Because, notation doesn’t convey what’s played in jazz, but then in a similar sense it doesn’t really convey what’s played in baroque and earlier music in the “classical” tradition, or indeed (at least rhythmically) in much 19th century music, i.e. what most would think of as the central repertoire of that tradition. The idea that notation is an exhaustive description of exactly what happens or should happen in a performance has never borne very close scrutiny. There’s always a background of tradition and unwritten rules against which it operates, and (like the pronunciation of the spoken language, giving rise to many rhymes in Shakespeare no longer being rhymes, for example), the rules change over historical time. One reason a lot of contemporary music is notated in what seems like an unnecessarily complex way is that, having moved on in various directions from traditional approaches to composition, composers need to write these otherwise unwritten rules into their scores.

So notation is a way for composers to communicate to performers, as well as tangentially being an object for study in its own right. It’s a language, like any other language it’s not always precise or unambiguous, and like any other language it can be used in a functional or in a poetic way. A notated piece of music allows the reader to gain an overview of the music so to speak “outside time” which is an obvious aid to an understanding of its structure. A transcription of a jazz solo or a raga might not be precise, though it’s massively more precise than verbal or any other kind of description would be.

The idea of using a written method for communicating music is a powerful, useful and fascinating one. A number of systems for doing this have arisen over the centuries, of which the Western method, originally conceived in order to make possible what became polyphony in the Middle Ages, is the most widely used and the one behind the majority of the music we see and hear, in one way or another and to some extent or another. So if music notation of any kind is to be taught, it probably goes without saying that Western notation should be given priority over that used for Japanese gagaku, interesting though the latter is. So, at GCSE level, where students ought to be able to gain access to many kinds of music for the purpose of study, understanding, performance, inspiration, etc., I see no case at all for not making musical notation a central part of the syllabus. It isn’t perfect or perfectly generalizable, but it is the best and most general thing we have for its purpose.

That in a nutshell is the case for the defence as I see it.

Then we come to the question of what the function of a school education actually is (aside from being free child care). If it’s intended to widen the student’s horizons and possibilities it shouldn’t necessarily pander only to things they’re already interested in.

The reason for still saying yes to the original question is that the only solution I can see that isn’t likely merely to circumscribe students’ skills is a solution that would somehow seek to teach them Western classical notation while making them aware of the historical circumstances in which it arose, the way it interacts differently with different repertoires, etc. This I think is very necessary, and the only way to proceed in good faith, but it may be a bit advanced for GCSE level.

What are the possible negative effects, then, of the centrality given to this specific kind of notation? Well, it leads to an assumption that the diatonic/chromatic pitch palette of steps and half steps is basic to all music. It hinders the understanding of musical traditions with richer pitch palettes, such as the Persian (and other Arabic) and Indian classical traditions. It also colours the understanding of musical traditions with fewer discrete pitch identities – for example, it leads to an understanding of pentatonic repertories (some Chinese, Indonesian, and other folk traditions) as simply having some notes missing; in the case of musical traditions with vastly more attenuated pitch content – those which focus on timbre or on rhythm, ranging from Australian Aboriginal didjeridu playing to the highly complex pulsation-based musical languages of many African tribes, e.g. the Aka pygmies or the Zimbabwean mbira players – it leads to a failure to appreciate the definitive and sometimes very sophisticated and precise ways in which those musics are shaped by factors which viewed through the lens of Western notation would look fairly peripheral.

All of these things can be explained in such a way that notation still serves its function as a useful tool, but they do need explaining, and the question is at what point do you start telling students that the tool they’re being shown, like other tools, is more fit for certain purposes than for others, and that whatever purpose you use it for, and even if it’s the only tool available, the work you do with it is never going to be uninflected by your choice of tool.

The five-line staff method of notation also needs to be understood in relation to other Western options, e.g. medieval neumes notation for chant, Renaissance tablature and its modern cousins both in complex contemporary classical music and also most jazz, pop and rock music. Whether we want to introduce GCSE students to the classical repertoire or not – and I think the arguments for doing so are stronger than those for not doing so – it’s still rather misleading to teach them notation, unqualified, as if it were also the only (or even the best) way of conveying in symbols what’s going on in the other music they’re likely to encounter in their everyday lives, never mind what goes on in other parts of the world (which one would hope those of them who progress to A level and degree level might study as part of an ethnomusicology module or two).

I didn’t have any music lessons after my first year at secondary school and taught myself to read music (and play the piano), so it could be said that in discussing school music curricula (and by no means only these of course) I don’t really know what I’m talking about, except that I feel it was an advantage not to have anyone telling me what was supposed to be “good” or “bad” or “central” or “peripheral” etc., and I think it would be best for education as a whole, in every subject and at every level, to encourage creative and original (but informed) thinking, by any means necessary. But, this is not what the current education system is there for.

"If death had a sound, this was it.

Roberto Velazquez believes the Aztecs played this mournful wail from the so-called Whistles of Death before they were sacrificed to the gods.

The 66-year-old mechanical engineer has devoted his career to recreating the sounds of his pre-Columbian ancestors, producing hundreds of replicas of whistles, flutes and wind instruments unearthed in Mexico's ruins."

Article includes a short demo of the sounds.

After I obtain one of these and a Tibetan thighbone trumpet, I'm starting a band and giving Marilyn Manson a run for his money.

Yeah yeah, I know. Jhonn Balance, David Tibet and Genesis P-Orridge already played one on Dreams Less Sweet...

If you know anything about the history of Japanese animation, it should be that anyone can easily trace its origins back to the United States and Walt Disney. Osamu Tezuka (most famous for Astro Boy) was inspired by Disney's work, but of course moved well beyond the scope of serious content that the Disney Corp. would ever attempt to consider. The ironic thing about contemporary broadcast American animation (the stuff on Cartoon Network targeted at the ordinary youth demographic) is, of course, the influence of Japanese animation (see, for example, the art style of Teen Titans).

But I don't want to blabber on about anime, even if I can be a real geek about it. That's for later (aka. YouTomb blog post I've been meaning to compose for a while). What I do want to introduce, though, is a strange yet fascinating instance of secondary cross culturalization, but one that has to do with music.

This evening in my weekly Japanese class, 雨水先生, before we started our lesson, wrote on the board a popular singer's name, ジェロ, and mentioned something about J-Pop, all of which went for the most part over my head. The name, though, transliterates to Jero. I assumed, after a syllabic translation, that she had been talking about J-Lo. 日本語-fail.

Actually, Jero, the pseudonym for Jerome White, of Pittsburg, PA, is a black American kid, now five years out of college, who sings enka. Yes, 演歌, the twentieth century Japanese music genre. But not regular enka, oh no. Enka, remixed with hiphop.

Why is this cool? Well, let me quote from Wikipedia for a terse explanation on what enka is: "Modern enka (演歌 — from 演 en performance, entertainment, and 歌 ka song) came into being in the postwar years of the Shōwa period. It was the first style to synthesize the Japanese pentatonic scale with Western harmonies. Enka lyrics, as in Portuguese Fado, usually are about the themes of love and loss, loneliness, enduring hardships, and persevering in the face of difficulties, even suicide or death. Enka suggests a more traditional, idealized, or romanticized aspect of Japanese culture and attitudes, comparable to American country and western music." Essentially, enka is already a blend of multiple genres of remix: Performance and song. Modern/postwar and traditional. Japanese scale and Western harmony. Nippon country culture and American country music. I find the last one the most unusual, because the country melodies sound particularly corny.

Who'd have thought that you could remix this music any more? Well, apparently Jero, and I now brand him as officially badass.

The above video is a profile of Jero and how he got into enka as a child. Just the fact that he learned from his grandmother makes him awesome. And traditional. Traditionally awesome. The Japanese are raving about this guy, too. One interviewee says, "He sings enka, but he looks like a hiphop guy." This is kind of important, since in Japan physical looks do carry some social weight. I'm sure that a lot of press he receives revolves solely around the fact that he's an African American who can speak fluent Japanese. But with hiphop rising in popularity, the authenticity of his image in a society foreign to something so culturally American compels Japanese viewers, especially younger ones, to pay more attention.

Here's another video profile, this time from Reuteurs. The phrase I pulled from the audio is "bridging the generation gap." Of course, Reuters is directly referencing the multiple issues that the older generation in Japan has had with the younger demographic over the years. However, the phrase also suggests the remix culture that seems to be ever more associated with the Millennial generation. The fact that remix is acting as a bridging agent is beneficial for distinctly traditional societies ordinarily hostile to change. The title of the video also highlights an unexpected element in the enka-hiphop relationship: the "blues" allusion. Blues, in American society, refers to a specific genre of the jazz movement. Plugging blues into YouTube's search bar yields a B.B. King video heavy on the improvisational nature of American jazz.

Let's take a quick look at the jam session. First, the audience's cheers beat down the guitar in the first few seconds of the video; important, because jazz is "social music", according to Miles Davis. Though, although the audience participates, the spotlight remains affixed to King and his guitar. Second, watch King's face. Emotional. A bit self-aware. Pretty funny too. The musical performance becomes theatrical in its presentation. Third, if you listen closely, you'll notice that he reuses melody patterns to remix on the third or fourth repetition -- a common and yet necessary component of jazz. Blues, then, is communal, dramatic, and blended.

Above is a generic enka song that I found, sung by Itsuki Hiroshi. Compared with B.B. King's video, Itsuki's song shares a number of ingredients though the music remains different. The singer of enka appears to depict him/herself more emotionally even than the blues' singer. Antithetically, enka seems to focus more on the individual performer than the communal experience, though this reflects the nature of personal storytelling present in common American country music. The spotlight here also stays with the performer. Enka might even be associated with the theatrical monologue: one performer, alone, telling the story from his/her perspective. This again applies to blues, without or with a vocalist such as Bessie Smith. The remixed measures in the enka melodies are subtle, yet the meld between traditional, archaic instrumentation (the koto on the right side of the camera view at the start of the clip) and sung/played notes stands out easily.

This is the final Jero-related video that I'll reference, but I wanted to throw up a sample of one of his music videos to analyze its aesthetic qualities. The clash between antiquated instrument (shamisen) and modern hiphop moves (yet these are also mashed together with fluid movements which I would refer to as strangely relevant to Japanese seasonal culture and, here in the video clip, the lyrics). Jero's vocals I find utterly eerie, both in their texture and the fact that they're too indistinguishable from an ordinary enka singer's tonality. The video itself should even be viewed as a new style of remix. American hiphop music videos focus on the performer and assistant dancers, yet Jero's video incorporates the addition of the acoustic instruments, borrowed from pre-hiphop visual styles. I like the more modern instrumentation of this video, because Jero strives for similar sounds those he updates to electric guitar and synth keyboard.

Jero's remix of the hiphop and enka genres gives birth to nothing seen like this before in Japan, or around the world using these styles. I mentioned before the term secondary cross culturalization which, applied to Jero, relates to the adoption in Japan of American hiphop and Jero's subsequent return to traditional enka. Basically, as hiphop was remixed in Japan stylistically and culturally, Jero re-remixed the hiphop genre and culture through enka's respective genre and culture. I hope that people will look at Jero's work with a critical eye, because it's interesting to discover what camouflaged nuances you can discover by looking at your own culture through a different variety of window.

Farhat, Hormoz, The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, Cambridge Studies in Ethnomusicology, Cambridge University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-521-30542 X.

This book is based on the author’s 1965 thesis. My comments and summaries of omitted material are in square brackets. In some references I have abbreviated The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music to DCPM.

Key concepts and terminology

dastgāh (organisation, system)

The central concept in Persian music is the dastgāh concept. However, this concept is not an old idea: it was probably invented during the Qajar period (1787-1925). The assumption is that before then a series of improvisations in the same mode would fill the time allotted to a performance. In contrast, one of the main features of the dastgāh is that several pieces in different modes are strung together in one continuous performance. Farhat believes than the adoption of the multi-mode dastgāh is linked to a decline is musical scholarship during the period 1500-1900, which left musicians less able to improvise in one mode for the necessary length of time. It became more convenient to switch between modes rather than develop ideas in one mode only. In order to give cohesion to this kind of performance the opening mode was referred to in cadential formulae. The new practice may have led to more interesting music. During the twentieth century the expected duration of a performance has become smaller, with a modern dastgāh rarely lasting longer than thirty minutes.

The term dastgāh is difficult to translate accurately. The nearest term in western musicology is “mode”. Equivalents in other musical traditions are the raga of Indian music and the maqām of Turko-Arabian music. Farhat argues that none of these is an exact equivalent of dastgāh.

There are two ideas found in the dastgāh concept.

1. It identifies a set of pieces most of which have their own individual modes.

2. It stands for the modal identity of the initial piece of the group. This dominant mode is brought back frequently in the guise of cadential melodic patterns.

Put another way, “a dastgāh signifies both the title of a grouping of modes, of which there are twelve, and the initial mode presented in each group” (DCPM, p.19).

Farhat further explains this concept with the use of an example.

When we say, for example, dastgāh-e-Homāyun, we mean a group of pieces under the collective name Homāyun; as a mode, however, Homāyun only identifies the initial piece of that collection. It would be wrong, therefore, to conclude that there are only twelve modes in Persian music; there are twelve groupings of modes, the totality of which represents some sixty modes. Each mode has its own proper name, but the opening section of the dastgāh has no specific name and is called darāmad (entry, introduction). The proper name of this opening section is that of the dastgāh itself.

The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, p.19

Radif (row, series)

The radif are the pieces that make up the repertoire of Persian classical music. These are not pieces in the western sense but “melody models” (DCPM, p. 21) used as the basis for improvisation. Despite variations in content and length each piece contains “elemental melodic figures which give the piece its identity” (DCPM, p.21). The term radif is also used to describe the group of pieces that make up each of the twelve dastgāhs.

Guše (corner, section, piece)

“The generic term for individual pieces, other than the darāmad, which make up the repertoire of a dastgāh….” (DCPM, p.22)

Darāmad (opening, introduction)

This is the piece or the group of pieces in the same mode that begin a dastgāh. “They are the most representative portion of the dastgāh.” (DCPM, p.22)

Pisdarāmad (pre-introduction, overture)

A twentieth century innovation and intended for ensemble playing, this is a composed rhythmic instrumental piece. It is played at the beginning of a dastgāh.

Čahārmezrāb (four plectra, four strokes)

A study-like solo instrumental piece in a fast tempo and using simple or compound duple metres.

Zarbi (rhythmic)

An improvised passage which uses a fixed rhythmic pattern. it is in duple, triple or quadruple metre.

Reng (dance)

An instrumental piece in duple or triple metre in medium fast tempo.

Tasnif (ballad)

A composed song in a slow metre.

Gām (scale)

The French word gamme has had to be adopted to describe this concept, which is not part of the Persian tradition.

Maqām (mode)

In Turkey and the Arabic-speaking countries maqām signifies a mode with the usual pitch functions and intervals, plus a particular melodic format. The term was also used in Persia before the development of the dastgāh system. The terms maqām, maye and mode are now used more or less synonymously.

Finalis

The nearest equivalent of the tonic in western music.

āqāz (beginning)

The tone on which an improvisation in a mode usually begins.

Šāhed (witness)

A tone in a mode that assumes a particularly prominent role. Not necessarily the finalis.

Moteqayyer (changeable)

A tone that regularly fluctuates in pitch. This is a feature of some modes only.

Forud (descent, cadence)

A melodic cadence with a relatively fixed pattern that is subject to variation through improvisation. This is a strong unifying factor in the dastgāh, which consists of different pieces in different modes. The forud uses the same mode as the darāmad.

Ōj (soar, height)

The dastgāh usually moves gradually from a low pitch register to a high pitch register. The Ōj is that section of the dastgāh that uses a high pitch range.

Neutral 2nd

It is an interval larger than the semi-tone and smaller than the whole-tone. It is a very common interval in Persian music. The term was first applied to Persian music by Farhat.

Plus 2nd

An interval larger than the major second but smaller than the augmented second. The term was first applied to Persian music by Farhat.

Neutral 3rd

An interval between the minor and major third. The term was first applied to Persian music by Farhat.

Koron (p)

The flattening of a pitch by a microtone. This term was invented by Ali Naqi Vaziri.

Sori

The raising of a pitch by a microtone. [The Sori is represented by a sign consisting of a V on its side with the sharp end pointing to the right and trisected by two parallel vertical lines.] The sori is the invention of Ali Naqi Vaziri.

Farhat then devotes a large portion of his book to detailed analysis of all twelve dastgāhs

Dastgāh-e Šur
Dastgāh-e Abuatā
Dastgāh-e Dašti
Dastgāh-e Bayāt-e Tork
Dastgāh-e Afšari
Dastgāh-e Segāh
Dastgāh-e Čahārgāh
Dastgāh-e Homāyun
Dastgāh-e Bayāt-e Esfahān
Dastgāh-e Navā
Dastgāh-e Māhur
Dastgāh-e Rāst (Rāst-Panjgāh)

Farhat ends his survey of Persian classical music with a closing statement, written first in 1965 and then revisited in 1990. He begins in 1965 by pointing out that until the appearance of modern media Persian classical music was the preserve of a small urban elite. However, the classical tradition is too limited and refined in expression to satisfy the demands of the mass market, so a genre of popular music emerged that blended modal schemes from the dastgāhs with features of western light music. The freedom allowed the performer in the classical tradition makes it “relatively easy to dilute it with elements which are essentially foreign to it.” He then drew the conclusion that “There is ample evidence, in fact, to indicate that the authenticity of this music is already compromised.” (DCPM, p.121)

But Persia had clearly changed a lot since 1965 and writing in 1990 Farhat notices even greater uncertainty about the future of the Persian classical tradition. The pre-revolutionary wave of westernisation has now been halted, but nearly all musical activity has been halted as well.

Currently, Persia is run by an Islamic clerical regime of fundamentalist persuasions. The Islamic clerics have always had a proscriptive attitude towards music. The fact that music moves and affects the listener is inexplicable and, as such, suspicious. Furthermore, music is often viewed as an adjunct to merriment and self-indulgence, which are abhorred by the devout of all faiths.

The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, p.121

So in 1965 Farhat was concerned about the distortion or dilution of the classical tradition; in 1990 he was asking if the tradition would be able to survive at all. By 1990 the only public music in Persia was in the service of the ideology of the state. Musicians who previously worked in radio and television and as teachers were now no longer able to make a living through music. As the classical tradition relies on a continuous tradition of performance to stay alive, and not on a written repertoire, the situation in 1990 gave serious cause for concern for those who hoped for the survival of the tradition.

The fate of Persian music – Persian culture, for that matter – may be determined solely by political events to an extent never experienced before. It is against such a bleak prognostication that I am hopeful of having rendered a service, through this book, to the perpetuation of the splendid cultural heritage of my native land.

The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, p.121

References

Farhat, Hormoz, The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, Cambridge Studies in Ethnomusicology, Cambridge University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-521-30542 X

Theory of Music is a weblog of www.barrymitchellmusic.com. barrymitchellmusic.com features free mp3 downloads of historic performances by artists such as Gigli and Toscanini, ambient music and music by Barry Mitchell performed by The Locrian Ensemble.

A performance on the tar.

Farhat, Hormoz, The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, Cambridge Studies in Ethnomusicology, Cambridge University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-521-30542 X.

This book is based on the author’s 1965 thesis. My comments and summaries of omitted material are in square brackets. In some references I have abbreviated The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music to DCPM.

Three theories of intervals and scales

Farhat discusses three theories of intervals and scales in Persian music.

1. Persian music is based on a 24-quarter-tone scale.

2. Persian music is defined within a 22-tone scale.

3. Persian music is based on five flexible intervals from which all modes are constructed, with no concept of a basic scale.

[The three theories have their origins in distinct views of Persian music. The first is based on the idea that Persian music can be reconciled with Western theoretical concepts. The second is based on the idea that scientific measurements can prove the correctness of the systems of the medieval Persian theorists. The third draws its conclusions from scientific and empirical methods and is sceptical about the ideas of the medieval Persian theorists.]

The 24-quarter-tone scale theory

This theory was put forward in the 1920s by Ali Naqi Vaziri.

Western music theory has formulated the idea of a scale divided into equal intervals. Equal temperament makes the complex harmonies of modern Western music possible, and this impressed musicians from the Middle East who came into contact with western art music.

These musicians viewed the absence of harmony in their own music as a sign of inferiority to western music. The desired musical advancement was thought possible only through the adoption of western harmonic practice. That, in turn, required equidistant tones.

The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, p.7

One solution to the problem of irregular intervals in Middle Eastern music was to adopt the quarter-tone as the smallest unit as opposed to the semi-tone of western music. But this imposition of a western musical concept would inevitably distort the authenticity of Middle Eastern music, though it might lead to “advancement” along western lines. The nineteenth-century Syrian musician Mikhail Mashaqa was one of the first to suggest that Turko-Arabian music could be seen as based on a 24-tone scale. Similar theories began to be adopted in Persia under western musical influence. After the first western-style music school was founded in the 1860s with the aim of creating an imperial military band, Persian music was increasingly influenced by western ideas. As a result, a number of ideas were introduced that were new to Persian music.

1. The concept of fixed pitch, the major-minor key system, scales etc.

2. Playing accurately from notation with a consequent separation of the roles of performer and composer.

3. Clarity of melodic and rhythmic forms in contrast to the melodically ornate and rhythmically free Persian classical tradition.

4 The systematic use of harmony.

5 The introduction of new instruments, only some of which were capable of producing the intervals used in Persian music.

6 Western conservatoire-type pedagogical methods. Traditionally Persian music had been learnt by one-to-one practical study with a teacher.

(Adapted from The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, p. 8.)

Ali Naqi Vaziri (1886-1981) was an accomplished player of the tār and the setār who was the first Persian to have a prolonged and thorough training in western music. He studied music in France for eight years around the time of the World War I. In 1922 he published Dastur-e Tār, which for the first time puts forward the theory that Persian music is based on a 24-quarter-tone-scale. Vaziri returned to Persia in the early 1920s and became the country’s most influential musician. In 1934 he published Musiqi-ye Nazari in which he elaborated on the 24-quarter-tone-scale theory. In the same book he gave his own account of the twelve dastgāhs. Despite the influence of Vaziri and his theories, Farhat does not accept the 24-quarter-tone-scale theory.

Vaziri’s quarter-tone theory…is entirely irrelevant to Persian music. it is an artificial creation devised to make possible the adoption of a kind of harmonic practice, based on western tonal harmony….[Vaziri] believed in the desirability of [intervals] being adjusted to correspond to an equidistant quarter-tone scale so that a kind of harmony may be imposed upon the music….He..regarded a monophonic musical tradition as intrinsically inferior.

The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, p.9

Farhat met Vaziri in 1958 and described him as “far more vigorous and lucid that any other musician I had interviewed” (DCPM,p.10). Farhat give this assessment of Vaziri's achievements.

Although Vaziri’s theoretical views must be unequivocally refuted, the importance of this musician in the twentieth-century developments of Persian music cannot be overestimated. He was a man of unquestionable integrity and his devotion to the “cause” of Persian music, as he saw it, was boundless. His innovations in the notation of Persian music have become the standard and, in the present book, I have used the two signs koron (ρ) and sori which he invented to indicate the microtonal lowering and raising of tones, although, as used by him and his school, they are meant to lower and raise a pitch by an exact quarter-tone.

The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, p.10

[The sori is represented by a sign consisting of a V on its side with the sharp end pointing to the right and trisected by two parallel vertical lines.]

The 22-tone scale theory

This theory was formulated in the 1940s by the physicist Mehdi Barkešli and published in the article ‘La gamme de la musique Irannienne’. Barkešli aimed to find a scientifically accurate basis for the scale used in Persian music using as a theoretical basis the writings of the medieval theorists Abu-Nasr Fārābi and Safiaddin Ormavi. In order ot understand Barkešli’s theory it is necessary first to understand the ideas of the medieval theorists. Farhat gives a detailed account of these theories, ending with a discussion of the 17-tone scale of Safiaddin Ormavi, and draws this conclusion.

This neatly organised 17-tone scale became the universally accepted basis for the theory of music throughout the Islamic world for many centuries…however,…such an exact scale system may have been, in practice, highly flexible….It is my belief that musical performance must have been far more fluid and variable. There were no instruments of fixed pitch in use and vocal music is notoriously unreliable as to the maintenance of any scale division requiring great precision….It is quite reasonable to assume that comparable variability was in evidence in medieval times.

The 17-tone scale does not contain the interval of a quarter-tone or anything approximating it. The comma, which is close to an eight of a tone, was never used by itself; it was merely added to or taken from a larger interval. It is also important to stress that no piece of music and no mode has ever made use of all the seventeen tones. The music was conceived within modes containing a limited number of pitches from the available seventeen tones. The majority of modes were heptatonic, a few had less or more than seven tones in the octave. The 17-tone scale was only as meaningful to the practice of music as the 12-tone chromatic scale would be to the music of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. It would therefore be misleading to overemphasise the significance of this scale in so far as the practical art of music was conceived.

The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, pp.12-13

This was the theoretical background to the ideas of Mehdi Barkešli, who in the 1940s began his researches by attempting scientific measurement of the size of the intervals used in Persian music. He used vocal music for this research.

[Farhat discusses in detail the technicalities of Barkešli’s research.]

Barkešli concluded that there were twenty-two tones in the octave. However, Farhat is critical of Barkešli’s conclusions.

Barkešli’s most serious flaw in determining the intervals of Persian music is his commitment to the premise of the octave-scale and the fact that he measures intervals against imaginary points of reference. In so doing he takes an octave containing five whole-tones and two semi-tones as a point of departure. The pitches he has found are fitted into this seemingly inevitable container. As such he used the same container as did Safiaddin and other medieval theoreticians…its irrelevance to the practices of today can be established.

The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, p.14

Farhat discusses what he sees as the problem of the “false container” used by Barkešli. Barkešli has used a scale of the western Mixolydian mode, i.e. c-d-e-f-g-a-b flat-c and taken the intervals of this scale as a reference points, with other pitches fitted around them. This results in a 22-tone scale. But using this Mixolydian scale as a reference point is “arbitrary and misleading”. (p.14). Farhat also criticises the idea of the division of the whole-tone, which plays a part in Barkešli’s theory. He points out that in Persian music if, for example, a D flat is used, it is a substitute for a D natural; the progression D flat to D natural is never found in Persian music. It is therefore wrong to consider a D flat to be produced by the subdivision of the whole-tone C-D. Farhat concludes

The whole confusion arises from the fact that, in accordance with western musical theory, flat or sharp notes are seem as altered versions of a natural tone. It would be far more satisfactory to have a separate identification for each pitch, as was done in medieval Islamic tradition.

The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, p. 14

Unlike Vaziri’s theories, the theories of Barkešli made no impact on Persian music theory and practice, at least partly because Barkešli published his findings [in the paper ‘La gamme de la musique Irannienne’] in a French Journal and was not a practising musician. Farhat points out that both the theories of Vaziri and Barkešli share these defects

1. a tendency to accommodate western concepts

2. they ignore the fluidity and flexibility of Persian intervals.

The first tendency is found much more in Vaziri’s ideas than in Barkešli, who had no ambitions to westernise Persian music. Farhat argues that the defects of the theories of Vaziri and Barkešli are avoided in his own theory, the theory of flexible intervals.

The theory of flexible intervals

Farhat states at the outset one of the bases of his theory, which involves scepticism about medieval theories of Persian music.

..no Middle Eastern musical instrument is capable of producing intervals of such precision [as found in the theories of the medieval theorists]; and vocal music is even more unreliable in producing accurate intervals.

The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, p.15

Farhat is critical of Barkešli’s decision to measure intervals from vocal music, where pitch is very variable. His own methodology involved studying the music produced using fretted instruments, two tārs and three setārs, all fretted by reputable musicians and used for real performances. Farhat also made measurements of intervals from a large body of recorded music. He used a stroboconn and a melograph for these measurements. As a result of these measurements he concluded that the whole-tone and the semi-tone are relatively stable, with the whole-tone being slightly larger than that tempered whole-tone and the semi-tone significantly smaller than the tempered one. Other intervals larger than the semi-tone but smaller than the whole-tone are very flexible. Farhat’s study identified three intervals which can be added to the whole-tone and the semi-tone

1. A small neutral tone, 125-145 cents, mean 135 cents.

2. A larger neutral tone, 150-170 cents, mean 160 cents.

3. An interval larger than the whole-tone but not as large as the augmented tone, mean 270 cents. Farhat calls this the “plus tone”.

Intervals 1 & 2 are usually combined to make a minor third. Interval 3 is the least common of the basic intervals, used only in a few modes; it is always preceded by the small neutral tone to make a major third.

Farhat summarises his ideas on the classification of Persian intervals

1. Semi-tone or minor 2nd (m) ca. 90 cents.
2. Small neutral tone (n) ca. 135 cents.
3. Large neutral tone (N) ca. 160 cents.
4. Whole-tone or major 2nd (M) ca. 204 cents.
5. Plus-tone (P) ca. 270 cents.

Farhat emphasises that there is no concept of “scale” in Persian music and musicians simply do not see the point in playing the notes used in a mode as an ascending or descending series. Such a series is described as “alien to the music” and “artificial and irrelevant” (DCPM, p.16).

Most Persian modes, in their elemental forms, can be expressed within a tetrachord or a pentachord. In some cases as many as seven or more tones are needed to convey the mode adequately. The octave is not significant. In certain modes are range of pitches beyond the limits of an octave is needed, as in the higher octave some notes are different from what they are in the lower octave.

The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, p.16

[Farhat ends this exposition of his theory with a discussion of the fretting system of the tār and the setār.]

References

Farhat, Hormoz, The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, Cambridge Studies in Ethnomusicology, Cambridge University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-521-30542 X

Barkešli, Mehdi, ‘La gamme de la musique Irannienne’, Annales des Telecommunications, 5 (May, 1947)

A performance on the Persian tar.

Theory of Music is a weblog of www.barrymitchellmusic.com. barrymitchellmusic.com features free mp3 downloads of historic performances by artists such as Gigli and Toscanini, ambient music and music by Barry Mitchell performed by The Locrian Ensemble.

Farhat, Hormoz, The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, Cambridge Studies in Ethnomusicology, Cambridge University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-521-30542 X.

This book is based on the author’s 1965 thesis. My comments and summaries of omitted material are in square brackets. In some references I have abbreviated The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music to DCPM.

Hormoz Farhat begins by explaining how his interest in Persian music developed. Despite being a Persian by birth and living in Persia until his teenage years Farhat was initially most interested in western music. His father was an amateur musician who played the tār but despite exposure to Persian music Farhat, especially with the coming of radio to Persia, soon became more interested in western classical music by composers such as Greig, Tchaikovsky and Beethoven. When, in his late teens he decided to devote his life to the study of music, his opinion of Persian music was low.

I had no feelings for Persian music other than contempt. As compared with the wealth, variety and range of expression in western music, Persian music seemed limited, frail and monotonous.

The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, p.ix

However, in 1955, having completed a BA in Music and an MA in Composition at universities in the USA, he was persuaded by Mantle Hood of UCLA to make Persian music the subject of his doctoral dissertation. There were a number of factors that helped to persuade Farhat to adopt this change of direction. He was persuaded by Hood that the musical culture of Persia must contain things of interest and value and, as a native Persian, Farhat had obvious advantages over western students of Persian music. Also, at that time very little was known in the west about Persian music, making any research of particular value. In the USA in the 1950s no books or articles on Persian music had yet been published.

Farhat returned to his native Persia in 1957 to begin research for his Ph.D. thesis. He adopted an approach that was both practical and analytical: taking instrumental lessons, interviewing musicians and recording performances. Farhat had now had a change of heart about Persian music.

By this time my earlier misgivings about Persian music and been replaced by a deep appreciation of its unique aesthetic qualities. I no longer compared it, consciously or unconsciously, with western art music. It is a very different musical expression. It is monophonic; it employs a range of sound generally not exceeding two and a half octaves; it is fundamentally soloistic but not virtuosic; and it lacks grandeur and dramatic power. But it is rich in modal variety, in melodic subtlety, and is highly personal and intimate.

The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, p.x

The music that Farhat studied was urban art music, a music that had been transmitted by rote for many centuries.

Each piece revolves around unspecified central nuclear melodies which the individual performer comes to know through experience and absorption. The manifestation of the skeletal melodic outlines into a piece of music varies greatly from one performance to another, depending on the degree of freedom assumed in extemporisation. Within certain modal restraints, the music is fluid, subjective and highly improvisatory. It is rhythmically, also generally, free and flexible. The wealth of this music, therefore, is not in complex rhythmic patterns, nor in polyphony, which it does not employ, but in the many modal possibilities and the cultivation of highly embellished melodies. It is a personal and illusive art of great subtlety and depth. It is a difficult art to study, to understand and to communicate.

The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, p.2

Persia or Iran?

Farhat discusses issues raised by the use of the term “Persian music”.

The name Persia and the adjective Persian seem to have been practically expunged from common usage in the English Language. Even the Persian Gulf has become The Gulf, as if there were no other gulfs on this planet. For the language spoken in Persia, the word Farsi is finding increasing currency. In the context of an English sentence one would not the words Deutsch or Française for language spoken in Germany and France, but Farsi and not Persian is being used the designate the language of Persia.

A curious conspiracy seems to be at work to disinherit Iran and to distance her from her past, her glories, her ancient civilisation, and her considerable contributions to world culture, all of which are associated with the name Persia. As if Persia is no more; it has gone the way of Etruria, Babylon or Lydia. As if, now, there is only Iran, a new country, an artificially created political entity of the twentieth century, like so many others in the Middle East and Africa.

Of course Iran is Persia and so it has always been. It is one of the very few ancient civilisations which has maintained its identity and individuality, with a marked degree of originality, for more than twenty-five centuries.

The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, p.1

Farhat describes how the use of “Iran” instead of “Persia” dates from the 1930s when the use of the new name was insisted on by the government. Farhat describes as “misplaced self-assertion” on the part of the government. Since that time, while the name of Iran has become increasingly familiar, the name Persia has been forgotten. Farhat regrets this and does not want to contribute to “the regrettable process of disassociating Iran with her past” (DCPM, p.1). Farhat therefore adopts the terms “Persia” and “Persian music” throughout.

Methodology

There is a particular problem posed by Persian music, which is that it is an art where systems play a small role a systematic approach to analysis is therefore difficult. However, Farhat does adopt as systematic approach as is possible.

The dastgāh concept

The term dastgāh is difficult to translate accurately. The nearest term in western musicology is “mode”. Equivalents in other musical traditions are the raga of Indian music and the maqām of Turko-Arabian music. Farhat argues that none of these is an exact equivalent of dastgāh.

There are two ideas found in the dastgāh concept.

1. It identifies a set of pieces most of which have their own individual modes.

2. It stands for the modal identity of the initial piece of the group. This dominant mode is brought back frequently in the guise of cadential melodic patterns.

Put another way, “a dastgāh signifies both the title of a grouping of modes, of which there are twelve, and the initial mode presented in each group”. (DCPM, p.19)

Farhat further explains this concept with the use of an example.

When we say, for example, dastgāh-e-Homāyun, we mean a group of pieces under the collective name Homāyun; as a mode, however, Homāyun only identifies the initial piece of that collection. It would be wrong, therefore, to conclude that there are only twelve modes in Persian music; there are twelve groupings of modes, the totality of which represents some sixty modes. Each mode has its own proper name, but the opening section of the dastgāh has no specific name and is called darāmad (entry, introduction). The proper name of this opening section is that of the dastgāh itself.

The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, p.19

Farhat limits his study to the contemporary tradition of the twelve dastgāhs with an initial account of historical and theoretical matters. Each chapter devoted to the study of a dastgāh adopts the same approach

1. Analysis of the mode of the dastgāh.
2. Discussion of the cadential pattern of the dastgāh.
3. The opening pieces.
4. Discussion of the main pieces within the dastgāh, including:
a. Modulation to and from a piece.
b. Analysis of the mode of the piece.
c. Nuclear theme of the piece.
d. Transcription of an improvisation on the nuclear theme.

(adapted from DCPM, p.2)

Historical perspective

The first significant document on Persian music dates from towards the end of the Sassanian period (AD226-642). One of the first musicians we know something about is Bārbod, a musician at the court of Chosroes II who ruled from AD 590-628.

[Bārbod] is credited with the organisation of a musical system containing seven modal structures, known as the Royal Modes (Xosrovāni); thirty derivative modes (Lahn); three hundred and sixty melodies (Dastān). The numbers correspond with the number of days in the week, month and year of the Sassanian calendar, but the implications are not clear.

The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, p.3

The names of these modes suggest considerable diversity of musical types and expression, but there is no knowledge of the theories on which they were based. However, the music of the Sassanian period was a seminal influence on the development of Islamic music, an influence that was greatly aided by the Arab conquest (AD 642). For the next six centuries Persia was part of the Moslem Empire and the influence of Persian musicians spread throughout the Moslem world. Farhat argues that it is important to recognise the Persian scholars of the Abbasid period as being Persians, not Arabs, a point that has not always been recognised by Western writers.

One important factor in the history of Persian was (and still is) the attitude of Islamic religious leaders to music. They regarded it as “a corrupting frivolity” (DCPM, p.4), but under the relatively secular rule of the Abbasids music flourished. Farhat lists some famous musicians of the period, some of whose writings have survived. One of the most important is Abu Nasr Fārābi (872-950) who laid the foundation for Moslem musical theory. Fārābi covered topics such as scales, intervals, modes, rhythm and instrument construction. His scientific theories were derived from the Classical Greeks. His major work Ketab al Musiqi al-Kabir has survived.

During the period of Shiite supremacy (c. 1500-1900) no major work of music scholarship was produced, probably because of the attitude of Shiite clerics to music. However, the system of the twelve dastgāhs discussed by Farhat was developed during the Qajar period (1785-1925). The period 1925-1979, under the rule of the Pahlavi dynasty, saw increasing modernisation and westernisation. By the mid-1930s Tehran had a western-style symphony orchestra and several choral groups. At the same time, there were concerts of Persian music. The process of westernisation continued during the post World War II period with the result that the musical life of Tehran became comparable to that of any major European capital. Since the revolution of 1978-79 that has once more renewed the supremacy of Shiite clerics, this situation has changed in line with their attitude to music.

A certain amount of musical activity, mainly in the service of the state’s ideological promotion, is being encouraged. All other activity is suppressed. The fate of music, both native and international, in Persia remains a matter of serious concern. Should the present regime remain in position and the current reactionary attitude be maintained, lasting damage to the musical culture of a venerable civilisation could be the inevitable outcome.

The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, p.6

References

Farhat, Hormoz, The Dastgāh Concept in Persian Music, Cambridge Studies in Ethnomusicology, Cambridge University Press, 1990, ISBN 0-521-30542 X

A performance on the Santur.

Theory of Music is a weblog of www.barrymitchellmusic.com. barrymitchellmusic.com features free mp3 downloads of historic performances by artists such as Gigli and Toscanini, ambient music and music by Barry Mitchell performed by The Locrian Ensemble.

The World Exposition of 1889 held in Paris was a spectacle in every sense of the word, there was a great deal of attention paid to capturing, and reproducing for the spectators, a scene that was a synthesis of the “essential” elements of the country or region in question. The Javanese pavilion, for example, became a world unto itself, being fenced in with a large entrance that was flanked by two large turrets in the related architectural style. Within, the spectator escaped the real world of Parisian life with its new machines, industrial developments (note that the Eiffel Tower was erected for this Exposition), noisy crowded streets, and stepped into a veritable Arcadian paradise where time seemed to be still in a moment of human history when humans were in communion with nature and the higher unexplainable forces therein. This was a very desirable setting for a society that was both excited but highly disturbed with the quickening pace of human technological development:

Like any other pastoral construct, the Javanese village depended on the dual opposition between city and country, artifact and nature, presenting a glimpse into an exotic Arcadia while containing the Other within the primordial natural space.(1)

Upon entering the village the spectators were guided to the performance space by a group of musicians carrying drums and bamboo instruments, thus giving the first encounter with the exotic Other, and helping to establish a transition from the outside world to the paradise within. This sort of procession was the visitor’s first encounter with music; one can imagine that to the psyche of the nineteenth century visitor this caused great curiosity and must have seemed to them as if they had literally stepped into another country and were thus engaged in a sort of safari expedition. Once established comfortably in their tables at the performance pavilion within the village, the audience would receive drinks and other such commodities, and the performance of music and dance begun. The audience was then enveloped in a world of different sights, sounds, textures, and scents that contributed to a complete sensory immersion into this other realm. To the artists among the lot, this sort of synesthetic experience would have recalled the Baudelairian principle of correspondances extolled in his famous poem of the same name.

(above: Four of the Javanese Dancers - Photograph from 1889;
Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris)

For composers such as Debussy this encounter with the musical Other served to expand the horizon of his musical language. It is reported by contemporary accounts that Debussy would spend endless hours in the Javanese (and Vietnamese) pavilion listening attentively to the wandering sonorities of the ensemble.

In a letter to the poet and writer Pierre Louÿs, Debussy states:

To Pierre Louÿs 22 January 1895

But my dear good fellow! Remember the music of Java which contained every nuance, even the ones we no longer have names for. There tonic and dominant had become empty shadows of use only to stupid children.

Later, in his 1913 article “Taste” he would also refer to the music of Java thus:

There were, and still are, despite the evils of civilization, some delightful native peoples for whom music is as natural as breathing. Their conservatoire is the eternal rhythm of the sea, the wind among the leaves and the thousand sounds of nature which they understand without consulting any arbitrary treatise. Their traditions reside in old songs, combined with dances, built up through the centuries. Yet Javanese music is based on a type of counterpoint by comparison with which that of Palestrina is child’s play. And if we listen without European prejudice to the charm of their percussion we must confess that our percussion is like primitive noises at a country fair. (2)

In all the previous quotes one can grasp the impact this music had on Debussy, who at this time was still at quite a formative period of his career. What Debussy found in these musics was exactly what he was trying to achieve in his own æsthetic, which went strictly against that of the teachings of the Conservatoire where he had studied. In the music of the Other, he found validation for his æsthetic and received a great deal of new harmonic and melodic material. It is important to note that Debussy was not exactly concerned with documenting exactly the music he heard, but rather to gain from it and internalize its essential aspects into a style all his own. This harken to Théophile Gauthier’s Theory of Transposition where one takes an art form and tries to express it with another. In the nineteenth century, especially in this environment of discovering new cultures, appropriation was a concept that was a common thread among artists of the time; creativity lies not in what you appropriate but how you take the elements and synthesize them into your own style, which is what Debussy was able to achieve.

One of the first pieces that can be chronologically connected to the experience of hearing the gamelan is his Fantaisie pour Piano et Orchestre which was composed around 1890: Listen to it!

Peace.

____________________

(1) Fauser, Annegret. Musical Encounters at the 1889 Paris World’s Fair. New York: University
of Rochester Press. 2005. pp. 166-7

(2) Quoted in: Lockspeiser, Edward. Debussy: His Life and Mind. New York: The Macmillan Co. 1962.

1. Northern ~ elegant, refined, smooth
2. Western ~ rhythmic, lively, frenetic

Specifically, there are 5 types of Méringue (35-6):

1. Méringue carabiné ~ demonstrates strong influences from Bambulá and Chica. Fast, almost gymnatic, dance with driving rhythms. Fouchard states that this form came about during the rule of Jacques I - when he found out his adversary army was failing, he went to see and was accompanies by, Euphenie Daguille. When they arrived, she began to sing and dance and the soldiers who were presents [the defeated soldiers?] could not resist dancing and singing along (35).
2. Méringue congó ~ of Bantú origin and the most folkloric form of the genre; it is heavily driven by percussion rhythms.
3. Méringue rural ~ sung and danced in the rural regions of the country and is one of the most common forms. While it has dynamic rhythms as well, it is recognized for its sensual and vigorous dance movements.
4. Méringue carnavalesca (Coudialle) ~ usually danced during celebrations of Haitian military victories and Carnaval times [of course]. It has several variations known as collé, ibo, petro, and band [the latter 3 are specifically Vodún rhythms].
5. Méringue saloniere ~ a form that is specifically played in formal ballrooms and that most demonstrates European influence (e.g. Waltz and Contradance). Its ryhtm is slow and cadential. Professionally trained musicians often compose in this form when using Méringue as a source of inspiration.
6. Compas-direct ~ another form of the genre that found popularity throughout the French-speaking Caribbean [Orovio does not numerically include this in the above list, but rather, after mentioning notable singers for the genre] (36).

Historically, Méringue has developed as an affirmation of Haitian identity; this has often happed via military battles. U.S. invasion of Haiti 1915 proved to of no exception for the genre and generated the famous song Angéloco - a satirical piece about opression in the land of Toussaint and the rebel spirit of the people who fought the first revolution in Latin America. At the beginning of the 19th century, many French and Haitians immigrated to the eastern region of Cuba and have left a musical impression (37). In particular, the song Cocoyé is sung in the streets of Cuba and carries much of the rhythmic impulse of Haitian Méringue.

Recommended Artists:

• Justin Elie
• Ludovic Lamothe
• Frank Lasigue
• Occide Jeanty
• Antalcidas Murat
• Lumane Casimir
• Téramè Ménès
• Lyncée Duroseau
• Candió
• Jacot Tol-Lôcôtoc
• Rodolphe Legros
• Nono Lamy (a famed pianist)
• Martha Jean-Claude (popular vocalist)
• Edner Guignard
• Max Chancy
• Issa Saieh
• Michel Desgrottes (considered one of the country's finest songwriters)

Recommended Songs:

• Mangé Marie
• Panama'm Tombé
• Negués'ô
• Caroline Acao (1844) - a piece written during Haiti's colonial era. It is characteristic of Méringue carabiné and Fouchard uses it as evidence that Haitian Méringue gave rise to Dominican Merengue (37).
• Ti-Mayotte
• Zizipan
• Sensation
• Souvenance
• Ti-Pioutt
• Cécile
• Natif Natal
• Les Parents
• Dodo Fenim
• Map Résond'ou
• Patience Ma Fille
• Ma Coupé Lobié Ou
• La Trompeuse
• Maman Mête'm Deho
• Pas Pleuré Mon Enfant
• Nous Allons Dodo Chez La Belle Victoire
• Haití-Thomas Ololoye
• Mamam Nanothe
• Marriage Solenel
• Callebasse Campé
• Crême À La Vainille

From: Helio, Orovio. 1994. Música Por El Caribe. Santiago de Cuba: Editorial Oriente.

The "I'm Brazilian" response works because it reinforces the stereotype of the "lazy tropical darker-skinned  people", a colonial relic that's lived on through Mr. Rochester and The Emancipation Proclamation into today. Ask Dave Chapelle. Or Cheech.The "Lazy Brazilian" image is particularly problematic because Brazil has sold itself as an idyllic tropical beach-land where gorgeous tanned women parade naked down the streets once a year, during Carnival. Brazilian pop-culture broke out internationally through  songs such as "Girl from Ipanema" and "Aquarela do Brasil"; and films such as Orfeu Negro.  As lovely as these works are, they found success by fetishizing the "Saudosa Maloca" (Idyllic Slum), its surrounding natural beauty, and all the partying in between. Granted, recent Brazilian pop-culture has been replacing the neocon beach fantasy, with nightmares for the guilty liberal consciousness (in the form of poor black kids killing each other). But since all conduits of pop-culture are essentially bourgeois institutions, these representations are nothing but brand packaging. The "Aquarela do Brasil" was produced during the Nationalist dictatorship of Getulia Vargas. Bossa Nova emerged during a "Golden Age of Industrial Expansion" headed by President Kubitscheck (1956-61). The centerpiece of this economic development was as a spanking-new modernist capital city, built through the labor of emigrating landless peasants. Bossa Nova was basically music for the bourgeois classes, portraying its pastoral aesthetics and romantic notions before urban congestion in the coastal cities by poor peasants became a critical problem. "Girl from Ipanema" became an international sensation during a reformist administration, before the Right-Wing Military coup in 1964. The two-decades long Military dictatorship was essentially a neo-conservative regime with anti-communist rhetoric. Along with the "Economic Miracle" of 1968, the Military Regime exerted strict control over popular culture, as demonstrated by the rise of the media conglomerate named "TV Globo"... But enough academics. (if you are interested, there is a great essay by David Treece called "Guns and Roses: Bossa Nova and Brazil's Music of Popular Protest 1958-1968" which talks about all of this in more detail. It's available on JSTOR).

 As Joe Carioca, Disney's token Brazilian, would say, "Brazil is the land of Samba". Samba, not Bossa Nova. Samba! The basic language of Brazilian musical expression. Samba is the mother. Bossa Nova is its eighth child, who goes to a Liberal-Arts school to study Ecology and Jazz. According to Wikipedia, Samba can be traced back to Angolan and Congolese ritual circle dances, imported to Brazil through the slave trade. Modern Brazilian Samba was resulted from the mix of these African traditions with the Choro, a Petty Bourgeois musical style. But this just explains Samba in in terms of musicology. Samba is a philosophy. Through some of its prophets we can find Samba as an ethic.

Bossa Nova exemplifies an important facet of the Samba Philosophy. BossaNova songs are characterized by counter-point: subtle musical dissonance, lyrics in dialogue, thematic paradoxes. Bossa Nova strives to be "natural", it seeks out the cyclical, the transient. Samba seeks the integration of the self with the other, with the environment. For Bossa Nova, that environment is the natural world in its indifferent splendor, always changing, always constant.

This concept of integration is religious in origin. Samba's African Roots are religious. For many practitioners of Candomble, the Samba beat is used to evoke Orixas, or one's personal deity, in public rituals. Since Candomble is an animalistic religion, the Orixas are represented through animals or through nature. Vinicius de Moraes (who penned "Girl from Ipanema") and Baden Powell, famously integrated religious language and music into what they called "Afro-Sambas". The lyrics of "Berimbau" defines love in terms of integration:

Quem de dentro de si não sai / Vai morrer sem amar ninguémWho from himself does not leave / Will die without loving anyone

 

To love someone, is to sacrifice the self to the other. The act of sacrifice is irrationally painful, it is suffering.

Mesmo o amor que não compensa é melhor que a solidão / [...] Ai de quem não rasga o coração, esse não vai ter perdão / Quem nunca curtiu uma paixão, nunca vai ter nada, não

Even the love that's unworthy is better than loneliness / [...] Who rends the heart not, will not have forgiveness / Who has never savored a passion, never will have anything, ever

- Vinicius de Moraes, "Como Dizia o Poeta"

This sacrificial act wouldn't pass beyond a poor man's messianism, if the self is considered a simple unit.  But the self is fractured by its own representation within social relations. The self as an independent agent is alienated from the self as a social representation.

O homem que diz "dou" não dá / Porque quem dá mesmo não diz
O homem que diz "vou" não vai / Porque quando foi já não quis

The man who says "i give", doesn't give / because who really gives doesn't say
The man who says "I go", doesn't go / because when he went he didn't want

- Vinicius de Moraes, Baden Powell, "Canto de Ossanha"

The sacrificial act is an affirmation of agency, an affirmation of the self through its own destruction.  Religiously, Samba extends beyond its African roots. It reverberates through the avenues during Carnival, a Catholic holiday,  as masses from all corners dance in masquerade balls, and Samba "Schools" parade their fantastic pageants of floats and dancers. The concept of the masquerade affirms themes of integration with the other and the disintegration of the constructed self. Every costumed participant is equal because they are all equally who they are not.

Mas é carnaval / Não me diga mais quem é você / Amanhã, tudo volta ao normal /
Deixe a festa acabar / [...] Que hoje eu sou /Da maneira que você me quer / O que você pedir eu lhe dou / Seja você quem for / Seja o que Deus quiser.

But it's Carnival / Don't tell me who you are / Tomorrow, everything returns to normal /
Let the party end / [...] For today I am / The way you want me to be / What you ask for I will give / Be you whoever you are / Be whatever God wants.

- Chico Buarque, "Noite dos Mascarados"

All this amounts to a semi-religious form of escapism. Surely, but it is a conscious escapism. Carnival Samba is colored by the awareness of its own transience. Tomorrow will come and everyone will have to go to work again.

A felicidade do pobre parece / A grande ilusão do carnaval / 
A gente trabalha o ano inteiro / Por um momento de sonho /

Happiness to the poor appears / as the great illusion of Carnival /
We work the whole year / For a moment's dream /

- Vinicius de Moraes, "A Felicidade"

Carnival does not make Samba, but Samba appropriated the Carnival. Samba is aware of the limits of escapism, but it is by no means bound to it. Samba is bound to urban labor, to the quickening steps of emigrating peasants. Samba is an expression of self-affirmation,  rumbling underneath the constant churning crankshafts of urban alienation.

Todo dia eu só penso em poder parar / Meio-dia eu só penso em dizer não
Depois penso na vida prá levar / E me calo com a boca de feijão...Every day I only think of stopping / By mid-day I only think of saying no
Then I think of my life to carry / and shut myself with a mouthful of beans

 

- Chico Buarque, "Cotidiano"

At this point, self-affirmation must become self-empowerment.  Samba becomes self-empowerment when it appropriates the prevalent conditions for existence.

Tem mais samba no encontro que na espera / Tem mais samba a maldade que a ferida [...] /
Tem mais samba no chão do que na lua / Tem mais samba no homem que trabalha [...] /
Tem mais samba no pranto de quem vê / Que o bom samba não tem lugar nem hora /
O coração de fora / Samba sem querer /

There's more Samba in meeting than waiting / There's more Samba in malice than a wound /
There's more Samba on the floor than in the moon / There's more Samba in the worker [...] /
There's more Samba in the tears of who sees / That a good Samba has no time or place /
The heart, turned out / Sambas on its own /

- Chico Buarque, "Tem Mais Samba"

Just like any philosophy, Samba is a reflection of social condition. Therefore, just as Samba illuminates leaps of escapism, Samba is protest. Samba can be radicalized, politicized. The starting point is the Samba Ethic: the active negation of normative structures, the complete autonomy of our conscious existence in the present unbound by constructions of past and future. The Samba Ethic is a declaration of freedom, an act of disobedience. It is looking back at the Man with his measuring tape and dollar bills and say to him, "You are worthless to me. You are nothing Mr. Man. Nothing at all."

The Samba Ethic is more than "living in the moment", it is the appropriation of the moment... it is to dive into transience and to drink it up dry.

Meu coração vagabundo / Quer guardar o mundo em mim

My vagabond heart / wants to keep the world inside me

- Caetano Veloso, "Coração Vagabundo"

- S

• African descent (50%)
• Hindu (35%)
• European descent (3%)
• Of other Asian descent (2%)
• Arabic and Venezuelan peoples consitute the rest.

in 1720 many Africans were brought from the areas of Guinea, Congo, and the Sudan to work on plantations. The Carnaval de Puerto España was the natural center for calypso, and, in the 18th century it was a very European celebration. With the abolition of slavery in 1838, peoples of African descent began to leave their distinct mark on the celebration. In a style similar to African Griots, songs about island realities, history, and social commentary began to fill the streets. Some of the antecedents of the calypso are Antillean Calenda and Camboulay (from the French cannes brulées ≈ caña quemada ≈ burnt sugar cane) (47). During Carnaval Africans sang with torch in hand blending French, Spanish, and African languages.

Melody and rhythm are the basic elements of calypso (European and African respectively). Songs usually consist of 8, 12, or 16 beat meters and utilize tonic, dominant, and subdominant chords [I, V, IV]. There is a type of calypso known as single-tones which consist of 4 verses and a type known as double-tones which is a song that consists of 8 verses. Calypso also consists of polyrhythm and call-and-response structured vocal forms. Ortiz Oderigo points out that because slavery did not exist for an extended period of time in Trinidad, that calypso has a playful, jovial tone to it [not sad] (47). The term calypso derived from kaito (servir bien) → caiso → kaliso → kalipso. The initial ensembles cosists of a drum, a series of water-filled bottles, a pair of spoons, and a curious instrument known as bangee. Later, regional form of clave (qua-qua), maracas (chac-chac), percussion made from bamboo, Venezuelan cuatro, guitar, bass, and flute were added.

It must be noted that authorites considered calypso a form of protest and subversion, thus, drums were substituted with can, gasoline cans, or other sounding metals [since drums were banned or heavily associated with subversive calypso] (49). In 1940, Steel Bands were born in Guyana and Trinidad utilizing gasoline cans that were fire-tempered so that each region of their surface produced a distinct pitch [see instrument in photo]. Despite the change in instrumentation, calypso retained it satirical character and continued to be a form of social protest. In the 1960's a variant of calypso developed that was a fusion of calypso and soul music - Soca. Again, born in Trinidad and expanding to the rest of the Anglophone Caribbean.

Recommended artists (many who distinguished themselvs via pseudonames):

• Norman Le Blanc & Forbes
• Atila the Hun
• Leon Rugiente
• Powerful Dictator
• The Black Prince
• Lord Executor
• Edward the Confessor
• Mighty Sparrow (real name: Francisco Slinger)
• Lord Kitchner
• Becket
• Arrow
• Mighty Gabby

Calypso has expanded through the Caribbean and beyond; some notables:

• Lucian Parrot (St. Lucia)
• Cecil Belfon (Granada)
• Llwellyn Dayton (Barbados)
• Desmond Weeks (Barbados - Weeks cultivated a musical style known as Spouge).
• Harry Belafonte (U.S.)

From: Helio, Orovio. 1994. Música Por El Caribe. Santiago de Cuba: Editorial Oriente.

I am so sorry that I haven't been here. To tell you the truth (well metaphysically speaking -in real life it is just another bullshit excuse)...I was trapped in a big hole that went down to the centre of the earth. Have any of you seen the film "Journey to the Centre of the Earth"?

I don't mean any recent versions but the one made in 1959 with James Masson and a duck called Gertrude plus all kinds of strangeness. According to the film site imdb.com the plot keywords to this film are as follows:Explosives / Concertina / Convent / Presumed Dead / Romance

That kind of covers probably where I've been the past month or so ( metaphysically speaking).

I had written a really "clever" analysis of Steve Hillage's 1979 Canterbury concert DVD. But it wasn't good , it was rubbish and then I had to research it and then I got lost in space and time, my ego smug-remarkness and in particular, ethnomusicology, apathy, panic resulting in an epic underworld journey involving explosives, concertinas, convents, gone missing and presumed dead by others actually I am still missing!

I am in hiding in a safe house in a London suburb with a dog called Oscar, and cats named Lucifer(true to his name), Ozzie, Riff, Magenta and Ebony plus an unnamed turtle . Only those who know these creatures by name will know where I am .

I'm sorry I have deserted you all.

I couldn't make it to "Born to Go" in Hitchin. I hope those who went had a good time.

I just wanted to wish you all a Good Easter.

Got to go soon as they are showing "School of Rock" for the 30th time on TV and I must either watch it or go and switch it off immediately...I have not decided which would the better decision...

I am getting tired of having a multiple personality and concealing my multi-faceted roles . I have an insight into the elite personality, an anarchic one, a tragic acoustic singer-songwriter one, a comedy psychedelic experimental alien one, a music academic analytical one, one who likes Julie Andrews in "The Sound of Music" and well there's probably a few more in there. I'm very contrary and contradicting myself on a daily basis.

Anyway some music!!!!! and I will be back soon writing about God-knows-what...

Video One

Gong but from a different dimension! One of the influences of Gong the band?(as well as French Cabaret Chanson and many more)

Anyway here's Gamelan Gong Kebyar

Video two

a version of Om Namah Shivaya - Listen to Steve Hillage's ..and Peter Hillage's version on the album "L"

I am enjoying trying to trace the various world music influences on some of my favourite musicians. Steve Hillage may have fused and synthesized different styles together but he must have listened to a lot of music from India, South East Asia, the Middle-East and Afro-American music ( well FUNK!). I enjoy picking out the threads of music to see what other musics they resemble. But I'm not very good at it yet there are so many different types of music in the world!

Anyway here's some Indian music..Om Namah Shivaya

(this is a mantra to the God Shiva. There are many versions, I chose this one at random. As a mantra it is obviously very repetitive but later on it livens up a bit!)

and I'll write some more nonsense soon.

I need to study some world musics a lot more and then I can write more about these things at the moment all I have are my ears to rely on but not a lot of knowledge. Apologies to Ethnomusicologists please feel free to add more information.

Take care everyone!

Love and Peace

Born2rant

• Lino Suárez Peña - an Afro-Uruguayan who wrote a manuscript in 1924 in regards to the many oral traditions he had heard and the experiences he had in the Afro-Uruguyan community.
• Marcelino Bottaro - similar to Suárez' accounts. He published the work in London in 1934. Much of this work was cited by Lauro Ayestarán's work in 1953.
• Vicente Rossi (1926), Ildefonso Pereda Valdés (1941), and Miguel Jauregui (1944) are all important resources as well in regards to the discussion of ethnic groupings in Montevideo.

These groupings of African ethnic groups in Montevideo were referred to as Naciones. They were mutual aid socities that functioned very similarly to modern day unions. In addition to mutual aid, they were also vigilinat in trying to preserve the African traditions of their respective ethnic groups. In 1834, a poem in a creolized African language made specific reference to the dances and music that was peformed by the Naciones. It was in this poem that the term Candombe first appeared. The term approximately translates to "baile de nación" (22). "Candombe designaba entonces las ocasiones en que los africanos ejecutaban sus danzas nacionales y recreaban, espiritual y simbólicamente, sus sociedades de origen" (22-3). Ferreira argues that this was pacifist resistance, but not passive (23). [1.3] In Africa, the year is marked by the different festivals and rituals that occur throughout the year; particularly in reverring Ancestors and initiations into memberships and brotherhoods. In the Americas, many of the creolized festivals were attempts to recreate these events. As a result of the impositions of European socieities, the 6th of January became the most important date - The Epiphany. In Uruguay there were 3 other major Saints' days:

1. Día a Patrono San Benito - the dark-skinned Moore
2. Día del Rey Baltasar - the black king
3. Día de La Virgen del Rosario

The formation of Naciones and subsequent Cabildos (mutual aid societies) was established and encouraged by European officials primarily as a method of incorporating Africans into the Catholic Church. However, Africans had their own interpretations of the festivals that marked the Catholic calendar. Because there were many Congolese descendants in Montevideo, the term Candombe came to associated with the types of festivities they performed for days of festivity. In regards to actual naciones, Suárez' information is useful in mapping out where exactly the different Cabildos were located in the city. The majority of them on the southern coast of Montevideo (Ferreira offers very specific locations in the city) (25). [1.4] In 1846, slavery was abolished in Uruguay and African descendants found themselves in yet another new context. The population of African descendants had experienced a sharp decline followed by a huge influx of Europeans coupled with a national campaign to eliminate African cultural residues. The Cabildos consequently became Societies that promoted the creolized African traditions. In 1941, the Asociación Cultural y Social Uruguay was founded to promote natinoal culture; including the contributions of Africans and their descendants. In 1989, Organizacion Mundo Afro (OMA) was founded by Romero J. Rodríguez to specifically promote Afro-Uruguayan culture. Mainly by promoting the Comparsas (processions) and the formation of Drumming Groups in the city. [1.5] Candombe was considered "el tango de los negros" (31) and between 1865-70, the firs Philharmonic Societies, Comparsas, and Balck Societies (Sociedades Negras) began to assemble and perform. In 1876, the participation of many different ethnic groups was documented. Of these groups, a group known as Negros Lubolos requires particular mention. The Lubolos were essentially white people who painted their faces black and imitated the music and dance of the African ethnicities in Montevideo (32). Presently, the terms negros and lubolos refer to all Afro-Uruguayan cultural manifestations. Vicente Rossi argued that term came to be more generic in order to cover the very racist ideologies that Uruguayan society had adopted (32-3). The term was an imposition by white at a time when blacks were not in a position to confront it, thus, they adpated to it (33). However, there was a resementization of the term as time went on and it ceased being a reference to the white people mascarading as Africans (33). In the 20th century it is a common term used by Afro-Uruguayans to refer to their cultural items and they have come to use it as if it was their own term (34).

From: Ferreira, Luis. 2001 [1997]. Los Tambores del Candombe. 2° edición. Montevideo, Uruguay: Ediciones Colihue-Sepé.

From: Fernández, Rolando Pérez. 1990. La Música Afromestiza Mexicana. Biblioteca Universidad Veracruzana: Xalapa, Ver., México.

From: Ortiz, Fernando. 1995 [1952]. Los Instrumentos de la Música Afrocubana: La paila•Los timbales criollos•El bongó. Santiago de Chile: Mosquito Editores.

#1: My Colleagues

This weekend my university's College of Music hosted a joint regional conference between the Society for Ethnomusicology and the American Musicological Society.  Many members of our local professional organization, the FSU Society for Musicology, cooperated to tackle all of the logistics of hosting about 150 musicologists from the American Southeast.  Although I'm the president of this little organization, I feel as though my job leading up to this was incredibly easy.  Yes I had to do some work, send some e-mails, put some press together, and carry a few heavy things.  Yes it involved a 15-hour Friday in the middle of a week in which I was moving into my new house, but these folks are fantastic.  I have the greatest colleagues in the world.  We work too much, we get paid too little, and we have unreasonably high standards, but we always take care of our own.

#2: Professors

We kicked the conference off this weekend with a guest lecture by Professor of Music and Director of the Center for Ethnomusicology at Columbia University, Dr. Aaron Fox.  His lecture on "Country Music's Late Modern Period" also gave us an interesting perspective on Ethnomusicology's Late Modern Period.  Fox's delivery was confidently casual, and the next morning I enjoyed an equally casual breakfast with him as we talked over some more personal career things.  During the morning African music workshop that I ran with my esteemed colleague and dear friend Kafumbe, I re-connected with some other professors whom I really respect.  The workshop only enhanced my respect for these folks, as it gave me an opportunity to observe that these folks can back up their good scholarship with solid musicianship.  But it was that evening that really reminded me how truly fortunate I am to be surrounded by great mentors.  The keynote lecturer centered his talk around making our research really mean something in the lives of our field colleagues.  It was preceded by the warmest introduction from one of his colleagues, an example that left no doubt about why I enjoy such great professional relationships.  Olsen's remarks left the crowd feeling inspired, and we thanked him for that and his thirty-five years of service with a lengthy standing ovation.  I've never seen that happen after a lecture . . . ever.  It was clearly well deserved, and we then had the privilege of moving on to a reception celebrating the careers of two of our retiring faculty members.  One was the keynote lecturer, the other our area coordinator.  The whole thing left me feeling like taking care of our own moves far beyond making sure students' needs are met.  Olsen and KP, you will be dearly missed.

#3: Newfound support

Well, after numerous grant applications, I was not surprised at the beginning of this week to receive a rejection letter on one of the larger fieldwork grants I've applied for.  It happens, and it's why you don't count on any grant funding as a sure thing.  But when I heard I'd been denied another local grant through the FSU College of Music after being selected as the finalist from the Musicology area, I was a bit more disappointed.  One panelist reviewing that grant had straight out told me that he ranked my proposal at the top, and another strongly hinted at it.  A few days later, I let go of my disappointment and embraced a new source of support.  I had all but forgotten that I applied for a new grant through the FSU Office of Graduate Studies.  This week, I was awarded a generous stipend and a tuition waiver for the next academic year to embark on a one-year field research endeavor.  With this community of scholars and mentors behind me, I move forward confident that I'll have all the professional support I need to make the most of this fantastic opportunity.

Mi, Mi, Sí - Mi, Mi, Mi, Sí, Sí, Sí - Mi, Mi, Sí (notas en la clave de sol, en primera octava) repitiéndose ad libitum ...

Dr. Luis J Morlote (a folklorist from Guantanamo) notes that frying pans are used to fry, toast, and guisa[r] but are also used to make music in Cuba (6). These frying pans have revived the concept of iron and copper gongs as an adaptation to an American context, these sorts of congas were used in Nigeria [copper cacerolas were used in Europe; cymbals were used in Nigeria]. Bodwich informs us that the Ashantis used copper frying pans. So it is of no surprise that Afro-Cubans have come to use sartenes. Until 1920, sartenes were used in the carnavals of Santiago (these festivals were referred to as congas). At the time of publication, the ekón hand replaced the sartenes. "Las sartenes no tienen tanto prestigio étnico, el cual ya no oculta; lucen vulgares, jamás fueron sagrados" (10).

Form: Ortiz, Fernando. 1995 [1952]. Los Instrumentos de la Música Afrocubana: Las cucharas•Las sartenes•El cencerro•El agógo. Santiago de Chile: Mosquito Editores.

1. Like drumsticks, they strike a 3rd object, e.g. a drum, table, or hard wood. They convex part strikes the object.
2. One spoon resting on a cupped palm with convex side out to form a sound box while it is struck with the other spoon's convex.
3. One hand holding both handles and strikign the other hand so their convexes strike each other like castañuelas [pictured].

Sometimes other objects, especially sticks, are used very similarly to cucharas, but these are not a form of the instrument; these are referred to as kokó. "Debió de ser un instrumento de creación caprichosa, que no cuajó, derivado de las cucharas" (6).

Form: Ortiz, Fernando. 1995 [1952]. Los Instrumentos de la Música Afrocubana: Las cucharas•Las sartenes•El cencerro•El agógo. Santiago de Chile: Mosquito Editores.