MUS101: Early Euro. / World Music - MIDTERM!

Instrument Classifications

• Chordophones

STRINGS

• Symphony Orchestra: violins, viola, cello, guitar, harp, double bass

• World: Banjo, Sitar, Molo

Instrument Classifications

• Areophones

WINDS

• Symphony Orchestra: flute, clarinet/bass clarinet, piccolo, english horn, bassoon - double-reed, oboe - double-reed, alto/tenor/bari saxophone

• World: gigantic alphorn (mountain ranges), small clay ocarina (dovelike)

Instrument Classifications

• Brass

BRASS

• Symphony Orchestra: trombone, french horn, trumpet, tuba, euphonium, coronet, baritone

Instrument Classifications

• Membranophones

DRUMS

• World: any with animal hides

Instrument Classifications

• Idiophones

• Symphony Orchestra: trombone, french horn, trumpet, tuba, euphonium, coronet, baritone

• World: Wind chimes, bells, gong, scrapers (sometimes) hands clapping, slapping thighs, foot stamping

Minimalism

• Small fragments of music repeated over and over through extreme repetition

  • Musical style of the POST-MODERN PERIOD (1960s to the 1990s) involving very limited materials, constant repetition, and very gradual change

Instruments in Gamelan Music

• Gamelan Music (Countries: Java, Bali & Indonesia): Music ensembles involving mostly metal percussion

  • INSTRUMENTS: Xylophone, Gongs

West African Drumming

• African Dance Ensemble (ADE) - York University

  • Musical Characteristics

    • Improvisation in the beginning

    • Transitions through layers

    • Instruments: Membranophones (improvised), vocals chanting (leader), woodwind (Aerophone), Idiophones (shakers)

    • Polyrhythms, polyphonic

  • Describe dancing

    • Holding wooden bowls/baskets → they start with going in a circle 

    • Polyrhythmic section: dancers also move in different directions

Types of Listening

• (1) PASSIVE LISTENING

• Background music you listen to while studying, cleaning, etc. (enjoyment-focused)

Types of Listening

• (2) ACTIVE LISTENING

• Analyzing music as you listen to it (concentrating on something specifically)

Types of Listening

• (3) UNCONSCIOUS LISTENING

• Background music you hardly notice (like music playing at a store, in an elevator, somewhere you aren’t consciously in control of)

Mbria

• Handmade instrument (Zimbabwe)

• Animal hides, wood, nuts, gourds & seeds → MBRIA (FINGER PIANO)

Rachet (Noise Maker)

Remember…

• Country: Europe (used during WW2)

• Group: Percussion / Idiophone

• Material: Wood 

• Pitch: Un-pitched

Oud

• Country: Turkey

• Group: Chordophone

• Material: Wood, metal

• Pitch: Pitched

Oral Traditions vs. Written Music

ORAL	WRITTEN
Rituals, music, passed on generationally (through word-of-mouth)  No written music  Learning music from parents from grandparents (not aware of where it came from)	Scores Include details such as techniques and styles of composers / tempo, dynamics Less based on “intuition”

Role of Ethnomusicologist

• Specialization in the ethnic musical groups 

  • Musicology: specialize in a composer/their music (historian/library type research) → adding ethno = specializing in cultural music 

  • Immerse themselves in the culture (performing, documenting, speaking the language)

Folk Music

• Exists in sophisticated societies alongside classical music and continues to be performed in rural areas away from the educated, usually urban, élite

• Often several generations old

• EX: China to Peru to Wales

Folk Music

• Thailand

1. Dance

2. Gender roles: 

• Traditional clothing → men wear the same outfits, women wear the same outfits

• Women are dancing as men play the instruments

3. Instrumentation: Percussion, strings, vocals (usually doesn’t have vocals)

• Specific to country (not instruments of orchestra)

• Performers don’t have scores (memorized)

4. Traditional clothing

4. Music itself:

• Repetitive lines (no real “melody”)

• Moves through different “themes”  → matches dance (fluid) / improvisation is a big thing to  

6. Venue: Built-stage (not a stadium, outside)

• Small audience in comparison to big concerts → not aimed to making money

• Stage design (curtains, lights)

Folk Music

• Brazil

• Will be a video on folk music → watching performance: say WHY it’s good example of folk music

• Traditional music  → performed away from the educated/urban elite (rural areas) [ex: having a built-in stage outside]

• Hundreds of years old (generational)

• Oral traditions (no physical sheet music)

• May include folk dances

West African Music

• IS THERE AN ACTUAL MELODY?

  TIME: Polyrhythmic (different time signatures) + actual speed classification

  TONALITY: Not major OR minor key (say ATONAL)

  TEXTURE: No melody… is there texture? (No → you can say it’s polyrhythmic - can say its polyphonic but a different time rhythmically)

  
  

• Experience music daily (participatory involvement) [Different than our society, where we listen to music in isolation = different experience]

EX

Latin American Music

1. Rhythm is the foundation (no melodies, just repetitive percussion)

2. Instruments: Cowbells look different than usual orchestra ones, animal hides & Percussion (unpitched instruments)

3. Polyrhythm: Overlapping time signatures / more than one rhythm played 

4. Texture: Polyphonic (many layers)

Latin American Music

• Samba

EX: SAMBA (BRAZILLIAN) 

• Western roots

• Fusion example: West African + Brazilian 

Samba Squad

1. Cyclical movement: Began with percussion (drums, hand-held mini snare drums, then second movement featured female vocals

2. Instruments: panderio, shakers, snare drums, drums, whistle

• What instrument was used to keep the group together? (WHISTLE)

1. Dancing

2. Vocals in Brazillian language: with melody, harmony, but also an improvised spoken-word by leader

3. Thematic transformations

4. Polyrhythmic & polyphonic texture

Polyrhythm

• Overlapping time signatures / more than one rhythm played 

• Common in Latin, African music

  • EX: A shaker played in 2/4, drums played in 4/4

Polyphonic

• Music with more than one melody line at the same time

Modern vs. Postmodern Music

• MODERN

1912-1950s (shift to atonality - negativity, gruesome work)

• The cultural movement that stressed innovation (First 60-70 years of 20th century)

• Self-conscious innovation

• Artists reacted strongly to the accepted rules of the 19th century

• Composers rejected tonality, the harmonic basis of music & adopted radically new harmonic structures

• Dissonance

Modern vs. Postmodern Music

• MODERN (EXAMPLE)

• EX: Arnold Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire from Madonna (1912) → One of the most ground-breaking composers  → Well-known for his jarring music in atonality 

• EX: Debussy, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Berg & Webern (Schoenberg’s students)

Modern vs. Postmodern Music

• POSTMODERN

Mid-1960s

• A cultural movement involving a juxtaposition of past and present, popular and refined, Western and non-Western styles

• Everything cast into doubt 

• Literary works struggling for identity

• Buildings becoming highly electric

• Composers began to address their audience again; borrowing ideas from rock music to appeal to a wider audience, traditional tonality, applying aural context + meaning that Modernists had rejected

• Sometimes they use actual piece of metal when performing (unconventional instruments)

• Minimalism (a lot of repetition)

Modern vs. Postmodern Music

• POSTMODERN (EXAMPLES)

• EX: David Lang’s Cheating, Lying, Stealing (1996 - Postmodern era), performed by Bang on a Can

Fusion

• Combining elements of genre, style

  • EX: Blending western instruments for cultural music, Selena Gomez creating Western music (European, North American) with Indian instruments, Kpop, Bridgerton’s ballroom music of pop songs

  • EX: SAMBA (BRAZILLIAN)  → Western roots - Fusion example: West African + Brazilian

Music & Culture (Summary in E-book)

1. Music is a reflection of the society that creates it: To understand the music of a society, we need to understand something of that society

2. Understanding music can help us understand the culture that produced it: culture forms the music, music represents culture

Powaqqatsi, 1987

• Powaqqatsi = “Life in transition” (goal was to make audiences see other societies in a different context)

• 2nd film in Qatsi Trilogy (Life in Southern Hemisphere)

• Non-narrative - does not have a plot (series of images with music), more of  a documentary

Powaqqatsi, 1987

• Serra Pelada Open-Pit Mine Scene

Powaqqatsi, 1987

• Serra Pelada Open-Pit Mine Scene → Western Instrumentation

• Full orchestra (strings, wind, brass, percussion, bass vocals)

• 5 keyboards (Classic Glass → He always uses keyboards to play with the group)

Powaqqatsi, 1987

• Serra Pelada Open-Pit Mine Scene → Non-Western Instrumentation

• 3 Quenas (wooden bamboo flutes)

• Didgeridoo

• Tanpura

• Hispanic Young People’s Chorus

Powaqqatsi, 1987

• Serra Pelada Open-Pit Mine Scene → Analysis

• Includes: Layering (begins whistle, then adds layers of different instruments)

• Filming technique: slow motion creates contrast with fast tempo

• Repetitive patterns (arpeggios - broken chords), cycles, extreme repetition, hypnotic, classic keyboard timbre

• Polyphony & polyrhythms (common in Latina American music)

Phillp Glass

• Classically trained American composer (studied at Juilliard School of Music - focused on Beethoven & Mozart, studied with a famous composition instructor - Nadia Boulanger)

Phillp Glass

• Music in 5ths (1969)

• Early work

• Where minimalist style is at its max (jarring & repetitive) → which softens as his popularity rose

  • Notated with repeat dotes on a score

Godfrey Reggio & Phillp Glass

• Collaboration between Glass & director Godfrey Regio on Powaqqatsi (1987): travelled to different places to capture cultures (different than how usually directors & composers work)

Ravi Shankar

• Ravi Shankar (1939-2012) → Indian Sitar Virtuoso (around Glass’s age - famous in Indian classical world)

  • Glass met Shankar when he was asked to write the score for the film, Chappaqua - Shankar gave him advice on creating cycles for music and removing “rules” such as bars

Ravi Shankar & Phillip Glass

• Shankar’s Influence

1. Remove bar lines when composing 

2. Create a cycle that can be repeated

Glass applied this to Western training

Minimalism is a cross between Eastern & Western styles (fusion)

World Instruments

Frog Rasp

• Country: Vietnam (Southeast Asia)

• Group: Percussion / Idiophone

• Material: Wooden

• Pitch: Un-pitched

World Instruments

Mbria (Thumb Piano)

• Country: Zimbabwe (Africa)

• Group: Percussion / Idiophone

• Material: Gourd with Metal

• Pitch: Pitched

World Instruments

Pandeiro (Tambourine)

• Country: Brazil (South America)

• Group: Percussion / Idiophone + Membranophone

• Material: Animal skin, wood, & metal

• Pitch: Un-pitched

World Instruments

Cymbals

• Country: Tibet (East Asia)

• Group: Percussion / Idiophone

• Material: Brass with Leather

• Pitch: Pitched

World Instruments

Monkey Drum

• Country: Africa

• Group: Percussion / Idiophone + Membranophone

• Material: Animal Skin with Wood

• Pitch: Un-pitched

World Instruments

Maracas

• Country: Puerto Rico (Caribbean)

• Group: Percussion / Idiophone

• Material: Gourd with Wood & Beads/Seeds

• Pitch: Un-pitched

World Instruments

Egg Shaker

• Country: South Africa

• Group: Percussion / Idiophone

• Material: Wood & Beads/Seeds

• Pitch: Un-pitched

World Instruments

Mini Xylophone

• Country: Africa & Southeast Asia

• Group: Percussion / Idiophone

• Material: Wood & Metal

• Pitch: Pitched

World Instruments

Sistrum

• Country: Egypt & Turkey

• Group: Percussion / Idiophone

• Material: Wood with Metal Discs

• Pitch: Un-pitched

World Instruments

Triangular Two-Sided Hand Drum

• Country: Peru (South America)

• Group: Percussion / Membranophone

• Material: Animal Skin & Wood

• Pitch: Un-pitched

World Instruments

Rod Juju Shaker

• Country: Africa

• Group: Percussion / Idiophone

• Material: Wood with Nuts

• Pitch: Un-pitched

World Instruments

Clacker (Dolphin)

• Country: Indonesia (Southeast Asia)

• Group: Percussion / Idiophone

• Material: Wood 

• Pitch: Un-pitched

World Instruments

Ratchet (Noise Maker)

• Country: Europe (popularized during WW2 to warn about gas-raids)

• Group: Percussion / Idiophone

• Material: Wood 

• Pitch: Un-pitched

World Instruments

Slide Whistle

• Country: Southeast Asia & Africa

• Group: Percussion / Idiophone

• Material: Wood 

• Pitch: Pitched

World Instruments

Tambourine

• Country: The Middle East

• Group: Percussion / Idiophone

• Material: Wood with metal discs

• Pitch: Un-pitched

World Instruments

Hand Bells

• Country: England

• Group: Percussion / Idiophone

• Material: Metal

• Pitch: Pitched

World Instruments

Mini Damaru Drum

• Country: Tibet; Africa

• Group: Percussion / Membranophone + Idiophone

• Material: Wood, Animal Skin & Rope

• Pitch: Un-pitched

World Instruments

Zills (Finger Cymbals)

• Country: Turkey

• Group: Percussion / Idiophone

• Material: Metal & Elastic

• Pitch: Pitched

World Instruments

Singing Bowl

• Country: Nepal; Tibet

• Group: Percussion / Idiophone

• Material: Metal & Wood

• Pitch: Pitched

World Instruments

Molo (Lute)

• Country: Ghana (West Africa)

• Group: Strings / Chordophone

• Material: Wood with gourd & metal strings

• Pitch: Pitched

World Instruments

Cricket Rattle

• Country: Africa

• Group: Percussion / Idiophone

• Material: Wood with Beads/Seeds

• Pitch: Un-pitched

World Instruments

Sitar

• Country: India

• Group: Chordophone

• Material: Wood with Strings/Metal

• Pitch: Pitched

World Instruments

Quena

• Country: South America

• Group: Areophone

• Material: Bamboo

• Pitch: Pitched

World Instruments

Didgeridoo

• Country: Australia

• Group: Areophone

• Material: Wood

• Pitch: Pitched

Can’t really produce a melody out of it

Droning: Holding out long tones

World Instruments

Tanpura

• Country: India

• Group: Chordophone

• Material: Wood

• Pitch: Pitched

Also can entail droning

Doesn’t have multiple pegs like a sitar (only two at its “head”)

Folk Music vs. Pop Music

FOLK MUSIC	POP MUSIC
Traditional music  → performed away from the educated/urban elite (rural areas) [ex: having a built-in stage outside] Hundreds of years old (generational) Oral traditions (no physical sheet music) May include folk dances	Short-lived Commercial  Urban areas (at massive concert halls) Aimed at mass audience

West African Music

In West Africa, the music is influenced by American country music, soul, reggae, and disco.

• African Dance Ensemble (ADE)

• Handmade instruments 

• EX: Jali → Official singer/historian of the Mandinka tribe of West Africa

• Mandinka society - based on class system determined by lineage → working-class is obliged to take a job as an artisan, carpenter, metalworker

• Jali has the power to determine questions of inheritance / impact someone’s social status (negatively or positively)

Music Analyses (TWO)

• Key Aspects / Interpretation

Remember Key Aspects: Tempo Tonality Texture Melody Instrumentation Dynamics

Interpretation: No right or wrong response (creative writing part - get detailed with what you see and feel → Personal Response? Mood? Atmosphere? Memories?)